R.I.P.s

A stunned farewell to Rich Buckler. Rich was the first artist that I ever did major work on, illustrating the four part “Death of Jean DeWolff” that ran back in Spectacular Spider-Man #107-#110. He was routinely accused of being an art thief, using the work of others as trace reference for his own art. Nevertheless I can’t think too poorly of him, if for no other reason than that he helped me launch my comic book career.

We must also say good-bye to Roger Moore, which means that for the first time we have lost a movie James Bond (if we don’t count David Niven.). Moore’s Bond had a lot of fans, although he wasn’t my favorite. I totally believed him as a romance machine but didn’t buy that he was a merciless killer. (As opposed to his successor, Timothy Dalton, who I believed as a killer but had trouble with the love aspect.). Honestly, my favorite Moore performance was in Cannonball Run, in which he plays a Jewish guy who believes he’s Roger Moore. His scene with his scolding mother, played by Yiddish legend Molly Picon, is hilarious. You can find it here at around the 2:50 mark.

PAD