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A contemporary of the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics artists, who died way too young, was Bill Everett (May 18, 1917 – February 27, 1973) , who died at the age of 55.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Everett


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Everett was acclaimed and drawing comics at the beginning of the Golden Age, particularly for Timely/Marvel, co-creating Sub-Mariner in MARVEL COMICS in 1939 and continuing on the serieson into the 1940's.
I've also seen reprints of horror stories Everett did in the 1950's era.

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Everett came back to Marvel in 1966-1967, regularly doing the Submariner feature in TALES TO ASTONISH.

And doing occasional beautiful fill-in inks over Kirby pencils during Kirby's THOR run, on issue 143, Aug 1966 (that Stan Lee included in ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS for his Thor chapter, over any of the 60 or so inked by Vince Colletta).
And Everett also later inked issues 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175 and 176, in 1969-1970.

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At the time I first began collecting comics, Everett did a backup pirate story in FEAR 10 (Oct 1972), "Spell of the Sea Witch" pencilled by Jack Katz and inked by Everett (credited with pirate-sounding pseudonyms of "Jay Hawk, and Black Bill"), an issue that is still a favorite of mine, a modestly great story.
And Everett was back illustrating and sometimes writing SUB-MARINER in his own series at the time of his death in 1973.

As Wikipedia cites:

Quote
Everett even returned to his enduring character, first inking Namor's adventures in Tales to Astonish #85–86, then taking over full artistic duties for issues #87–91 and #94, and penciling issues #95–96 [Nov 1966 - Oct 1967].
He then did complete stories – writing, penciling and inking – on SUB-MARINER #50–55 and 57 (June 1972 – Nov. 1972; Jan. 1973), with script assists by Mike Friedrich on two issues; and #58 (Feb. 1973), co-written with Steve Gerber and co-penciled with Sam Kweskin as his health began to deteriorate for the final time. He co-wrote and inked Sub-Mariner #59 (March 1973), plotted #60 (April 1973), and co-wrote, co-penciled (with fellow Golden Ager Win Mortimer), and co-inked #61 (May 1973).[14]
He had also been announced to draw an issue of Marvel Team-Up starring Spider-Man and the Sub-Mariner, but, according to one contemporaneous report, "was not able to finish this one before his death."[24]

Editor Roy Thomas explained on the letters page of Sub-Mariner #61,

  • As you've no doubt noticed from the first three pages of this issue, Everett was back…and better than ever! And then, with only those three pages completed, [he] took ill. And, sad to say, it's the kind of illness that's going to keep him off Sub-Mariner (or any mag) for a month or two to come."[25]


Despite Thomas's optimistic tone, that would be Everett's last work on the series. His final efforts on the character he created were five pages of pencils, inked by fellow Golden Ager Fred Kida, that appeared posthumously in SUPER-VILLAIN TEAM-UP issue 1 (Aug. 1975).[14]



Like Dave Cockrum, I actually think Bill Everett's nicest work was as an inker rather than as a penciller.
But in either category, Everett has secured a solid place in comics history.