As you all know, Steve Jobs died this last week. You also know, or should from everything that has been said about him since he died, that he co-founded Apple and was the visionary that brought us the iPhone, the iPad, the iPod and the computer on which I’m writing all this. Some have compared him to Einstein or Edison and, considering the influence he’s had or will continue to have, I think the comparison is apt.

Here’s some of what Steve Jobs said about death from his commencement address to Stamford University in 2005. He’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, had surgery, and hoped he had escaped it. Jobs was a reflective person, however, and talked about what the experience had taught him.

“Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new… Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

“And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

That’s profound advice for anyone who wants to be a writer, who wants to be any kind of artist. Jobs was an artist, in my opinion, and his medium was Apple.

This has had a special reverberation for me as well. I’ve been spending the week dealing with an irregular heartbeat. My heart sometimes goes ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. . . .ba-DUMP. We’ve all heard the phrase of how something or someone made your heart skip a beat. Well, mine has and I can tell you it’s not romantic; it’s a little scary.

Yes, I’ve been to the doctor(s) and there’s been a bunch of tests and there will be more to come. I’m told it’s not a heart attack. The initial diagnosis is palpitations. I’m one attack of the vapors from becoming a Southern Belle.

While this is something to pay attention to (and I am), it doesn’t appear to be dangerous at the moment. At the same time, it’s made me reflective of the fact that I am mortal and I will die. I’ve had a relationship with death all my life and I think it’s shaped me for the better. As a boy, any number of my relatives died by the time I was ten. I spent a lot of time at wakes and funerals. I saw dead people – ones I had known as living folks.

I lived across the street from our church and one bright summer morning I was on my bike in front of my house when a funeral cortege passed by heading to the front of the church. As I watched the hearse go by, I got the sense that someday the positions would be different. I would be in a hearse and some ten-year old kid would watch me pass by. As Jobs said, the old replaced by the new and that everything new eventually becomes old.

All those deaths – ones close to me like my father or my late wife, Kim, or of heroes like the Kennedys or John Lennon – have become part of me. It’s like the way artists use negative space to define objects. Death helps define life. Death has helped me define life for myself, it has entered into my writing and given it resonance.

Too often in comics we treat death as a plot device; the hero dies, the hero comes back. The grave has a revolving door. It’s a stunt to sell more books. I’ve done it myself. Some times it’s valid but it happens too often so that the death of a character really doesn’t mean anything anymore. Does that keep comics juvenile? Does it keep them from having any real resonance?

The medium itself is having death pangs in so many ways. Comic books shops are dying; print as a medium may be dying. Denny O’Neil once remarked to me that comics as a medium doesn’t have to exist; it can also be mortal. It can die.

Or it can change. The old parts die out and then get reborn. As Steve Jobs noted, death clears out the old to make way for the new. Maybe comics can benefit from a little death. It’s good to remember: nothing and no one lasts forever. That what gives life its poignancy and its value. Enjoy what you have while you have it. Love those you love while they’re here. Celebrate life; value death.

Life’s too short to read bad comics.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

This past weekend I was graced with the presence of ComicMix EIC/Columnist/Cranky Elderly Statesman Mike Gold. He invited me out for a brisket sandwich and conversation. For those not in the know, Gold and I are Jews – and as such, after circumcision, Bar Mitzvah, and a wedding to a Jewish bride, “brisket and conversation” is the next milestone in the Hebrew circle of life. In a day I’ll not forget for a good long while, we waxed poetic on a bevy of topics. It was like “Tuesday’s With Morrie,” except no one was dying. One point that seemed to come up again and again revolved around the state of the comic book industry. And when the dust had settled, and my brisket was fully digested, it came to me. There’s plenty of good going on in comics today, but for all the bad the finger of shame is pointed heavily at the editors’ desks.

What is a comic book editor? Well, he or she is many things to many people. To artists and writers, they are the boss. They assemble the parts, and roll out the final product. They help dot i’s, cross t’s, and make constructive criticism to ensure that the book that hits the shelf is the best it could be. To the fans, they are mysterious figure-heads who get their names right under the talent on the title page. They are the kings at conventions, giving sage advice one minute, and spinning bad fan-reaction the next. In the days before the Internet they were the keepers of secrets – the walking Wikipedias of their brands.

And today? They are that and more. Constructors of continuity, ruiners of rumors, and dolers of dreams. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. Has their hubris finally caught up with them? I offer some proof, by way of my all-powerful-never-wrong-because-I’m-a-columnist opinion.

How about the Epic Cross-Over of Infinite Magnitude! The first time it happened it sure must have been novel. Upend the whole universe and throw all the heroes together in a big fight. Sounds cool, right? Sure. And I bet it sold like hot cakes. A chance to see Spider-Man, Captain America, The Thing and Ben Gallagher all fight Dough Boy, Red Skull, and Avalanche no doubt equaled a nice spike in sales, and plenty of direction for the respective players, when the dust settled. But be it the editors, or the powers that be behind them. what was a once-in-a-decade deal has now become a yearly escapade. And it drags down the whole industry with it. And where it used to be a single book to encapsulate the ruckus, thanks to those editors, it now permeates the entire line of comics coming out.

I’ve been truly enjoying Matt Fraction’s Invincible Iron Man now for two and half years. But lately, the books have been disjointed, discombobulated, and terribly boring. Fear Itself has consumed it, and because I’m not interested in Marvel’s excuse to dress everyone up in spikes and Tron lines. I’m buying a book that makes little sense. And when the crossover is over, I’ll invariably have to suffer for at least an issue or two more to deal with the eventual fallout. And the whole time, I can’t help but see the puppeteer’s grimy hand placed sorely up Matt Fraction’s asshole.

And yes, I know he is the lead architect/writer of Fear Itself. But I doubt he walked into the editor’s office with the pitch saying “This needs to bleed into seven different mini-series, and 13 other books.” The fact is with each passing summer “epic,” the publishers invariably encompass more and more books. And every time they do it, it stops any forward momentum on a series cold.

Invincible Iron Man was an amazing deconstruction of Tony Stark, full of intrigue, new and old villains, and a strong cast of supporting characters. Thanks to Fear Itself, I’ve had to suffer three or four books of Tony building weapons with dwarfs while he drinks. The intrigue? The drama? The 30+ books of character building? Gone with a swing of Odin’s Budweiser and a fight with a mud-monster.

But I digress. With the New 52, DC’s Dan DiDio stuck his neck on the line and said “this is what we need to do to shake things up.” And I whole-heartedly agree. But he chose to end the current continuity by way of one of those aforementioned epics, and then give all of us a do-over on his “One Year Later” trick. Remember that? And to boot, while countless writers sit on the sidelines waiting for a chance to shine, Dan hands himself a job on OMAC.

I’m curious. Did he pitch the book to himself? If the editors exist to challenge their artists and writers to make the best books possible, if the New 52 was supposed to exist to make it not only easy for new readers to jump in, but to hold the industry to a higher standard of quality. How do books like Voodoo, Hawk and Dove, Mister Terrific, and Grifter get published?

Furthermore, what about the books that were universally “meh’ed” like Red Lanterns, JLI, Catwoman, or Red Hood and the Outboobs? Did the editors really sit back at their desk with the assembled pages, and say “now here’s a book I am proud of” or did they just get the damned thing done and hope for the best?

Stay tuned next week, when all the ComicMix columnists will be editorially mandated to write on the same topic: Honey Badgers!

SUNDAY: John Ostrander