Dan Heilman

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Dan Heilman was the first artist of the Judge Parker comic strip. He was born in 1922 (some sources say 1924) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Having served in World War II, he became an assistant to artist Ken Ernst on the Mary Worth comic strip, and in 1949 was the artist for a comic strip called The American Adventure. In 1952 writer Dr. Nicholas Dallis hired Heilman for a new strip he created called Judge Parker, which made its debut on 24 November 1952.

Heilman stayed with Judge Parker until 1965, when he left and was succeeded by his assistant Harold LeDoux. Heilman was working on a new outer space comic when he died in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida on December 17, 1966 (King Features Syndicate, which distributes Judge Parker today, and other sources said he died in July 1965).