Who is Ira Schnapp?

I've already discussed the important role that letterers have on comics. As I say, if your lettering is bad, no one will want to read the comic book. But the talents of letterers can extend beyond the comic page. So get ready to meet a DC legend who got to work on Ralph, namely in the last story we covered: Ira Schnapp.

Israel Schnapp was born in Sassow, Austria on October 10, 1894. The next year, his father moved to New York City to begin work as a grocer, eventually bringing his family over in 1900. He had four brothers and two sisters who were born after the move. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1913.

Schnapp's talent for designing letters was quickly put to use as he revealed that he designed the lettering for the James A. Farley Post Office Building, constructed from 1908 to 1912. On his World War I draft cared, he said he was employed for the W.T. Slide Company, which created title screens for silent films. While no credits to his name are known through the 1920s, this was work that usually went uncredited. In the 1930s, he would be designing lobby cards and posters for films, including displays for King Kong's premiere at Radio City Music Hall.

After working for publishers and advertisers, Schnapp began working for a relative of his wife: Jack Liebowitz, who along with Harry Donenfield was publishing pulp magazines. They eventually acquired National Comics. While people believe Schnapp designed the logo for Action Comics, he claimed his first work for DC was the Superman logo, which he revised from the original by Joe Shuster. The logo was revised in the 1980s to round out many of the letters, but the logo's style used to this day is the same that Schnapp designed for DC.

Schnapp became instrumental for DC throughout the years, designing logos and advertisements and lettering when available for a wide range of their titles. His design work is credited as making DC titles an exciting seller for young readers.

One work of Schnapp's appeared on hundreds of comic books by many publishers over the years: he designed the Comics Code Authority seal.

In 1966, DC's logo design duties were transferred over to Gaspar Saladino, who fondly called Schnapp "Mr. DC." Schnapp remained employed by DC for two more years, mainly as a professional courtesy, before the company retired him. Neal Adams claimed that Schnapp had been sent home to die, and Saladino said that when Schnapp left DC, it was as if he'd never been there.

Schnapp died of a heart attack on July 24, 1969. DC did not officially note his passing. He was survived by his wife Beatrice and their children Theresa and Martin.

I only briefly talked about Schnapp's work here as in researching, I came across two lengthy pieces documenting his life and works. If you're interested in reading more, I highly recommend them. The first is a feature on Dial B For Blog, which focuses mainly on Schnapp's work. The other is a series of blogs by Todd Klein which go indepth about the details of Schnapp's life. Enjoy these two tributes to a true DC legend who was confirmed to have worked with the Elongated Man at some point during his career.