Gil Kane (1926-2000) is considered of the best comic book artists of the Silver Age and beyond, having won four awards from the National Cartoonists Society--including Best Story Strip for Star Hawks. During his long career, he is best known for his work on Green Lantern and The Atom for DC Comics, and then a long stint at Marvel, drawing the Amazing Spider-Man and hundreds of covers in the 1970s.

Wally Wood (1927-1981) was born on June 17th, 1927, in Menahga, MN. After briefly attending the Minneapolis School of Art, Wood moved to New York, where he studied for a short time at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later renamed The School of Visual Arts).

Soon after arriving in New York, Wood began to find comics work with several small publishers before arriving at Avon Comics and EC Comics. At EC that he truly shone–in a lineup crammed with heavyweights, Wood distinguished himself as one of the absolute best. Wood, while still at EC, was one of the founding artists on MAD comics, whom he continued to work for after it became MAD magazine. In the late 1950s, Wood produced many science-fiction covers and interiors for Galaxy magazine, illustrating such classic authors as Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Frederick Pohl, and many others.

In the 1960s, Wood enjoyed great demand, and worked for Marvel Comics and Warren Publishing, and co-created The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents at Tower Comics. Additionally, he produced two weekly comic strips, Cannon and Sally Forth, for Military News and Overseas Weekly, as well as self-publishing the groundbreaking pro-zine, Witzend.

Wood continued to produce work in the 1970s but towards the end of the decade suffered from kidney failure and a stroke, the latter leading to vision loss in one eye. On November 2nd, 1981, after years of ill health, Wally Wood took his own life.