After looking up ol' Shelly I came away with much appreciation for this great man. He was there when the groundwork for the Golden Age of Comics in America was being laid as a uncredited ghost artist. Luckily, the comic book world discovered his contributions and he received recognition later in his life before passing at 91 years of age.
Sheldon Moldoff, who drew some of the most recognizable superheroes of comic books’ golden age without receiving recognition in his own right until decades later, died on Feb. 29 near his home in Lauderhill, Fla. He was 91.
The cause was complications of kidney failure, his daughter, Ellen Moldoff Stein, said.
Mr. Moldoff drew covers for the first appearances of the characters Flash and Green Lantern in 1940 and some of the earliest renderings of Hawkman. He also contributed to the first issue of Action Comics, in which Superman was introduced (though he did not draw the Man of Steel).
But he is probably remembered most for his work as a ghost artist on Bob Kane’s Batman from 1953 to 1967.
“He would get the script, give it to me, and I would lay it out, finish it, pencil it up and give it back to him,” Mr. Moldoff told The Asbury Park Press in 1999. “Now, being a ghost, you don’t say anything to anybody. You just work for your boss and that’s it. So Bob took all the credit.”
Mr. Moldoff used a distinctive cartoonish style that complemented the often-bizarre Batman plots of the 1950s and ’60s. He created some of the oddest characters ever to grace Gotham, like Zebra Batman, Ace the Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite. Among his hundreds of Batman covers is one showing Batman carrying Robin’s body for a two-part 1963 story called “Robin Dies at Dawn.” (The Boy Wonder pulls through.) But at a time when most artists went uncredited, Mr. Moldoff’s signature was never attached to the work.
Mark Evanier has a blog piece detailing some of Sheldon Moldoff's work.
Shelly Moldoff was one of the artists who worked on the historic Action Comics #1 (1938) which featured the first appearance of Superman. He didn’t work on the Superman material in that issue but he did have artwork in what some call the most important comic book ever published. And he was the last surviving person who did.
Shelly Moldoff worked as an assistant and ghost artist to Bob Kane on the earliest Batman stories that appeared in Detective Comics.
Shelly Moldoff drew the cover of Flash Comics #1 (1940) which introduced the original Flash to the world.
Shelly Moldoff drew the cover of All-American Comics #16 (1940) which introduced the original Green Lantern to the world.
Shelly Moldoff was the artist of the original Hawkman feature beginning with the character’s fourth appearance and continuing for several years.
Shelly Moldoff was by some accounts the inventor of the horror comic book, having proposed the idea to EC Comics publisher William Gaines before Gaines came out with his own Tales From the Crypt.
Shelly Moldoff was the ghost artist for Bob Kane on the Batman comic book stories and covers that Kane allegedly drew between 1953 and 1967. He also worked for DC Comics directly, often as an inker of covers on all their key titles including the Superman books.
Shelly Moldoff also worked for Kane as the main artist/designer of the animated TV series, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse.
Shelly Moldoff was a very nice man and as you can tell, a very important person in the history of the American comic book.