Today we bring you Steven Ringgenberg's obituary for the recently departed Dan Adkins. An excerpt:
At the time of his death, he was mostly living on the proceeds of private commissions for comic art collectors, usually drawing characters he’d worked on in the past, such as Tower Comics’ Dynamo and the Iron Maiden, Vampirella, Batman, the Sub-Mariner, and so on. Like many old-time comics professionals, Adkins never managed to build up much in the way of savings or assets, though his art was highly regarded by comics fans, who voted him one of the 100 Best Comic Book Artists of all time.
Elsewhere:
—Yesterday also brought news of the death of Jack Vance, one of the twentieth century's greatest prose fantasists. Here is Christopher Priest's obituary for him. Vance's association with comics was mostly limited to a small number of adaptations of his work, including at least one by Moebius, who was clearly highly influenced both by Vance's visual descriptions and his depictions of bizarre social systems. A good profile of him ran in the New York Times Magazine in 2009.
—Publishers Weekly has a profile of Rutu Modan, the Chicago Tribune takes on Art Spiegelman, and the Herald-Tribune has a story about Nick Cardy, focusing on his WWII experience.
—Sampsonia Way has an interesting short interview with Iranian cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani.
—Criticism. Sarah Horrocks writes about the horror of Junji Ito's Uzumaki, and William Leung has a two-part essay on Darwyn Cooke's Before Watchmen books.
—Yesterday saw the release of Panel Nine's Sequential comic-distribution app. Paul Gravett interviewed Sequential's Russell Willis, and Robot 6 interviewed participating publisher Kenny Penman from Blank Slate.
