George Brenner

George Brenner (1913–1952) was an American cartoonist best remembered as the creator of The Clock, the first masked hero to appear in comic books. Born in 1913, he began his career at the Comics Magazine Company before joining Everett "Busy" Arnold's Quality Comics group in late 1937, where he rose to Executive Editor. Over his career, Brenner worked on titles including *Crack Comics*, *Doll Man Quarterly*, *Feature Comics*, *Police Comics*, and *Smash Comics*, for which he drew the cover of issue #22. He also created the characters Bozo the Iron Man and 711, and occasionally used the pseudonym "Wayne Reid." Brenner's style was straightforward and energetic, fitting the early adventure and superhero boom. He made a small on-screen appearance in the 1946 film *The Razor's Edge*. The details of his death in 1952 remain unknown, but his legacy endures: The Clock, debuting in 1936, predated other comic-book costumed heroes and wore only a simple black cloth mask with a flounce, a far cry from the elaborate costumes that followed. Brenner is credited on 42 issues across titles such as *Feature Funnies*, *Smash Comics*, and *Police Comics*, and his work was reprinted posthumously into the 2020s.