10 Comic Book Creators Who Died In 2019

Everett Raymond Kinstler was an artist and comic book illustrator who passed away in late-May from heart failure at the age of 92. Though he was a prolific artist in the world of comics, he also worked as a portrait artist, having painted the official portraits of U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

Kintsler began working on comics all the way back in the 1940s, where he worked mostly as a cover artist. During this period, he worked primarily on western and romance comics for Avalon Periodicals, Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, Dell/Western Publishing, St. John Publications, Atlas Comics (Marvel), and National Periodicals (DC Comics).

Most of his work in comics was throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but in the '60s, he switched his primary work to portraiture. Throughout his career in this field, he painted more than 1,200 portraits of business leaders, entertainers, and government officials.

Kinstler lived and worked at The National Arts Club for more than 70 years, where he painted over 2,000 of his subjects. His impressive career earned him a number of accolades, including being elected to the National Academy of Design in 1970, earning the Copley Medal from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 1999, and the Inkpot Award in 2006.