Richard Bache Ayers was an American comic book artist and cartoonist best known for his work as one of Jack Kirby's inkers during the late-1950s and 1960s period known as the Silver Age of Comics, including on some of the earliest issues of Marvel Comics' The Fantastic Four. He is the signature penciler of Marvel's World War II comic Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, drawing it for a 10-year run, and he co-created Magazine Enterprises' 1950s Western-horror character the Ghost Rider, a version of which he would draw for Marvel in the 1960s.
Dick Ayers at the April 2008 New York Comic Con
The 1960s Marvel Comics version of Ayer's co-creation, the Western Ghost Rider: Ghost Rider #1 (Feb. 1967). Cover art by Ayers
Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #57 (Aug. 1968). Cover art by penciler Ayers and inker John Severin.
Jack Kirby was an American comic book artist, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew up in New York City and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and editorial cartoons. He entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, predecessor of Marvel Comics. During the 1940s, Kirby regularly teamed with Simon, creating numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics.
Kirby in 1992
Captain America Comics #1 (cover-dated March 1941); cover art by Kirby and Joe Simon
Kirby in the U.S. Army during World War II
Young Romance #1 (Oct. 1947); cover art by Kirby and Simon