Crap. crap and more crap...

Back on the 23rd of January, I posted this:

We interrupt this program...


I just wanted to make a quick point... there are a lot of times when we wish we had said something to someone when we had a chance. This usually happens when a person is no longer around and the choice of saying something is taken away from us.

Growing up, there was a group of writers I was weaned on if you will. Besides all the adolescent standards of Authur C Clarke, Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague De Camp, Robert E. Howard... well I could go on and on. There were also a good group of writers in comics at that time who were coming of age. They were the second generation of Silver Age writers and I eagerly gobbled up their works.

I’m talking about the likes of Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Don McGregor, Steve Englehart, Mike Freidrich, Gary Freidrich, Doug Moench, Tony Isabella and of course Steve Gerber.

Before there was a Grant Morrison, there was Steve Gerber. Whether or not Morrison was influenced by Gerber’s work I can’t say, but I don’t think there would have been a place in mainstream comics for one without the other. Comic book fans of the last decade or two will always talk with amazement over the work of Grant Morrison and I like Morrison’s work quite a bit. I enjoy his work so much that, I will generally figure if Morrison’s name is attached to a project, I’ll want to check it out. Still Gerber did it first. All that wonderfully odd material that came out of Vertigo at one time finds its origins in things like Man Thing, Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown and Foolkiller. Material like Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Shade the Changing Man and Kid Eternity can find some of their origins in Gerber’s work from a decade before.

Void Indigo, something that looks relatively mild given today’s tastes was deemed far too outré to even warrant finishing the series! A few years later it would’ve fit perfectly with the market.

Anyway, not to digress... Steve Gerber has been sick, real sick for some time. It’s the kind of sick where a person is facing their mortality and it becomes a battle.

It‘s at these times I think that a person’s outlook has a lot to do with whether or not they succeed in that battle against disease and I wanted to point people over to Steve Gerber’s blog with the idea that each well wishing comment, helps in some small way in improving the man‘s chances in the battle he‘s in. Steve Gerber is part of a generation of creators we are losing (just off the top of my head John Buscema, Marshall Rogers, Dave Cockrum come to mind) and such a small thing can mean so much.

Well, Steve Gerber passed away just today. He battled pulmonary fibrosis for a long time and it’s a horrible disease to battle with. He left a legacy of characters that speak to his wonderful creative genius and there isn’t much more to say aside from the fact that he will be missed.