Dick Ayers

RICHARD "DICK" AYERS was born in Ossining, New York, in 1924. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, where he published his first comic strip 'Radio Ray' in the Army newspaper Radio Post in 1942. Afterwards he attended the Cartoonists and Illustrators School. Dick Ayers has done much comic work, including penciling, inking, lettering and coloring for most of the major comic publishers, such as Marvel, DC, Timely and Atlas.

Richard Ayers is best known for his work on comics of the gold and silver ages. He has been doing comic books since 1948 when he was assigned to do the Jimmy Durante Comic Book by Magazine Enterprises after he had penciled a couple of stories for the 'Funnyman' comic book by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in late 1947. His most popular work includes drawing for such Marvel Comics as 'The Fantastic Four', 'The Incredible Hulk', 'Sgt. Fury', 'Calico Kid' and 'The Ghost Rider'. He also pencilled, inked and lettered for Charlton Comics in the mid-1950s.

Dick Ayers stayed with M.E. Comics until 1956, having also worked on 'The Avenger'. He switched to the Timely/Atlas/Marvel group, and it was there that he did the most of his production. He started as an inker on 'Human Torch', and penciled and inked 'Rawhide Kid', 'Outlaw Kid', 'Wyatt Earp and Two-Gun Kid', 'Captain America', 'The Hulk' and 'Sgt. Fury' (with John Severin), to name but a few. In the late 1970s and early 80s he also worked freelance on 'Archie' comics.

Richard Ayers also was a teacher at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art and gave classes at the Guggenheim Museum. After a break, he returned to comics in 1996 to do the thriller 'Dr. Wonder', and is still active in the comics field today.