Dick Giordano, 1932 -2010

Woke up today and turned on the computer and checked out the Comic Book web-sites that I follow and read this crappy news:

Comic Book Artist, Editor and Innovator Dick Giordano has died. He started in comics in 1954 for Charlton Comics and built up an impressive body of work mostly on their adventure line.
Giordano was known for his speed and reliablity for getting a job done on time. He never turned down an assignment and worked night and day to get it done.
In 1965 he became the Editor-in-Chief of Charlton and revived the super-hero line of comics with the help of Steve Ditko who revamped The Blue Beetle. Ditko also created The Question for Charlton at this time.
Giordano also brought back Captain Atom and introduced Judo Master and a host of other heroes. Jim Aparo, Steve Skeates and a few others artists were given their first assignments under Giordano.
In 1967, Giordano took an editorial post at DC Comics and the artists who he "discovered" joined him. Along with his editorial duties, he continued to ink over artists pencils to help meet deadlines and also because he loved to draw. In 1971 after a disagreement with the higher ups at DC, he left his editor job behind but continued to ink for the publisher.
At this time he and Neal Adams founded Continuity Associates, a company that provided artwork for comic book publishers, DC Comics among their clients. Here like at Charlton, Giordano discovered new artists who went on to work for DC and Marvel. He helped trained and showed them what works in a Comic Book. Terry Austin, Joe Rubenstein, Al Milgrom and others started at Continuity under Giordano.
In 1980 Giordano went back to DC, again serving as artist and editor. In a few years he would become Vice President/Executive Editor, becoming responible for some of the biggest events in DC Comics history.
Giordano, during his stints as Editor at Charlton and DC, was known as an editor who respected the artist's work, something that was NOT an industry standard. He let the artist do their job and sparingly crititzed the job, and when he did, sat down with the artist to explain why it would not work and usually helped the artist redraw the piece.
Giordano loved the medium of comics and respected the men and women who filled the pages of them.

He will be greatly missed by people like me who love Comic Books.

"May you take your place among those who made the world of four-coloerd fantasty...FUN!"