Mike Wierigno R.I.P.

[milan]

U 44. godini zivota, od srchanog udara, pre nekoliko dana umro je Majk Virinjo, rodjen u Veneciji, a poznat kao crtac americhkih stripova - pre svega po radu na DCevom Flash-u, i na FNSpiderman sa Piterom Dejvidom, kao i na Fantastichnoj Chetvorci sa Mark Vejdom.
Vise podataka o njemu:
http://www.newsarama.com/Chicago_07/Ringo.html

[DušMan]

As the news of Mike Wieringo's tragic death on Sunday percolates throughout the comics industry, we asked Mark Waid and Todd Dezago, two of his best-known collaborators for their thoughts on the loss and reactions.

Mark Waid

This doesn't make any sense.

Mike Wieringo, one of the best friends I have ever had, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was forty-four. Let me repeat that. He was FORTY-FOUR YEARS YOUNG. He was in great shape, worked out religiously, ate sensibly...and now he's gone, and this doesn't make any sense. We're supposed to be doing something at Marvel that will make FF pale by comparison. We're supposed to be working together on our own stuff until we're old men, too feeble to pick up our pencils, but that's okay, because they can't fall too far when you're sitting on a mountain of cash earned from all the comics publishers, animation producers, and film studios who have finally recognized and rewarded Mike's unique genius.

I could spend the rest of the day writing and writing and writing to explain how empty this makes the world and I wouldn't come close to getting it across. Mike's artistic style quietly influenced an entire generation of artists that followed. I could never get it into his thick, humble head in what regard he was held by his fellow professionals. Mike was a member of a very small club of illustrators--among them, Alex Toth, Michael Golden, Kevin Nowlan--who were so revered by their peers that the brilliance of their work was never a matter of debate.

I have more to say--much, much more--but I'm just not up to it right this second. I'm fielding calls, I'm making calls, and I'm trying to adjust to this feeling that I've lost my right arm. I've never done better work than with Mike, and I probably never will. I miss you, buddy. Thanks for letting me be your partner.

From Todd Dezago

my best friend, mike wieringo, died yesterday.

he was a vegetarian.
he worked out everyday.
sometimes these things just happen.

he loved comics.
he loved drawing comics.
he felt very, very fortunate to have been working in
comics.
he was very good at it.

his comics, like him, were full of life.
full of energy. full of fun and hope.

he was my best friend.

we worked together on spider-man, the x-men, tellos,
and several other projects that will now never come to
pass.
we grew up together with comics, though we were
hundreds of miles away. we enjoyed all the same things
about comics; the action, the adventure, the fun. he
was a joy to work with. we laughed all the time. all
the time.

comics were his life and he worked very hard on them.
sometimes 16 or 18 hours a day.
he loved comics and loved the people who read them.
he loved you.

he was my best friend.
he was my brother.
i will miss him more than i can say.

todd

From Karl Kesel

When the phone rings before 7 AM, a small pit forms in your stomach as you scramble out of bed thinking "this can't be good news." Of course, nine times out of ten it's a wrong number or empty air.

Today was that one other time.

I can't really believe Mike Wieringo is gone. It isn't real to me yet. He was in great shape. He exercised regularly. He complained about working long hours (like all of us!) but never about feeling tired or weak. Hell, we talked on the phone two days ago and it was just another chat with 'Ringo. I had no idea what was around the corner. Neither did Mike.

I had the honor of working with Mike as a writer and as an inker-- in fact, I probably inked more of his pages than any other penciler-- and he was a joy to work with, every panel, every time. His work was deceptively simple--there was so much knowledge and thought in every single line he put on paper. His work had a subtlety and sophistication that I really wasn't aware of until I began inking him on a regular basis. Then I noticed things like a small waver in a line indicating a muscle just starting to tense, or a tiny nick next to an eye to show slight annoyance or the beginning of a smile. His characters moved and breathed. His storytelling was crystal-clear. The worlds he brought to life were breath-taking. And whenever I inked him I tried my damnedest to capture all of that; to not screw up anything he'd given me.

Mike was one of my biggest boosters. God love him, he thought I was the very best inker for his pencils. The first time I worked with 'Ringo was as a writer/inker on a one-shot called Spider-Boy, and we were always trying to think up other projects that I could write-and-ink for him. More recently, I'd been stretching my penciling muscles, and Mike was nothing but encouraging and supportive. As I've developed my own sense of storytelling and pacing, the fact is no one has influenced me more than Mike.

The last time I talked to Mike we agreed that both he and I drew "action" not "violence" and, unfortunately, that limited our commercial viability in today's market. Mike commented, a bit bewildered, that only a few years ago his style was "The Look" that all the editors wanted to give their characters, but somehow, suddenly, that had changed. I'd been thinking about that a lot, even before I got the news about Mike, and this is what I decided-- this is what I was going to tell Mike the next time we talked:

Mike's art was about hope, not hopelessness. He drew heroes, not martyrs. And if that was wrong, thank you Mike for never being right.

I have a lot of framed original art on my walls, almost none of it pieces I've worked on. It just seems out of place to me to hang something I've worked on next to a Caniff or Kirby. The one exception is the cover to Fantastic Four #517, penciled by Mike Wieringo. It's my all-time favorite comic-book series, from a run I am very proud to have been a small part of, penciled by an exceptional artist and dear friend.

And it's never coming off the wall.

Karl Kesel
August 13, 2007