photo from lansposten.se

R.I.P. Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey)
posted a 01/27/2018

Beetle Bailey 's creator Mort Walker has died on January 27, 2018, due to complications of pneumonia.  He was 94 years old.  Although he was famously known for the creation of lazy private Beetle Bailey, Walker was also known for creating Hi and Lois, a strip about  a suburban family.

According to seattlepi.com, Walker drew his daily Beetle Bailey comic strip for 68 years, longer than any other U.S. artist in the history of the medium.

We salute you, Mort Walker.

R.I.P. Jan Steeman
posted 01/27/2018 

Dutch comics artist Jan Steeman has died on 24 January 2018 at the age of 74 to kidney failure.  He was best known for his football (soccer) comic book Roel Dijkstra and bumbling teenage girl Noortje (published in in Tina).  Noortje ran for more than 41 years, making it the longest-running Dutch comic strip by one and the same artist.

Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribune

July (12)

• [26 Jul 2017] June Foray (American voice actress for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Looney Tunes), 99
  
• [24 Jul 2017] Shoichi Masuo (Japanese graphic director and animator for Macross: Do You Remember Love?, GoShogun, Evangelion), 57
• [23 Jul 2017] Flo Steinberg (American comic book publisher of Big Apple Comix and Marvel Comics' secretary), 78, complications from a brain aneurysm and lung cancer
• [22 Jul 2017] Margo Chase (American graphic designer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer), 59, plane crash
• [23 Jul 2017] Russell Comegys (American actor on The Punisher), 45, traffic collision
  
• [13 Jul 2017] John Bernecker (American stuntman on Logan), 33, injuries sustained in fall
  
• [12 Jul 2017] Sam Glanzman (American comics artist, co-created Captain Willy Schultz), 92, falling
  
• [10 Jul 2017] Mangesh Tendulkar (Indian cartoonist), 82
  
• [09 Jul 2017] Wally Burr (American voice actor and director for The Transformers, Jem, Spider-Man), 91, hisstank.com
• [06 Jul 2017] Galip Tekin (Turkish comic book artist for Tuhaf Öyküler), 59, heart attack
• [06 Jul 2017] Juan Carlos Colombres (Argentine political cartoonist), 94
• [06 Jul 2017] Joan B. Lee (British-born American voice actress for Spider-Man; wife of Stan Lee), 93, stroke
  
  

Anita Pallenberg, from wordpress.com
• [23 Jun 2017] Stewart Wieck (founder of White Wolf Inc), 49, icv2.com
• [23 Jun 2017] Tommy Castillo (American artist on Detective Comics), 46, kidney failure
  
• [15 Jun 2017] John Dalmas (American science fiction writer, author of The Yngling and The Regiment series), 90,  pneumonia
• [13 Jun 2017] Anita Pallenberg (Italian actress on Barbarella), 73, theguardian.com
  
• [12 Jun 2017] Jim Galton (CEO of Marvel Entertainment Group), 92, saved Marvel Comics in 1970s
  
• [10 Jun 2017] Malang aka Mauro Santos (Filipino artist, cartoonist for Kosme, the Cop, Retired and Tikoy), 89, lingering illness
  
• [09 Jun 2017] Adam West (American actor famous for portraying 1960's Batman, played Mayor West on Family Guy), 88, leukemia
• [05 Jun 2017] James Vance (American writer on Kings in Disguise from Kitchen Sink Comics), 65, cancer
  
• [02 Jun 2017] Peter Sallis (English actor of Wallace and Gromit), 96
  
  

May (9)

• [30 May 2017] Albert Deschesne (American comic book letterer at Comicraft), 54, cancer
  
• [23 May 2017] Pierre Seron (Belgian comic book artist of Les Petits hommes), 75
• [23 May 2017] Sir Roger Moore (English actor famous for portraying James Bond), 89, cancer
• [21 May 2017] Larry Wright (American cartoonist for The Detroit News; author of the comic strips Wright Angles and Kit 'N' Carlyle), 77
• 
  

  Rich Buckler
  [19 May 2017] Rich Buckler (American comic book artist Fantastic Four, All-Star Squadron, created Deathlok, got George Perez into the comic book field), 68, cancer
• [18 May 2017] Oscar González Guerrero (Mexican artist, creator of Hermelinda Linda and Zor y Los Invencibles), 91, wikipedia.org
  
• [16 May 2017] Edmund Bagwell (British artist for 2000AD), 50, pancreatic cancer
• [12 May 2017] James Dale Cavanaugh (American owner of Clint’s Comics), killed by thief
• [01 May 2017] Stanley Weston (creator of action figures, G.I. Joe and ThunderCats), 84, complications from surgery
   
  

• [30 Apr 2017] Jidéhem (Belgian comics artist for Sophie), 81
  
• [23 Apr 2017] Leo Baxendale (British comics artist for The Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx, Little Plum), 86
• [07 Apr 2017] Yūshi Matsuyama aka Shigeru Matsuyama (Japanese composer for Mobile Suit Gundam), 79, burns
• [04 Apr 2017] Joe Harris (illustrator behind Underdog and Trix Rabbit), 89, nytimes.com
  
  

March (10)

• 
  

  Bernie Wrightson, from nytimes.com
  [27 Mar 2017] Leone Cimpellin aka Ghilbert (Italian cartoonist, illustrated Casey Ruggles; co-created satirical comic series Jonny Logan), 90, wikipedia.org
  
• [26 Mar 2017] Chen Uen (Taiwanese manhua artist of Magical Super Asia, Banzai, The First King; illustrator of Romance of the Three Kingdoms PS2 game series), 58,  heart attack 
• [22 Mar 2017] Daisuke Satō (Japanese game designer, novelist, and manga writer of Highschool of the Dead), 52, ischemic heart disease
• [19 Mar 2017] Kazunori Mizuno (Japanese animator for Naruto and Bleach), 52, overworking "karoushi"
• [18 Mar 2017] Bernie Wrightson (American illustrator and comic book artist of House of Mystery, Swamp Thing), 68, brain cancer
• [16 Mar 2017] Skip Williamson (American underground comic cartoonist for Snappy Sammy Smoot), 72, organ failure
• [12 Mar 2017] Murray Ball (New Zealand cartoonist of Footrot Flats), 78, Alzheimer's disease
• [12 Mar 2017] Stavro Jabra (Lebanese cartoonist), 70, wikipedia.org
  
• [10 Mar 2017] Bill Leak (Australian editorial cartoonist), 61, heart attack
  
• [05 Mar 2017] Dave Hunt (American comic book artist for Legion of Super-Heroes, Supergirl, Transformers), 74, cancer
  
• [05 Mar 2017] Jay Lynch (American underground comics artist, writer and editor for Bijou Funnies, Bazooka Joe), 72, complications from lung cancer
  
  

February (5)

• [25 Feb 2017] Neil Fingleton (English actor on Avengers: Age of Ultron), 36, heart attack
• [25 Feb 2017] James Stevenson (American illustrator and author, cartoonist for New Yorker), 87
  
• [13 Feb 2017] Giorgos Ioannou (Greek artist, uses comic book art in Greek's Pop Art movement), 90
• [11 Feb 2017] Jiro Taniguchi (Japanese manga artist of A Distant Neighborhood), 69
• [03 Feb 2017] Don Trousdell (American author and illustrator of Dockyard Cats and The Cheating Game), 79
  
  

• 
  

  Dan Spiegle, from newsfromme.com
  [28 Jan 2017] Dan Spiegle (American comic book artist of Hopalong Cassidy, Jonah Hex), 96
• [27 Jan 2017] Bob Holiday (American actor on It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman), 84
• [25 Jan 2017] Shunji Fujimura (Japanese actor on Death Note), 82, heart failure
  
• [25 Jan 2017] Jack Mendelsohn (American cartoonist and screenwriter of Yellow Submarine and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), 90, lung cancer
• [25 Jan 2017] Mike Peyton (British cartoonist, "The World’s Greatest Yachting Cartoonist"), 96
  
• [20 Jan 2017] John Watkiss (British comic artist of Deadman), 55, cancer
• [19 Jan 2017] Miguel Ferrer (American actor of RoboCop and Teen Titans: Judas Contract), 61, throat cancer
• [19 Jan 2017] Jan Kruis (Dutch cartoonist for Jack, Jacky and the Juniors), 83
  
• [17 Jan 2017] Pascal Garray aka Steven Sterk (Belgian comics artist of Benoît Brisefer, The Smurfs), 51
• [13 Jan 2017] Dick Gautier (American actor on Transformers), 85
• [12 Jan 2017] Gerry Gersten (American cartoonist for Mad Magazine), 89, Parkinson's Disease
  
• [01 Jan 2017] Alfonso Wong (Hong Kong cartoonist for Old Master Q; creator of Lao Fu Zi comic), 93, organ failure 
  

R.I.P. Dick Locher (Dick Tracy)
posted Aug 9, 2017, 7:24 PM by Vu Nguyen

From Vu Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribune Dick Locher, artist and writer on Dick Tracy for over 30 years, and cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune, has died at the age of 88 to Parkinson's disease at Edward Hospital in Naperville.  From chicagotribune.com Locher won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning with work that weighed in on President Ronald Reagan — with whom he once dined in the Oval Office — home computers and the Middle East. "I'm still numb. I'm still waiting for someone to come in and say they made a mistake," Locher said upon learning he had won. "My first thoughts were that someone was playing a terrible, cruel gag. This sounds hackneyed, but I'm really proud the Tribune won a Pulitzer. I always thought it was an East Coast institution, and I'm glad to see it made it all the way to the Midwest." Locher was pulled back into Dick Tracy's orbit in 1983 after the death of Rick Fletcher, who had taken over when Gould retired in 1977. Locher continued drawing the strip until 2009 and kept writing the storyline until in 2011.

R.I.P. Shoichi Masuo (増尾昭一)
Jul 28, 2017, 10:08 PM

From Vu

Japanese animator and animation director Shoichi Masuo (増尾昭一) has died; he was 57.

Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Project A-Ko, GoShogun, Evangelion, Crimson Wolf, Countdown, Submarine 707R, and Demonbane, are among the many titles that he directed, animated, or worked on.

Additional details at animenewsnetwork.com.

R.I.P. Fabulous Flo
posted Jul 24, 2017, 7:56 PM

From mirror.co.uk

"Fabulous" Flo Steinberg, the woman who helped keep Marvel Comics running in the Silver Age, has died.

She was also a pioneer in Independent comics in her own right.

Her death was reported by a close friend Larry Hama, also an industry legend, on Facebook.

He said: "I am grieved to report that ‘Fabulous’ Flo Steinberg passed away this morning after complications from a brain aneurism and metastatic lung cancer. She will be interred at the Jewish cemetery in Kerhonkson NY. We are making plans for a memorial in September or October. I will update on this page.”

R.I.P. Sam Glanzman and Wally Burr
posted a Jul 13, 2017, 7:42 PM

From Vu A couple of recent deaths in the comic book world: American comic book artist Sam Glanzman passed away on July 12th, following a fall. Glanzman was 92. One of his last book Red Range by Joe R. Lansdale & Sam Glanzman, was successfully funded last year.  His friends and family will be putting together a tribute book, which is close to funding via gofundme.com/samglanzman Also, the voice of Thundercracker and various other cartoons (everything from Jem to Inspector Gadget), Wally Burr, recently died on July 9th, at age 91.

R.I.P. Galip Tekin
posted Jul 9, 2017, 9:26 AM 

From al-monitor.com The death of Galip Tekin, one of Turkey’s most famous cartoonists and comic writers, could have been a scene from one of his comic books: A man with mournful eyes, who lives alone in a metropolis and draws strange and somber images, changes universes as he passes through his doorway. Tekin's futuristic illustrations were often compared to Franco-Bosnian Enki Bilal, who received international fame in the 1990s and whose comic novels were made into international box office successes. Tekin was found dead at the entry of his apartment in Arnavutkoy, Istanbul, on July 6. He was 59 years old. His friend and fellow cartoonist Yilmaz Aslanturk said that the cause of his death was a heart attack.

R.I.P. Joan B. Lee
posted Jul 7, 2017, 7:29 AM

From hollywoodreporter.com

Joan Lee, the wife of Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 95 (93).

"I can confirm the sad news that Joan Lee passed away this morning quietly and surrounded by her family," a spokesperson for Stan Lee and his family said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "The family ask that you please give them time to grieve and respect their privacy during this difficult time."

Joan Lee suffered a stroke earlier in the week and was hospitalized, according to sources.

R.I.P. Stewart Wieck (founder of White Wolf, Inc.)
Jun 27, 2017, 7:31 PM

From icv2.com

White Wolf co-founder and co-creator of role playing game universe World of Darkness, Stewart Wieck passed away suddenly last week, according to a message from his brother Steve Wieck posted on Tenkar’s Tavern.   Wieck collapsed after a fencing workout and never revived. He was 49.

Stewart Wieck was best known as the publisher, with his brother Steve, of gaming magazine White Wolf beginning in 1985, and as co-owner, with Mark Rein-Hagen, of White Wolf Game Studio, which published the World of Darkness RPGs beginning in 1991.

R.I.P. Tommy Castillo
Jun 24, 2017, 4:24 AM

From Vu, thanks to John

Tommy Castillo, artist on Batman and Detective Comics has passed away yesterday (June 23rd).  According to youcaring.com, Castillo had a long battle with diabetes, which led to stage 4 kidney failure.  They were in the process of getting approval to get a kidney transplant, but it did not happen soon enough.

His wife, Sammy Castillo posted the news on facebook.com:

"Good Bye My love. Until we meet again. I love you more today from yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow. Tommy Castillo 1/12/1971 - 6/23/2017"

R.I.P. James Vance
Jun 17, 2017, 9:30 PM

Kings in Disguise #1 From tulsaworld.com James Vance, a former Tulsa World writer, as well as an award-winning graphic novelist and playwright, died June 5. He was 64. A private service was held Thursday. Rose Hill Funeral Home handled arrangements. A longtime Tulsa resident, Vance was perhaps best known outside of Oklahoma for his graphic novels, including the Depression-era “Kings in Disguise” and its sequel “On the Ropes,” both based on plays he had written. “Kings,” published in 1988, is considered a landmark of the genre. Vance teamed with artist Dan Burr on both novels.

R.I.P. James Galton
Jun 14, 2017, 7:48 AM

From hollywoodreporter.com

James Galton

James Galton, the former president and CEO of Marvel Entertainment Group who is widely credited with saving the famed comic book company from bankruptcy in the 1970s, has died. He was 92.

Galton died Monday surrounded by his family at his home in Naples, Fla., a family spokesman announced.

R.I.P. Rich Buckler
May 22, 2017, 5:35 AM by Vu Nguyen

... Aug 1974) Marvel Comics John writes: Bleedingcool.com said Rich Buckler died of cancer.  I saw Buckler and his wife at SpringCon (Minneapolis) years ago, nice guy.  I happened to ... knew that Buckler was the guy that gave George Perez his first professional break.  R.I.P.    George Perez, in an interview in Wizard #35, talked about how he accidentally ...

R.I.P. Gaspar Saladino 
Aug 13, 2016, 4:28 AM by Vu Nguyen

photo: wikipedia.org LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #277 (Digital) (25 Feb 2016) DC Comics Vu writes: I have just learned that letterer Gaspar Saladino passed away on August 4th, 2016, at the age of 88.  From 1966 to the 1990s, Gaspar lettered most of DC Comics' covers - including logos, titles, captions and balloons. While there are many people involved in producing a comic book, none were more underappreciated than the letterer (who often went uncredited for their work!).  Rest in peace, Gaspar.

Gene Colan RIP 
Jun 24, 2011, 4:34 PM by Vu Sleeper

From Vu

I just found out that Gene Colan is dead.  You can read more details at ICv2

RIP Mike Esposito
Oct 27, 2010, 8:42 AM by Vu Sleeper

From George Pérez Sad to hear of the passing of veteran comics inker Mike Esposito. In addition to having inked Ross Andru on one of my favorite childhood series METAL MEN, Mike also inked my very first printed work. He was a nice guy and was very generous to me in my early years in the industry. RIP, Mike.

Frank Frazetta R.I.P.
posted May 11, 2010, 8:37 PM by Vu Sleeper

From icv2.com Frank Frazetta R.I.P. Published: 05/10/2010, Last Updated: 05/11/2010 03:17am Frank Frazetta, famed comic artist and illustrator, passed away Monday in Fort Myers, Florida of complications from a stroke.  He was 82.  His influence on pop culture was enormous, with a body of work that spanned multiple media.    Early in his career he was a comic artist, doing work for EC, among others, with his friend Al Williamson.    Frazetta also worked on newspaper strips, including Al Capp’s Li’l Abner, Dan Barry’s Flash Gordon, and his own Johnny Comet. [ Read more Frank Frazetta R.I.P. ]

R.I.P. Dick Giordano
Mar 28, 2010, 9:06 PM by Vu Sleeper

From icv2.com

DICK GIORDANO: CHANGING COMICS, ONE DAY AT A TIME (Oct 2003) TwoMorrows R.I.P. Dick Giordano  Famed Editor, Artist Passes at 77 Published: 03/28/2010 08:30pm Famed comic editor and artist Dick Giordano passed away this weekend at the age of 77.  He had been hospitalized for some time due to complications from leukemia.  He leaves behind a nearly 60-year legacy in comics that includes co-founding Continuity Associates with Neal Adams, stints as Editor-in-Chief at Charlton Comics and Executive Editor at DC Comics, and a major body of comic work.  (excerpt)   Giordano’s art may be best remembered for his inking, which included work on such high profile pencillers as Neal Adams, John Byrne, and George Perez.

George Tuska, RIP
Oct 16, 2009, 2:03 PM by Vu Sleeper

From www.comicsreporter.com

George Tuska, RIP
October 16, 2009

this is according to past Tuska spokesperson Dewey Cassell on a relevant yahoo news group 

posted 5:00 am PST

Inspired by Musicians Who Died in 2017, I will be compiling comic book artists or writers (including manga and comic strips) or comic book-related people (letterers, colorists, editors, etc.) who passed away in 2017. 

Please consider donating to heroinitiative.org who helps comic artists in need.  George Perez is one of their Disbursement Committee.

Email me: vu.at.weheartmusic.com if there is a name you think should be added here.