“Forsythe” convinced me to write a few words about my father, Samm Schwartz, so here I go.

My father was a soft-spoken, generous man with a great sense of humor. He was born on October 15, 1920, in Brooklyn, NY, to Abraham and Rose Schwartz, immigrants from Eastern Europe.  His interest in art extended back to his childhood, when he drew caricatures of cowboys on the Brooklyn sidewalks.  He pursued a career in art despite strong objections from his parents, who believed that he would be unable to earn a living as an artist. 

He took art classes at neighboring schools, funded by FDR's Works Project Administration, and attended the NYU School of Architecture and Allied Arts, the National Academy of Art and Design, and Pratt Institute.  His first job was as an apprentice in a fashion studio in New York, drawing sketches of women's fashions for department stores, and earning 60 cents posing as a male fashion model.

He began drawing for M.L.J. Comics in 1942 and was soon drafted.  He served as a drill instructor and radio/radar mechanic for the Air Force, earning money in his spare time by drawing portraits of his friends' girlfriends and wives. He also created a comic strip featuring “Pvt. Oswald” and “Sgt. Gus” for an Air Force newspaper.  While in the military, he struck up a mail correspondence with a friend of his older sister, who he had not yet met, and charmed her with cartooned letters. After the war, he returned to Archie and married his “penpal,” Desly Garber.

My father worked from our home in Oceanside, NY, where he lived with my mother, my brother (Andy, born in 1949), me (Joanne, born in 1953), and our cat (Pussy Cat Schwartz, who he named).  He pencilled, inked, and lettered most of his own work and was the lead artist on Jughead through much of the '50s and early '60s.  He left Archie in 1965 to become an artist/editor at Tower Comics, where his main project was Tippy Teen. When Tower Comics folded, he spent a year at DC Comics, drawing for A Date with Debbi and Debbi’s Dates. He returned to Archie in 1969 and once again became the main artist on Jughead.  He drew most Jughead issues from 1970 to 1987 and contributed stories to Reggie and Me, That Wilkin Boy, and other titles. 

My father generally did not write his own scripts, claiming that it was too strenuous. However, according to Victor Gorelick, “he often complained about the stories…and rewrote or changed them….  One time I said, ‘instead of complaining about the stories, write your own.’  He did, and complained about that one, too.” It was said that when he was sent a story, the editors never knew exactly what they were going to get until they received the completed black-and-white version.

My father moved to North Miami Beach, FL in 1979, after my mother’s death in 1978.  He frequently gave advice to aspiring young artists in response to fan mail that he received, and enjoyed drawing cards and posters with Archie characters for family and friends on special occasions (birthdays, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, graduations).  He drew for Archie until his death on November 13, 1997, my birthday.  There was an unfinished story on his drawing board.

If you would like to see some photos of my dad and other interesting tidbits, click on the link below. 
http://s963.photobucket.com/albums/ae115/coltjoa/Samm%20Schwartz/?albumview=slideshow&track=share_email_album_view_click

Thanks for sharing all this cool info and the pictures! =D Reading the letters he wrote back, he seemed like a really sweet guy.

Thanks for all the info Joanne. It's always fun learning more about Archie artists like this.

And thank you Forsythe for convincing her to write this topic

You are responding to all of us! (anyone reading these posts!) Thanks again for doing all of this for us, you don't realize how much this means to us! We are the core Archie fans, we do care!

I hope the rest of you reading on the forum, take some time to enjoy these posts and take a moment to thank Joanne for sharing.

I'm looking forward to the video! Any of you guys tec savy enough to help her get this dvd posted somewhere we can enjoy it?

 

Love, love, love Samm Schwartz.  His Jughead is and ALWAYS will be the definitive Jughead.  I had the pleasure of meeting him a couple of times at the Archie offices ( and got to hang out with him at a NY Con in the early nineties.  Actually, I got him lost, but that's another story!) and he was so hilarious!  ANd very nice to me at the time, as I was new on the scene and in awe of such a major talent.  Thank goodness he lives on in all the stories of his reprinted in the digests!  There will never be another like Samm Schwartz!  A great man and artist!

Joanne,  I enjoyed the memories you shared and the photos as well.  Feel free to add more whenever you have a chance.  There are many fans here who still enjoy your father's work, whether he did it in the 1990's or 60 years ago.  I know that many of us would love to hear more anecdotes about his life, maybe even stories about things that happened in your life where you found out it later influenced one of his stories.

It's always nice to learn more about the people behind the comics.  There are a number of comic covers and stories that I have from the 40's and 50's, when the artists were still signing their work, that just said Samm.  It's nice to learn more about who he was.  I've always loved his work.

Thanks for that great write-up.  It's very true that your father touched a lot of lives with his artwork.  He had a life of creating happiness for others - of which I can say I am one!  Thanks for the write-up and thanks to your father for some great artwork, stories and fun!

Thank you, coltjo.