'Face of Death' (Spook #26, October 1953).
Jay E. Disbrow was an American artist, writer, illustrator and lecturer, who worked as a comic book artist during the 1950s. He is especially remembered for his pre-Code horror comics, and has become a cult favorite for his stories filled with demons, ghostly apparitions and other monsters. Disbrow later moved on to become a technical illustrator for the government, but made some independent and promotional comics in the 1980s, as well as the webcomic 'Aroc of Zenith' in the 2000s.
Early life and career
Jayson Edward Disbrow was born and raised in 1926 in Neptune, New Jersey, and studied commercial art and illustration through the Famous Artists School, a correspondence course institution in Wilton, Connecticut. As his main graphic influences, he has mentioned Alex Raymond, Hal Foster and Burne Hogarth. In 1949, Disbrow ventured into the comic industry after meeting with Wendell Crowley, at the time an editor at Fawcett Publications. Even though he didn't hire him, Crowley advised Disbrow to offer his services to Jerry Iger, who at the time ran a comic book production studio in New York City.
In January 1950, Disbrow was hired by the S.M. Iger Studio as inker. Until 1951, he inked jungle features like 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle' and 'Kaanga', as well as the western characters 'Firehair' and 'Long Bow', all published in Fiction House comic books. He was later also given pencil duties, doing breakdowns of the scripts delivered by publisher Fiction House and Iger staffer Ruth Roache. However, he felt he could probably do better stories himself, and left Iger for another publisher.
'The Return of The Ghoul', from Blue Bolt. Weird Tales of Terror, #115 (October 1952).
Star Publications
Between 1951 and 1954, Disbrow was a freelance artist for L.B. Cole's Star Publications. Initially, he continued to pencil stories by other artists, but he was eventually given the opportunity to write his own material. As a result, Disbrow became one of that time period's few all-round comic creators, doing scripts, penciling, inking and lettering all by himself. For his first story, Cole gave Disbrow the premise for a story about a man who fell into a subterranean world and was transformed into a monster. Disbrow then proceeded to write, pencil, letter, and ink the story. It appeared in Blue Bolt Weird #112, with the title 'The Beast from Below'. Over the next 3,5 years, Disbrow wrote and drew hundreds of stories for several Star titles. While his favorite genre was science fiction, the most popular genre at the time was horror, so that became his main focus. Disbrow's stories were generally the only originals in the comic books, as the rest largely consisted of re-titled reprints from comics by the defunct publisher Fox Features.
Jay Disbrow was the main artist of horror and monster stories for 'Blue Bolt Weird Tales of Terror', and additionally contributed to the company's other horror titles 'Spook' and 'Ghostly Weird Stories', as well as the parody comic book 'Unsane'. He also contributed to Star's romance titles like 'True-to-Life Romances', 'Popular Teen-Agers' and 'Confessions of Love', and additionally continued to work on jungle heroes, drawing the adventures of Nigah, Taranga and Torga for 'Terrors of the Jungle'. In 1954, Disbrow produced the 'Picturescope Jungle Adventures' book for Star Publications, a black-and-white coloring book and comic starring 'Jahka, Lord of the Jungle', with one large panel on each page simulating a 3-D effect. Following the witch hunt and media scare against horror comics and comic books in general, and the subsequent establishment of the highly restrictive Comics Code, many comic book publishers went out of business, as did Star Publications. The final titles appeared in 1954.
'Ultimate Destiny' (Crime Detector #5, 30 June 1954, Timor).
Further comic book work
Additional comic book work by Disbrow of the 1950s included mystery, western and crime comics for companies like Timor, Stanmor, Story Comics and Trojan Comics. In 1956, his stories appeared in the romance comic books by Farrell ('Bride's Diary', 'Dear Heart', etc.). Among his final regular comic book work were 'Centurion of Ancient Rome' for Zondervan Publishing House (1957) and art for the educational title 'The World Around Us' by Gilberton (1959). In 1963 and 1964, many of Disbrow's mystery stories for Star were reprinted in the comic books 'Daring Adventures' and 'Eerie Tales' by I.W. Publishing. By then, Disbrow himself was working in other fields.
'Valgar Gunnar of Gyro'.
Later career
Starting in the mid-1950s, Disbrow was active as a lecturer and reporter. Between 1964 and the early 1980s, he wrote and illustrated over three dozen articles for the Asbury Park Press newspaper. He also spent 27 years working as a technical illustrator for the government. Between 1964 and 1968, he made a comics feature called 'Junior Life' for Sunday School handouts.
In the late 1970s and first half of the 1980s, Disbrow returned to making comics for independent publishers. In 1979, Disbrow created the Flash Gordon-like space hero Valgar Gunnar of Gyro for the title 'The Flames of Gyro', which was the first comic book published by Fantagraphics. He made three issues of the space comic book 'Lance Carrigan of the Galactic Legion' for Quest Publications (1984), followed by stories for 'Seduction of the Innocent' by Eclipse Enterprises (1985). In 1985, he also wrote 'The Iger Comics Kingdom' for Blackthorne Publishing, in which he told the story of the Iger Studios during the "Golden Age of Comics." The June 2013 issue of Alter Ego magazine (#117) also featured a Jay Disbrow article about his former publisher L.B. Cole.
From the mid-1980s on, Jay Disbrow was public relations director for the Brick Computer Science Institute in his hometown of Brick, New Jersey. In 1986, he made a promotional comic book for this institute called 'Captain Electron', containing three stories in which characters like 'Mr. Computer' and 'Captain Electron' run through the history and current state of computer technology.
'Lance Carrigan of the Galactic Legion' and 'Electron'.
Aroc of Zenith
During the 1990s, Disbrow developed a weekly science fiction strip called 'Aroc of Zenith', which he hoped to get syndicated to newspapers. In a 4 May 1997 article with the Asbury Park Press, it was mentioned that he had already finished 92 installments for this "classic science fiction with dashing heroes, cunning villains, massive spaceships and stunning sets right out of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Star Wars". As no syndicate picked up the feature, Disbrown in his early 70s, ventured into the brand new world of webcomics. Between January 2000 and December 2005, his 'Aroc of Zenith' was serialized online in 312 weekly episodes.
Final years and death
Disbrow's pre-Code monster comics have remained popular among horror comics aficionados, and by now have a cult status. His over-the-top monster depictions have been compared to the work of Basil Wolverton. In January 2017, a collection of Disbrow's horror comics was released as 'Jay Disbrow's Monster Invasion' in IDW's collection 'The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics!'. The artist passed away a couple of months later, on 2 May 2017, at the age of 91.
'Aroc of Zenith' (16 January 2000).