Richard Matheson R.I.P.

Richard Matheson has passed away after struggling with a lengthy illness. He was 87. It’s tempting to just fade this website to black for a week in memoriam, but it occurs to me that fully half my audience are in their teens or twenties, and might not be fully aware of the magnitude of this loss. So, for those people…

Richard Matheson was perhaps best known for the post-apocalyptic novel I Am Legend, which has been adapted for film several times (but none of those films have ever truly captured the spirit of the book). While it is George Romero who is credited with creating the modern zombie, it was Matheson’s I Am Legend which provided Romero the seeds. But Matheson didn’t just help invent the modern zombie. He (along with peers such as Robert Bloch) ushered in modern horror fiction. A Stir of Echoes, Hell House, The Incredible Shrinking Man, classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and Night Gallery, dozens of novels, short story collections, and screenplays (including the oft-forgotten Jaws 3), and a major influence on an entire generation of horror, dark fantasy, crime, and science fiction authors, editors, and screenwriters, including Stephen King, Anne Rice, Richard Laymon, Ellen Datlow, John Carpenter, and literally hundreds of others.

It’s also important to note that he was a father, husband, veteran of World War 2, and a friend to many.

To say he will be missed is like saying that the moon is round — it’s a true statement, but one that doesn’t even begin to truly describe it. Perhaps a more fitting statement is…

He was legend.

Rest In Peace…