Early life and career Born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 6, 1924, After military service in the
United States Marines from 1942 to 1946, but because it was not standard practice during this period to list complete writer/artist comic-book credits, confirmation is difficult. The interior art to "Captain Chaos" in the November 1952 issue of the magazine "Planet Stories" is credited to "J.S. Pike".
Comic books Pike quickly became a regular Atlas Comics contributor, drawing in a variety of genres for such titles as the
Westerns Black Rider,
Red Warrior,
Texas Kid, and
Wild Western; and drew her adventures in numerous issues of that title and her own series. He recalled that soon after entering comics, the self-censorship
Comics Code Authority impacted on his art. "I was drawing jungle girl comics:
Jann of the Jungle and
Lorna the Jungle Queen and it seems like another one, too, and I can remember I got a whole book back and had to make the bosoms smaller on the jungle girl, whichever one it was, and when she was flying through the trees on a vine or something her skirt couldn't go above her knees. I can remember having to go over the whole book and having to fix those things." years later in issue #105 (May 1963). His stories continued to appear in DC Comics through ''Girls' Love Stories'' #180 (December 1973). He also is known for his
good girl art pinup work, including for the A. Fox calendar company. As an advertising artist, he worked on campaigns for clients including
Borden,
Ford Motor Company,
General Mills,
Pepsi,
Procter & Gamble, and
Trans World Airlines. As well, he said in 2010, "I did do some [painted] nudes that
Playboy had in their resorts and those were sold for me for a while. It didn't last too long because it came down from Playboy headquarters in
Chicago that they didn't want any more artwork. Only photographs of the
Playmates." After a long hiatus from comic books, Pike returned in 1993 to draw layouts for two issues and then do full
penciling for an issue on the
DC Comics series
Scarlett #12–14 (December 1993 – February 1994). He also penciled the 58-page story "All Good Things" in DC's
one-shot comic
Star Trek: The Next Generation The Series Finale (1994) ==Personal life==