Al Kilgore

{{more citations needed|date=January 2013}} {{Infobox comics creator  | image = Alkilgorephoto.jpg | imagesize = 100 | caption = | alt = | birth_name = Alfred R. Kilgore | birth_place = Newark, New Jersey, U.S. | death_place = New York, New York, U.S. | nationality = American | area = | cartoonist = | write = | art = y | pencil = | ink = | edit = | publish = | letter = | color = | alias = | signature =  | signature_alt = | notable works = | awards = {{Awards|National Cartoonists Society|1983|Elvis the Paper Doll Book||Special Features Award}} | website = | birth_date={{Birth date|1927|12|19}} | death_date={{Death date and age|1983|8|15|1927|12|19}} }} '''Alfred R. Kilgore''' (December 19, 1927 - August 15, 1983<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kilgore_al.htm|title=Al Kilgore|website=lambiek.net}}</ref>), who signed his work '''Al Kilgore''', was an American artist who worked as a cartoonist and filmmaker.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Kilgore attended Andrew Jackson High School where he played basketball with a young Bob Cousy. He also met Dolores Preusch at this time, and the couple married in 1958. During World War II, he served in the Fifth Air Force. After the war, he entered into art studies, graduating from the Art Career School in 1951.<ref>[http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/memorium/kilgore.jpg NCS]</ref>

==Comic strips and comic books== He was an artist on the ''Bullwinkle'' comic strip for the Bell-McClure Syndicate between 1962 and 1967. In 1969, he did a syndicated puzzle feature, ''TV Star Screen''.<ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/k/kilgore_al.htm Lambiek: Al Kilgore]</ref>

==Films== {{Unreferenced section|date=October 2025}} He appeared as an actor in Louis McMahon's serial parody ''Captain Celluloid vs. the Film Pirates'', along with fellow film historians and authors Alan G. Barbour and William K. Everson. This four-part, semi-professional production paid homage to Republic Pictures and its adventure serials, while kidding the vintage film subculture of the 1960s. The plot involved a masked villain named The Master Duper, one of three members of a Film Commission who attempts to steal the only known prints of priceless antique films, and the heroic Captain Celluloid, who wears a costume reminiscent of that of the Black Commando in the Columbia serial The Secret Code and is determined to uncover him.

Kilgore produced and scripted the American dub of the Japanese fantasy film ''The World of Hans Christian Andersen'' (1971) which he co-directed with Chuck McCann. The film was dubbed for American audiences by Hal Roach, who hired McCann and Kilgore to assist him. <ref name=beck>{{cite book|last=Beck|first=Jerry|title=The Animated Movie Guide|chapter=The World of Hans Christian Andersen|pages=[https://archive.org/details/animatedmoviegui0000beck/page/318 318–319]|isbn=1-55652-591-5|year=2005|publisher=Chicago Reader Press|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/animatedmoviegui0000beck/page/318}}</ref> This was one of Roach's last efforts before his studio closed down.<ref>{{cite news|title=Hal Roach Studios Agrees On Selling Its Film Assets|date=February 1, 1971|access-date=August 8, 2011|work=The New York Times|page=48|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/02/01/archives/hal-roach-studios-agrees-on-selling-its-film-assets.html}}</ref> ==Sons of the Desert==

He was a founding member of the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, The Sons of the Desert, and drew the organization's crest. His caricatures of Laurel and Hardy were used in John McCabe's biography, ''Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy'' (1962). ==Death== Kilgore and his wife Dolores lived in Long Island's Queens Village. He died in New York in 1983<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kilgore_al.htm|title=Al Kilgore|website=lambiek.net}}</ref> from an embolism.

==Awards== {{Unreferenced section|date=October 2025}} He was awarded the National Cartoonists Society Silver T-Square in 1976 for outstanding dedication or service to the Society or the profession and its Special Features Award in 1983 for his ''Elvis the Paper Doll Book''.

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20111001043806/http://www.reuben.org/?page_id=389 NCS Awards] * [https://drewfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/05/al-kilgore-king-of-caricature.html Al Kilgore: King of Cartoons] *{{IMDb name|0453030}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kilgore, Al}} Category:1927 births Category:1983 deaths Category:20th-century American artists Category:20th-century American male artists Category:American comics artists Category:United States Army personnel of World War II Category:Artists from Newark, New Jersey Category:United States Army Air Forces soldiers Category:Deaths from embolism