Joseph Hugh Messerli was an artist from Kingsville, Texas. He began his career at the age of 18, assisting Charlie Plumb, Fred Fox and Roger Armstrong on the 'Ella Cinders' comic strip for United Feature Syndicate. He served in Korea from 1950 to 1952 and then attended Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. During this period, he also ghosted Clifford McBride's 'Napoleon and Uncle Elby' strip for Mirror Enterprise Syndicate (1953-56). Later in the 1950s, he assisted Al Wiseman on 'Dennis the Menace' comic books.
Besides comics, Messerli worked at UPA Studios (where he designed the first 'Twilight Zone' logo) and NBC Burbak Graphic Arts Department. During the 1960s he was the inker and letterer of Gene Hazelton's 'Flintstones' and 'Yogi Bear' Sundays and dailies. During the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, he did comic book art for Western Publising based on characters of their own, like the baby elephant 'Baby Snoots', but also funny animals from different companies. Among them were Walter Lantz's 'Andy Panda', Hanna-Barbera's 'The Flintstones' and 'Cave Kids', Friz Freleng's 'The Pink Panther' and the Looney Tunes characters 'Bugs Bunny', 'Porky Pig', 'Daffy Duck' and 'Yosemite Sam'. For Western Publishing he also created celebrity comics based on The Three Stooges. In the 1990s he made illustrations for Sesame Street Magazine and colouring books featuring the same characters of Jim Henson's iconic children's TV show.
He also did art for Western Publishing's coloring and activity books, the Little Golden Books collection and Marvel's children's books with 'Flintstone Kids', 'Foofur' and 'Scooby Doo'. Messerli was an inker for Marvel's 1990s Disney title The Disney Afternoon and an artist for DC's Warner Bros magazines.
