Mark Evanier reports the death of comics pioneer Creig Flessel at age 96, following a stroke. Flessel worked in comics from the dawn of the golden age on through Playboy and beyond. Tom Spurgeon has
a lengthy obit with much information:

Flessel was born on Long Island, New York in the town of Huntington at the tail end of a different period in American history than the one where comics would come to prominence exploiting quirks of printing technology and mass distribution networks. Flessel’s father was a blacksmith, and Flessel recalled in later interviews that his family didn’t add indoor plumbing until he was a teen.