Comic Book Resources

Steve Gerber showed us that a comics writer could keep an individual and idiosyncratic point of view even while writing for mainstream companies and characters. Thank you, Steve, for Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, Destroyer Duck, and the best runs ever on Defenders and Man-Thing. You’re missed already.

Didn’t even know he was ill!! Sucks…

This is very sad news. Steve Gerber was a truly unique writer, a man who helped to pioneer the view of comics as a vehicle for genuine personal expression. I don’t think it goes too far to say that the black-and-white explosion of the 80s would have happened without Gerber’s seminal writing; comics like ‘Cerebus’ owe a lot to ‘Howard the Duck’.

I’m thankful that so many of his classic stories remain in print, because they’re fascinating to read; however, the story is never more than a pale reflection of the writer, and he will be missed.

Damn.

Oh my God, that’s horrendous news. He will most definitely be missed, and his contributions to our little medium will be remembered forever.

Damn. Another great writer forsakes this world.

No more Nevada.
No more Void Indigo.

Damn.

A true loss.

Terrible news.

Damn. He was a great writer, his contributions to comics are still relevant. Yet to this day I find Nevada one of the best Vertigo titles, as Howard the Duck is one of the best Marvel ones.

One of the true under-appreciated greats. You might try to claim that people have recently (and especially now) been showing appreciation, but it’s nowhere near what the man’s contributions merit. I just wish that his return to more active comics writing had come earlier.

I consider his Foolkiller LS to be up there with the likes of Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, just an utterly brilliant story…RIP…

I’m stunned and saddened that one of the best, most peraonal, most groundbreaking writers in comics is gone. From Man-Thing to Defenders to Howard to Stewart to Void Indigo to Sludge to Hard Time and beyond, Steve Gerber built up one of the most impressive bodies of work I’ve had the privelege to read. I’ll miss his writing tremendously.

Oh MAN. This one really hurts. Steve’s been my favorite comics writer pretty much all of my adult life.

I’m just now getting to the point where I believe it.

Damn shame. He was such a talented guy.

I remember Steve as a great guy from back in the early 90’s in the RIME comic book conference, chatting with friends and answering every fan’s question asked…

He’s be missed…

I’m shocked. I had no idea he was even ill. Unfortunately, I was one of the many people who didn’t really appreciate his work back in the day, but was now finally coming around. This is a horrible loss. My thoughts to his family and friends.

Dr. Bong was like legalized insanity. And I danced through every wonderful issue of Howard and Beverly.

God bless Steve Gerber.

Now I’m a bit more collected, Steven Gerber was a beautiful, weird human. “Weird” is not a slur, and not a slight. He caught a crtain off-angle that reality offered, and he made that angle speak its oblique truth. Silly as it may sound, it’s hard to look at our world and not see, say, the Headmen’s perverse efforts at utopia, or Lord Pumpkin’s violent insistence that Sludge make him real.

But Gerber was there with James Michael-Starling, with Sludge, with the Man-Thing, all those empathetic persons before us who navigated a world more and less surreal than his superhuman cosmos. Howard may have groused, and the Man-Thing confusedly but feelingly shambled, and all the other fictions followed the cursive logic he conveyed, but they all had a congress with the very tough absurdity of “conventional” life. They, like us, survived what was absurd and hurtful, and made it real enough to live in. Wherever the mad hold court — everywhere — we have Steve Gerber’s work to light the way, to guard against a puerile sophism, to make the weird real world navigable.

Thank you, Mr. Gerber.

I always knew Gerber from two things I loved: Howard the Duck, which was one of the first comics I assembled a complete run of, and Thundarr the Barbarian, which was basically the best action cartoon ever made up until the early 90’s.

I’ve recently been rediscovering a lot of his Marvel work, his runs on Marvel Two-in-One and Namor, and the material is just fantastically enjoyable. He could even tell a decent story with Man-Thing, a character with literally no personality. He was a tremendous writer and I’m sadder for not having new Gerber comics to look forward to, ever again.

Steve Gerber was always a fantastic writer, but for me he showed himself to be able to move above and beyond when he did “Hard Time” for DC. At that moment I realised he deserved accolades beyond anything previously seen.
RIP.

wtf? i log off for a few hours and when i come back i’m greeted with news like THIS?

man… this is a major bummer. RIP one of the greatest talents to ever work in the comics field!

What a shame.

That Foolkiller mini was great; one I’ve re-read many times.

I’m thankful that, in his work, Steve leaves behind pieces of his philosophy and character that will exist forever.

Hard Time was amazing. If you like things you will like it.
Sucks he’s gone.

I try to imagine how I would have got through junior high without Man-Thing or Omega the Unknown, and I can’t quite picture it.

I remember in one letters page long ago Steve Gerber said his old uncle or grandfather would badger him about “I know you write these comickal books, but what is it that you DO???”
I think Omar above gave a pretty good description of what it was that Steve did. A very special talent, a truly unique voice.