Adam West, an actor defined and also constrained by his role in the 1960s series “Batman”, died Friday night in Los Angeles at the age of 88 after a short battle with leukemia.
For many people in the comics community and the world beyond, West’s portrayal of the Caped Crusader was the first version of Batman they ever knew, and while the role chafed on him after a while, he eventually became reconciled to his unique situation:
Some years ago I made an agreement with Batman. There was a time when Batman really kept me from getting some pretty good roles, and I was asked to do what I figured were important features. However, Batman was there, and very few people would take a chance on me walking on to the screen. And they’d be taking people away from the story. So I decided that since so many people love Batman, I might as well love it too. Why not? So I began to reengage myself with Batman. And I saw the comedy. I saw the love people had for it, and I just embraced it.
In recent years, West was introduced to a new generation of fans through his recurring voice role as Mayor Adam West on Fox’s “Family Guy.” The self-parodying West was a regular on the show from 2000 through its most recent season. Seth MacFarlane posted this tribute:
West in recent years did a range of voice-over work, on such shows as Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken” and Disney Channel’s “Jake and the Neverland Pirates.”
He is survived by his wife Marcelle, six children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Every town must have a place / Where phony hippies meet / Psychedelic dungeons / Popping up on every street • Frank Zappa, “Who Needs The Peace Corps?”
The late Sixties really did live up to its reputation. In my home town of Chicago hippie central was the Lincoln Park neighborhood around the iconic Biograph Theater, where, 34 years earlier, the FBI allegedly shot John Dillinger to death. Today, hippies can’t even afford to drive down Lincoln Avenue.
The area sported many blues and folk bars, giving such local talent as Steve Goodman, John Prine, Hound Dog Taylor and Harvey Mandel a place to strut their stuff. It was Mecca to the storefront theater movement, creating world-renown companies such as the Steppenwolf and the Organic Theater a home for newcomer writers and actors like David Mamet, Joe Mantegna, Laurie Metcalf, John Malkovich, and John Ostrander. A mile down the street was The Second City, then-home to John Belushi, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and dozens of other people who would draw a multicolored mustache on the face of comedy.
A mile further south found you at the office of the underground newspaper the Chicago Seed, a paper so underground it sported a circulation as high as 48,000 copies. I was fortunate to be part of that outfit, initially working under the brilliant editor Abe Peck, who taught me more than any credentialed teacher ever could. Wonderfully, The Seed was across the street from the gargantuan Moody Bible Institute, although I spent more time at the Saucy Weenie scarfing down some great Italian beef and hot dogs.
Creativity flowed down Lincoln Avenue and if you weren’t swimming with that flow you were bathed in amazement. This, in January 1969, is where I first met a one-time Second City employee named Jay Lynch.
Most certainly, cartoonists benefited from the freedom and opportunity that brazenly replaced oxygen. The Chicago Mirror, a black-and-white “counter-culture” magazine that debuted in 1967 and was mostly sold at “head shops” (Google it) such as the Mole Hole. Less than a year later, editor/publisher Lynch turned it into an all-comix publication called Bijou Funnies. It featured the work of Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Shelton, Jay Kinney, Justin Green, Kim Deitch, Ralph Reese, Denis Kitchen and his forever pal, Skip Williamson… it, like Zap Comix that premiered shortly before Bijou, was a who’s who of the comix movement.
As the hippie crusade started to age out, Jay – often known as Jayzey – expanded his horizons. He did color separations and 3-D adaptations for Fred Eychaner, then a printer, a major hippie employer and a contributor to The Seed. Jay was among the many underground artists recruited to write and draw for Topps Inc., contributing to the iconic Bazooka Joe and engaging in a life-long relationship with Wacky Packs and Garbage Pail Kids. In 1976 he created Phoebe and the Pigeon People with Gary Whitney for the Chicago Reader and syndicated to alt-weeklies all over. Several reprint books were published by Kitchen Sink Press; the feature ran for the better part of two decades.
I worked with Jayzey and his BFF Skip Williamson off and on for years, and we saw each other at comics conventions, stockholders’ meetings (that one’s a long and litigious story), and, well, memorials to fallen friends. When FM rock radio and poetry slam pioneer Bob Rudnick died in 1995, a wake was held at Mike James’ famed Heartland Café. It was a wonderful reunion of long-haired gray hairs, and, sadly, was the last time I saw such wonderful people as Marshall Rosenthal and Eliot Wald. Jay was still living in Chicago but I had moved to the New York area nearly ten years previous; we talked for more than an hour catching up and pontificating on the status of the comic art medium and what we should be doing about it. We continued that conversation for 20 years, mostly in bits and pieces at conventions but also through the modern miracle of the Internet.
Jay Lynch died of cancer last Sunday at the age of 72. These days, that’s young enough to be thought of as dying too young. Of course, for vital creators such as Jayzey no age could be too old. Unlike many of us hippies Jayzey eschewed drugs – Denis Kitchen pointed out that was true only if you didn’t count nicotine – but he got chopped down early nonetheless.
Jay Lynch was a quite pioneer. His work speaks for itself; his work screams for itself. A much-loved man, he leaves friends stunned and saddened all over the world.
Eras end all the time. Jay Lynch’s work will endure.
Jay Lynch, one of the fathers of underground comix and creator/writer and/or artist of such treasures as Bijou Comix, Phoebe and the Pigeon People, Nard n Pat, and Garbage Pail Kids, died of cancer this afternoon at age 72. His most recent work was providing the cover art for Fantagraphics’ new book, The Realist Cartoons. He will be missed by his many, many friends and fans.
I’d known Jay for almost a half-century, and I’ll be taking the liberty of commenting on a man I regard as one of the most important cartoonists of the post WWII period in my usual space here Wednesday.
Sylvia Anderson oversees a design meeting for Stingray.
Sylvia Anderson, co-producer of the iconic Supermarionation series including Thunderbirds, passed away at her home in Berkshire at the age of 88, after a brief illness.
Her daughter Dee Anderson said of her, “Her intelligence was phenomenal but her creativity and tenacity unchallenged. She was a force in every way,”
Sylvia worked with her husband Gerry on all of their puppet shows, becoming a co-producer starting with Stingray. She voiced numerous characters for the shows, but is best known for portraying International Rescue’s London Operative, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward in the classic series Thunderbirds.
Her ex-husband Gerry passed away in 2012 after a battle with Alzheimer’s. The production company named after him recently produced three new episodes of Thunderbirds in the classic Supermarionation style, using soundtracks of audio plays released on record during the show’s original run. Sylvia made a return to the franchise via the new CGI series Thunderbirds Are Go, playing Lady Penelope’s (now voiced by Rosamund Pike) Great Aunt Sylvia. Sylvia was one of two members of the original cast to return for the series, along with David Graham, reprising his role of Parker.
Batgirl as portrayed by Yvonne Craig in the 1960s Batman television series.
Yvonne Craig, best known to comics fans as Batgirl in the 1966 Batman TV series, has died at the age of 78.
Yvonne Craig passed away at her home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by her immediate family and comforted by Hospice yesterday night. She died from complications brought about from breast cancer that had metastasized to her liver. She is survived by her husband, Kenneth Aldrich, her sister Meridel Carson and nephews Christopher and Todd Carson. A private service is being planned with no date set at the present time. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to: The Angeles Clinic Foundation by mail at 2001 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404 or by going into their website at www.theangelesclinicfoundation.org and following the “Donate” link.
Yvonne Craig began her theatrical career as the youngest member of The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and toured for three years when she was accidentally discovered by John Ford’s son Patrick and cast for the lead in the movie The Young Land.
This was quickly followed by many years of film and television including two movies with Elvis Presley (It Happened at the World’s Fair and Kissin Cousins). However, she is probably best known for originating the role as Batgirl in the 1966 TV series of Batman, or for her character “Marta” from the third season of Star Trek in the episode Whom God’s Destroy where she played the well remembered insane green Orion Slave Girl who wanted to kill Captain Kirk.
Jon Sable Freelance creator Mike Grell sends his own reminiscence:
I can’t tell you how saddened I am to learn that Yvonne Craig, known to many as TV’s BATGIRL, has passed away. She was a great lady and a cherished friend whose warmth and wit made her a joy to be with.
I met Yvonne twenty-odd years ago and we struck up an instant friendship, partly based on a mutual love of Africa and partly because (she said) I had drawn her favorite comic: BATMAN FAMILY #1. She said it was because Batgirl finally got to kiss Robin.
A few years later we were guests at a comic convention and, when Yvonne saw me, she came running around her table to give me a hug. I put up my hand to stop her, turned to my friends across the room and said, “Hey, guys! Watch this!” Yvonne grinned and gave me what Batgirl gave Robin.
The last time I saw her, she had somehow managed not to have aged a day. She was as beautiful and vivacious as ever and gave no hint of the battle she was fighting. I wish I could say we were close, but our meetings were infrequent and too far between. Despite that, she always made me feel like a long-lost friend. Maybe a little more lost just now.
My friend and the man who co-founded First Comics with me 34 years ago, Rick Obadiah, died Sunday night. He was at the gym, and when he got off the treadmill he had a massive heart attack and was dead before he hit the floor.
Sorry for the abruptness. That’s how I’m feeling right now. I’m not going to write this as a traditional obit. I’m really sick of doing that, Rick was too good a friend and, besides, I’m alone in a Holiday Inn in Richfield Ohio right now.
I will tell you that, in addition to being First’s founding publisher, Rick had been an advertising executive and was the former producer for Stuart Gordon’s Organic Theater Company, having worked on such plays as Warp and Bleacher Bums as well as the television and movie adaptations of the latter.
Most recently, he was the president of Star Legacy Funeral Services company – the folks who, among other things, compress their clients into artificial diamonds or shoot their ashes into space. All that was actually pretty cool.
Rick had a fantastic sense of humor and would have appreciated the irony in his dying at the gym. Of course, he also would have pointed out that he would have preferred not to be dead. And Rick would have been shocked to see the incredible amount of responses on my Facebook page his passing received in such short period of time. People remember First Comics – the real First Comics.
Last year, Rick reread a lot of the old First titles and was pleased to see how well they held up. He took a lot of pride in that, for which I am very grateful.
Rick’s funeral will be on Friday August 21, 11:00, at the Derrick Funeral Home 800 Park Drive in Lake Geneva WI.
This Sunday, August 23, we will be doing a special tribute to Rick at our Chicago Comics History panel at Wizard World Chicago, at 12:30.
The two-time Oscar winner, 61, worked on three James Cameron films, two ‘Star Trek’ movies and classics like ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ ‘Field of Dreams’ and ‘Apollo 13.’James Horner, the consummate film composer known for his heart-tugging scores for Field of Dreams, Braveheart and Titanic, for which he won two Academy Awards, died Monday in a plane crash near Santa Barbara. He was 61.
At ComicMix, we’ve always been fond of his work on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but we absolutely loved his pure Americana score for one of the greatest comic book movie adaptations, The Rocketeer.
Herbert W. “Herb” Trimpe, best known as the 1970’s artist on The Incredible Hulk and as the first artist to draw Wolverine for publication, passed away last night at the age of 75.
Besides his work on Hulk, Herb Trimpe worked on a wide variety of books from 1962 on including The Defenders, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., G.I. Joe Special Missions, Godzilla, Shogun Warriors, and Kid Colt Outlaw. The father of four loved coming out and meeting fans of his work, and had attended the East Coast Comicon just this past weekend.
Our condolences to his family and friends. It just won’t be the same without him around.
At its best, comics is like a family, where people in the field are known by their first names by fans and peers alike. Jerry, Joe (well, several Joes, actually, but context always makes it clear which one), Will, Bob, Bill, Stan, Jack, Steve, Marie, Carmine, Len, Marv, Flo.
Irwin.
Irwin Hasen was my friend, just as he was a lot of people’s friend. Of course, millions of people knew Irwin through his comics (Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Wildcat,the Fox, and, of course, Dondi). But because he had no children and no local relatives, Irwin’s friends and companions were his cartooning contemporaries, the cartoonists he mentored, and a steady stream of admirers, thirty to fifty years his junior, who crossed his path in various ways. Some were fans, some fellow comics pros. Some were descendants of his contemporaries, seeking information about and connection with their parents or grandparents through Irwin, who had known them all.
Irwin was always a jolly presence at the local New York Big Apple conventions, which is where I first encountered the man (as opposed to his work, which I’d been seeing since I was a kid). But it was on trips to Allan Rosenberg’s conventions in New Jersey where I got to really know him. Ken Wong would drive me, Irwin, Arnold Drake and Jim Salicrup out to those cons, and that’s where I got to spend time with Irwin and Arnold—talk about a ride with history!—and discovered the mischievous marvel that was Irwin Hasen. When not gossiping about some comics figure present or past, Irwin would drift off to sleep, and I’d wonder, “Did Irwin just die?” But then he’d respond to something one of us said with a hilarious one-liner and we’d know he was not only alive, but kicking.
Over the past ten or so years, Irwin was hospitalized several times with various conditions, often dire and seemingly fatal, all of which he rebounded from, until the final one on March 13th. No matter what, though, until the end, his grip was always strong, clinging to life like he clung to a pencil to express his vast creativity. Any number of times I figured I would never see him again, and time after time he bounced back, sometimes better than before, since the doctors would have cleared up whatever was causing him trouble. It was amazing to behold.
For instance, last year, Ed Steckley, president of the Manhattan chapter of the National Cartoonists’ Society wanted to do an event honoring Irwin. I told him I thought that Irwin’s event days were over, but to not take my word for it. “Let’s go to Irwin’s house and you’ll see for yourself.” Well, we went to Irwin’s, and he was totally up and on, energetic and crystal clear. Ed’s Irwin event was held at the Society of illustrators, and Irwin enjoyed every minute of being the center of attention, entertaining the large crowd that turned out to honor him.
Comic artist Irwin Hasen, who helped create one of comics’ most famous orphans, Dondi, and created the DC Comics character Wildcat, died Friday morning at the age of 96.
There’s no way to do his history and storied life justice in a fast blog post, so we’ll be providing much fuller remembrances later.
Jon Sable Freelance creator Mike Grell sends his own reminiscence:
