Bob Montana (October 23, 1920 - January 4, 1975) was an American comic strip artist who created the characters that launched Archie Comics. Born in Stockton, California, Montana was the son of ex-Ziegfeld girl Roberta Pandolfini Montana and Ray Montana, a top banjo player on the Keith vaudeville circuit. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (522x700, 67 KB)Template:Fair use in Bob Montana Source: Montana Web source: http://web. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (522x700, 67 KB)Template:Fair use in Bob Montana Source: Montana Web source: http://web. ... October 23 is the 296th day of the year (297th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... January 4 is the 4th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Forsythe Jughead Jones characters created by Bob Montana. ... City nickname: Californias Sunrise Seaport City slogan: Stocktons Great, Take A Look! County: San Joaquin Area code: 209 ZIP code: 952xx Area:  - Total  - Water 144. ... Florenz Ziegfeld (March 21, 1869 - July 22, 1932) was a Broadway impresario who achieved fame by perfecting the United States revue. ... Vaudeville is a style of multi-act theatre which flourished in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s. ...

Montana knew he wanted to be a cartoonist from the age of seven. Traveling to vaudeville houses in all 48 states before the age of nine, he received his childhood schooling backstage in theater dressing rooms and also learned about comedy and humor writing. During summers, the family stayed in Meredith, New Hampshire, where his father raised vegetables and operated a restaurant. Bob Montana practiced his cartooning by drawing caricatures of the restaurant's customers. When he was 13, his father died of a heart attack, and his mother remarried. Meredith is a town located in Belknap County, New Hampshire. ...

Montana's stepfather had managed a theatrical costume shop in Bradford, Massachusetts. In 1936, the family moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, and from 1936 to 1939, Montana attended Haverhill High School. When he was 17 and 18 in 1937-38, he kept diaries of local events and news stories, illustrating the diary pages with his cartoons. The students and faculty of Haverhill High later inspired the leading characters in the Archie cast, as revealed in a 1970s Boston Globe article by film critic Gerald Peary. [1] Bradford was a town in Massachusetts on the banks of the Merrimack River. ... Seal of Haverhill, MA Haverhill is a city located in Essex County, Massachusetts. ... Gerald Peary, an American film critic for the past three decades, has been a weekly film critic and columnist for the Boston Phoenix since 1996. ...

He spent time in Boston, where his mother and her husband ran a restaurant. On weekends he worked in Boston, drawing and painting Red Cross and WWII posters. In his senior year, Montana moved to Manchester, New Hampshire, where he graduated from Central High in 1940. Nickname: Queen City Location in Hillsborough County Coordinates: Country United States State New Hampshire County Hillsborough County Incorporated 1751 Mayor Frank Guinta (R) Area    - City 90. ...

Moving to New York, he studied at the Phoenix Art Institute while freelancing. At the age of 21, he created Archie for MLJ's Pep Comics (December, 1941). The success of the character led MLJ to assign Montana to draw the first issue of Archie (November, 1942). Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Forsythe Jughead Jones. ...

During World War II, Montana spent four years in the Army Signal Corps, drawing coded maps and working on training films with William Saroyan and cartoonists Sam Cobean and Charles Addams. He was stationed at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where, in 1944, he met a 19-year-old Army secretary, Peggy Wherett, from Asbury Park, New Jersey. Married in 1946, they moved to Manhattan, where Montana was soon drawing the daily and Sunday Archie comic strips for 700 newspapers. Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead... The U.S. Army Signal Corps was founded in 1861 by United States Army Major Albert J. Myer, a physician by training. ... William Saroyan, 1940 William Saroyan (August 31, 1908 - May 18, 1981) was an American author who wrote many plays and short stories about growing up impoverished as the son of Armenian immigrants. ... Sam Cobeans humor graced the pages of The New Yorker magazine in the 1940s & 50s. ... Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 - September 28, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters. ... CECOM Crest Fort Monmouth is a United States Army post in Eatontown, New Jersey. ... Map of Asbury Park in Monmouth County Asbury Park is a City in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. ...

Two years later, the couple moved to Meredith, New Hampshire, and bought an old New England farmhouse where they raised four children, organic vegetables, assorted chickens, horses and sheep. The entire family sometimes lived for extended periods in England, Rome and Mexico.

After hours at the drawing table, Montana relaxed by sailing his Friendship sloop, the White Eagle, on Lake Winnipesaukee, and taking ski jaunts through the back country near his home. He died of a heart attack on January 4, 1975, while cross-country skiing in Meredith.

From 1999 to 2003, his daughter, Lynn Montana, of Meredith, along with her sister, Paige Kuether, managed a web site, Archie Prints, to market prints of their father's artwork. The site featured pages from the diary-sketchbook kept by Montana about life in Haverhill High during the late 1930s. The Bob Montana Papers are in the Special Collections at Syracuse University.

External links

• Haverhill cartoonist Bob Montana
• Syracuse University: Bob Montana Papers