'The Heart of Juliet Jones' (23 April 1960).
Stanley Albert Drake was born in Brooklyn in November, 1921. He earned some money drawing for pulp magazines like Popular Detective and Popular Sports while still in high school. Shortly afterwards, he worked as an assistant artist, writer and letterer on comic books like 'Black Window', alongside Bob Lubbers, Bob Bugg and Stan Lee. He went to the Art Students League, where he learned figure-drawing from the famous artist George Bridgman, and served in the Pacific during World War II. During his period he also drew for Stars & Stripes magazine. Back in civil life, he immediately went to Madison Avenue to work at the Perlowin advertising studios.
'The Heart of Juliet Jones'.
While working in the advertising field, Drake shared a studio with Bob Lubbers and John Celardo. Drake eventually teamed up with Al Capp's younger brother Elliot Caplin, and began the 'Heart of Juliet Jones' newspaper strip. Even before Drake created one drawing, the comic was sold to 90 newspapers. In March 1953, 'The Heart of Juliet Jones' began its run as a daily strip, distributed by King Features Syndicate. The Sunday comic began a year later. In 1956, he was seriously injured in an automobile accident that also ended the life of Alex Raymond.
'Kelly Green'.
Recovered, he continued to work on his highly successful soap opera newspaper strip, after it had been ghosted by Bob Lubbers during his illness. During his run on 'Juliet Jones', Drake was also assisted by Tex Blaisdell, Frank McLaughlin and Tom Scheuer. He additionally began to work as a sports illustrator, drawing for Golf Digest Magazine and books like 'The Touch System for Better Golf'. In the late 1970s, Drake created 'Pop Idols', a series of pop star biographies, for the United Feature Syndicate.
'Blondie'.
Between 1981 and 1988, Drake teamed up with Leonard Starr to create three graphic novels about crime-fighting heroine 'Kelly Green' for the French magazine Pilote and its publisher Dargaud. He was one of the artists on the one-shot comic book 'The Pitt' for Marvel in 1987. Drake succeeded Mike Gersher as the artist of 'Blondie', created by Chic Young, in 1984 and continued it until his death in 1997 in cooperation with the ceator's son Dean Young, who wrote the scripts. He finally handed over 'The Heart of Juliet Jones' to Frank Bolle in 1989.
In the original version of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's 'Asterix' story 'Asterix and Cleopatra' (1963) the villain is seen reading a newspaper, with the comics section facing the reader. Two of the series are ancient Egyptian parodies of popular newspaper comics at the time, including 'Chéri'-Bibis' (a spoof of Regino Bernad's 'Chér-Bibi') and 'Isis de mon coeur' ('The Heart of Isis', a nod to Stan Drake's 'The Heart of Juliet Jones').
Stan Drake was a strong influence on Guy Gilchrist and Thé Tjong-Khing.
'Blondie'.