Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Today in Comics History, December 21: Happy birthday, Ben Oda!

Born on this day in 1915: the great Ben Oda, longtime comics letterer at DC, EC, and many other houses! His distinctive lettering style enchanced thousands of comics, ncluding Detective Comics and Batman, Action Comics and Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Four Color, Baris Karloff Tales of Mystery, The Twilight Zone, Eerie, Vampirella, MAD, the Super DC Calendars, and hundreds more!


"DC Profiles #59" from DC Comics cover-dated February 1980







from Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics (Ten Speed, July 2020), script and art by Tom Scioli

A touching obit of Oda from DC Comics.


from DC Comics cover-dated June 1985

One great bit I learned about Ben today: when he was in a bowling league with Bill Yoshida, Oda taught Yoshida the art of lettering. Yoshida went on to become one of Archie Comics' top letterers!

Happy birthday, Ben!

Posted by Bully at 11:30 AM
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1 comment:

Blam said...

The sheer amount of work Oda turned out during his career, never mind its high quality and breadth of genres, is staggering; I’ve always been glad to hear that he was such a decent, beloved guy to boot.

12/24/2022 8:28 AM

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