Early life and career Fred Guardineer was born in
Albany,
New York. Guardineer's first known comics credits appear in several one- to three-page
Western and comic-Western stories, and in spot illustrations for a text story, in
Centaur Publications'
Star Ranger #2 (
cover-dated April 1937). Through that year, he continued writing and drawing such short features in a variety of genres in some of the medium's first comics, including Centaur's
Star Comics,
Funny Pages and
Funny Picture Stories. He is among the contributors to the future
DC Comics' landmark title
Action Comics #1 (June 1938), the comic that introduced
Jerry Siegel and
Joe Shuster's seminal
superhero Superman. There Guardineer wrote, drew and
lettered the 12-page feature introducing his
magician-hero creation
Zatara, a character remaining in the DC stable as of the 21st century. Guardineer was also one of the artists on two features handled previously by
Creig Flessel in
More Fun Comics: "
Pep Morgan" (on which he sometimes used the
pseudonym Gene Baxter) and, in
Detective Comics, "
Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator". Guardineer's other early work includes art for
Quality Comics, where he created the character
Blue Tracer; and
Columbia Comics, where he worked with former DC editor
Vin Sullivan, who had edited
Action Comics. Guardineer again lost contact with the comics community until 1998, when a comics fan found him in northern
California and convinced him to attend that year's
Comic-Con International in
San Diego, California. There, he was part of an Evanier-hosted panel "of every surviving person who'd had a hand in the creation of the historic
Action Comics #1. [When presented with the convention's Inkpot Award,] Fred was confined to a wheelchair ... but with great effort, he insisted on standing as he made a brief but eloquent acceptance speech." Guardineer later was a guest at
WonderCon, in
Oakland, California. One source says Guardineer moved to
San Ramon,
California, where he died in 2002, though the
Social Security Death Index gives his last place of residence as
Babylon,
New York (
ZIP Code 11702) in
Suffolk County,
Long Island. == Awards ==