Irving Samuel Kweskin (February 24, 1924—June 23, 2005), who sometimes worked under the name Irv Wesley, was an American advertising and comic-book artist. Biography Early life and career Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised there with a sister, Sally, and a father who died when Kweskin was 11, Kweskin learned to draw by copying Sunday newspaper comics, particularly those of Hal Foster, on sheets of grocery wrapping paper. Per differing accounts, he either won a scholarship at 16 to the Studio School of Art, and the following summer enrolled in a course at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, or before his senior year of high school won a scholarship to a summer course at the Academy. By both accounts one classmate was the future celebrated military cartoonist Bill Mauldin. At 16, through a neighbor who worked with Foster's brother, Kweskin visited Foster at the respected writer-illustrator's Evanston, Illinois, attic studio and subsequently "wrote a story about my visit for my high school newspaper." After high school, Kweskin worked as a night-shift copyboy for Chicago Tribune newspaper, and then entered the U.S. Army. Private Kweskin did military service February 1943 to December 1945, during World War II, joining the 83rd Chemical Mortar Battalion in September 1944 as a military artist, contributing to the military periodicals Muzzleblasts and Rounds Away. and said he was among the Allied troops who helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp. After his discharge, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in early 1949. He worked for a year with former Walt Disney Pictures animator Sam Singer, doing two children's cartoon series for the local ABC-TV station. Kweskin then left to develop his own local children's-TV programs. He later drew comic-book bible stories for David C. Cook Publishing in Elgin, Illinois. A friend put Kweskin in touch with New York City's Atlas Comics, the 1950s precursor of Marvel Comics, and Kweskin "flew into NYC in August or September 1952" to meet with Atlas editor-in-chief Stan Lee. Kweskin began freelancing for Atlas from Chicago before eventually moving with his family to New York City. Atlas and advertising Kweskin's earliest confirmed credits include penciling and self-inking stories in five Atlas comics cover-dated February 1953: The horror/mystery books Strange Tales #15, Adventures Into Terror #16, Astonishing #22 and Spellbound #12, and the war comic Battlefront #9. He continued drawing stories for such