Paul Gustavson

• Born 1916-08-16 · Died 1977-04-29

Karl Paul Gustafson was born on the island of Åland, Finland. The family name was actually Gustafsson, with two 's', but his father Americanized it to Gustafson. He was active both as a screenwriter and cartoonist, and usually did all the work on his art, including lettering per his son Terry. In comics work, he was most often known as Paul Gustavson with a 'v'. After high school, Gustavson studied engineering and surveying at Cooper Union in Manhattan. Beginning at the age of 17, Gustavson worked as an assistant to cartoonist Frank Owen on Little Philbert for Collier's Magazine, graduating to create his own cartoons for Collier's. He also did pen and ink work on the syndicated comics Jaspar in 1935 and Fantom of the Fair in 1939. He worked as a cartoonist for the Chesler Studio in 1937-38. Gustavson moved on to the Funnies Inc. studio from 1939-42, which supplied material to both Timely Comics and Centaur Publications. He eventually worked for many companies, including DC, Novelty Press, and Quality. For Quality, Gustavson created The Human Bomb under the pseudonym Paul Carroll. In 1942-45, he was in military service but returned to Quality after World War II. After Quality sold out to National Comics, Gustavson worked for American Comics Group on both comics and as an advertising cartoonist. In the 1950s, he stopped working as a cartoonist and became a surveyor and civil engineer for the state of New York.