Gerald Lazare to be inducted into Joe Shuster Comic Hall of Fame

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North Yorker Gerald (Gerry) Lazare will get a hero's welcome on Saturday night, when he and three of his peers are inducted into Joe Shuster Comic Hall of Fame.

Lazare was among the first Canadian comic book illustrators, embarking on that part of his career in the 1940s at the tender age of 16. He drew and wrote nine separate comic strips, including such titles as Nitro, The Wing, The Dreamer, Drummy Young and Air Woman, for Golden Age comic publisher Bell Features. While he has always had both a knack and a passion for art, he fell into comic illustration purely by accident.

"During the Second World War, there was an embargo at the border and American books couldn't come into the country," he said. "That's when a group of people started up our own comic book industry in Canada, and I guess I'm one of the few left from that Golden Age period."

Lazare enjoyed the freedom he had working for Bell Features. Unlike current comics, which often have an artist and a writer who work together to create the finished product, comic illustrators in those days had almost complete creative control over their work.

"It was really an artist/writer kind of thing, which is a dream job," he said. "They didn't tell you what to do; you'd go home and come back to them with ideas, which they'd either like or they wouldn't. It's more your creation and you really are more invested in the work."

He wrote strips that reflected his own interests, with Air Woman, a strip revolving around a Canadian woman in the Air Force, the only one that had the war as a major part of the storyline.

"My other strips were only incidental to the war," he said. "Like any writer, what I wrote was a bit autobiographical, so it would come through from time to time, but (the Second World War) was never a real focus for me."

By the time American comics were once again able to make it across the border, which all but doused the Canadian comic industry, Lazare had already moved on to illustrating for magazines.

"I wasn't a born comic artist, so I moved into something that was more in line with what I wanted to be doing," he said.

Nonetheless, the McNicoll Avenue and Leslie Street-area resident will always have a soft spot in his heart for his early beginnings as a professional artist. He is pleasantly surprised at the enduring popularity of his strips among comic strip collectors and aficionados. Works that earned him $6 a page now sell on the open market for $400 to $500.

"I never dreamt that anyone would care all these years later about what I did when I was a teen," he said. "When you're young, you don't think in those terms, but now you look back and think, 'Wow.'"

He also produced historical pieces for the provincial and federal governments in the 1970s. Some of his paintings of Toronto are on display at city hall. His works have garnered him acclaim and awards such as New York City's Newington Award and the Salmagundi Award for portraiture. The painter specializes in urban scenes, which have earned him a great deal of recognition in New York.

"In Canada, we're very big on landscapes, so I think with my work being more urban, they know me just as well down there as they do up here," he said.

Lazare is still working as a painter, sharing studio space in his North York home with his wife Setsuko. Though his career focus has shifted, he remains humbled by the fact that his comic strips still garner such attention.

"I'm very thankful - and who wouldn't be - that people still collect them," he said. "I guess they're a part of history."

Lazare will receive a Joe Shuster Award, a prize named for the Canadian creator of Superman and given to noteworthy Canadian comic book creators, publishers and retailers, this Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Holiday Inn on King at 370 King St. W. The Joe Shuster Award will also mark his entry into the hall of fame. Some of his fine art can be seen on his website at www.lazarestudio.com.