Beck told interviewers that the story was more important than the art. As an artist, Beck favored a simple “comic strip” style. He wore a red flannel suit with a golden cape and a lighting bolt symbol on his chest. ![]() Unlike later superheroes, Captain Marvel was known for being wholesome and charming, with a big smile always on his face. In interviews, Beck said he based Captain Marvel’s look on actor Fred MacMurray. Published by Fawcett Publications, Captain Marvel quickly outsold the rival Superman comic. He died in Florida in 1989.Ĭaptain Marvel, created by Beck and writer Bill Parker, hit the comic book world like a lightning bolt in 1940 with the first issue of “Whiz Comics” in 1940. Well-known for being curmudgeonly, Beck might not have welcomed such attention. Known in his hometown or not, Beck is unquestionably the man who created the look of the character that was the most popular comic in the 1940s. “Maybe instead of the Cougars, the school mascot could be the Marvels instead,” he said. Grimsrud suggested that the Zumbrota Public Library or a local gallery could display Beck’s clean-and-simple artwork that launched the comic book that grew to outsell Superman in the 1940s and attracted 400,000 people to join the Captain Marvel Fan Club. “I had no idea that the artist walked down the same Zumbrota streets or went into the same buildings that I had.” I later majored in art in college,” he said. The visual excitement of Beck's drawings earned my attention. ![]() “I would read some pages, but very often would turn the pages beginning in the back to focus on the drawings. Grimsrud remembered reading Captain Marvel while sitting on the floor of Klug’s Pharmacy on Zumbrota's Main Street. Captain Marvel was his favorite comic as a kid, but he didn’t discover the link to Zumbrota until reading the work of a newspaper columnist who came before him, the late Charlie Buck.
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