Mike Roy (comics)

Mike Roy (1921–96) was a Canadian comic book and comic strip artist, working during the Golden Age of Comic Books and the Silver Age of Comic Books. He is best known for his stories about Native Americans. Born in Quebec Joseph Michel Roy, he immigrated to the United States where he studied at the School of Industrial Art and Pratt Institute. He used the name Mike Roy on his professional art from the 1940s on. He was a co-founder of a museum of Native American and Eskimo art.

Early art

Roy got his first job in comics in 1940, as an assistant to Sub-Mariner artist Bill Everett. He went on to work on many Golden Age comic books such as Captain America and Crime Does Not Pay.^[1] Roy also did work for a number of publishers, including Atlas Comics, Holyoke Publications, and Archie Comics.

Comic strips

Roy is best known for his work on comic strips. His first strip, for the New York Herald Tribune, was an adaptation of the Leslie Charteris character The Saint, which he drew from 1948 to 1951. He also created the comic strip titled Nero Wolfe in the 1950s, and worked as a ghost artist for Flash Gordon. In 1964, he created his Indian character, Akwas in a Sunday strip by the same name^[2]

Screaming Eagle

Roy's final work was a hardcover graphic novel, Screaming Eagle, published posthumously in 1999 by Discovery Comics.^[3]

References

Further reading

• Roy, Mike. The Best of Mike Roy, Ward Ritchie Press, 1978, ASIN: B000NYCCAY
• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index. Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. ISBN 0-9700077-0-1.