Archie Chairman Michael Silberkleit died on August 5. An obituary supplied by Archie follows.

Michael I. Silberkleit, the chairman of Archie Comic Publications, died August 5th in New York City at the age of 76, after a short battle with cancer.

For much of the 60 years he worked at Archie Comics, Silberkleit shared the leadership of the company with Richard Goldwater, whose father, John Goldwater, and his partner, Louis Silberkleit, Michael’s father, founded the company.

The sons, who began working at the company as boys, later steered Archie Comics into the modern era of publishing as electronic production techniques and brand licensing became important. They encouraged the development of new characters, such as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Josie and the Pussycats, and successfully licensed these and other characters through Archie Comics Entertainment. Silberkleit was also Executive consultant to the TV program, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, a long running series starring Melissa Joan Hart. The company also published comic books as a licensee, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sonic the Hedgehog. At various times Silberkleit was chairman of the Comics Association of America.

(more…)

Word was going ’round yesterday of the death of EC great Jack Kamen, and Mark Evanier comfirms it. Kamen was 88.

A native of Brooklyn, Kamen was born May 29, 1920 and at one point in his life was heading for a career in illustration and sculpture. In 1941, he began getting work as an illustrator for pulp magazines…an endeavor that was interrupted by a draft notice. Upon his discharge, he found the pulp market in decline and so began picking up work for comic books, primarily for Fiction House where his clean style fit in well with the preferred look of their line. He was especially good at drawing pretty women, a skill that often typed one as an artist for romance comics.

Kamen these days is best known as the father of inventor Dean Kamen.

Goodbye, Sophia.

Mark Evanier reports the death of comics pioneer Creig Flessel at age 96, following a stroke. Flessel worked in comics from the dawn of the golden age on through Playboy and beyond. Tom Spurgeon has
a lengthy obit with much information:

Flessel was born on Long Island, New York in the town of Huntington at the tail end of a different period in American history than the one where comics would come to prominence exploiting quirks of printing technology and mass distribution networks. Flessel’s father was a blacksmith, and Flessel recalled in later interviews that his family didn’t add indoor plumbing until he was a teen.

Mike Gold passes along the sad news that Muriel Kubert died Tuesday from breast cancer. Kubert was wife to Joe, mother to Adam and Andy and the co-founder of the Kubert School of Cartoon Art.

Our condolences to the Kubert family on this loss.

UPDATE: A fuller obituary:

Muriel Isabel Kubert

77, co-owner of art school

She was a resident of Dover, NJ, since 1962, and moved here from Towaco.

Mrs. Kubert was born in New York City, N.Y.

She was a member of Temple Adath Shalom of Parsippany.

She received her bachelor of business degree from Rider College.

She was the co-owner and operator of The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art Inc., Dover.

She was a member of the Montville Historical Museum and a former member of the Dover Board of Education.

She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Joseph; five children, David of Dover, Danny of Chester, Lisa Zangara of West Virginia, Adam of Flanders and Andy of Randolph; 11 grandchildren, Jacob, Becky, Katie, Zachary, Orion, Troy, Max, Elizabeth, Jay, Sam and Emma; a brother, Joel Fogelson of Calif.; and a sister, Lenore Millian of Connecticut.

[Funeral service info removed — it was held this morning.]

Donations may be made in her name to Compassionate Care Hospice, 400 W. Blackwell St.,
Dover, N.J. 07801.

Sharon La Sorda wrote this in the comments but it’s worth boosting:

Hello everyone, and again Thank You for all the heart felt stories!

They are really wonderful and loving and sad and funny!! We have all lost someone so special.The following information is the about the services the family has planned. We hope you all can come and celebrate Phil’s life with us, for each and everyone of you has a story to share! And for those of you who can’t make the services we understand, but always keep Phil in your heart!

Tuesday, July 8th from 6 to 8 pm A Mermorial Service is planned at Caramenico Funeral Home. The address is as follows: 401-405 East Main Street, Noriistown, Pa, 19401. Phone Number: 610-275-7777.

The following morning, July 9th, at 10 A.M. a Church Service will be held at St. Patrick’s Church, The address is Dalkalb & Chestnut, Norristown, Pa. 19401.

We’ve received word that former Comico publisher, Phil Lasorda, passed away yesterday. In addition to running the company which published such titles as MAGE and THE ELEMENTALS, Lasorda was a creator himself, with the book AZ. No further details are available at this time.

A terribly sad announcement from Aspen has gone out announcing the death of artist Michael Turner, who had been battling bone cancer for the last 8 years. Turner was best known as the artist of WITCHBLADE, but in recent years had been a much sought after cover artist. In 2002 he founded his own publishing company, Aspen Comics.

Unfortunately it’s with great sadness that I must inform everyone that Michael Turner tragically passed away last night, June 27th at approximately 10:42 pm in Santa Monica, Ca. Turner had been dealing with recent health complications arisen in the past few weeks. More details concerning Turner’s passing, and services, will be given shortly.

Anyone wishing to send their condolences to Michael Turner’s family is encouraged to send to:

Aspen MLT, Inc.
C/O Michael Turner
5855 Green Valley Circle, Suite 111
Culver City, CA, 90230

Aspen also encourages anyone wishing to make a charitable donation to please send to Michael Turner’s requested charities:

The American Cancer Society

Or

The Make-A-Wish Foundation

When saying that Turner battled cancer, it is impossible not to add “heroically.” Despite years of setbacks and tremendous physical pain, he remained upbeat, friendly and productive, making the most of the time he had left. It’s a lesson that many could learn. Newsarama has more:

Despite his illness, Turner was one of the most upbeat people at conventions and in the industry. He always radiated a sense of humility and gratitude to his fans, and always had time for a quick chat or a smile. In an industry that can and has beat the happiness out of many creators, Mike was resistant to it, and was ever happy to work and talk to his fans, and even talk to the press. From the first moment you met him, you were his friend, and he treated you like he’d known you all his life.

Our condolences to Turner’s family and many friends.

Everyone may have Post-Convention blahs (or more accurately, Tired of Reading Internet Rumor blahs), but it would be bad to not take a moment and reflect of the loss of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time, George Carlin.

Carlin, who died Sunday at age 71 from heart failure, saw his career go through a number of phases: from clean-cut comedian to counter-culture thinker to kid’s show sidekick, arguably belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Comedians. Your mileage may vary, but let’s say the other three were Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart (with Eddie Murphy being oh-so-close to making the list).

You may not remember, but Carlin was the first guest host of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. He also had a great gimmick for the longest time of only appearing in one movie a decade, which stopped in the 90s, thanks largely to Kevin Smith, who used him to wondeful effect in DOGMA and JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK.

I first discovered Carlin in the early 1980s, in what people call his “observational humor” phase, where he did classic bits like “Baseball and Football” and “Ice Box Man.” One of the benefits of getting cable in the late 80s and early 90s was getting to see the Yearly Carlin HBO special. And then, he got really great when he became the “angry, ranting comedian” years before Lewis Black did it on the Daily Show. I was so effected by Carlin’s “shell shock” routine during the Gulf War that I typed out the whole bit and posted it on my college dorm room door.

Thankfully, after five or six years ago, I got to see Carlin perform live. Since I rarely go to concerts and such, I often have regrets about never seeing Performer X or Band Y perform, after they have broken up or passed away. But I was not going to miss Carlin, my favorite comedian of all-time. And the show was wonderful. I don’t remember any of the bits, but it was just so great seeing him in person.

Goodbye to the Hippy Dippy Weatherman. Goodbye to the Man who made the Seven Dirty Words remembered forever.

Posted by Mark Coale

We didn’t have time to memorialize the late, great Stan Winston, but we couldn’t let Cyd Charisse no unnoticed:

§ Comic Relief, which will continue under long-time manager Todd Martinez, has a “Memories” page up to remember founder Rory Root.

§ Tom has a fantastic obituary up with many more memorials from comics luminaries whose lives Rory touched.

One of Root’s most important endeavors was to cultivate relationships with and facilitate sales to libraries and other, similar, secondary markets for comics, doing so as soon as the early 1990s. When by the late 1990s and early into the 2000s this started to became a major market for comics sellers, Root dispensed informal advice and made appearances at professional gatherings to speak on these sorts of possibilities for the comics market. He exhibited at some of these shows in partnership with Diamond and then later on his own. Root’s advice wasn’t just a boon to comics shops that might forge such relationships but also provided librarians and other groups with a valuable service by letting them know what was out there for purchase so that they might enhance their offerings and attract readers. He was a featured speaker at the 2003 Book Expo America’s comics programming track.

§ And Beau Smith has also posted his memories:

Rory was unselfish with his knowledge of not only comics, but more importantly his knowledge of people. Rory never forgot what it was like to be that person looking for something entertaining to read. He could relate to the child, the teenager, the college student, the collector and the adult seeking to regain a small piece of their childhood. Rory may have forgotten that he had worn the same shirt a couple of days in a row, but he never forgot the mug in his hand and a friend. With Rory Root, you always had a friend, not only in comics, but in life as well.

Comics has lost one its great souls in Rory Root. The man seemed timeless and immortal, despite all his health issues, and also ageless, but many people are reporting he was 50. The web is filled with outpourings of grief testifying to his endless supply of generosity, wisdom and support. Words like “trust” and “help” keep coming up, from customers from cartoonists, from friends. You did trust Rory because he did help. In an often fractious business he was always level-headed and far seeing.

His store, Comic Relief, was a model of the future, long ahead of its time. I remember visiting it for the first time back in the early 90s and Rory showing off, with justified pride, the handsome fixtures and the track lighting which made it not just an android’s dungeon but an attractive shop where people felt comfortable and enlightened shopping. He supported graphic novels long before everyone else figured out the were the future of the business, and knew his stock like no one else. Whenever I was writing a story about any business aspect of comics, Rory was on my short list of people to call, and our conversations were always full of information, humor and wisdom.

A few years ago Rory and I were both staying at the US Grant for San Diego and we shared a few cab rides home. He praised the hotel’s bunch and we agreed to meet on the Monday after the con for breakfast. In my brain dead state I couldn’t have imagined more pleasant company, or a better friend to share a meal with. I also remember him saving me a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I was happy to purchase from him during the show.

Everyone will have tons of Rory stories, but he was such a fixture everywhere — standing outside with his hat, and the stainless steel coffee mug seemingly grafted to his hand, always with good advice for those who wished to follow it. Like another retailer sadly taken too soon, Bill Liebowitz, Rory exemplified the comics retailer who made a difference. People pick on retailers as a group, but men like Bill and Rory showed how important and vital this end of the business is. That they were so boundlessly generous with their time and knowledge was their real gift and legacy.

I want to quote some of the things being said about Rory because everyone needs to know how one person can make a difference:
(more…)

Numerous sources are telling us that Rory Root has passed away this evening.

Our sincere condolences to his family and his friends. We’ll have more later.

Journalista is reporting the death of legendary MAD artist Will Elder at age 86. The Bronx-born Elder went to school at the Manhattan High School of Music and Art where he met the young Harvey Kurtzman. The two went on to work at EC, where Elder inked John Severin. Later, when Kurtzman created Mad, Elder become a mainstay with his dense, joke-packed work. The two created Goodman Beaver for Help! and Little Annie Fanny later on for Playboy.

Elder worked extensively in advertising, as well, and his style, cartoony yet solid, was a huge influence on the underground comics to come. He was inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2003.

Elder’s funeral will be held Sunday in New Jersey.

Related: Excerpts from a Gary Groth interview with Elder.
ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD archive of Little Annie Fanny art.

Legendary Abstract Expressionist Robert Rauschenberg has died at age 82.

A painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, set designer and, in later years, even a composer, Mr. Rauschenberg defied the traditional idea that an artist stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked.

Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and others, he helped obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.

We were lucky enough to see the Guggenheim retrospective of his work ten years ago, and to our eye, no artist so encompassed multi media with such authority, building sheer nonsense to pure beauty. In particular, we often think of his installation “Soundings”:

Soundings is a 36 foot long sculpture made up of three layers of Plexiglas. The front layer would be partially mirrorized and behind are two layers of Plexiglas with images of a wooden chair on them. Different lights behind the sheets of Plexiglas would vary in intensity based upon the amount of sound in the room and backlight the images so they would be visible through the mirror.

Viewers would stomp and shout as fleeting images of the chairs flashed and danced. It sounds like complete twaddle, we know, but as you became part of the art with your own motions and sounds, something even more amazing emerged. He was a fantasist, a visionary, and whatever this post modern world is, he’s a big part of the good in it.

Mark Evanier reports the death of Danton Burroughs, longtime caretaker of Edgar Rice Burrough’s estate:

Danton Burroughs — the grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs and a major force in keeping that man’s work alive — left us Wednesday evening at the age of 64. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease for some time and died at his home in Tarzana, a suburb named for his grandfather’s legendary creation. He was the son of John Coleman Burroughs, who was himself distinguished in the arts as a photographer and illustrator.

I didn’t know Burroughs, but once, while following up yet another rumor on the John Carter of Mars front, I decided to just call the office number on the ERB website, and ended up speaking to him a bit. Even in a brief conversation, it was quite evident he was much the character, but for me it was a thrill to talk to ERB’s grandson and hear him talk about the Tarzan musical and so on. John Carter is now landed at Pixar, so let’s hope all of Danton’s hard work and dedication pays off some day.

Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney “nine Old Men” animators, and one half of the famed “Frank ‘n’ Ollie” duo has died, taking with him another piece of history.

The “Nine Old Men” were Les Clark, Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery, Marc Davis, Milt Kahl, Eric Larson, Ward Kimball, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. As animators and directors they worked on all the significant Disney films from Snow White on to The Rescuers and gave life to such characters as Malificient, Shere Khan, Cruella de Vil, Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Brer Rabbit and so on.

Johnston was the last surviving member, and with his frequent partner Thomas authored several classic book on aniation, including The Illusion of Life.

Mark Evanier has some remembrances here and Jim Hill here. Although Hill attempts to remember the train-loving Johnston as a real person and not just the symbol of an end of an era…well…it is the end of an era. The Disney animated film classics stand as one one of the most prolonged achievements of 20th century imagination and are arguably the greatest single achievement of corporate creativity ever. Johnston was an integral part of that and you’ll be seeing lots of tributes to this consummate craftsman, artist and teacher over the next few days. Cartoon Brew has many many links including a tribute from John Canemaker:

Ollie was a survivor, a wonderful combination of inner strength and outer gentleness. He could be practical, thoughtful and tough in making life decisions, such as buying property or cutting down a favorite old tree when it loomed dangerously. But he was also a passionate man, full of emotions that found the perfect outlet in his soft, blue pencil lines that, as Glen Keane said, “coaxed into being” the most sensitive of character relationships. “I seem to have a kind of reservoir of feelings about how people felt in certain situations,” Ollie once explained.

ComicMix reports the death of writer Rob Maisch:

Rob Maisch, the extraordinary raconteur who wrote 1995’s Harvey and Eisner nominated “Confessions of a Cereal Eater,” published by NBM and illustrated by Rob’s friends, Bo Hampton and Scott Hampton, Rand Holmes and Sandy Plunkett, died this week unexpectedly of cardiac problems in Copley, Ohio.

According to his long-time friends, the Hamptons, his hilarious stories, energetic teasing, and love of life will keep him vividly alive for them forever.