Henry Boltinoff


Henry Boltinoff was an American cartoonist who worked for both comic strips and comic books. He drew many of the humor and filler strips that appeared in National Periodical comics from the 1940s through the 1960s.

Biography

Comic books

Born in New York City, Boltinoff created numerous humor features for DC Comics, where his brother Murray Boltinoff was an editor. His most prominent creation for DC was "Dover & Clover" which debuted in More Fun Comics #94. Boltinoff's other features include "Abdul the Fire Eater", "Bebe", "Billy", "Buck Skinner", "Cap's Hobby Center", "Casey the Cop", "Charlie Cannonball", "Chief Hot Foot", "Cora the Carhop", "Dexter", "Doctor Floogle", "Doctor Rocket", "Elvin", "Freddie the Frogman", "Hamid the Hypnotist", "Homer", "Honey in Hollywood", "Hy the Spy", "Hy Wire", "Jail Jests", "Jerry the Jitterbug", "King Kale", "Lefty Looie", "Lem 'n' Lime", "Lionel and His Lions", "Little Pete", "Little Pocahontas", "Lucky", "The Magic Genie", "Moolah the Mystic", "No-Chance Charley", "Ollie", "On the Set", "Peg", "Peter Puptent", "Prehistoric Fun", "Professor Eureka", "Sagebrush Sam", "Shorty", "Stan", "Super-Turtle", "Tricksy the World's Greatest Stunt Man" and "Warden Willis". These were usually lettered by Gaspar Saladino. Boltinoff's final creation for DC was "Cap's Hobby Hints". In 1969, he became the writer of the Date with Debbi and Swing with Scooter titles.

Comic strips

Boltinoff worked on the comic strips This and That, Woody Forrest, Stoker the Broker, and Hocus-Focus through 2001. He received the National Cartoonists Society's Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award in 1981 and also received their Humor Comic Book Award for 1970.
Hocus-Focus may have been Boltinoff's best-known work. The King Features Syndicate feature, which was started c. 1965 by Harold Kaufmann, includes two similar panels with six differences between them. It continues to run in over 300 newspapers.

DC Comics