Janice Valleau Winkleman, a Ponte Vedra resident and comic book artist who worked on classics including the Archie Comics franchise, broke into the industry at a time when few women drew comics. She died Sunday at age 90 after a time in hospice.
Winkleman illustrated Smash Comics in New York City during the 1930s, said her son Daniel Winkleman, a Jacksonville Beach resident.
Her drawings appeared in “Betty and Veronica,” “Young King Cole” and “Toni Gayle” comics, among many others.
A loving and reserved woman, her children said Winkleman didn’t brag about her success, even though she helped create books that became staples of countless children’s bedside tables.
“To me, I’m proud of her for being able to do that,” her son said. “She made more than most men made, even in New York City in the ’50s.”
Her daughter, Ellie Winkleman, of New York City, grew up reading the comics that her mother illustrated.
“She was very modest about her accomplishments, for sure,” she said. “I used to read Archie Comics growing up, and it wasn’t until I was 8 or 9 … that she told me she actually drew them.”
Winkleman was born on Nov. 6, 1923, and raised in New Jersey suburbs just outside New York City.
She met her husband, Edward, on an evening cruise along the banks of the city.
“As the story has it, he was talking with people and she walked up,” Daniel Winkleman said, “and he said, ‘I’d like for you to meet my wife,’ and that was the first time he’d ever met her.”
They’d laugh the joke off that night, but within about six months they were engaged, Ellie Winkleman said. Over the course of their 61-year marriage, they’d have four children: Daniel, Dale, Ellie and Steve.
They relocated to Pittsburgh in the mid-1950s when the steel company her husband worked for was bought out by the United States Steel Corp., said her daughter, Dale Campbell, of Orlando.
She continued to draw comics for a while but stopped around the early 1960s, spending her time raising her children.
But she remained an active artist and practiced watercolor, painting personalized Christmas cards when her children were young and crafting intricate waterfront settings during her retirement years in Florida, Dale Campbell said.
Winkleman and her husband moved to Ponte Vedra in 1983 for retirement, often entering her watercolor paintings in local competitions. He died about four years ago, their children said.
She is survived by three of her four children, Ellie Winkleman, Dale Campbell and Daniel Winkleman, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The funeral will be private, and her family asks for any donations to be made to Community Hospice’s Anne and Donald McGraw Center for Caring.
Author Meredith Rutland: (904) 359-4161
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-12-13/story/ponte-vedra-woman-was-among-female-pioneers-comic-book-industry#ixzz2nVYY1amK
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