Bob Montana

Bob Montana
BornRobert William Montana
(1920-10-23)October 23, 1920[1]
Stockton, California, U.S.
DiedJanuary 4, 1975(1975-01-04) (aged 54)
Meredith, New Hampshire, U.S.
Area(s)Cartoonist, Artist
Notable works
Archie Andrews
Spouse(s)Peggy (née Wherett)[2][3]

Robert William Montana (October 23, 1920 – January 4, 1975) was an American comic strip artist who created the original likenesses for characters published by Archie Comics and in the newspaper strip Archie.[4][5][6]

Early life

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He was born in Stockton, California, to Roberta Pandolfini Montana and Ray Montana.[7] Both were in show business: Roberta had been a Ziegfeld girl, and Ray performed banjo on the vaudeville circuit.[7] As a result, Bob Montana traveled extensively as a child.[7] He attended Haverhill High School in Haverhill, Massachusetts.[7] and graduated from Manchester High School Central in Manchester, New Hampshire.[8]

According to Jane (Donahue) Murphy, a high school classmate of Montana's, Archie and his friends were based on people from their hometown and high school. She said Archie Andrews was based on Donahue's cousin, Richard Heffernan; Veronica Lodge on Agatha Popoff, the daughter of the local football team's doctor; Jughead Jones on a mischievous teen named "Skinny" Linnehan; while Miss Grundy may have been based on a high school typing and shorthand teacher named Lundstrom;[9] however, Haverhill's school librarian is also believed to be the model for Grundy.[7]

Career

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While freelancing at True Comics and Fox Comics, Montana created an adventure strip about four teenage boys and tried to sell it without success.

Archie Comics

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Main article: Archie Comics

When Montana started working for MLJ Comics[note 1] he was asked to work up a high-school style comic-strip story, featuring Archie Andrews.[10]

Bob Montana presented his four-boy strip to John Goldwater while working as a freelance artist at MLJ. Goldwater thought it would be more appealing to feature two boys and two girls than four boys. Goldwater liked the name Archibald (after a friend) but Montana liked Chick.[note 2] They settled on Archie. Montana and Harry Lucey collaborated on the first comic book story which was featured in Pep Comics (Dec. 1941), and its popularity led MLJ to assign Montana to draw the first issue of Archie (Nov. 1942).[5] After serving in WW2, in 1946, Montana was soon drawing the Archie comic newspaper strip, doing both the daily and Sunday strip, which over the next 35 years ran in over 750 newspapers worldwide.[11]

Personal life

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Montana served 3½ years in WW2 and was a sergeant at war's end; during this time, he met and married Peggy Bertholet.[2] They had four children: Paige, Lynn, Ray and Don.[7]

He died at age 54 of an apparent heart attack while cross-country skiing near his New Hampshire home.[12]

Notes

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  1. ^ John Goldwater was to later ask Montana if they could rename MLJ Comics to Archie Comics.
  2. ^ 'Chick' was to later be resuscitated in the name of Betty Cooper's older brother Chick (or 'Chic') Cooper.

References

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  1. ^ "Robert Montana, January 1975". United States Social Security Death Index. FamilySearch. Retrieved March 2, 2013.
  2. ^ a b Connors, Ann (May 8, 1989). "A Funny Thing Happened to the Haverhill Class of '40". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 24, 2018.
  3. ^ Appelo, Tim (November 8, 1991). "Archie comics turn 50". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved August 24, 2018 – via EW.com.
  4. ^ Windolf, Jim (December 2006). "American Idol". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on July 13, 2016. Retrieved January 9, 2017. Since the [court] settlement, every Archie product has listed John Goldwater as 'creator.' The name Bob Montana falls under a separate credit line that defines him as the 'creator' of 'the original characters' likenesses.'
  5. ^ a b Offenberger, Rik (March 1, 2003). "Publisher Profile: Archie Comics". Borderline (19). Archived from the original on October 28, 2016. Retrieved January 9, 2017 – via MightyCrusaders.net.
  6. ^ Harvey, R. C. (July 28, 2011). "John Goldwater, the Comics Code Authority, and Archie". The Comics Journal. Archived from the original on April 16, 2014.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Sullivan, Mark (December 30, 2001). "Now 60 Years Old, Archie Has Roots Reaching To Haverhill Cartoonist Used High School Friends For His Inspiration". The Boston Globe. republished online June 9, 2002 – via mcnsclips.blogspot.com.
  8. ^ "Bob Montana Brings Archie Comics to the Lakes Region". New England Historical Society. 4 January 2014. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
  9. ^ Tennant, Paul (December 28, 2010). "'Archie' comic changes with the times, examines real-life topics". The Eagle-Tribune. North Andover, Massachusetts. Archived from the original on April 1, 2018. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
  10. ^ Morales, Stephanie (July 4, 2018). "'Archie' artist honored with statue by his hometown". Associated Press. Retrieved July 4, 2018.
  11. ^ Beaty, Bart (2017). Twelve-Cent Archie: New Edition with Full Color Illustrations. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-8135-9046-2.
  12. ^ "Bob Montana, Cartoonist, Dies; Creator of 'Archie' Strip, 54". The New York Times. New York, New York. January 6, 1975. Retrieved May 3, 2018.
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