Pappy’s Sunday Supplement #8: Dan Spiegle and the land beneath the sea

Comic artist Dan Spiegle died on January 28, 2017, at age 96. He had begun his career by drawing the newspaper comic strip, Hopalong Cassidy, and when that ended in the mid-fifties he went to work for Western Publishing, doing comic books under the Dell and later Gold Key colophons. When Western closed its comics line Spiegle went on, working a lot with writer/creator Mark Evanier. Spiegle was a true professional, whose work is seen in many of Dell’s titles licensed from TV, especially Westerns.

You can read an interview done with Spiegle in 1972, from Graphic Story Magazine. See the link below.

Captain Venture only appeared in two issues in the sixties. The feature was a back-up for Spiegle’s Lost in Space. I showed issue number 1 in 2013, and I also have a link for that below. Unlike the first issue, which was made up of reprints from Lost in Space, the second issue is an original story. It borrows a bit from H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau. I say if you are going to swipe plots or story ideas, swipe from the best.

From Captain Venture and the Land Beneath the Sea #2 (1969). Written by Gaylord Dubois.

Graphic Story World interview with Dan Spiegle

Here is the first issue of Captain Venture. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1482: Captain Venture and the Land Beneath the Sea

Dan Spiegle was a comic book artist who did his journeyman work mostly for Dell/Gold Key. When Gold Key shut down Spiegle moved on to other publishers, including a stint on Blackhawk for DC, and even working on Hanna-Barbera comics like Scooby-Doo. Spiegle's earliest work was mostly in Westerns, and for a long time he was the go-to artist for television adaptations like Lawman and Maverick.

Spiegle not only drew horse operas, he could draw space operas with equal skill. He drew Space Family Robinson (later Lost in Space, to cash in on the popular TV series which had lifted the premise of Space Family Robinson.) The Captain Venture strip was a backup in Space Family Robinson/Lost in Space, from issues #6 to #30. Later Gold Key reprinted two issues of reprints of these strips. What I’m showing today are the reprints from issue #1 (1968).