It’s just been confirmed by Mark Evanier on Steve’s blog that Steve Gerber, best known as the comic book writer who created Howard the Duck, died yesterday. He was in the hospital for pneumonia and had been, for the past year or so, a candidate for a lung transplant and afflicted with pulmonary fibrosis. Evel Knievel and Robert Goulet died recently from the same illness.
Within the comics community, Steve was a legendary writer and curmudgeon. While he wrote comics for nearly every major comics publisher, dabbled in animation and scripted a single episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, he’ll always be best known for his long, bickerish and always entertaining relationship with Marvel Comics.
The sad thing is, most people know Howard the Duck from the horrible movie–sorry Gonzomax, but you’re pretty much alone in your opinion–and not the weird and funny comic series.
Some time ago, I went back to read his first issues in the Essential Howard the Duck collection, and they don’t age all that great. However, I highly recommend his 2002 return to the character. Great satire of both comics and culture. I think most Dopers would find it a good read, regardless of whether they even like comic books.
I have to agree with you. The way he rejected conventional story structure made him seem fresh and innovative in 1975, but it’s a little jarring to go back and read it again. HTD#2 (“Space Turnip”) was particularly bizarre; the story’s climax occurred in the second-to-last panel of the last page, followed by a one-panel denouement. The artist of record, Frank Brunner, quit after (I think) page 3, and Jim Starlin and Steve Leialoha struggled to finish up in something approximating the same style. That’s the price of extremely timely satire, though.
I can’t remember anybody being my “favorite writer” before Steve Gerber. As flawed as “The Kid’s Night Out” in GS Man-Thing#4 was, it made a huge impact on 15-year-old me at the time. I feel bad that, at the end of his career with his impending death pretty obvious to everyone but him, he didn’t make a point of writing something more meaningful than another Dr. Fate LS, but none of us really gets to make that kind of choice in the end.
There’s a hard cover omnibus coming in March of all his Howard stuff that was announced a few months ago. I’ve been tempted by it since I generally enjoyed the Essential but you’re right that Gerber’s stuff hasn’t aged well.
That tends to be the fate of the avant garde. He was progressive and original in '75 and as time went by his good ideas were integrated into the mainstream and his bad ones now stick out like a sore thumb. The other big comic book writing Steve of the seventies (Englehart in this case) has the same problem.
I think his Defenders run was the best of his Marvel work. Gerber was a necessary bridge between the silver age and the modern and it’s always sad to hear of the passing of someone so influential to the medium.
Waauugh!
I was one of those weird teenagers who worshiped Marvel, and especially Steve Gerber, during the '70s. Steve’s work on *Man-Thing * are still my favorite comics, ever. His recent work on *Hard Time * was outstanding.
Gerber, like Ellison and Heinlein, was a hero of mine–and the only one I never lost trust in. Now I really, really regret never sending him a letter or a note, just to show my appreciation.
Sure, those original *Howard the Duck * stories haven’t aged well–they were never meant to. But if you read them with the events of the era in mind, they’re wonderful absurdist commentary on the times.
I’m too sad to write anymore.
