For many years, there's been a persistent rumor in comics fandom -- debunked in detail
here -- that claims that Martin Landau was a comic book illustrator who went by the name of
Ken Landau, not long before Mr. L. became an actor. Not so. Martin Landau
did, however, work as an illustrator/cartoonist for
The Daily News and later assisted artist Gus Edson on the comic strip
The Gumps when he was a very young man in the mid-to-late 1940s.
So, he worked on comic strips, not comic books. There is a difference, don'tcha know!
And by the way, although he eventually became an actor, Landau never stopped drawing. He painted, he drew caricatures... He just didn't draw professionally.
And here's another (unrelated) little tidbit for you. Years before playing the role of Bela Lugosi (the actor best known for playing Count Dracula, of course), Martin Landau also played the famous count in a 1985 stage production of Dracula. A photo of him in that role ends this post!
Thanks for your time.
