Dick Ayers

Richard Bache Ayers was born on April 28, 1924, and spent decades as one of American comics' most dependable craftsmen before his death on May 4, 2014. A versatile artist whose catalog spans more than two thousand credited issues across penciling, inking, lettering, and writing, he was active from 1949 onward and left a distinctive mark on both the Western and superhero genres.

Ayers is perhaps best remembered as a key inker for Jack Kirby during the Silver Age, lending his polished linework to early issues of The Fantastic Four as Marvel was reinventing itself. Yet his most sustained contribution came as the signature penciler of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, the World War II series he drew for a full ten years — a commitment that made the title's rough-and-tumble visual identity inseparable from his hand.

Before his Marvel years, Ayers co-created the Ghost Rider — a Western-horror character — for Magazine Enterprises in the 1950s, a figure he would later revisit when Marvel adapted the concept in the following decade. His range extended to titles such as Jonah Hex and Two-Gun Kid, reflecting a genuine affinity for frontier storytelling.

In 2007, Ayers was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, a recognition of a career defined more by consistency and craftsmanship than by celebrity.