In his 43 years at Archie Comics Dan DeCarlo established the definitive look for teen humour comics, as well as creating some of their most memorable characters. In the process, he became the comic artist whose work was perhaps the most widely seen internationally, ever.

Born in 1919, the son of a landscape gardener, DeCarlo attended New Rochelle High School and went on to the Art Students' League for three years before being drafted in to the Army in 1941. Shipped over to Britain as a driver, he was soon promoted to assistant draftsman, which involved a little drafting for Uncle Sam and a lot of drawing birthday cards to order, painting pin-ups on fighter planes and, later, producing a company comic strip (the 418th Scandal Sheet). After D-Day, his company was shipped to Belgium, where he met a French girl, Josette Dumont, on a blind date: smitten, he overcame a complete lack of French through the use of cartoons. The couple married the following year.

DeCarlo was married, with a pregnant wife, and a laborer working for his father when he began to pursue a professional art career Circa 1947, answering an ad, he broke into the comic book industry at Timely Comics, the 1940s iteration of Marvel Comics. Under editor-in-chief Stan Lee, his first assignment was the teen-humor series Jeanie. DeCarlo went uncredited, as was typical for most comic-book writers and artists of the era, and he recalled in 2001, "I went on with her maybe ten books. They used to call me 'The Jeanie Machine' because that was all Stan used to give me, was Jeanie.... Then he took me off Jeannie and he gave me Millie the Model. That was a big break for me. It wasn't doing too well and somehow when I got on it became quite successful."

In addition to his comic-book work, DeCarlo drew freelance pieces for the magazines The Saturday Evening Post and Argosy, as well as Timely/Atlas publisher Martin Goodman's Humorama line of pin-up girl cartoon digests.

DeCarlo in the late 1950s and early 1960s modernized the looks of Archie Comics' teen-humor characters to their contemporary appearance, and established the house style. As well, he is the generally recognized creator of the teen-humor characters Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, and Cheryl Blossom.

DeCarlo won the National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book in 2000 for Betty & Veronica. He was nominated for the Shazam Award for Best Penciller (Humor Division) in 1974. He is cited, along with fellow Archie artist Harry Lucey and others as being a strong artistic influence on alternative comics creators Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, two of the three sibling co-creators of the long-running series Love and Rockets.

"He's been described as the Jack Kirby of teen humor comics, and that's pretty accurate," says Bongo's Bill Morrison, "But I'd go in a different direction calling him the Carl Barks of teen humor books. Even as a kid I knew looking at Dan's work that it was something special. Carl was the good ducks artist. Dan was the good Archie artist. There was always this added mixture of sex appeal, humor ... the way he laid out a story was so clear and concise, but really brilliant."

DeCarlo, who lived near New Rochelle in Scarsdale, New York, died at the age of 82, on the 18th of December, 2001. The cause was pneumonia, said his wife, Josie. Some press reports listed heart attack. He was predeceased by his twin sons, Dan Jr. and Jim, who assisted their father as inkers. Mr. DeCarlo is survived by his wife, Josie, and two grandchildren.