ON THE PASSING OF GERRY CONWAY

It was announced last week that legendary comic book writer Gerry Conway has passed away at age 73. I posted something resembling the following in a thread on the subject at the MARVEL MASTERWORKS MESSAGE BOARD, where I do most of my comic book opining these days under the name "MCRE" -- but I wanted to publish my brief (yet ever so slightly expanded) thoughts here as well for posterity, because while I've frankly read relatively little of Conway's massive comic book output over the decades, what I did read left a big impression on me. Obviously there was his BATMAN/DETECTIVE COMICS run, which I wrote about in-depth here as my last major project before going into semi-retirement. I think anyone who read those posts would come to the conclusion that, while there may have been bits and pieces I didn't love, overall, I found it an exceptional stretch of Bat-stories.

But a few decades before I read those Batman comics (yet a few years after they were originally published), there was another Conway run that made a massive impression on me. If you were to ask me what formed the foundation for what I think Spider-Man is "supposed to be" when I was a child, I'd easily rattle off Roger Stern's Hobgoblin stories from 1983 (which were some of the earliest comics I owned as a child when I could barely read), the Lee/Romita newspaper strips I had via the 1986 BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book I mentioned numerous times when I looked at the strips years ago, the Lee/Romita AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues circa the "Petrified Tablet Saga" (issues 68 - 75) which I owned via digest reprints circa 1987-88, and Gerry Conway's WEB and SPECTACULAR from 1988 - 1990, which I was reading as it came out.

I was around 10-12 years old when that combined WEB/SPECTACULAR run was published, and having returned to it some years ago as an adult, I think it remains a high watermark for Spider-Man (and is my number one vote every year in the "Most Wanted Omnibus" polls). When discussing that run with Tom DeFalco for the COMICS CREATORS ON SPIDER-MAN book, Conway said that his editor allowed him to write the books as a soap opera about Peter Parker and his supporting cast. In other words, per Conway, he came up with all the sub-plots first, then wrote the superhero stuff around them. As far as I'm aware, this was a pretty novel way to write a superhero comic at the time (though perhaps Chris Claremont had beaten Conway to it by a few years), and it's really the best way to write a series like Spider-Man, in my opinion. And that isn't to say the superhero stuff was an afterthought in those issues! To this day, because of their influence on me when I was a child, the sagas of Tombstone (in SPECTACULAR) and the Lobo brothers (in WEB) remain "iconic" Spider-Man storylines in my mind.

So I'm pretty bummed about this, but nonetheless thankful for all the joy Conway gave me over the years.

I'M STILL ALIVE...

Well! Things have certainly dried up around here since a year ago, when I thought I'd be able to manage one post a month! I managed January, February, and March, skipped April, posted in May, skipped June, posted in July, and then vanished for the remainder of 2025. I can make no excuses, though I feel like one of those 90s comic artists you would read about in WIZARD, who constantly missed their deadlines because they were playing videogames or whatever. That's about where I am... as I said around this time last year, I still want to do this blog; I just have a hard time lately finding the motivation to do it. I haven't even mustered the effort to reply to some comments that have rolled in over the past half-year!

So at this point I don't know what to say. I don't think I'm officially retiring or throwing in the towel, but despite my own wished to the contrary, I am most likely on a long-term sabbatical. And who knows; maybe that sabbatical will turn out to be permanent? I can't say for certain. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new post pop up at some point around here, but by the same token, I also wouldn't be surprised if this is the last word at this site! I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what happens next...