Henry Scarpelli, American comic book artist (Archie), died he was 79,

Henry (Scap) Scarpelli, 79, of Grasmere, a cartoonist whose pen inked the famous characters of the syndicated newspaper comic strip “Archie,” died Sunday at home.

Born in Concord, he moved to Stapleton in 1945. After his marriage to Claire Lagana in 1962, he lived for a time in Dongan Hills, and Castleton Corners, before settling in Grasmere in 1969.

A graduate of Curtis High School, his first cartoons were published in the school paper, The Log.

When he was 17, Mr. Scarpelli joined the U.S. Army, and served as a radio operator and draftsman in the Army’s Signal Corps during the Korean War. He eventually became a staff cartoonist for the Fort Devens (Mass.) Dispatch.

While studying at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, he met cartoonist John Rouson of Ward Hill, and together they worked on the worldwide syndicated newspaper feature “Little Sport.” The collaboration with Mr. Rouson, Mr. Scarpelli once said, helped prepare him for a career as a professional cartoonist.

FIRST JOB

His first job in the business was in the art department at General Features, a newspaper syndicate. Soon after, the syndicate president noticed Mr. Scarpelli’s interest in cartooning, and offered him the opportunity to create his own comic feature.

His cartoon, “TV Tee-Hees,” a comic feature poking fun at those on television, eventually appeared in 150 newspapers across the country.

While watching “The Tonight Show” one night in 1965, Mr. Scarpelli and his wife were surprised to see host Johnny Carson showing off a TV Tee-Hees cartoon lampooning Carson’s famous “Here’s Johnny!” entrance.

DELL PUBLISHING

In the early 1960s, Mr. Scarpelli began working on comic books at Dell Publishing. For his first assignment, he created the art for the comic book version of the “Andy Griffith Show,” which led to his doing the artwork for “Hogan’s Heroes,” “Get Smart,” “The Flying Nun,” “Beverly Hillbillies,” “McHale’s Navy,” and “Bewitched.” He later worked at DC Comics as an artist for their teenage title, “Binky and Scooter,” and also worked on books featuring Jerry Lewis, Batman, Wonder Woman and others.

While working at DC, Mr. Scarpelli began collaborating with comic book artist Stan Goldberg, and the two continued to work together for 40 years.

Mr. Scarpelli did a stint at Marvel Comics as an artist for “Spoof” magazine, and Marvel’s teen character, Harvey.

ARRIVES AT ARCHIE

He then arrived at Archie Comics Publications, where he worked on the famous teens, Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica. After working on the artwork for Archie magazines for a number of years, he went on to do the art for the Archie syndicated newspaper feature, where his pen inked the plotline of one of the most famous angst-filled teen love triangles in history.

At Archie, Mr. Scarpelli would ink the drawings that Mr. Goldberg sketched in pencil. “There was no competition,” Mr. Goldberg said, describing their partnership as “a love affair with each ones artwork.”

They remained dear friends outside of work as well. “I never heard a bad word, and Henry didn’t have a bad word to say about anybody. Everybody enjoyed his company... I will miss him terribly.”

Mr. Scarpelli’s editorial cartoons were also featured in the Advance.

In the early 1970s, he joined his boyhood friend, Jim Sotirakis, as creative director of Mr. Sotirakis’ Manhattan audio-visual company, Sotos Productions, which created and produced videos, television and radio commercials, and presentations for major record companies and artists including The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, and The Village People.

Mr. Scarpelli and Mr. Sotirakis earned gold records for their participation in a promotion of the movie soundtrack album of The Who’s “Tommy.”

Their partnership then ventured into motion pictures, and they created and produced an independent thriller film called “The Last Victim,” which they shot primarily around Staten Island. The two went on to create Productions Two, and their first show was a Broadway production of “Elvis, the Legend Lives,” at the Palace Theatre. In addition to comics, his illustrations were also used in advertising for Howard Johnson’s and Timex.

He was a member of the National Cartoonists Society, and was the recipient in 1971, 1972, and 1974 of the “Shazam” award from the National Academy of Comic Book Arts for his work on the Archie strip.

FAMOUS SON

In 1980, Mr. Scarpelli and his wife moved to Los Angeles, where they helped to manage their son, Glenn’s acting career, which included a role on the television show “One Day at a Time.”

The Scarpelli’s returned to Staten Island in 1986, and Mr. Scarpelli returned to cartooning as the artist of the Archie newspaper strip.

During his time in the Army, Mr. Scarpelli had longed to have his work appear in the unofficial daily military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, but his dream was never realized. Decades later, in 1997, while he was drawing the storyline about Archie’s decision over prom dates, Betty or Veronica, emailed votes came in from all over the world, including from a military unit stationed in Bosnia. It was only after receiving the email from the troops that Mr. Scarpelli found out his Archie strips were running in “Stars and Stripes.”

Whenever he was asked what he liked to do for leisure, Mr. Scarpelli would say, “My hobby is my work.”

Mr. Scarpelli was a member of the Staats Post, American Legion, and was a charter member of the World War II Memorial Society.

Henry Scarpelli studied at theSchool of Visual Arts in New York City. He began his career working for a newspaper syndicate designing sales brochures and ads for feature presentations. After a while, he came up with the cartoon panel feature 'TV Tee-Hees', which appeared in 150 newspapers during the 1960s and 1970s. Later on, Scarpelli pursued a career in comic books. He first worked at Dell Publishing as the artist for comic magazine versions of such TV shows as 'The Beverly Hillbillies', 'Bewitched', 'Hogan's Heroes' and 'Get Smart'. From there, Scarpelli moved on to major comic book publishers, such as DC, Marvel and Archie Comics. After some years of doing comic books art for Archie comics, Scarpelli was assigned to do the 'Archie' newspaper strip, both daily and Sunday.

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