Anne Cleveland, a cartoonist from the ’30s to the ’50s, whose main subject was college humor and her alma mater, Vassar, has died at age 92, according to a comment on this blog by her granddaughter, Ursula. We’ve taken the liberty of reprinting the comment here with some minor technical editing:

My grandmother died in February 2009 (she was born in May 1916, not 1917, so the previous age was wrong). The Oregonian refused to publish a paid obituary with a cartoon instead of a photograph– yeah, I know, my mother is up in arms about it.

Anne had a twin brother, Van (short for Van Buren; I think that was his middle name), and two younger brothers, Stanley and Harlan. Her father had volunteered as a clergyman in WWI; he died of a blood infection contracted during that time period when Anne was a girl (somewhere between ten and thirteen). Her mother supported the family; she worked at Andover as a house mother for a while, and eventually became Dean of Women at Rollins College.

Anne started out at Vassar as a classics major, and soon switched to art history. (There are several family legends about her ability to identify art forgeries.) At some point she taught a few classes at Rollins; during WWII she worked for the WAC, drawing maps. (My mother has some sketches of Anne’s fellow WACs.)

My grandfather’s name is Augustus R. White; to this day, he says that he married Anne because she was the most brilliant woman he’d ever met. Anne and Gus had two children, A. Tobias White and my mother, Susan (now Susan Whitcher). Gus’s family had lived in Shanghai before the War, and maintained business interests in Japan afterwards; that’s why Anne spent time in Japan (where my mother was born).

I understand that in addition to the books, which one can buy on Amazon, Anne published some cartoons in the New Yorker, but I have not yet tracked them down . . .

Anne & Gus divorced c. 1965. After that, Anne spent a couple of years in New York, battling depression, then moved to Ashland, Oregon. She lived in Ashland until the early 1980s, until she moved to Baltimore to be closer to my mother; she moved back to Portland, Oregon with my family in 1992.

Cleveland’s cartooning career was fairly minimal, but she became something of a cause celebré here at this blog, for various reasons. Instead of rehashing that, we’ll just post links to appreciations by Shaenon K. Garrity, here, here, and here. (We’ve stolen a photo of young Cleveland and a cartoon from Garrity.) Our last post on Cleveland can be found here. Our condolences to her family, and thanks to Ursula for passing on the news.

Horror artist Jose Gonzalez has passed away, according to Harris Comics:

It is with great sadness that Harris Comics has learned of the passing of Jose “Pepe” Gonzalez. He was 70 years old.

Gonzalez is best known for his work on Vampirella. Starting with Vampirella #12 in 1971 and together with Archie Goodwin, Gonzalez created horror classics that have stood the test of time as some of the finest examples of the comics medium. His work was thrilling, sensuous and beautiful. He brought the character to life, elevated her to an icon and, most deservedly, won over a legion of fans who have never forgotten him. To this day, many would say his was the definitive rendition of the character.

He was one of the greatest artists comics has ever seen. He will never be replaced and he will be sorely missed.

Joe Jusko had this to say: “I can honestly say that my life long affinity for Vampirella was born due to the discovery of Jose Gonzalez’ breathtaking work. From the splash page of Vampirella #21 through the very last panel, my 12 year old eyes had never seen a woman drawn in comics as Gonzalez drew them; beautiful, mysterious, sexy (but never slutty). I have forever tried to capture the glamour and sensuality that he brought to the character, but as all who have tried since have always come up tragically short. There will always be only one definitive Vampi artist in most readers’ eyes and he will always be the great Jose ‘Pepe’ Gonzalez.”

* Did Dr. Manhattan shoot his load the first weekend?

Depending on whom you talked to this week, the opening weekend box office for WATCHMEN was great or underwhelming. Things look a little clearer after the first night of weekend number two.

From Variety:

Warner Bros./Paramount’s comic book epic “Watchmen” fell 78% from its opening day landing third Friday with an estimated $5.4 million from 3,611 theaters. Pic’s eight-day cume currently stands at $73.3 million.

Did all the fanboys decide they didn’t need a second viewing? Was word-of-mouth outside the nerd bubble not great? Were people scared off by Dr. Manhattan’s package?

* In other nerd news

Time.com’s Nerdworld blog interviews annotator extraordinaire Jess Nevins. (Disclaimer: Jess and I went to grad school together and his work has appeared in my magazine.)

9. Have you, as an annotator, ever gone down in defeat? Are there things in the LoEG books that you just can’t solve?

Oh, heavens, yes. When Moore & O’Neill get into areas which I don’t know anything about and which are ill-represented online and in print–1950s British comic book science fiction, for example–I’m at a complete loss, and some of their references stump even the collective brains of the people who contribute to the annotations. In the Black Dossier, for example, Kevin O’Neill drew in spaceships from various British Fifties sf comics, and if he hadn’t identified them for the print version of the annotations, they would have remained a mystery to us all.

Moore sometimes jokes about trying to stump me. I feel a pain in my head when he says that, because if/when he ever tries to do that, I’m not just stumped, I’m uprooted and thrown into a woodchipper.

*Since there was no Lost column this week…

A week without a new Lost means an extra week for people to scrutinize the most recent episode looking for clues about the statue or how to put all the various time traveling threads together. The coolest thing I read (don’t remember where) was that the hieroglyphs that showed up on the countdown clock are on the Ajira airline tickets.

*A non-comic note for all you people who hate non-comics news here.

Sad news this morning for the pro wrestling business as word broke that Andrew Martin passed away at the age of 33. For those who watched during the “Attitude Era,” Martin worked for the WWE as Test, a beefy mid-carder best remembered for being coupled with a young Stephanie McMahon and feuding with her brother Shane. While not the best in-ring performer, many people raved about the match between Test and McMahon at Summerslam 1999. Once removed from the McMahon family soap opera, he slowly drifted down the card until being released a few years ago from the WWE after failing a drug test. Recently, he had been working on shows in Europe and Japan.

Posted by Mark Coale

Rod Gilchrist, executive director of San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum, died of brain cancer at age 58 on February 26th. The SF Chronicle has a full obituary up, explaining how he kept the museum going through boom and bust periods for comics and real estate. According to an email announcement by Andrew Farago:

In lieu of flowers, Rod’s family has suggested that you please send donations in his memory to the Cartoon Art Museum or Portola Family Connections.

A public memorial service will be held at the Cartoon Art Museum on Friday, March 20, beginning at 7pm. Please e-mail Andrew Farago through Facebook or at gallery@cartoonart.org for more information.

John Carbonaro, a longtime fan-turned publisher when he purchased the rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, passed away at age 58 on February 25th, as reported by long time friend Robert J. Sodaro. Carbonaro purchsed the former Tower characters in 1981, and a rather long and convoluted rights battle with various entities prevented too much from being done with them subsequently. DC had planned a revival of the characters in the early 2000’s, but Carbonaro withdrew approval; however, DC did publish six Archive Editions of the original material.

Mark Evanier has some more remembrances.

According to Sodaro, Carbonaro did assign the rights to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents to an heir, so we may still see them again one day.

Frontman of seminal Psychobilly rock band, The Cramps.

Cartoonist Michael Aushenker sent us a link that provides a bit more information on the enigmatic Patrick McGoohan, who died last week. Aushenker is also a staff writer for the Palisadian-Post, the weekly community newspaper of Pacific Palisades, CA, where the McGoohans lived since the late 1970s. He got the privileged chance to write the only obit that included extensive input from Patrick McGoohan’s wife, Joan Drummond McGoohan, whom he describes as “a sweet woman with the most adorable British lilt in her voice.”

‘’The Prisoner’ summed up what he felt,’ Joan McGoohan continued. ‘He thought it was very contemporary. He was an independent thinker. He followed all world happenings, the Middle East. He was a brilliant mind. All sorts of people, when they met him, they listened. Where it came from, I have no idea.”

The couple were regulars around the village that forms the center of the community:

Locally, the McGoohans frequented Sam’s at the Beach restaurant in Santa Monica Canyon. In the village, they dined at Modo Mio.

Joan McGoohan enjoyed a laugh at the notion that, in a sense, No. 6 never left ‘the village.’

‘He would get up at the crack of dawn, get the New York Times, and get some coffee at Mort’s or Starbucks,’ she said. ‘He wrote. Always, always.’

Famed novelist John Updike has died at age 76. Besides winning awards and being one of the best prose stylists of recent American letters, Updike was a friend of comics, having planned to be a cartoonist in his youth, and studied painting for quite a while. Or as Jeet Heer wrote:

Years ago while doing some research at Boston University on the papers of the cartoonist Harold Gray, the creator of the Little Orphan Annie, I came across a fan letter that was unusually eloquent. When I looked at the name of the bottom right hand corner of the type-written page it all became clear: it was a missive sent in 1948 by John Updike, then an aspiring cartoonist, when he was 15 years old. As I got to know Updike’s writing I started to realize that the letter was a simply one thread in a large and comfy biographical quilt. Like almost all American kids of his generation, Updike consumed comics even before he could read, so they were intertwined with his earliest experiences of art. Cartooning appealed to him as a potential vocation and he composed his first fledgling fan letters around 1942, when he was ten. After Updike settled on a literary career, he often returned to comics as a way of giving visual and mnemonic potency to his prose. His most recent writing on cartooning was his review earlier this year in The New Yorker of a much-disputed Charles Schulz biography. (For more on Updike and comics, see the articles I’ve written for the Boston Globe and the Guardian).

After the shocking double dose of death with Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban the other day, we know you were all wondering who would complete the sad trifecta. Somehow, Andrew Wyeth great as he was, just didn’t fit in. Now we see that Bob May died over the weekend. May was the man inside the Robot suit on Lost In Space:

He was a veteran actor and stuntman who had appeared in movies, TV shows and on the vaudeville stage when he was tapped by “Lost in Space” creator Irwin Allen to play the Robinson family’s loyal metal sidekick in the series that debuted in 1965.

“He always said he got the job because he fit in the robot suit,” said June Lockhart, who played family matriarch Maureen Robinson. “It was one of those wonderful Hollywood stories. He just happened to be on the studio lot when someone saw him and sent him to see Irwin Allen about the part. Allen said, ‘If you can fit in the suit, you’ve got the job.’”

Although the Robot’s voice (and warnings to Will Robinson) were provided by Dick Tufeld, May certainly contributed his part to pop culture with his top-notch arm waving skills and ability to sag when powered down. So let us now close this chapter on our TV heritage and just be glad that such giants walked among us.

I think I must have fallen in love with Patrick McGoohan the first time I saw him. It’s not hard to see why a cat-loving kid with no father might have been smitten with a cynical widowed veterinarian with a small daughter whose lives are changed by a resurrected tabby cat. Following a viewing of The Three Lives of Thomasina, my family must have known I was a fan, as the eerie Scarecrow of Romney Marsh and episodes of Secret Agent Man were added to my TV diet.

It would have been no surprise, then, that in 1968 we tuned in for the debut episode of something starring McGoohan called The Prisoner, purported to be some kind of espionage follow-up to Secret Agent Man. Within about 3 minutes we knew it was something else entirely. To a small child, this experience can only be graded as having been a total mind-fuck. The appearance of “Rover” — the big white balloon watchdog of the sinister Village — and its subsequent engulfment of someone who unwisely broke the rules was so terrifying that I think I nearly puked. Despite my agitation, the whole family turned in for just about every episode, right up to and including the last two, baffling outings which took everything viewing audiences of the 60s took for granted about TV and exploded them into psychedelic confetti. (The outrage in the UK actually forced McGoohan to move to Los Angeles.)

(more…)

In a day that has sent pop culture fans reeling, we’ve also lost Ricardo Montalban. Best known as the white-suited smoothie from Fantasy Island, the Mexican-born star had an early career in musicals before becoming a regular as a Latin lover, spending time with Tattoo making dreams come true, and making perhaps his strongest impression as Khan, the scenery-chewing but delightful villain in STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN.

Truly, it is a sad day for nerds, with Montalban and McGoohan gone in a single day.

The Beat will surely have more on this later, given her love of the Prisoner. This is just a newsflash until she posts later.

The AP story:

LOS ANGELES – Patrick McGoohan, an Emmy-winning actor who created and starred in the cult classic television show “The Prisoner,” has died. He was 80.

McGoohan died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said Wednesday.

McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama “Columbo,” and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film “Braveheart.”

But he was best known as the title character Number Six in “The Prisoner,” a surreal 1960s British series in which a former spy is held captive in a small village and constantly tries to escape.

Posted by Mark Coale

Eartha Kitt died yesterday at age 81. Many people are called “legendary,” but Kitt truly was, as a singer, dancer, and actress. Julie Newmar may have been the #1 Catwoman on the campy Batman TV show, but Kitt was probably the most feline and villainous. As a cabaret singer she was an unsurpassed stylist, and we were lucky enough to see her at the Hollywood Roosevelt. She was a scary lady, but one who played by her own rules and won.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry, widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, passed away today at the age of 76.

She had just recently finished voice work for the new STAR TREK movie, reprising her role as the voice of the ship’s computer.

In the original series, she played Nurse Chapel, as well as Number One in the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage.”

As the news is just hitting the wires, this will likely be expanded later tonight and tomorrow.

Posted by Mark Coale

The pinup queen is dead at 85.

Numerous French-language outlets are reporting the death of Gérard Lauzier, a very well-known cartoonist/satirist who later had even greater success as a film writer and director. According to his Lambiek page, he created such comics albums as ‘Lili Fatale,” ‘Un Certain Malaise’ and “Al Crane.” As a filmmaker, he was best known for the hit ‘Mon père, ce héros.” which was remade as MY FATHER, THE HERO in America.

He was 76.

Legendary horror fan and writer Forrest J. Ackerman passed away Thursday night after a lengthy illness. He was 92. As the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, and the owner of the famed Ackermansion, a Los Feliz home stuffed with horror and fantasy memorabilia, Ackerman was the über-fan before the Internet made everyone a nerd, a man who lived his passions and spread his love of genre to others, influencing writers and filmmakers with a unique tone that was juvenile but infectious. In comics, he created the character Vampirella; he is also credited with coining the term “sci-fi.”

Mark Evanier has more:

His enthusiasm for the material gave the magazine a flavor that its many imitators couldn’t match. They could print the same stills, interview most of the same interviewees…but they lacked the Secret Ingredient, which was Ackerman. He was as much a star of the publication as Bela Lugosi, loading each issue with monster puns and jokes to the delight of a young and loyal male demographic. Many who grew up on it still refer to him as Uncle Forry, including no small number who became authors or filmmakers and credit the influence of Ackerman.

Hero Complex has much more, including some amazing pictures. There’s a obit thread at the Classic Horror Forum and ComicMix has memories from publisher Jim Warren and others.

Sadly, I never got to go visit the Ackermansion during my LA years, and my interactions with Ackerman were fleeting — for many of my friends, however, he was a friend and inspiration. Certainly his passing is a reminder that an era of fandom — the exploratory, innovative age that created the foundations to help nerd culture take over pop culture — is gone forever.

Sad news via The Forbidden Planet International Blog:

Belgian rock illustrator and cartoonist Guy Peellaert (previously profiled here) passed away on Monday, November 17th after a serious heart failure. He was 74 and still hard at work, creating a series of ten portraits of Belgian rock musicians for the Belgian media weekly Focus Knack.

Even if you don’t know his name, Peellaert’s pop art style was much imitated, and his comic, PRAVDA (a panel is above), was highly influential.

Amidst celebrations, some sadness, as Yma Sumac has died. The Peruvian songstress had a near five-octave vocal range and remains an icon of the “exotic music movement.”

Dan Vado comments on the death of Mark Buck, recently killed in a motorcycle accident. Buck was Vado’s collaborator on SAMURAI PENGUIN, an entry in the ’80s “black and white boom.” Buck went on to have a successful career as a model maker for ILM, working on all three recent Star Wars movies and TRANSFORMERS.

This is a sad week for me here in the office as yesterday I found out about the death of one of my friends and first collaborator Mark Buck. Those of you out there who have followed SLG since the beginning will know Mark Buck as the illustrator of our first comic book Samurai Penguin. Before he drew those comics Mark worked for me at A World of Fantasy, the comic book store I owned, and helped me countless other projects for the few years he worked for me.

I first met Mark when he wandered into my comics shop when he was 16 years old and I hired him to work for me shortly after. He was the first non-family person I had ever hired, but after a time he quickly felt like one of the family. He was a good kid who worked hard and who always seemed to be laughing at me. That was a thing about Mark, he always seemed to be able to laugh at things even when he was ranting about someone or something or another.

(Above: Buck and Vado.)

He may have worked with Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, but jazz composer Neal Hefti will likely be best remembered for a piece of music: The Batman Theme. Hefti passed away last week at the age of 85. You can find his obit in the Washington Post here.

Not only did Hefti create The Batman Theme, but he also was responsible for another classic TV tune, The Odd Couple Theme.

(Sadly, we spent like a half-hour looking for the “nanananana fishing” clip from The Simpsons, but couldn’t find it. Shame.)

FYI: The above album is actually still available from Amazon.

UPDATE:

Posted by Mark Coale.

Peter David has the very very sad news that Robbie Greenberger, son of Bob, lost his fight against leukemia last night. He was 20. Our thoughts are with Bob and the rest of the family. Funeral details below.

Friends may greet the family Sunday from 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. in the Spear-Miller Funeral Home, 39 South Benson Road., Fairfield. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Monday, August 18, 2008 at 1 p.m. meeting directly at Saint Pius X Church 834 Brookside Drive, Fairfield. Interment will be private at Oak Lawn Cemetery, Fairfield. In lieu of flowers contributions in Robbie’s memory may be made to The Tommy Fund for Childhood Cancer, Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, 20 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511-3202 (www.tommyfund.org). For information or to offer an online condolence please visit www.spearmillerfuneralhome.com

Noted Argentinian/Spanish artist Carlos Meglia died last night of what is being reported as (well, if Twitter and Facebook are reporting) complications from an aortic stroke. Meglia co-created such foreign-language strips as IRISH COFFEE and CANARI, and in the US worked on such series as STAR WARS, SPYBOY and ELEKTRA. As an animator, he worked on CYBERSIX, as well. He was 50.