DICK GIORDANO!!!

While many think of Dick as "Neal Adams' inker", he drew much lovely comic book work on his own for years, and, during the 1960's, was Managing Editor at CHARLTON COMICS, then, a comic book editor at DC COMICS, and then, following a long association with Neal Adams' CONTINUITY ASSOCIATES, he became Managing Editor at DC, starting in 1981.
Dick has produced beautiful drawings, particularly of female characters, including WONDER WOMAN, BATGIRL, and MODESTY BLAISE during his career. His polished inking style lends much grace to his own work, and the work of many other cartoonists. Dick has probably worked on most of the major comic book characters at one time or another, consistently bringing the same sleek look to one comic book after another, but never falling into an artisitic rut.
One of my favorite series that benefitted from Dick's artwork is the tough private eye feature SARGE STEEL, from his days at CHARLTON COMICS. This character seems to come straight out of a Frank Sinatra movie of the early 1960's, and was written in a hip, terse style, with gorgeous drawings of those great 1960's automobiles, and, of course, the signature Giordano women.
When Dick was running things in the comic book division of magazine publisher Charlton he brought out a wonderful group of ccharacters that he called Charlton's "ACTION HERO LINE", these were fun to read series such as CAPTAIN ATOM, JUDOMASTER, THE PEACEMAKER and others, and Dick's series "Sarge Steel" was the featurette in JUDOMASTER.
Dick was hired over to DC COMICS, though, and that line came to an end, but Dick was able to bring most of the Charlton adventure characters he had a connection with to DC, following the closing of Charlton's comic book division, in later years.
When Dick came over to DC, great cartoonists, including Steve Ditko and Pat Boyette, came over with him. It was an artistic bonanza for DC, with Ditko working on BEWARE THE CREEPER and THE HAWK & THE DOVE for them, and Boyette's work on BLACKHAWK was wonderful, however short-lived.
At that time, Dick was editing AQUAMAN, TEEN TITANS, and other titles for DC, he developed a great, personable style for communicating with the fans, in the lettercolumns of his titles, and was regularly concluding those columns with the catch-phrase "Thank You and Good Afternoon". Dick produced some beautiful books during his tenure as editor, they were not huge sellers at the newsstands, but were acclaimed by fans and critics alike.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!