Steve Gerber's passing

Comics writer Steve Gerber passed away yesterday at age 60. Beyond just the more well-known things Steve did (HOWARD THE DUCK, THE DEFENDERS, MAN-THING), Steve's been on my mind lately due to the Jonathan Lethem-written OMEGA THE UNKNOWN series that Marvel's releasing. It's a great series that basically retells Gerber's old tale from the '70s. And as bizarre and interesting as the new series is, it's also a reminder that Gerber was doing bizarre and interesting things with superhero comics decades before it was in vogue to turn familiar concepts on their heads. Gerber was someone who really made me notice that not all comics were the same when I was a kid--I remember thinking that his stuff was really cool and odd before I even knew that different people wrote all these comics. It's really sad that he's gone so soon, but hopefully this will get more people to know him through his work, which is all any comics creator really wants in the first place.