Early life William Thomas Overgard was born on April 30, 1926, in
Santa Monica, California, son of silent-movie actor William A. Overgard, and grew up there. Inspired as a boy by
Milton Caniff's
Terry and the Pirates, at age twelve he sent him a fan letter and samples of his own art, and received encouragement. They continued corresponding during Overgard's high school years and two years in the Navy during World War II. Afterwards, he headed for New York and worked with Caniff, assisting him on his new strip
Steve Canyon. (He later regarded this apprenticeship as his only true training for cartooning.) Then, on Caniff's advice, he launched his own cartooning career in the 1950s with comic books such as
Jungle Jim,
Ben Bowie,
Daredevil, and the western
Black Diamond. He also freelanced in ghosted strips and animation, continuing to refine his artwork, and contributed to
Boy Magazine and the satirical
Whack.
Steve Roper In 1954,
Steve Roper artist
Pete Hoffman was leaving to do his own strip,
Jeff Cobb. Overgard "had been trying to get a syndicated gig, and when the
Roper job opened up, he was invited to compete with other candidates for the assignment. 'Fortunately,' he wrote, 'I managed to scoot by and win, and that was the beginning of my career as a strip cartoonist.'" The first strip he drew for
Steve Roper was for July 12, 1954. When the writer,
Allen Saunders, was considering a counterfoil pal for "straight-arrow" Roper, Overgard suggested a character he had been working on and described as "a realistic working-man kind of guy who was not beyond taking any opportunity that presented itself". He joined the
National Cartoonists Society and clearly took pride in his work on the strip, which became
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad in 1969, giving it new popularity.
Later years and death In 1971 Overgard also took on the scripting of
Kerry Drake after Saunders quit, and as that strip ended, began a new one he both wrote and drew,
Rudy, which debuted on January 3, 1983. By then, there were disagreements over the writing of
Steve Roper with Allen Saunders and son John who succeeded him in 1979. After his strip for April 7, 1985 (not 1982 as sometimes reported), Overgard left
Steve Roper, immediately replaced by
Fran Matera, and devoted himself to
Rudy. Despite favorable reviews,
Rudy came to an end later that year on December 22. Overgard had already expanded into screenplays and televised cartoons, now scripting episodes of
ThunderCats. He had also been writing adventure novels, and in 1988 published his last one,
A Few Good Men, about the U.S. Marines' 1931 intervention in the
Sandinista war in Nicaragua. He continued his longtime interests in antique cars and music-making, especially the banjo. He died in Stony Point on May 25, 1990, survived by wife Gloria, sons Tom and Matthew, daughter Jennifer Magnusson and granddaughter Maja Magnusson, and leaving an archive of his earlier
Steve Roper work at
Syracuse University. == Creative work ==