Bob Oksner
artist (1916–2007)

Bob Oksner (October 14, 1916 – February 18, 2007) was an American comics artist known for both adventure comic strips and for superhero and humor comic books, primarily at DC Comics.
Biography
Oksner's early work includes creating the second version of Marvel Boy in 1943 for Timely Comics, the predecessor of Marvel Comics. He later wrote with Jerry Albert and drew the syndicated newspaper comic strip Miss Cairo Jones (1945–1947), after which DC Comics editor Sheldon Mayer hired him as an artist on comics adapted from other media. Oksner drew a few Justice Society of America stories in All Star Comics during his early years at DC. He moved from adventure strips to teen-oriented strips such as Leave It to Binky which debuted in February 1948. Oksner described Leave It to Binky as "the one that I really feel got my feet on the ground at DC. I did that one from the very beginning until it ended [in 1958]." Oksner's work in this field included The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and its successor, The Adventures of Jerry Lewis; The Adventures of Bob Hope; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; Sgt. Bilko; Pat Boone; and Welcome Back, Kotter; and, for the King Features syndicate, the newspaper comic-strip spin-off of the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy. Other work includes drawing the original humor comics Angel and the Ape and Stanley and His Monster.
When the demand for humor comics fell off by the 1970s, Oksner began drawing DC superhero series such as Superman, Supergirl, Shazam!, Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, and Ambush Bug.
Oksner's other work in comic strips included succeeding Gus Edson as writer of artist-creator Irwin Hasen's Dondi for a time beginning in 1965; and drawing and co-creating Soozi (1967), with Don Weldon. He retired from comics in 1986.
The public source identifies “Bob Oksner” as artist (1916–2007). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oksner and artist.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q888174. VIAF identifies the subject as 25891748. The Library of Congress control number is n79138535. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2007, 1943 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bob Oksner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.