DICK AYERS: 1924-2014

Dick Ayers showing off a recreation to the cover of Fantastic Four #12, originally rendered by Jack Kirby and Ayers. Photo with permission from J. David Spurlock.

Inkwell Awards ambassador J. David Spurlock (in the photo to the right of Dick) posted today on his Facebook wall the following news:

Rest In Peace Dick Ayers. There have never been sweeter people than Dick and his wife Lindy. Here is a photo from one of my recent visits in which Dick and I collaborated on a few recreations of early, Marvel covers by the team of Kirby and Ayers. Dick had been suffering the last year, from complications of Parkinsons disease. Richard “Dick” Ayers (born April 28, 1924) is an American comic book artist and cartoonist best known for his work as one of Jack Kirby’s inkers during the late-1950s and 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comics, including on some of the earliest issues of Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four. He is the signature penciler of Marvel’s World War II comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, drawing it for 10-year run, and he co-created Magazine Enterprises’ 1950s Western-horror character the Ghost Rider, a version of which he would draw for Marvel in the 1960s. Ayers was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

Dick Ayers was inducted into the Inkwell Awards’ Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame in 2013 along with Murphy Anderson.  As a Sinnott Hall of Fame recipient, committee member Mike Pascale scribed a special page devoted to Dick’s career and life on our website. The Inkwells extend  their sincere condolences to wife Lindy and the Ayers family for their loss at this traumatic and painful time. Dick had just turned 90 years old as of last month.