Father Geek here with some sad, sad news to start off 2005... Two giants of pen and brush have departed this earthly realm. Comic Writer-Artist-Creator WILL EISNER, and legendary Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Book illustrator FRANK KELLY FREAS have died... both were active at their given trades until the end came. I count myself lucky to have met both these immortals at numberous events over the years (1971-2002), to have sat and talked with them informally, to have shared cups of coffee and food, to have collected their comics, magazines, and books, to have owned examples of their original art. They were not only great artists, but were great men; brilliant, fun, helpful, caring individuals who never stopped loving what they did for a living.
I last met with FRANK KELLY FREAS in Los Angeles over the Thanksgiving holidays of 2002. I spent hours in the exhibit booth he and his daughter had at an annual event called LOS-CON going through hundreds of drawings from his long career that he had brought to sell at the event where he and my son, Harry, were Guests of Honor. I collect robots, so they helped me dig out several of his versions, or should that be visions, of the metal men and women that populated the stories he had illustrated in ANALOG, IF, FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, even the old pulp PLANET STORIES. Annnd speaking of stories Kelly was full of them. Sixty years worth of tales of working with the writers and publishers and other artists that blazed the trail for the generations of Sci-fi lovers to follow. I still have everyone of those hand drawn robots, Adam Link to the Asimovs, even a large phantastical mounted Knight in Armour, and a wonderful whimsy of Alfred E. Neuman in pen & ink. I'll never forget Kelly Freas, I loved his art, I loved the man. Hanging in my bedroom here in Austin is one of his greatest works, an emotional painting of a robot more human than those who created him, a single tear rolling off his metal cheek. Its was done for the cover of the October 1953 issue of ASTOUNDING STORIES and later reused as an album cover by QUEEN, and then as Kelly's bio. That painting sums up FRANK KELLY FREAS for me... one of the definitive artists for Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazines and books... right up there with Frank R. Paul, Chesley Bonestell, Virgil Finlay and Hannes Bok. Goodbye Kelly we here at Geek Headquarters will never ever forget you.
To me WILL EISNER was comicbooks. Even the industry's top awards are called THE EISNERS. This man's career spanned the entire history of the comicbook. He started in the newspapers and on June 2nd 1940 he introduced the world to THE SPIRIT by creating a comicbook sized newsprint insert to be included free in the Sunday paper. These "Spirit" inserts were to continue thru November 5th of 1952. No one else in comics history has done that, not Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Peanuts, Little Orphan Annie, or Tarzan. These thin little "Giveaway" comicbooks can cost you up to 7 or 8 hundred dollars apiece now on Ebay. Will moved the SPIRIT over into real comicbooks in September of 1942 when it became the cover and lead story in POLICE #11 and that gem could now cost you $2800.00 at auction, if you can find one. Will established several influiencal art studios and began training future artists. THE SPIRIT continued with its own comic title in Quality Comics in 1944, then Fiction House in the summer of 1952, and Harvey in October of 1966. When Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton created a demand for UNDERGROUND comics in the late 60's and early 70's Eisner saw the chance to create more freely his complex characters so he struck a deal with Kitchen Sink Publishing and issued the 1st SPIRIT UNDERGROUND in Jan. 1973. He maintained his relationship with Dennis Kitchen thru time coming out with new underground titles, and publishing formats over the years, including THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE SPIRIT in 1997. He traveled the world as a spokesman for comics & graphic novels, meeting with 100s of thousands of fans, teaching scores of artists and writers, and publishing their works. Like Kelly Freas he was a delightfully intense, inspiring individual... and the world is a lesser place for his passing, buuuut a better place for his having been among us. Farewell, WILL EISNER... AICN salutes you.
Well, that's it from Father Geek... I'm headed to curl up in bed under that wonderfully painful FREAS painting, and dig out my stack of early WWII era SPIRIT NEWSPAPER SECTIONS and remember two absolutely phantasmagorical talents, no... make that men.
