Steve Gerber, Marshall Rogers, Dave Stevens

Steve Gerber, Marshall Rogers, Dave Stevens.

So far this year we've lost 3 greats. Although these names may not be as familiar to some as the writers and artists now, these men made a great impact on me, and the generation that grew up with their stories.

What I remember......

Steve Gerber, Howard the Duck (forget the movie, read the first few books in the series) , Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Foolkiller ( " You're a FOOL! BLAM!, Punisher fans take note.) , Tales of the Zombie ( the only comic that actually spooked me) , The Defenders ( misfit heroes, way before everyone was a mutant at Marvel) , and the Guardians of the Galaxy ( Starhawk, the first hero that I recall that had REAL identity issues.)
Gerber's writing was escape, that still had threads of the real world intertwined.

Marshall Rogers, Daughters of the Dragon ( A Black and white comic. Get your hands on them and just look at the artwork) Batman ( Bringing more realism to the art, while keeping the " Dark Knight" before Miller) and Manhunter ( I really LOVED the back up stories in Detective Comics, again the artwork was amazing)

Dave Stevens, His pin-up style and glamour art illustrations, especially Bettie Page. Wow. And The Rocketeer,(okay, you CAN see that movie, I loved it too)His art had this realistic look, while still maintaining fantasy.

I really hope these are all we lose. Because these 3 were too much.

Marshall Rogers (January 22, 1950 – March 25, 2007)

This is just getting ridiculous....and very sad.
Marshall was always one of my favorites.

Marshall Rogers (January 22, 1950 – March 25, 2007) was an American comic-book artist best-known for his work at Marvel and DC Comics and DC Comics in the 1970s, particularly as was one of the key illustrators of the character Batman. In addition, Rogers also illustrated one of the first graphic novels, Detectives Inc.

Marshall Rogers studied architectural drawing, and his work was characterized by the depiction of characters with relatively human proportions rather than exaggerated musculature, and by detailed rendering of buildings and structures.

Some of his first comic-book work appeared in the black-and-white magazine The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, where he worked with writer Chris Claremont on a story featuring the "Iron Fist" supporting characters Misty Knight and Colleen Wing as the Daughters of the Dragon. He eschewed the grey wash that was used in other black-and-white comics stories in favour of applying screentone.

With writer Steve Englehart, Rogers penciled an acclaimed run on the character Batman in Detective Comics #471-476 (Aug. 1977 - April 1978), providing one of the definitive interpretations that went on to influence the 1989 movie Batman and be adapted for the 1990s animated series, considered a definitive interpretation of the darker mooded Batman. The two also did a sequel miniseries, Batman: Dark Detective, and had worked together on other series, such as The Silver Surfer. Their first Batman run was collected in the trade paperbacks Batman: Strange Apparitions and Batman: Dark Detective.

He had also done independent work at Eclipse Comics and others. This included the first Coyote series with Englehart, and his own Capt. Quick and the Foozle.

Rogers was found dead from a heart attack in his home by his son on March 25, 2007.