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JBL-migration

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    Any information on Al Luster

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    Thanks all for the kind comments! It is gratifying to us to know that his work is still remembered and has a place in comic book history. Although we remembered that he did the Black Diamond Western comics and a few others for Lev Gleason, it wasn't until the last month that we stumbled on his work for the Atlas/Stan Lee comics. I do know he regretted very much having to leave New York and the comic book world when he did in the early 50's. We wonder how things might have been different and what would have evolved for his comic book work if he had been able to stay. My sister Claire apparently has some storyboards he did from that period, and when I get back to Seattle this Summer, I will see what we have and try and get them out on display for you guys. Thanks again.

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    Any information on Al Luster

    in Original Comic Art

    Posted

    Nic,

     

    I caught your post while doing a Google search. Al Luster was my father! We knew he had drawn comics while in NYC going to art school from 1949-51, but little else. I can remember reading some of them he had in a box as a kid after he moved back to Seattle in 1951. He was a Navy fighter pilot that didn't quite get into WW2, and after his time in NYC, went back to Seattle to take over the family business at the insistence of my Grandfather. He was miserably unhappy, as he really wanted to be pursue his art career, but ended up working for Herman Miller as he needed to support a growing family. He developed epilepsy in the mid 1960's, which caused him to loose his job and washed him out of the Naval Air Reserve, but because of this, he went back into art and produced some great Western and rodeo art until his untimely death at 56 in 1980. That same seizure disorder took him while on a swim with my sisters in front of our house in Mercer Island, Washington. As tragic as that was, he was able to finally do what he really was meant to do all along before he left us, and he left us with some really great art! His legacy is, of course, his artwork, and my sister, Claire, who is an amazing western & equine sculptress. We recently discovered a box of his comics, and it was interesting how the trademarks of his western art were present even in his early comic book work. Hope you enjoy his work!