Victor Carrabotta (June 24, 1929 – November 22, 2022) was an American comic-book artist and advertising art director whose career stretches to the early 1950s. His comic book art includes much work for Marvel Comics' 1950s forerunner, Atlas Comics. Biography Early life and career Born either in the New York City suburb of Eastchester or in the Eastchester neighborhood of the borough The Bronx on June 24, 1929, Carrabbotta attended Catholic elementary school, followed by Manhattan's High School of Music & Art and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later named the School of Visual Arts). Drawing since grade school, Carrabotta as a teen became friendly with fledgling professional comic-book artist Jerry Grandenetti, who lived near Carrabotta's home and taught him inking, the step in the comic-book process where the pencil artist's work is embellished with ink for stylistic and print-reproduction reasons. After serving in the United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1951, where he performed with the Marine Band, Carrabotta worked in construction. Attempting to break into comic books, Carrabotta found himself turned away at several publishing houses, including by Stan Lee, editor-in-chief of Atlas Comics, the future Marvel. In a 2006 interview, Carrabotta credits Jack Kirby for his professional entrée, describing how Kirby turned him down for comics-studio work, but then upon finding Carrabotta's pregnant wife in the lobby as he was seeing Carrobotta out, gave the struggling artist a break: That five-page story, "The House on the Hill" in Astonishing #13 (May 1952), led to a stream of regular work as a freelance penciler for Atlas Comics, with Carrabotta initially inking himself and later being inked by Jack Abel. Atlas Comics Drawing primarily for horror comics, Carrabotta did work for early issues of such Atlas anthologies as Adventures into Terror, Journey into Mystery (including issue #1), and Strange Tales prior to the imposition of the industry's self-censorship Comics Code. He went on to do science-fiction/fantasy suspense stories for titles including Journey into Unknown Worlds, Marvel Tales, Mystic, Uncanny Tales, and others. Carrabotta was one of the few Atlas artists to regularly sign his work, aiding in compiling his bibliography. After five years, Carrabotta and his wife moved from New York City to his wife's hometown, Lone Star, South Carolina. Continuing to draw for Marvel long-distance, he expanded to such war comics as Battle, Battle Action, Battlefront, Battleground, and the aptly named War Comics; such Westerns as Apache