Stan Drake

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Stanley Albert Drake (November 9, 1921 - March 10, 1997) was an American cartoonist best known as the founding artist of the comic strip The Heart of Juliet Jones, and as a successor artist on Blondie.

Juliet Jones, created in 1953 by Drake and writer Elliot Caplin, was a soap opera comic drawn by Drake in a naturalistic style. Drake, whose assistants included Tex Blaisdell and Frank McLaughlin, stayed on the strip until 1989, when he was succeeded by Frank Bolle.

In 1984, Drake was brought in to replace Mike Gersher as the head artist on the humor strip Blondie (written by Dean Young) and continued drawing the strip until his death. He was assisted throughout this time by Denis Lebrun.

Drake also created comic books for Marvel Comics such as The Pit, and was a prolific painter with a collection of portraits of almost 50 of the world's greatest cartoonists, displayed at the Comic Artist's Museum in Sarasota, Florida.

Internationally, he is known for "Kelly Green", a black-and-white strip about a young widow who acts as a go-between. This was done for the French firm, Dargaud International Publishing and was serialized in Pilote magazine before being collected in color albums.

Drake was an avid golfer and published illustrations in Golf Digest and the book The Touch System for Better Golf.

He was recognized for his work with the National Cartoonist Society Story Comic Strip Award for 1969, 1970, and 1972 for his work on The Heart of Juliet Jones.