Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano (July 20, 1932 – March 27, 2010) was an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then–industry leader DC Comics. As one of the field's pre-eminent inkers, Giordano was known for his pairings with penciler Neal Adams in a series of comics featuring Batman, Green Lantern, and Green Arrow.

Dick Giordano, an only child, was born in New York City on July 20, 1932, in the borough of Manhattan to Josephine and Graziano "Jack" Giordano. He attended the School of Industrial Art.

Beginning as a freelance artist at Charlton Comics in 1952, Giordano contributed artwork to dozens of the company's comics, including such Western titles as Annie Oakley, Billy the Kid, and Wyatt Earp, the war comic Fightin' Army, and scores of covers.

Giordano's artwork from Charlton's Strange Suspense Stories was used as inspiration for artist Roy Lichtenstein's 1965/1966 Brushstroke series, including Brushstroke, Big Painting No. 6, Little Big Painting and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes. The panels in question came from the story "The Painting," from Strange Suspense Stories #72 (Oct. 1964).

Klaus Janson (born January 23, 1952) is a German-born American comic book artist, working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies. While he is best known as an inker, Janson has frequently worked as a penciller and colorist.

Born in Coburg, Germany, Klaus Janson emigrated to the United States in 1957, settling with his family in Connecticut, where he lived in Bridgeport from 1957 to 1972.

After a short stint as assistant to Dick Giordano in the early 1970s, Janson came to prominence as the inker over Sal Buscema's pencils on The Defenders. Since then he has freelanced on most of the major titles at Marvel and DC. He is most famous for his collaboration with writer-artist Frank Miller on a 1979-1983 run on Daredevil and on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in 1986. Janson has frequently pencilled and inked for various Batman titles, including Gothic with writer Grant Morrison. In 1994, Janson drew the Batman-Spawn: War Devil intercompany crossover which was written by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant.

Frank Frazetta (February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010) was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media. He was the subject of a 2003 documentary.

Frazetta was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999.

Born Frank Frazzetta in Brooklyn, New York City, he removed one "z" from his last name early in his career to make his name seem less "clumsy". The only boy among four children, he spent much time with his grandmother, who began encouraging him in art when he was two years old. He recalled in 2010, a month before his death,

When I drew something, she would be the one to say it was wonderful and would give me a penny to keep going. Sometimes I had nothing left to draw on but toilet paper. As I got older, I started drawing some pretty wild things for my age. I remember the teachers were always mesmerized by what I was doing, so it was hard to learn anything from them. So I went to art school when I was a little kid, and even there the teachers were flipping out.

Nick Cardy, born Nicholas Viscardi and also known as Nick Cardi (born October 20, 1920), is an American comic book artist best known for his DC Comics work on Aquaman, the Teen Titans and other major characters.

Cardy was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005.

Viscardi attended the Art Students League of New York, studying painting and sculpture. As did many early comics professionals, he entered the field working for Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of comic book "packagers" that would create comics on demand for publishers testing the waters of the emerging medium. Joining the studio in 1939, at age 18, he worked on Fight Comics, Jungle Comics, Kaanga Comics, and Wings for Fiction House Publications. He wrote and drew the four-page backup feature "Lady Luck" in Will Eisner's 16-page, newspaper Sunday-supplement comic book colloquially called "The Spirit Section", from the May 18, 1941 strip through February 22, 1942. Though his Lady Luck stories were credited under the house pseudonym Ford Davis, Viscardi would subtly work in the initials "NV" somewhere into each tale.

David Emmett Cockrum (November 11, 1943 – November 26, 2006) was an American comic book artist known for his co-creation of the new X-Men characters Nightcrawler, Storm, and Colossus. Cockrum was also a prolific and inventive costume designer, who updated the uniforms of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and did the same for the new X-Men and many of their antagonists, in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Cockrum was born on November 11, 1943, in Pendleton, Oregon. His father was a lieutenant colonel of the United States Air Force, resulting in the Cockrums frequently transporting their household from one city to another for years. Cockrum discovered comic books at a young age; an early favorite was Fawcett's Captain Marvel, especially Mac Raboy's Captain Marvel Jr. Other artists whose work the young Cockrum admired were Wally Wood, Gil Kane, Murphy Anderson, and Joe Kubert.

As a young man, Cockrum was a dedicated "letterhack," who had many letters printed in comic book letter columns. (A letter from Cockrum in Fantastic Four No. 34 [January 1965] led to a correspondence with Andrea Kline, who later became his first wife.)