Comic artist Tod Smith, known for runs on Vigilante and Omega Man, died on May 14, 2025, following a long illness. He was 72 years old.

Smith was a guitarist who originally sought a career in music before he turned to art and attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. After attending for a year and half he moved on to the Dick Giordano/Frank McLaughlin workshop. For a year, he did backgrounds for the two artists, and others like Mike DeCarlo and Gil Kane, then got his first credit assisting DeCarlo on DC Comics Presents Annual #2.

He started working regularly in DC’s Special Projects titles, which included inking the Masters of the Universe minicomics that were sold with the action figure toy line. In 1983, he became the main artist on Omega Man, working on the title from issue 7 to issue 23. Then he moved on to providing the art for Vigilante, which included the introduction of Peacemaker, and then drew the Peacemaker miniseries. After that, he was the artist on the Green Lantern feature in Action Comics Weekly.

In ’89, he made the move to Marvel, first doing fill-in work before joining Punisher books. Smith briefly drew Punisher War Journal, and provided the art for Punisher: No Escape, which included a team-up with USAgent. He and Chuck Dixon collaborated on a Green Hornet series at Now Publishing, and he returned to Marvel to do backups in What If? issues starring Spider-Man and the X-Men. During that time, he became the regular penciler on Darkhawk, staying with the title until 1995.

His later work included drawing issues of the Elvira series at Claypool and penciled the Zorro newspaper strip. Davis did some work at Archie, including working on the publisher’s “New Look” series that changed the long-running Archie house style. He continued working as a freelancer, did commissions, and drew educational books.