113th Post - R.I.P. Steve Gerber

One of the heroes of my childhood died on Sunday.

You have probably never heard of him. His name was Steve Gerber, and as a boy, his comics stories thrilled me to no end. He is best known for his writing of Howard the Duck in the 1970's; but he also wrote the first KISS comic book in 1977. He wrote Man Thing, not to be confused with Swamp Thing, or the Heap, or any of the other swamp creatures that have infested comics over the years. He wrote the Defenders, and some Hulk stories, and some Spider-Man stories. More recently, he wrote Dr. Fate; he was working on the latest issue last week from his hospital bed.

Have you ever read any of his stories? HtD was probably my favourite, with Omega the Unknown a close second. A duck, anthropomorphically imbued with human characteristics, cigar smoking, and dating a woman named Bev(!) first appeared in the early 1970's. He eventually got his own comic a few years later. The early issues were wonderful satire, poking fun at martial arts movies in one issue; horror films the next; and focusing on things like poverty in the next (rent to own tv's; Howard's and Bev's being so broke that finding a snickers bar was the difference between eating that day, and not). The book began to take itself a little too seriously for my taste after those early issues, and Gerber's well-known run-in with Marvel Comics over ownership of the character drained much of the fun out of the book, and perhaps Gerber, himself.

Omega the Unknown was an alien who landed on earth and became involved with an earth boy named James Michael. Turns out that the boy's parents were robots, and it is possible that Omega was James' actual father. Ten issues of this book were published, and Omega didn't actually say a word until issue four. Readers were treated to Omega's observations on humanity and human foibles as he attempted to acclimate into society. At the same time, James Michael began attending a public school in a poor part of New York City. I say that perhaps they were father and son because I don't know. The book was canceled after 10 issues and some of the plot lines were dealt with by an inferior writer a couple of years later in The Defenders, another book Gerber had left.

I still remember passages in various issues, nearly 30 years after I read them. Still have most of the issues around the house here somewhere but haven't cracked them open in many a year. How that series was to end, with Gerber's original script, is a mystery to this day, although I just received word in the last few minutes via an e-mail list I am on that this mystery may yet be solved: A poster on that group claims to have a tape recording of Gerber discussing his ending to Omega, and I can't wait to learn what it is.

Gerber left comics for a time, but returned in recent years. I don't read comics anything like I used to. Work and spending time with my betrothed and digital cable and Toastmasters and the desire for sleep have sucked the vast majority of the time devoted to leisure reading from my schedule. This blog takes time, too. But I have never forgotten how special those comics were to me, and how much I had wanted to meet Steve Gerber.

The theme of being an alien to something, of trying to fit in to a world you never made (a HtD byline that never made sense to me, until it made sense to me, if you know what I mean), is a common one with Gerber, and one which resonated strongly with me as a lad. Around the time I was reading the early issues of Howard the Duck, and as Omega the Unknown really began to grab ahold of me and didn't let go, I began attending a school where, to be charitable, to put it mildly, I didn't exactly fit in. I do not like to dwell on that period of my life, as it is still upsetting to me to think about or to discuss. I'm getting a little worked up just typing these words to be honest. I'll just state that it was unpleasant for me in every way you could imagine, and in several in which you could not.

There is a Harlan Ellison short story collection in whose foreword he thanks the kids who tormented him when he was growing up. Thanked the boys who used to beat him up for being what he was. Those tykes drove Ellison into a fantasy world and to books which propelled his imagination, and which helped him become a writer on his own.

I guess I should compose a thank you note to some people in my school, too.

Anyway, it was the stories of Steve Gerber, and a few others, that helped me through that extremely trying time in my life. I continue to be grateful for my having read them, because without that release valve, who knows what might have happened to me? Seriously.

A few years ago, I misconstrued something Gerber wrote online, and reported that mis-information on a message board I frequented at the time, and which I have since quit. Gerber asked me to recant what I had written on the board and I did, and he thanked me. I never got the idea that he was angry with me for my error. Instead, I think he was trying to see how I had misunderstood him in the first place. It was almost as if he were disappointed for not having expressed himself better. I guess that's the sign of a true professional writer: Always wanting to write something better.

Gerber had a disease called pulmonary fibrosis, which turns your lungs into scar tissue, and which only gets worse. The only cure is a lung transplant, which never came. He had been a long-time smoker, and he had apparently deluded himself into thinking that smoking was not a big deal. It was, and it is.

I have never smoked in my life. Well, not quite. I took one puff on one cigarette at the age of 15. That is the only time. Ever. I can't and don't understand why anyone would smoke. I can understand why people continue to smoke (their body craves nicotine; they're addicted to the stuff), but not what compels people to smoke in the first place.

If the young Steve Gerber had not started to smoke, he would probably be alive today. And not just alive, but healthy, to boot.

If you care about someone who smokes. If you want to see that person live to become old and gray and a pensioner. If you want to be proud of that person beyond how proud of him or her you are now, then get him or her to stop smoking. You're doing that person a favour.

For what it is worth, from this small corner of the world, I wish to express my condolences to Steve Gerber's friends and family.

Bevboy