- Kubert helped create the DC Comics character Sgt. Rock
- He started a school for comic artists in 1976
- Kubert died Sunday of multiple myeloma
(CNN) -- Joe Kubert, the DC Comics artist who started a school to train future illustrators, has died at age 85, a school official said Monday.
Kubert died Sunday of multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks bone marrow, said Mike Chen, the academic director of the Kubert School in Dover, New Jersey. He was one of the creators of the long-running "Sgt. Rock," which followed a U.S. infantry squad in World War II, and "Enemy Ace," which told stories of both world wars from the perspective of a German fighter pilot.
"We're very saddened at the loss of our founder and our guide," Chen told CNN. "He was the heart and soul of the school. If it wasn't for him and his wife Muriel Kubert, there would be many, many cartoonists in the field both here in the United States and abroad that would not be in cartoons."
Kubert started the school in 1976 and was still drawing for DC up until his death, contributing to a recent series of prequels to the 1986 graphic novel "Watchmen." In a statement issued Monday, DC co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio offered "our prayers, our sympathy and our deepest appreciation for everything he's contributed to comics over the course of his life and career."
DC, like CNN, is a division of communications conglomerate Time Warner.
