Dick Giordano R.I.P.

I was very sad to learn today that Dick Giordano, a fabulous artist and a major editorial influence at DC Comics, passed away today. I met with Dick several times when I was first getting started in comics, and he was always supportive, friendly and just a good guy to deal with. The older I get, the more I value that in people. It's a rare commodity...

I still remember sitting in my editor's office at DC looking over some frankly awful pencils for a story I'd written. Dick happened to pop in, looked at the pages with the same dismay, and told the editor to spend a few bucks and do whatever he could to get the pages into shape. I actually have a few of those redrawn originals. You would never mistake them for great, but they did come up a lot. And I can imagine a lot of folks who would have sent them to press "as is."

We lost one of the good guys today...