Gordon Bess

Gordon Bess was an American cartoonist best known for creating the comic strip *Redeye*. He was born Gordon C. Bess on January 12, 1929, in Richfield, Utah, and died on November 24, 1989. His path into comics began after high school in Hailey, Idaho, when he enlisted in the Marines in 1947. While serving, he created illustrations and training materials in San Diego, and later, after clearing minefields in South Korea, he became a staff cartoonist and cartoon editor for *Leatherneck Magazine* in Washington, D.C. He left the Corps as a Staff Sergeant in 1956. Following a stint as a commercial artist and an art director for a greeting card company, Bess freelanced cartoons in his spare time. His most recognized work, *Redeye*, a humorous western strip, was syndicated for decades and collected in albums such as *Rødøye* and *Knasen*. Bess married Joanne Vaught in 1955, and the couple lived in Arlington, Virginia, before moving to New Jersey and later Ohio. His work appears in over a dozen credited issues across titles like *Billy*, *Kuifje*, and *Zack Parade*, reflecting a steady, if modest, presence in European comic albums.