Former DC Comics chief Jacob S. "Jack" Liebowitz died Monday, Dec. 11, in Great Neck, New York at the age of 100. The cause of death was not immediately announced.

Jenette Kahn, president and editor in chief of DC Comics, said, "Jack Liebowitz was the best of his generation, one of the extraordinary entrepreneurs who not only helped found DC Comics but the comics industry itself. He was, in addition, the most successful of his generation, taking DC public in 1961 under the title National Periodical Publications. Mr. Liebowitz later pulled off his most foresighted coup, selling DC Comics to Steven J. Ross. He remained continuously active, coming in to his office at Warner Communications every day and serving on the Warner Board until he was past 90.

"We are forever grateful to Mr. Liebowitz for his risk-taking and his prescience and we will miss his lifelong commitment to the companies he helped launch," she said.

According to DC Publicity Manager Peggy Burns, Liebowitz was born in Russia, October 10, 1900. In late 1937, Liebowitz and his partner, Harry Donenfeld, purchased the comic-book-publishing assets of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson at a bankruptcy auction and founded the company today known as DC Comics Inc.

A few months later, in 1938, DC began publishing Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in Action Comics, and so began the creation of a multimedia and merchandising empire founded in large part on the work of the two young men from Cleveland.

At the time of Siegel's death in 1996, Liebowitz recalled how he came to publish Superman: "We were going to publish a [new] magazine," he said, "Didn't have any material because in those days there weren't any writers or artists available easily. So I asked McClure [McClure Newspaper Syndicate] if they had any material ready, if they had any material lying around. And they sent over a lot of stuff. Big bunch of stuff. In there was the Superman, six panels. They [the strips] were prepared for a newspaper syndication, which they [the syndicates] turned down. Which every syndicate turned down. We picked it up, we liked it, enlarged it into a 13-page story, and off she went." In 1939, DC began publishing Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in Detective Comics and by 1940, a flood of superhero comic book titles was inundating newsstands across the country, many of the most popular published by DC.

Liebowitz made a fortune in the comic-book and licensing business and turned some of his wealth toward philanthropy, becoming one of the founders of New York's Long Island Jewish Hospital.

He took over the reins of the company after Donenfeld's death in the early 1960s, ultimately selling DC to a company that later became Warner Communications, and taking a seat on its Board of Directors. Warner Communications later acquired Ted Turner's cable TV operations (including Cable News Network) and subsequently merged with Time Life to become Time Warner, one of the largest media empires in the world. Time Warner is currently seeking US government approval to merge with Internet service provider America Online. If approved, the new company will be called AOL Time Warner.

Liebowitz is survived by his wife and two daughters.

A full obituary appeared in The Comics Journal #230.

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