Ode to HOWARD THE DUCK's Steve Gerber
We pay tribute to the recently-passed Steve Gerber, a comic book and animation writer for more than 30 years, and creator of Howard the Duck.
For those of you who don't already know, acclaimed writer Steve Gerber died on February 10th in Las Vegas, due to complications from pulmonary fibrosis. He was 60 years old.
A lifelong smoker, Gerber had been in and out of hospitals for the last year or so, but he still was working until the end, at this point on a Doctor Fate script for DC Comics.
Stephen Ross Gerber was born in St. Louis on September 20, 1947. A longtime fan of comic books, he had gotten in on the early days of fanzine publishing, starting with a pub called Headline at age 14. He struck up a long-distance friendship with future comics writer Roy Thomas, publisher of the legendary fanzine, Alter Ego. When Thomas became editor of Marvel Comics, he brought professional ad writer Gerber in as a writer, where he tore into such titles as The Defenders, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown and Morbius the Living Vampire. However, Gerber always will be remembered for a creation of his own.
"During the 70s you’d have been hardpressed to see me read any American superhero comic book," wrote Newsarama's MATT BRADY,"with one notable exception; Howard The Duck. If you needed proof Gerber was a superlative animation writer, you’d need look no further than the tales of that duck. The man had such an immaculate sense for the gag and the surreal that it put him on the par of the likes of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett."
Howard the Duck--a character which longtime collaborator and friend Mark Evanier called "obviously autobiographical to a large degree"--was a huge success, but eventually led to costly ownership litigation (which Gerber settled out of court), as well as the pain of enduring the universally excoriated 1986 Lucasfilm adaptation.
"When Steve was involved in his lawsuit with Marvel, many fellow professionals rallied around him with loans and gifts of cash and some of us put together a benefit comic book, Destroyer Duck, to raise money," recalled Evanier on February 11. "People did that because they knew, first of all, that Steve was fighting not just for his own financial reasons but for matters of principle relating to how the comic book industry treated its creators. That some of the more pernicious business practices soon went away had a lot to do with Steve taking the stand he did."
After leaving Marvel in the mid-70s, Gerber worked with Evanier at Hanna-Barbera, first on comics, then in animation. He scripted the Ruby-Spears Plastic Man series, launched and story-edited Thundarr the Barbarian, and later worked for such shows as G.I. Joe, Dungeons & Dragons, and Yu-Gi-Oh: King of Games. In 1998, he shared a Daytime Emmy Award for his work on The New Batman/Superman Adventures.
His many other comic book credits include titles for Malibu and Image. Superman fans will remember Gerber's work on Superman: Last Son of Earth, Superman: Last Stand on Earth, A. Bizarro and The Phantom Zone.
Brady, who interviewed Gerber several times, "found him to be one hell of a funny, sweet guy with some great tales to tell and an insight to pop culture too many lacked."
"He was one of my best friends," wrote Evanier, who has lost several close industry associates in the past year, "and even though I knew this was coming ...it's a real blow. If you knew Steve Gerber, no further explanation is necessary. If you didn't, no further explanation can ever quite explain why."
[Thanks to Comics Continuum and to STEVE YOUNIS at Superman Homepage.]