Louis Cazeneuve

Luis "Louis" Cazeneuve (August 18, 1908 – August 1977) was an Argentine-born American comic-book artist. He is best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics character Red Raven, and for his prolific work on the DC Comics characters Aquaman, Shining Knight, the Boy Commandos and others during the 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.

His brother, Arturo "Arthur" Cazeneuve (1919–1992), was also a Golden Age comic-book artist, and became an illustrator and assistant art director for the overseas edition of Time magazine in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Louis Cazeneuve, in his native Argentina and under his given name Luis Cazeneuve, drew one of his country's first adventure comic strips, Quique, el Niño Pirata ("Quique, the Pirate Boy"), which appeared both daily and Sunday in the newspaper El Mundo, beginning in 1931 or 1934 (accounts differ). Cazeneuve also drew the adventure strips Aventuras de Caza del Pibe Palito ("Pibe Palito's Hunting Adventures") and Aventuras de Dos Argentinos en un País Salvaje ("Adventures of Two Argentines in a Wild Country") before emigrating to the United States in 1939.

He worked briefly at Eisner & Iger, one of the primary comic-book "packagers" that supplied outsourced comics on demand for publishers at the dawn of the new medium. Shortly thereafter, Cazeneuve, with his artist brother Arthur and Eisner & Iger colleague Pierce Rice, formed a studio that produced freelance art for a number of comics companies.

Cazeneuve's earliest work includes Fox Feature Syndicate's 1940 comic strip Blue Beetle, succeeding Jack Kirby under the house name Charles Nicholas. With writer Joe Simon, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics predecessor Timely Comics, he co-created the character Red Raven — the first Timely/Marvel character to star in his own self-titled series, predating by several months Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941).

From 1940 to 1942, Cazeneuve contributed to a number of Fox titles, drawing the stories introducing the superheroic characters Samson (Samson #1, Fall 1940); the Eagle (Weird Comics #8, Nov. 1940); the Banshee (Fantastic Comics #21, Aug. 1941); and U.S. Jones (Wonderworld Comics #28, Aug. 1941), as well as the villainous protagonist Nagana, Queen of Evil (Fantastic Comics #22, Sept. 1941). Other Fox features for which he either supplied full art or did inking over penciler Pierce Rice, include "Captain Savage, Sea Rover", "Chen Chang" (in Mystery Men Comics), "D-13", "The Flame", "The Green Mask" (under the house name Walter Frame), and "Marga the Panther Woman".

Also during this time he did occasional work for Centaur Publications (the feature "Man of War"), Fawcett Comics ("Atom Blake"), Holyoke Publications ("Blue Beetle"), Lev Gleason Publications ("Dickie Dean"), and Harvey Comics, ( "Dr. Miracle", "Duke O'Dowd", "Robin Hood", and, in Pocket Comics, "Phantom Sphinx").

One source attributes the Fox character Spider Queen to the Cazeneuve brothers under the joint pseudonym Elsa Lesau.