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RIP

Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
This is a thread for...talking about comics people that are dead. Writers, artists, editors, whatever. This is where we come to mourn and remember. BYOB.

...

Steve Dillon is dead. I've been going through my shelves and long boxes lately, to see what I actually have of his. A lot of collaborations with Garth Ennis. Preacher stands out, and Hellblazer, and some of the best runs on The Punisher in modern memory. Hitman...just, wow, Hitman. There's a ton more I'll miss, that I'll run across tomorrow or a year from now.

I remember some of the criticisms that fans have leveled over the years. That Dillon's characters tend to have the same faces. There is a certain square-jawed aesthetic that creeps in on a lot of characters. You could usually count on an eyebrow arch at least once an issue. Women tend to be thin with triangular faces, rounded off at the chin. But the same? I don't remember them being the same. I remember thinking "Only Steve Dillon could draw Arseface." I think folks had a tendency to get caught up in the lantern jaws, they never looked at the eyes. Steve Dillon did some of the most expressive eyes in the business. He could nail a squint, or a wide-eyed gape of wonder. Register surprise and anger and the blink in between. I think he's the only person that ever really managed to put the Punisher's thousand-yard stare on paper, or the betrayal as a polar bear's world went wrong...

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...or a seriously pissed rabbit.

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Mostly, though, I'll remember the stories. Because there's a line when boys grow up - I seriously have no idea how it goes with women, but guys look for role models, consciously or unconsciously. The people we want to be like, the people we model our behavior after. And in the stories Dillon drew, the heroes tend to be bastards and the villains tend to be bastards. Jerks with hearts of gold, in terrible worlds, but very human characters. Being human isn't always about being nice. You might see Superman allow himself a small smile of victory. But when John Constantine does it?

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Someone else could have drawn that panel. But it wouldn't have been the same moment. None of it would have been the same. Michelangelo couldn't capture that grin.

I keep looking through the old comics, some of them a little softer than I remember at the edges from use. Trying to find THE MOMENT. The thing that says Dillon to me. I'm not really finding it. There's too much. Too many old memories with his ink-stained fingertips on them.

RIP, Steve Dillon.

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The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos

Posts

  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Paul Ryan died earlier in the year as well, prolific artist of The Phantom comic strip as well as long time Fantastic Four artist and Avengers/Flash penciller.

    It's been said in other mediums but 2016 has been a really bad year for passings.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    I first saw Dillon's art in 2000AD about thirty years ago. He was absurdly good even when he started in his mid-teens, and I don't think anyone ever matched his ability to capture emotion on a face. Wryly amused, exasperated, nervous, sardonic and of course angry as all hell. Want a comic that has nothing more than a couple of people talking at a bar. Dillon was your man to make every panel interesting to look at and to tell the story.

    As well as the other stuff mentioned above I remember his Judge Dredd and his Rogue Trooper vividly. He was also the co-editor of the much-missed Deadline, a superb, subversive comic that ran for a bit in the UK.

    And of course Darwyn Cooke died this year as well. 2016 sucks something awful.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    I don't know if it's been confirmed yet but I read the Dillon died of a goddamn burst appendix.

    Just, fucking hell.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
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    Bernie Wrightson is dead.

    Bernie drew monsters. He drew a lot of other things, too, but let's get this straight: the man could draw a proper monster. A lot of comic monsters are half-assed things. No depth too them. Like shaved gorillas painted pink with a couple horns stuck in random places. I have yet to see another artist that could make moss looking fantastic.

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    He was...I don't want to say "old school." But I remember him from back when horror comics were still somewhere between hokey and edgy. Before the Comics Code Authority gave up the ghost, when the Addams Family and Munsters were the lazy fare, and Hammer Horror was the hardest of the hardcore. I don't want to say all comics art was crap back then, but comics were printed out on bad paper with garish colors that tended to spoil a lot of lines. You had to really be expressive with your characters...and Bernie Wrightson was.

    And he gave us Frankenstein.

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    Bernie Wrightson put the "Art" in "comic book art." 'nuff said.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Hate to bring this thread back but Len Wein died today at the age of 69. One of the most prolific writers who helped create the Giant Sized X-Men team and co-created Wolverine and Swamp Thing, while also being editor of Watchmen who notably quit the project because he felt the ending was ripping off an Outer Limits episode (which was apparently mentioned in Wein's prequel Ozymandias Before Watchmen comic).

    By all accounts he was a great guy and hope he's high fiving all the angels up there, rest in peace.

  • Calamity JaneCalamity Jane That Wrong Love Registered User regular
    Mike Wieringo

    wonderful artist, kind guy. would give people free sketches all the damn time. loved to draw, and had an accessibility and Heart in his work that i love

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    twitter https://twitter.com/mperezwritesirl michelle patreon https://www.patreon.com/thatwronglove michelle's comic book from IMAGE COMICS you can order http://a.co/dn5YeUD
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    edited September 2018
    Norm Breyfogle passed away this week at the age of 58. He had suffered a stroke a few years ago which made it hard for him to continue working, and it's a shame because if you read 90's Batman comics, he had that style that sort of blended what would be the BTAS look and and the post Crisis DC House Style rather well, really nailing the use of shadows and the cowl outline in such an iconic way. And he'll also be known as drawing Batman when Tim Drake first started taking over the mantle of Robin.

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    A real loss, and way too soon.

    TexiKen on
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Carlos Ezquerra died. Co-creator of Judge Dredd and the guy who drew Strontium Dog for the overwhelming majority of its life, the UK comics industry would not be the same today if he hadn't picked up a pen.


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  • XaquinXaquin Right behind you!Registered User regular
    awww man

    I loved Norm Breyfogle

    Batman: Holy Terror was absolutely amazing

  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    edited October 2018
    Ezquerra's Dredd is "the real Dredd" to me; I started reading it back then courtesy of a cousin who's copies I'd borrow whenever we visited, and it's real a shame he's gone.

    djmitchella on
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    I think his Dredd is the one I think of when I'm thinking about the character. Maybe Bolland's Dredd and MacMahon's run it close.

    His Johnny Alpha is utterly definitive, though.

  • djmitchelladjmitchella Registered User regular
    Another 2000AD luminary gone:

    https://2000ad.com/news/kevin-oneill-1953-2022/

    There's a lot of "the artist of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" headlines out there, but for me it'll always be:

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    heck, I remember reading that specific issue at the time, even)

    or

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    though, to be fair, he did a good job on Green Lantern that one time:

    green-lantern-corps-annual-2-1-1.jpg



  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    It's turning out to be a terrible week for comic artists. Apparently Carlos Pacheco has died at 59.

    Kevin O'Neill was drawing a ton of stuff in 2000AD when I was reading it as a kid and it was utterly unique, strange and fascinating. His work on Nemesis is the standout, but he drew some very odd Dredd strips (one included the immortal line "Brown shoes don't make it. Penalty: death!") and the robot story Metalzoic, and was surely a huge influence on whomever was creating the look and feel of Warhammer 40K.

    O'Neill is the only person banned from drawing by the comics code authority not because of what he drew but because of how he drew it. His every line threatened to corrupt and pervert innocent youth! I suspect most artists would kill for such an epitaph.

  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    Hadn't heard that Pacheco had died yet, but I knew that he was diagnosed with ALS earlier this year.

    I don't see him mentioned in this thread, but I posted about it in the DC thread on S&E when it happened: Alan Grant (co-creator of various Batman characters as well as writer on various 2000AD titles) died in July of this year. It's a hard year on 2000AD writers and artists.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Oh man Pacheco hits hard, JLA/JSA Virtue and Vice remains one of the best trades I own and I've always enjoyed his work, from Flash to X-Men to Arrowsmith.

  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    And another great creator has passed away:



    Mostly known for a long, long run on Spider-Man and creating dozens of characters for it, but he has done so much more. Especially a lot of Romance comics before all the big Two turned almost Superhero exclusive.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • HawkstoneHawkstone Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered User regular
    Romita was a titan and nearly every artist you like will tell you he touched their career in some way. One of the kindest most giving teachers and teammates in the business.

    Inside of a dog...it's too dark to read.
  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    And another great one has passed away: Keith Giffen.

    Giffen has done a lot in his career as both artist and writer, both in comics and in other media like TV. In comics, he is mostly known for his run Justice League (and various spin-offs) with J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire, a run on Legion of Superheroes including The Great Darkness Saga with Paul Levitz (and also as a solo writer/artist) and as the (co-)creator of Marvel's Rocket Raccoon and DC's Ambush Bug and Lobo. But this is just a small sample of a career spanning decades.

    In his own words:
    I told them I was sick…

    Anything not to go to New York Comic Con

    Thanx

    Keith Giffen 1952-2023

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    Fuck, this one hurts, Giffen is like the Phil Hartman glue that would keep things together, he's the reason 52 worked. And JLI, Annihilation, Blue Beetle, RIP to a true pantheon member.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod


    Ian Gibson, longtime stalwart of British comics (Halo Jones, Robo-Hunter, Dredd) has died at 77. Halo Jones is probably his crowning achievement, but his style was unmistakeable, influential and beautiful. Halo Jones (along with Ezquerra doing Strontium Dog, Cam Kennedy on Dredd, Glenn Fabry on Slaine and Belardinelli on ACE Trucking) was one of the strips in the first issue of 2000AD I bought over 35 years ago.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited January 2
    Another great whose work was all over 2000AD, John Burns, died over Christmas. His Nikolai Dante at is probably the most memorable, but he drew a great, cranky, aged Dredd.

    Bogart on
  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    Paul Neary died last week after a long illness. Although a writer and penciller in his own right, he's best known as inker on a lot of Alan Davis' work (they won an Eisner for their work on Excalibur) and later on Bryan Hitch work (Authority and Ultimates). He was also the editor-in-chief for Marvel UK.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
  • TexiKenTexiKen Dammit! That fish really got me!Registered User regular
    edited February 15
    Neary made Davis' art timeless, it's why it aged so well compared to someone like Bryan Hitch. Funny enough, the best Hitch art was when Neary also inked him for Ultimates since Hitch was clearly inspired by Davis. RIP.

    TexiKen on
  • Dizzy DDizzy D NetherlandsRegistered User regular
    Yesterday it was anounced that Akira Toriyama died at age 68. Toriyama is one of the best known manga artists, known for Dragonball and for his designs in classic video games like Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger.

    Steam/Origin: davydizzy
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