Overgard, William

William Overgard (1926-1990) was an American cartoonist and comic artist.

William Overgard was born on April 30, 1926 in Santa Monica, California and graduated from Santa Monica High School. His father acted in silent movies. At age 12, Overgard sent his drawings to cartoonist Milton Caniff, whose Terry and the Pirates, Overgard enjoyed. Overgard enlisted in the armed forces in 1944 and served in Okinawa. During this time he pursued several ideas for comic strips, including one based on the American Civil War. Overgard moved to New York City in 1948, at Caniff's suggestion, after spending several months as an art student at Santa Monica City College. He worked on comics books for Lev Gleason and Dell Comics. These included Black Diamond, (a western), Boy Comics, and Daredevil . Overgard also submitted comic strip ideas to United Features Syndicate and Publishers Newspaper Syndicate.

In 1954, Overgard was hired by Publishers to replace Elmer Woggon as the artist on Steve Roper which was still appearing under the name of original artist Woggon although it had been ghosted for several years by other artists. Allen Saunders served as writer for the strip. Overgard added his own character of Mike Nomad and eventually the strip became officially known as Steve Roper and Mike Nomad . Overgard, who for a time had trouble meeting his various deadlines, shared a studio in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City with artists Leonard Starr ( Mary Perkins On Stage) and Tom Scheuer before returning to working outside of his home on his farm in Stony Point, New York. Overgard also wrote the Kerry Drake strip for several years during the 1970s.

After drawing Steve Roper for over thirty years, Overgard left in 1982 for Rudy, a comic strip he created about a talking chimpanzee who previously had a successful Vaudeville career. Rudy, distributed by United Features Syndicate, ended its run in 1985 and a compilation of strips appeared as Rudy in Hollywood (1984).

In addition to pursuing visual art, Overgard wrote thriller novels, screenplays, and scripts for animated series such as Thundercats. Overgard published the books Pieces of a Hero (1973) and Once More the Hero (1974). Overgard was a member of the National Cartoonists Society and one of his Steve Roper strips was used by Roy Lichtenstein in his 1961 painting, “I Can See the Whole Room”.

William Overgard died on May 25, 1990.

From the guide to the William Overgard Cartoons, 1954-1968, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)