Early career in
Animated Funny Comic-Tunes (formerly
Funny Tunes), one of Fago's
Timely Comics titles Fago was born in 1914 in
Yonkers, New York, of parents who had immigrated from
Naples, Italy. He had two sisters and a 10-year-older brother,
Al Fago. Sometime after Lee's return, Fago left to work in independent comic-book production; he and his brother Al self-published the one-shot
Kiddie Kapers (under the company name
Kiddie Kapers Company). He also worked as a
children's-book illustrator for
Golden Press. In 1948, he took over the syndicated Sunday
comic strip Peter Rabbit (based not on the
Beatrix Potter books but on a character from the
Thornton Burgess series that began with
The Adventures of Peter Cottontail), continuing with that strip until it was cancelled in 1957.
Later career For the entire decade of the 1970s, Fago worked under a ten-year contract for
West Haven, Connecticut-based
Pendulum Press. Based in his Bethel studio, Fago adapted, edited, and handled production for Pendulum's extensive line of
Now Age Books comic book adaptation of literary classics. Specifically designed for classroom use, the Pendulum classics used typeset instead of hand lettering, vocabulary appropriate for grade levels, and included word lists and questions at the back. After having difficulty finding American artists to illustrate the comics, In 1970, Fago and his wife traveled to the Philippines and, with Redondo as their guide, found many artists who would illustrate most of the hundred or more titles Pendulum eventually produced. Other books include
Zhin or Zhen (Charles Tuttle Publishing, 1972).
Personal life and family For most of his adult life Fago and his wife, D'Ann Calhoun, whom he married in 1941, lived in a rural section of
Rockland County, New York. They moved to
Bethel, Vermont, in 1968, following D'ann's appointment as director of Vermont's Arts and Crafts Service (a division of the
Vermont Department of Education). with his wife before dying of cancer at age 87. Fago's brother
Al Fago was also a cartoonist who created the
Charlton Comics character
Atomic Mouse. ==References==