Steve Gerber dies

[fpb]

Steve Gerber was one of the most important comics writers of all time, the first to show that a writer could be a major creative force in his own right. He worked mostly with minor artists (with the exception of Gene Colan in Howard the Duck and Daredevil), but his stories made their mark independently of their ability, which had never been the case before him. He never did, in my view, achieve a series that was a whole, coherent, successful piece of work; on the other hand, everything he did simply groaned with possibilities, suggestive ideas, thought, originality. You could not get up from reading a story by him without having a dozen new ideas, and a different slant on narrative art itself. Many of his contemporaries understood his impact: Marv Wolfman, a highly successful and well-regarded writer himself, once said that "if I could write one story half as good as "A boy's night out" (from Gerber's Man-Thing), "I would be happy." Basically a satirist, and like many satirists a conservative at heart, he was incredibly innovative in everything to do with writing, and may well be said to have opened the road to Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. I will miss him deeply.

Comments

[jezreelite.livejournal.com]

A good tribute, but really... PARAGRAPH BREAKS ARE YOUR FRIEND.