NYCC: Steve Gerber Memorial

[andy khouri]

Mark Evanier, Gail Simone, Paul Levitz and many more friends, family and colleagues of the late Steve Gerber gathered in New York to honor the venerable creator and share memories and stories about his life.

http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16157

[Gail Simone]

I very much appreciate this detailed description of the articulate comments of others, and even my own stumbling words, but I have to say, because it's important, that the great Martin Pasko's name is misspelled through the article.


Martin Pasko is an industry and animation legend as well as a close friend and associate of Steve's so it might be nice if the spelling could be corrected, if possible.

Thank you.

Gail

[Velvis]

Great piece. Thanks, Gail and Mark, for remembering Steve.

He was one of my Holy Trinity of comics writers, along with Stan and Alan Moore.

[berk]

Out of curiosity, did anyone from Marvel take part in that panel? I see Paul Levitz was there, he's a DC guy still, I think isn't he?

I think Gerber had a huge influence on the development of mainstream comics, and that that influence is being, I won't say unacknowledged, but I would say seriously under-acknowledged. The NYCC tribute, for example, doesn't seem to have been major news. And I'd have thought someone like Morrison might have attended it. Maybe people are still coming to terms with his death, I don't know.

[FortNinety]

Hey there, I'm the guy who wrote the piece, so I hope everyone enjoyed it.

Out of curiosity, did anyone from Marvel take part in that panel? I see Paul Levitz was there, he's a DC guy still, I think isn't he?

I think Gerber had a huge influence on the development of mainstream comics, and that that influence is being, I won't say unacknowledged, but I would say seriously under-acknowledged. The NYCC tribute, for example, doesn't seem to have been major news. And I'd have thought someone like Morrison might have attended it. Maybe people are still coming to terms with his death, I don't know.

I personally don't recall any "big names" from Marvel in attendance, which was kinda sad. But the room had a nice good sized gathering, which is the most important thing.

As for the story not being "major news", well, a part of it might have to do with the lateness of the reporting, and that's totally my fault. It just took a while to transpose all the comments and every little detail.

BTW, Gail, apologizes for the misspelling. I'm sadly not that familiar with Martin's work. I've alerted Jonah and hopefully it will be fixed pronto.

Also, two additional pics I submitted didn't make the cut (the entire piece had to be somewhat shortened, though I can certainly understand why), and here they are.... shots from holiday video card:

Steve on the phone, talking with dispondent Transformer fans...



And Marv Wolfman hitting on Jem...

[fly on the wall]

Gerber's big influence on comics was in writing an Indy comic book called "Howard the Duck" but it wasn't an indy comic book, it was published by one of the mainstream comic publishers. And the comic was a hit for awhile. And Howard the Duck was actually quite good.

My main memory of Gerber would be the issue of Howard the Duck entitled, "What do you do the day after you've saved the Universe?". Howard had saved the Universe in the previous issue and then fell through a dimensional rift to end up on Earth in a trash dumpster.

This is the way the Universe shows it's appreciation.

Howard was naked in that dumpster, as well, so he had to search through the dumpster for something to wear. All he could find was a T-shirt that said "Foxy Lady", so he put it on. I think it was the 'font' that "Foxy Lady" was written that put the joke over the top for me. I'm still laughing at it.

Don't expect the Universe to return any favors. A lesson told in laughter.

[berk]

I think Gerber`s influence went beyond HtD, although that certainly made the biggest impact. Moore, Morrison, I'd lay odds that most of the best comic writers today read Gerber's stuff and absorbed it. And, like Gerber, they read lots of other stuff besides comics, which is a big reason why their best work is more than just a series of rehashes of what's gone before.

I'm beginning to wonder if the lack of response to Gerber's death isn't a sign of a collective, unconscious guilt complex on the part of the industry - including ourselves, the consumers.

[fly on the wall]

I think Gerber`s influence went beyond HtD, although that certainly made the biggest impact. Moore, Morrison, I'd lay odds that most of the best comic writers today read Gerber's stuff and absorbed it. And, like Gerber, they read lots of other stuff besides comics, which is a big reason why their best work is more than just a series of rehashes of what's gone before.

I'm beginning to wonder if the lack of response to Gerber's death isn't a sign of a collective, unconscious guilt complex on the part of the industry - including ourselves, the consumers.

If Ditko can fade from the collective memory of comic fandom then anyone's fair game.

[MartinPasko]

Steve's mind was genuinely unique. No one I've ever met in comics or animation, much less a close collaborator as Steve was, thought about or approached his writing with as much seriousness of purpose and intellectual rigor. It was for this reason more than any other, I think, that he was so misunderstood and unappreciated by his colleagues -- and only partly because non-writers (and I include all Steve's editors and producers in that category) don't understand that writing comedy -- or, more accurately in Steve's case, satire -- is serious business. In order to generate laughter, you have to stay on your toes and make sure you know your craft. And you have to keep learning it better all the time, to make sure you don't lose sight of your creative goals and make sure you're in enough control of your technique that your creative strategies serve those goals.

For all his battles with well-meaning but misguided parenting experts and "educational consultants" trying to protect the delicate sensitivities of children (you know them by their rightful name: censors), Steve was also the most responsible animation writer I ever met, because he defined responsibility in the terms I've tried to describe above: do no harm by knowing your craft and the effect you have on the reader. You're all quite right, I think, to sense that Steve had a much broader frame of reference than merely other comics and other cartoons. When I accepted his and Joe Ruby's offer to join them on staff at Ruby-Spears on "Thundarr the Barbarian," Steve handed me a book, saying, "You have to read this if you want to do this job right." The book was Bruno Betelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. That tells you a lot about what kind of writer Steve Gerber was.

Collective guilt about treating Steve shabbily? I wish. I truly wish I believed in justice here on Earth enough to entertain that notion, but instead I think that's where the fascination for super hero comics comes from: the wish-fantasy that the world is made up of good guys and bad guys, rather than just a lot of broken and damaged people, and that it is always possible to tell these oversimplified archetypes apart. No, the radio silence surrounding Steve's passing is due more to the fact that his impact was more than fifteen minutes ago, and no one in this business has that kind of attention span any more. Besides, his kind of thinking -- like that of Gerry Jones, Marc DeMatteis, Keith Giffen, Gail Simone, and every other writer of mainstream comics who ever wanted to "get at" something bigger and more meaningful in their work than just another derivative bang-bang-shoot-'em-up, was never considered a "monetizable asset."

To the extent that the thudding indifference is a conscious choice, and I don't know that it is, it is probably due to the fact that there are still a handful of people in this industry who resent the Pandora's Box Steve Gerber and his brilliant attorney, Henry Holmes, opened. They did so by legally challenging the validity of a rubber stamp on the back of a check that said, in essence, By endorsing this you agree that we own everything you've made for us, forever and throughout the universe, and we are under no obligation to acknowledge you as the creator or even imply that you, and not Stan Lee, "present" the work.

If there is any poetic justice here at all, it is that the comic book business you now love, the one that acknowledges creators' original works and allows you, the reader, to be a starmaker by voting with your checkbook at the comic book shop, would not exist today without Steve Gerber's courage, tenacity, and generosity of spirit toward his fellow comic book creators. Rest in peace, old friend.

[berk]

You're probably right. The lack of response from the fans is most likely due to simple ignorance and indifference; most of them just aren't aware of or interested in Gerber, his writing or what he tried to do for creators' rights.

The lack of any kind of official response to his death from Marvel, I'd see as stemming from resentment, even bitterness towards him and the can of worms (from their POV) he opened with his fight for those rights.

The idea of a collective guilt complex I think came to me from my surprise at the failure of current creators to comment on the fact that it was largely Gerber's willingness to put himself and his comics career on the line that eventually enabled them to retain the rights to some of their own creations. Morrison, Ellis, Gaiman and so on - would they have been able to do an Invisibles, a Sandman for Vertigo if it hadn't been for Steve Gerber?

And I'm afraid that the reason for their failure to acknowledge that debt, as well as for the muted tone of the acknowledgement they have given of their debt to Gerber's writing, is that these guys all still rely on one or the other of the big companies that still dominate the industry for work. [edit:] And, to finish the thought, I think these guys are smart enough to realize all this.

But yeah, when I ascribed a guilt response, conscious or otherwise, to the readership at large and the corporate part of the industry, I was definitely crediting them with something I thought they should be experiencing rather than anything they're likely to.