Steve Gerber, R.I.P.
In what is shaping up as a rough year for heroes of my comic-book youth, “Howard the Duck” creator and “Man-Thing” scribe Steve Gerber has died. Gerber wrote the strangest comic-books of his time, ones where cigar-smoking ducks dispensed wisdom and cows were struck by vampirism and Satan’s son was somehow a rebellious hero, and on and on. Thirty years later I still can’t understand what “Omega the Unknown” was really about, but it stuck with me. (And I still have all eight — only eight! — issues.) Mr. Gerber was very kind to me when I interviewed him for my badly mimeographed fanzine circa 1975, and his comics are proving to be kind to my two younger children, who are currently reading their way through his run in “Defenders,” a comic that once featured a supervillain team that included a woman with a red ball for a head and a gorilla with the balding head of an accountant. His work will live on.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Just read the obit on the link you provided. Then I followed a link included there to go to Mark Evanier’s blog and read his heartfelt farewell to Steve Gerber. It’s especially sad because Gerber was still quite active and was one of the few writers with an eccentric take on comics. I resisted buying his recent Countdown to Mystery series because I expect it will be offered as a single volume collection before long. Reading it now will still be enjoyable but also a little sad.