path2hope: Cartoon & Comic Book Industry Obits for the Past 12 Months

Hey ! It's spring! It's all sunny and beautiful!

And the National Cartoonists Society is having its convention in a couple of weeks. One thing that happens over that weekend is the Reuben Awards show.

It's like the Oscars. There's an emcee (in the past years it's been Dan Piraro), there are prizes, a live band, and I have to wear a tux.

One of the events that Reubens evening is a slide show of cartoonists who have passed away since the last Reubens. And so, today, for some reason (i.e., work aversion), I was counting up the names -- all of that I could think of, from the comic book industry to comic strips to animation (as well as a couple of seminal editors) -- and writing down names in a little pad. A couple of these names are industry legends, others are less known.

I thought I'd share the names and some links and graphics. I don't know if it's a complete list, but I hope there are no more names (but please correct me if I missed anyone).

Big hat tips to Mark Evanier and Tom Spurgeon for their blogs!

Here's a list of some of the tremendous talent that's left this Earth in the past 12 months, sorted by the date they passed away:

UPDATE: D.D. Degg let me know there were a number of cartoonists I missed (see his comment below). I can't believe that I missed people like Hilda Terry and Irwin Caplan -- and I even blogged about them. I've added the names to the list and stand, sadly, corrected.

Alex Toth 5/27/06, comic book artist & Hanna Barbera character designer

George Kashdan 6/3/06, writer & editor DC Comics

Tim Hildebrandt 6/11/06, Terry and the Pirates, comic books

Mickey Spillane 7/17/06, comic books, Mike Hammer

Bob McCausland 7/21/06, Hairbreadth Husky, editorial cartoonist

John Bush 7/23/06, Bush League

Bob Thaves, 8/1/06, Frank & Ernest comic strip

Bob Cordray 8/2/06, Smidgens, Alex in Wonderland

John McLusky 9/5/06, James Bond

Ed Sullivan 8/26/06, Priscilla's Pop, Out Our Way

Jerry Belson, 10/10/06 comedy show and comic book writer

Hilda Terry 10/13/06, Teena, magazine cartoonist

Michelle Urry 10/15/06, Playboy magazine cartoon editor

Don R. Christensen 10/18/06, animator & comic book artist

Dave Cockrum 10/26/06, comic book artist

Jack Williamson 11/10/06, Beyond Mars author

Paul Rigby 11/15/06, editorial cartoonist

Jerry Bails 11/22/06, father of comics fandom

Fred Schmidt 11/23/06, Appleton Post-Crescent cartoonist and illustrator

Ben Knight 11/28/06, Newbury News cartoonist

Bill King 12/7/06, Asbury Park Press cartoonist