'Hope Hazard' (Detective Comics #3, 1937).
Alex Lovy was an American artist and animator who worked for several major animation pioneers in his career, including Van Beuren, Walter Lantz, Columbia Pictures and Hanna-Barbera. Between 1936 and 1937 he drew some adventure comics for National Comics (nowadays DC Comics).
Animation career
Lovy was born in 1913. In 1933 he became a staff animator for the Van Beuren Studios, eventually joining Walter Lantz Productions in 1938, where he co-designed Lantz' first durable star, 'Andy Panda', a year later. He also directed the character's debut cartoon 'Life Begins With Andy Panda' (1939) and various other 'Andy Panda' and 'Woody Woodpecker' shorts until 1948. Between 1942 and 1945 Lovy was drafted when the United States entered World War II. Lovy joined Columbia Pictures in 1948, working on the 'Fox & Crow' series, but after directing five shorts the studio closed down causing his return to Lantz in 1953. He mostly directed cartoons starring the penguin Chilly Willy, including two of four Tex Avery worked on during his brief stay at the studio in 1954-1955. In 1959 he joined Hanna-Barbera as a producer, a storyboard artist, director and supervisor of the voice recordings. When Warner Brothers re-opened its animation department in 1967 after closing it down five years earlier, Lovy took his chances there. For about a year he directed cartoons which teamed up Bob McKimson and Friz Freleng’s Speedy Gonzales’ with Tex Avery’s Daffy Duck, as well as creating new characters such as Cool Cat and Merlin the Magic Mouse. In 1968 he returned to Hanna-Barbera and stayed there until his passing in 1992.
DC Comics
Between 1936 and 1937 Lovy was also active as an artist for the comic books published National/DC Comics. He drew features like 'Slim and Tex', 'Dale Daring', Lieutenant Leeds' and 'Hope Hazard G-Women', which were published in comic books like New Comics, More Fun Comics, Detective Comics and New Adventure Comics.
Alex Lovy and Ray Jacobs at the Lantz Studios around 1958.