Harry Harrison, best known for his character Jim DiGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat, and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (adapted into film as Soylent Green) died yesterday at the age of 87. Harrison started as a comics illustrator in 1947, notably with EC Comics’ two science fiction comic books, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science,…
One of the hardest questions for me to answer begins with the phrase “What is your favorite…?” My Top 10 movie list has over 100 movies on it. My Top 10 television shows list must first be categorized: is it fair to compare Rocky and Bullwinkle to The Prisoner? Well, maybe that’s a bad example,…
Joe Kubert, one of the greatest masters of the comics art form, died today after a short illness, three weeks short of his 86th birthday. Best known as the artist of the long-running war feature Sgt. Rock, Joe was almost equally well-known for his work on both the golden age and silver age Hawkman and on such…
Doctor Who star Mary Tamm, who played companion Romana alongside Tom Baker, has died aged 62. The actress, who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, fought a long battle with cancer and died in hospital in London. Agent Barry Langford, who confirmed the news, said she had a “zest for life”. “She was a darling…
Sally K. Ride, the first U.S. woman to travel into space, died on Monday after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, according to her organization, Sally Ride Science, in San Diego. She was 61. Ride, a physicist, blasted off in the U.S. space shuttle “Challenger” on June 18, 1983. “Sally’s historic flight into space captured…
Robert Lee Washington III, a comic book writer best known for writing the first 18 issues of Static for Milestone Media, passed away today after suffering from multiple heart attacks. Robert had a heart attack yesterday afternoon. He collapsed, unconscious, and was rushed to Mount Sinai hospital in Queens. In the following twenty four hours,…
Ray Bradbury, generally considered to be among America’s greatest writers, died Tuesday night in Los Angeles. He was 91. The author of such modern classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury was born August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, on Lake Michigan near the Wisconsin…
There really is no easy way to write an obituary, but it seems even harder to write one for a man who might be best known for going to comic book conventions in a banana suit. Yet, sadly, we have to. A.J. Confessore, comedian and rock and roll interviewer, died this week at the age…
He was a curmudgeon who didn’t have children, didn’t especially like children, and yet was probably the most noted children’s book writer and illustrator in the past fifty years, J.K. Rowling notwithstanding. He was Maurice Sendak and he died May 8th at age 83 after a stroke. Sendak was famous for many books, especially Where…
Maurice Sendak, the world-famous children’s author whose books included “Where The Wild Things Are“, “In the Night Kitchen,” “Outside Over There,” “The Sign on Rosie’s Door,” and “Higglety Pigglety Pop!”, passed away on Tuesday from complications caused by a stroke on Friday. He was 83. Sendak wrote and illustrated more than 50 children’s books–including “Where the…
I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate writing this. Back in the late 1970s, I was editing a home video consumer magazine called Video Action. Amusingly, I staffed the publication with freelancers from the comic book community – people who excelled in the art of visual communications and popular culture. It wasn’t…
The BBC has bad news to report: Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, who first came to widespread prominence in America with the importing of Heavy Metal and known worldwide to his fans as Moebius, has died in Paris after a long battle with cancer. He was 73. He was popular in the US and Japan, working…
