Steve Gerber, R.I.P.

Brian Doherty | February 12, 2008

In the 1970s, Steve Gerber was Marvel Comics' most consistently interesting writer. He is dead at age 60. Tom Spurgeon at his Comics Reporter site has an excellent obituary, both telling the story of Gerber's career in detail and explaining his achivements. The summation:

Steve Gerber's role as one of the best and emblematic writers of his generation can't be overstated. He was a crucial figure in comics history. Like some of the all-time great cartoonists of years past, Gerber carved a place for self-expression and meaning out of a type of comic that had no right to hold within itself so many things and moments that were that quirky and offbeat and delicately realized -- except that Gerber made it so. His Howard the Duck comics remain amusing when read today, perhaps more poignant now, laying into their broad targets in a way that communicated a kind of critical consciousness into the minds of many devoted superhero comics readers, fans that simply wouldn't have been exposed to those kinds of ideas any other way, the concept that media might lie to you, the notion of absolute self-worth in the face of a world that seems dead-set against it. Steve Gerber's superhero books were a tonic to the over-seriousness of most of their cousins, and his horror-adventure books were frequently classy and reserved in a genre that tends to reward the blunt and ugly. No creator save Jack Kirby has as a cautionary tale and a living example saved so many creators the grief of turning over their creations without reward or without realizing what they had done. Few creators in the American mainstream were as consistently fascinating as Steve Gerber. Even fewer have been as outspoken and forthright, or in that way, as admirable.

Much of Gerber's best work is still in print in wonderfully affordable black and white reprints. Start with Essential Defenders Vol 2, Essential Howard the Duck, and Essential Man-Thing, and the color reprint volume of Omega the Unknown (currently being "covered" by novelist Jonathan Lethem in a new Marvel series).

Comments

Jim Starlin|2.12.08 @ 2:34PM|#

Forgetting someone, are we?

|2.12.08 @ 2:43PM|#

Jim's sockpuppet, you were great. So was Englehart, and so was McGregor, and so were, at least some of the time, Wolfman and Thomas and Wein (and others I'm forgetting). But for range and imagination--from Man Thing to Omega to Howard to (my favorite) Defenders---Steve was The Man.

|2.12.08 @ 2:56PM|#

R.I.P. Steve. Loved his work with The Defenders.

Whoever knows fear, burns at the Man Things touch.

|2.12.08 @ 3:31PM|#

Comic books, the one hallmark of the geek I could never get into. Except for Howard the Duck. I didn't fall for it hard enough to seek it out, but the issues I chanced upon were quite enjoyable.

Which reminds me. Everyone involved with the movie should burn in hell for all eternity.

|2.12.08 @ 10:02PM|#

Somewhat related, I thought it was sad that John Alvin died. He designed a lot of the movie posters I remember, and his styled has been mocked so much it must have put a smile on his face.

Todd Frye|2.13.08 @ 8:10AM|#

I think it would have been cool if Gerber had been killed by a gun-wielding elf. Or a chick with a ruby orb for a head.

Rest in peace to the writer of one of my most favorite 70's comics.