Saturday, May 19, 2012

Smatterday 05/19/2012

R.I.P. Ernie Chan
So soon after the death last week of Tony DeZuniga, another incredibly talented Fillipino comicbook artist was lost to us, Ernie Chan. Best known for his work on Conan and Batman, I admit I have almost no experience with Chan's work myself, but anytime anyone who made great comics dies, it is a tragedy. My thoughts go out to Chan and his loved ones.

R.I.P. Maurice Sendak
As if Chan and DeZuniga weren't enough, Maurice Sendak, legendary writer and artist of children's books like Where the Wild Things Are, also passed away. The response has been appropriately huge, which is somewhat comforting, to know that even as adults we still love the creators of our childhood. Personally, I would submit Where the Wild Things Are for consideration as the single greatest children's book of all time (it's only competition: Harold and the Purple Crayon). It certainly stuck with me the first time I read it (or it was read to me) and I have enjoyed it countless times at various ages since then.

Hopefully Sendak, Chan, and DeZuniga are all in the same place, cooking up some new dark and twisted children's comicbook together that we can all read whenever we get there.

Let's End Things on a Lighter Note
In the midst of all the sadness and death, another recent trend that has caught my attention is people paying inordinate amounts of money for comicbook material. First, there was the $850,000 purchase of Batman #1, and this week has seen both a $72K sale of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sketch ever done, as well as one of the highest prices ever paid for a single comicbook page ($155K) going to a random Kirby/Sinnott page from Fantastic Four #55. So it's a good time to be an insanely wealthy comicbook fan.

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