Fox, Gardner F. (Gardner Francis), 1911-1986

Gardner Fox (1911-1986) was an American writer of comic book stories, stories for pulp magazines, and novels.

A prolific author of comic books, westerns, short stores, novels and science fiction, Gardner "Gar" Francis Fox (1911-1986) was one of the most influential comic book script writers in the business. A part of this branch of Americana since its inception, Fox wrote before the advent of Superman and Batman and continued to script comics until his death.

Born in Brooklyn on May 20th, 1911, he graduated from St. John's University with a B.A. in 1932 and later with an LL.B. in 1935. In 1936 he became a lawyer, practicing law by day and writing adventure stories at night. In 1938, his long career of successful free-lance writing began with the publication of stories in Detective Comics . For this series, he created and wrote the scripts for the character Steve Malone, District Attorney. His first published short story, “Weirds of the Woodcarver,” appeared in Weird Stories, 1944, and his first novel, Borgia Blade, appeared in 1953 published by Gold Medal Books.

In the early years of comic books, he created the first Flash comic, wrote for Justice Society of America, did several issues of Detective Batman, Dr. Fate, Spectre and Starman, all for National Comics. He later created Magazine Enterprises' Ghost Rider, one of the most widely read series of the period when heroes began to fade out. For Columbia Comics, he wrote some Big Shot Comics . Later, when revivals were popular, he wrote Adam Strange, Justice Society of America, Justice League and other super hero stories.

Some of the pseudonyms under which Fox wrote are: Jefferson Cooper, Rod Gray, Kevin Matthews, Bart Somers, John Henry Morgan, James Kendricks, John Steele, Simon Majors, Troy Conway and Lynna Cooper.