KERRY DRAKE

ALFRED ANDRIOLA

Alfred James Andriola (May 24, 1912 - March 29, 1983) was born in New York City and grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. He studied at Cooper Union and Columbia University, intending to become a writer. Instead, following a fan letter he wrote to Milton Caniff, he became his assistant, working with him on Terry and the Pirates and Scorchy Smith.

His first strip was Charlie Chan, 1938–1942, an adaptation of the popular detective novels for the McNaught Syndicate. For five months in 1943 he drew a minor superhero, Captain Triumph, for Quality Comics' Crack Comics.

For a year he drew the strip Dan Dunn with writer Allen Saunders. Dunn ended on October 3, 1943, and the next day their Kerry Drake debuted. Originally a district attorney's investigator, Drake became a municipal police officer when Sandy Burns, his secretary and fiancé, was murdered by Trinket and Bulldozer. As both a DA's man and a city cop, he battled a series of flamboyant villains, including Bottleneck, Mother Whistler and No-Face. It gradually became a soap opera strip focusing on Drake's home life with his wife Mindy and their quadruplets, as Drake's younger brother Lefty, a private eye, took over more of the adventure plots. Andriola was assisted and ghosted by artists Fran Matera, Jerry Robinson and Sururi Gumen, the last of whom shared credit with Andriola starting in 1976. Using the pseudonym Alfred James, he collaborated with Mel Casson on the strip It's Me, Dilly from 1957 to 1960. Kerry Drake was canceled after Andriola died in 1983.