Jon St. Ables
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Jon St. Ables a.k.a. Jon Stables (1912 - 1999) was born in Ulverston, England on December 23rd 1912. Jon Stables left school at 13 to follow his father and older brother to Winnipeg and become an artist.
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[edit] First job
With the outbreak of World War II, he ventured west to Victoria, British Columbia and contributed to the war effort as a painter and sign writer for the shipbuilding industry. It was there he met his wife Esther and the pair were married in May, 1942. Shortly after, Stables was hired by Imperial News Ltd. to work for Maple Leaf Comics, one of the first "golden age" publishers of Canadian Comics.
[edit] Comic book creations
Stables worked well with Maple Leaf’s British approach to comics and was considered by many to be its most accomplished artist, signing his work with the nom de plume, St. Ables. His facility with cartooning in the prehistoric Piltdown Pete and adventure strips like Brok Windsor and Bill Speed helped make Maple Leaf titles very prominent in Canadian comics. Soon, Stables took over the art editing chores from Vernon Miller and became the line’s top cover artist. In 1946, Maple Leaf made an effort to launch several syndicated comic strips based on their features Callaghan and Bill Speed but were unable to make significant inroads.
[edit] Later career
With two sons to support, Stables and Esther opened a studio and briefly produced a line of colouring books. In 1950, the family moved to California where Stables attempted to pitch ideas and artwork to Disney. Eventually Stables settled in Seattle, working in the art department at Boeing until retiring in 1975. He died in 1999 at the age of 87.
[edit] Awards
In 2006 Jon St. Ables was inducted into the Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame for his contributions to Canadian comics.
[edit] References
Biographical information collected for the Joe Shuster Awards from the family of Jon Stables and John Bell's book on Canadian Comics.
