(updated)
I borrowed a machine to post this.
Obits are almost impossible for me to write. So this will suck. The more the person affected my life, the harder. And then there were people like Steve Gerber. He wrote comic books. I didn’t collect comic books. I tried, but collecting comes hard to me. I read comic books. I tried to read everything he wrote in the 70s. I owned most of it. I had every one of the first issues in the links. And I wasn’t a collector, they weren’t in sleeves, they were dogeared and worn.
Yes, Virginia, it was a simpler world. Comics weren’t art, they were ephemera (hell, we didn’t even know that word back then). I had to hide them from my parents till I moved out, then I had to hide them from my room mates (they lived inside back issues of Interface Age and KiloBaud). Comic books were for kids.
By the time they were art, it was mostly because of people like Steve Gerber, in part because of his writing, in part because of the lawsuit mentioned in the links. The lawsuit was one of the first times intellectual property popped into the pop consciousness.
I really liked Howard the Duck. I even read the newspaper version. I wish I’d cut those out. I liked his run on The Defenders, and The Guardians of The Galaxy (even though I kinda hated the premise). His work on Man-Thing gave us Howard the Duck, and in my mind set up the success Alan Moore would have with Swamp Thing in DC (I’m among the people that argue that Gerber was the first to “deconstruct” the super hero in general, and his work leads to Moore’s brilliant Watchmen). And yes, I even had the first issue of Omega the Unknown. I didn’t like the series as much, but I thought I could see where it was going and had great fun rewriting it in my head.
Steve created Howard the Duck, Steve sued Marvel over ownership of Howard. We all sided with Steve. I quit reading comics for years, and missed the real golden age (Jerry says they call it the Platinum Age, whatever). But I didn’t want to put money in the pocket of the Man who was putting Steve down. Yeah, it was a much simpler world. (and it took me a few years to catch back up 
)
Yup, it was a much simpler world and there was a cigar smoking duck in Cleveland, with a hot human girl friend. A duck who would run for President as head of the All-Night Party. A duck who made more sense then anything else going on. A duck who was Trapped In A World He Never Made…
Goodbye Steve.
Mark Evanier’s obit. Mark has taken over Steve’s blog, more obit links over there.
The Comic’s Reporter obit.
(Thanks to The Reel Jeff over at Hell’s Donut House for the pointer.)
