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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
RIP Steve Gerber
Hearing the news and reading Tom's eloquent obituary really hit me. Of all the creators in comics Steve Gerber's work was one that hit me personally.
He put so much of his own personality into Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Nevada and other projects that it's hard not feel as invested in those books as he did. That willingness to include both autobiographical and satirical elements into his work was coupled with the unbridled creativity that Gerber had (Mike has an excellent run down on the characters he has given us). When Gerber combined all of his writing might you got something beautiful like Man-Thing issues #5-6, wonderfully drawn by Mike Ploog. A clown forces Man-Thing and his compatriots to reenact the entertainer's tortured childhood. Reading that is like having someone else's strange dream go on inside your head. The same goes for the run in HTD where Howard has a nervous breakdown and is committed to an asylum, featuring the greatest cameos of KISS and Spider-Man ever.
There's a lot of talk of how Gerber expanded the consciousness of comics, which I certainly think he did and I'm glad to see he's given credit for that. Reading his 1978 interview with Gary Groth collected in The Comics Journal Library Vol. 6: The Writers Gerber had a pretty clear view of the limits in comics given what he and other creators had to work with at the time. It was unreal to think that anyone could go beyond a 7 x 10 page or get a better printing process. But Gerber's work soared over its constrictions. Trapped in a world he never made you could say.
His imagination has bigger than what mid-'70s Marvel comics could contain. The results are often a strange combination of personal storytelling disguised as corporate superhero work. That just added to how unique his work could be, I think.
I don't know, I feel I'm just rambling. The only thing I really can do is just put it all out there and let you know why he is work is so important to me. Reading someone with that vision unleash all that energy even given far from ideal circumstances is endlessly inspiring. I'll always treasure his output and I'm very sad that we won't see anything more from him.
Permanent Link: 8:05 AM |
1 comments
Comments:
it is a damn shame. Loved Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown (which I picked up after reading Lethem's "Fortress of Solitude," and loved Hard Time. Its a shame overall
# posted by DavePress : 9:19 PM
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