Don Rico

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Don Rico
Birth name Donato Francisco Rico II
Born September 26, 1912
Died March 1985
Los Angeles, California
Nationality American
Area(s) Writer, Penciller
Pseudonym(s) Dan Rico
Donella St. Michaels
Donna Richards
Joseph Milton
N. Korok

Donato Francisco Rico II (September 26, 1912 - March 1985) was an American comic book writer and artist for Marvel Comics' predecessors, Timely and Atlas, and a paperback novelist. His pen names include Dan Rico, Donella St. Michaels, Donna Richards, Joseph Milton, and N. Korok.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

Jungle Action #2 (Dec. 1954), featuring Rico and artist Al Hartley's Leopard Girl. Cover art by Joe Maneely.
Jungle Action #2 (Dec. 1954), featuring Rico and artist Al Hartley's Leopard Girl. Cover art by Joe Maneely.

Don Rico created wood engravings of gloomy Depression-era life for the W.P.A. Federal Art Project in the mid-to-late 1930s. He began his comics career in 1940 at Victor A. Fox's Fox Publications and later worked on some of the earliest stories of the 1940s superhero Daredevil (unrelated to Marvel Comics' Daredevil) in Lev Gleason Publications' Silver Streak Comics, helping lay the foundation for a character that would go on to a celebrated run in his own title under Charles Biro.

[edit] Golden Age to Silver Age

Joining the staff at Timely Comics, a forerunner of Marvel Comics, by 1943, Rico variously wrote/drew for characters including Captain America (including the lead story in All Select Comics #1), the Whizzer (including in All Winners Comics #11), the Destroyer, the Blonde Phantom, the Terror (in Mystic Comics), Venus, and the Young Allies.

Other credits during the 1930s-40s period that fans and historians call the Golden Age of comic books include work in:

In the following decade, Rico became one of at least five staff writers (officially titled editors) under editor-in-chief Stan Lee at Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics, along with Hank Chapman, Ernie Hart, Paul S. Newman, Carl Wessler, and, doing teen-humor comics, future MAD Magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee. Among the Atlas titles for which Rico wrote are Adventures into Terror, Astonishing, Jann of the Jungle, Jungle Action (where he co-created Leopard Girl with artist Al Hartley), Jungle Tales, Lorna, the Jungle Girl (originally Lorna, the Jungle Queen), Marvel Tales, Suspense and Strange Tales. Rico, by now primarily a writer, briefly returned to comic art as an illustrator of the Atlas series Bible Tales for Young Folk.

Splash page, Tales of Suspense #53 (Jan. 1964), scripted by Rico as "N. Korok"
Splash page, Tales of Suspense #53 (Jan. 1964), scripted by Rico as "N. Korok"

Rico wrote only twice for Marvel during the Silver Age of comics, with a Doctor Strange story in Strange Tales #129 (Feb. 1965), and, scripting a plot by Stan Lee, the Iron Man story that introduced the Black Widow, in Tales of Suspense #52 (April 1964). On both, he used the pseudonym N. Korok, later explaining he hadn't wanted his paperback-book publisher to know he was taking on lower-paying comic-book work.[1]

[edit] Later career

Rico and cartoonist Sergio Aragones two of the 16 comic-book professionals given the lifetime-achievement Inkpot Award at the 1976 Comic-Con International in San Diego. The Following year, Rico, Aragones, and television and comic-book writer Mark Evanier co-founded the Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS). Rico also worked with Aragones as scripter for the artist-plotter's detective strip "T.C. Mars" in Joe Kubert's magazine Sojourn. In 1979, Rico drew the cover and wrote an introduction for a 128-page anthology of black-and-white reprints, The Magnificent Superheroes of Comics [sic] Golden Age #1 (Vintage Features).

Rico co-wrote, with Don Henderson, the story basis for the bisexual-vampiress horror movie Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (U.S.-Mexico, 1975), by director Juan Lopez Moctezuma and scripter Malcolm Marmorstein.

During the mid-1970, Rico taught a college course on comic books at UCLA.[2]

Rico lived in Los Angeles, California at the time of his death.

[edit] Quotes

Allen Bellman: "Don and some of the other artists didn't bother with Syd Shores. who was the unofficial bullpen director. Rico was the ringleader of this 'ignore Shores' group. He was always causing small problems in the office and [publisher Martin] Goodman knew this, and hence the name 'Rat Rico' he referred to Don with".[3]

Gil Kane: "Timely was my second job after MLJ. ... Stan was the editor at 19 years old but all the day-to-day managing of the work was done by Don Rico, who also did most of the hiring and firing".[4]

[edit] Paperback novels

  • Nikki (Midwood Books, 1963)
  • The Unmarried Ones (Beacon Signal Sixty, 1964)
  • The Sad Gay Life (Lancer Books imprint Domino Books, 1964; under pseudonym Donna Richards)
  • The Odd World (Domino Books, 1954; under pseudonym Donna Richards)
  • The Last of the Breed (Lancer/Magnum, 1965)
  • The Big Blue Death (Lancer Books, 1965; under publishing-house pseudonym Joseph Milton)
  • Lorelei (Belmont Books, 1966)
  • The Prisoner (Lancer Books, 1966; under pseudonym Donella St. Michaels)
  • The Girls of Sunset (Lancer Books, 1966)
  • Counterspy (Lancer Books, 1966)
  • Nightmare of Eyes (Lancer Books, 1967)
  • The Man From Pansy (Lancer Books, 1967; Buzz Cardigan series)
  • The Daisy Dilemma (Lancer Books, 1967; Buzz Cardigan series)
  • The Passion Flower Puzzle (Lancer Books, 1968, Buzz Cardigan series)
  • Casey Grant Caper #1: The Ring-A-Ding Girl (Paperback Library, 1969)
  • Casey Grant Caper #2: the Swinging Virgin (Paperback Library, 1969)
  • Casey Grant Caper #3: So Sweet, So Deadly (Paperback Library, 1970)
  • The House of Girls (New English Library, 1969)

ALSO

  • Copyright: How to Register Your Copyright and Introduction to New and Historical Copyright Law by Walter E. Hurst, illustrated by Don Rico (Seven Arts Press, 1977)

[edit] Golden Age reprints

"The Beachhead Blitz" (The Destroyer; All Winners Comics #12)
The former reprinting lists Rico as artist; the latter lists Mike Sekowsky.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ POV Online (column): "An Incessantly Asked Question: Why did some artists working for Marvel in the sixties use phony names?", by Mark Evanier
  2. ^ "Stan Lee's Soapbox" (column), by Stan Lee: Howard the Duck #3 (May 1976), and other Marvel Comics published that month
  3. ^ Comicartville Library: Allan Bellman interview
  4. ^ Jack Kirby Collector #21 (Oct. 1998): "Gil Kane on Jack Kirby" (excerpt)]

[edit] References