Writing for Slate.com, Grady Hendrix considers how writer Steve Gerber “changed comics with Howard the Duck“:
Howard the Duck sent up the ’70s and parodied Marvel’s purple prose style (“The ghastly rumble of the explosion reverberates off the Pocono mountainsides—a sonorous death burp echoing into eternity. …”), but the book grew into something deeper. Howard raged against the glorification of violence, had a nervous breakdown, lost Beverly to Dr. Bong, was transformed into a man, and, in the end, rejected his friends and bitterly set out on his own, trying to forget a past of pointless superfights. One issue was all text; another took place entirely on a long bus trip. These were surreal flights of fancy with razor-tipped wings, America’s answer to Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
Gerber passed away on Feb. 10 at age 60.
Related: At Newsarama, Stuart Moore remembers Gerber
February 21st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I finally read my first Gerber Man-Thing the other day, and now I kinda get it more. “It” being what Gerber was doing within the context of his medium to expand the sociological and emotional depths of the storytelling. Word.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
It’s a really good piece overall, and much respect to Grady Hendrix for it. But I don’t think Gerber would approve the statement “the comics industry broke his spirit.” Things like Hard Time and his Doctor Fate series came from Gerber’s still-strong conviction that comics could and should continue to grow and mature as a vital artform. The former is literally about someone who refuses to allow his spirit to be crushed by a deadening ordeal. When that series was cancelled his approach to writing Doctor Fate was, in so many words, “if the marketplace wants a superhero book right now, I’ll give them the best superhero book possible” and he made it an equally personal statement. Neither of these sound like someone who allowed his soul to be ground into the dirt. Gerber wasn’t going to give up and just hack it out; he was going to fight. And he did, every step of the way.
Also I’m pretty sure, though not 100% positive, Gerber kept the rights to Hard Time (perhaps with Mary Skrenes and Brian Hurtt?) and considered the possibility of someday reviving that book at another publisher capable of sustaining it at lower sales figures. If so, the statement “(he) died owning none of them” wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Credit where credit is due: DC tried to do right by him, to Marvel’s lasting shame.