{"id":13217,"date":"2014-01-22T15:30:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T20:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=13217"},"modified":"2014-01-22T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T20:34:14","slug":"bill-kresse-1933-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2014\/01\/22\/bill-kresse-1933-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Kresse 1933-2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was saddened to learn via a Facebook post from Tom Heintjes <\/a> that cartoonist Bill Kresse had died. I met Bill when I was a sophomore attending Brooklyn’s South Shore High School. I was probably around 16 years old, and part of a group of students interested in journalism who toured the New York Daily News<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Here’s what Bill looked like around that time, from when I met up with him the following year at a 75th anniversary celebration of the comic strip<\/a> held in Central Park.<\/p>\n

\"CentralParkBillKresse\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I no longer remember whether Bill ran the tour or was just one of the many people we met along the way, but for some reason, something clicked with him, me and fellow student Eric Shalit<\/a>. That tour was the beginning of a relationship that led to Eric and me visiting Bill and his wife Lorraine at their home, my attendance at many National Cartoonist Society events, plus Bill providing art and advice when Eric and I put together an underground magazine at our school.<\/p>\n

Bill, who was born on June 17, 1933, inked animation cels at Terrytoons immediately after high school, was a prolific “good girl” artist<\/a> of the ’50s, and drew for the Archie\u2019s Madhouse<\/em> comic. I didn’t know any of that at the time, though. I only knew him as the artist and co-creator of Super Duper<\/a>, a fun comic strip about a bumbling building superintendent which ran in the Daily News<\/em> for five years.<\/p>\n

As you can see, when I was about to graduate the high school that had brought us together and head off to SUNY Buffalo, both Bill and Super Duper wished me well.<\/p>\n

\"BillKresseSuperDuper\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bill was always generous with his time, more than the precocious teens we were at the time deserved. When we started an alternative magazine at our school, he encouraged us and even contributed a caricature. I’m sure you can guess which of the kids below is Eric and which is me …<\/p>\n

\"KresseKong\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to Bill, I got an insider’s look at comics strips before I moved from being a fan to a comics professional. As his guest, I attended several Ruben Awards banquets (both alone as a young teen fan, and then later in the company of my wife when we both worked at Marvel Comics), where I met the likes of Pat Oliphant, Gary Trudeau<\/a>, Mort Walker, Curt Swan<\/a>, and Johnny Hart. He brought me to other National Cartoonist Society events, such as the Halloween party at which I met Otto Soglow … and Margaret Hamilton! <\/p>\n

\"ScottEdelmanMargaretHamilton\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He was warm, and funny, and always kind and helpful to me.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

He was one of the good guys.<\/p>\n

When I lived in New York, I’d frequently pop by the 42nd Street headquarters of the Daily News <\/em>to catch up, but I’m embarrassed to say that we’d been out of touch in recent years. I’ve often thought of him in a vague “gee, I wonder how he’s doing, I should get back in touch” kind of way … but you know how those things go. I waited too long, and now it’s too late.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, it might seem hypocritical to say that I’ll miss him, considering how long it’s been since we last saw each other. But I do<\/em> miss him. He was an important part of my life, and I’m extremely sad that he’s gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was saddened to learn via a Facebook post from Tom Heintjes that cartoonist Bill Kresse had died. I met Bill when I was a sophomore attending Brooklyn’s South Shore High School. I was probably around 16 years old, and part of a group of students interested in journalism who toured the New York Daily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[42,85],"class_list":["post-13217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-kresse","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13217"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13253,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13217\/revisions\/13253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}