Early years Ken Ernst was born in 1918 in
Illinois. At the age of 12, he was elected president of the Chicago Chapter of the
International Brotherhood of Magicians. Ernst began his working life as a stage magician, but he aimed for a career in art. Using money made performing magic to finance his education, he studied at the
Art Institute of Chicago and the
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
Comic books In 1936, Ernst began his art career during the burgeoning
Golden Age of Comic Books. He joined the
Harry "A" Chesler comic book production shop, where he contributed to
Star Comics and
Funny Pages until 1943. He took assignments on numerous titles from Centaur in the late 1930s. Ernst also worked for
National Periodical Publications on
Larry Steele and at
Western Publishing on
Buck Jones,
Tom Mix and
Clyde Beatty. He is credited with the art on back-up stories in the
DC Comics flagship title
Detective Comics, issues 31–33, 38, and most issues between 39 and 49. Ernst's artwork appeared in comic books again in the late 1940s and early 1950s in
The Green Hornet from
Harvey Comics, but the panels were reprints of his
Mary Worth. In 1942, Ernst took over as artist on the
King Features Syndicate comic strip
Mary Worth, and that strip became his life's work. According to Ernst in a comic-style segment from the January 8, 1949 issue of
Collier's ("Mary Worth and Us" by Ken Ernst and Allen Saunders, p. 45), he and writer
Allen Saunders replaced the "tear-stained melodrama" of
Apple Mary, the strip's previous incarnation, with more "modern material-- stuff that might appear in slick paper fiction." The new approach brought success, as well as a succession of Ernst's gorgeously drawn, but often troubled females into range of Mary's meddling and advice. "I have to grind out a new honey every few weeks, instead of drawing the same face every day for 20 years," Ernst remarked. Ernst rendered the strip in a realistic style "inspired by that of his mentors
Milton Caniff and
Noel Sickles." His
Mary Worth became a prototype for the "gentle and sophisticated" soap opera strip. ==Legacy==