Comics Bulletin logo
Search
  • Columns
    Random
    • Becoming History: Comics In The 1980s

      Jason Sacks
      April 7, 2005
      Comic Effect
    Recent
    • Revisiting the Witchblade/Fathom/Tomb Raider Crossover

      Daniel Gehen
      February 8, 2021
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

      Daniel Gehen
      December 4, 2020
    • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 1

      Daniel Gehen
      October 30, 2020
    • What Looks Good
    • Comics Bulletin Soapbox
    • The Full Run
    • Leading Question
    • Top 10
    • The Long-Form
    • Jumping On
    • Comics in Color
    • Slouches Towards Comics
  • Big Two
    Random
    • What Looks Good for the Week of 6/19/2019

      Jason Sacks
      June 17, 2019
      Columns, DC Comics, IDW, Valiant, What Looks Good
    Recent
    • Collecting Profile: 6 Most Expensive Comic Books April 2021 Update

      nguyen ly
      April 17, 2021
    • 3.0

      Review: X-MEN LEGENDS #1 Delivers A Dose of Nostalgia

      Daniel Gehen
      February 22, 2021
    • 4.5

      DCeased: Dead Planet #7 Presents a Hopeful Future (Review)

      Daniel Gehen
      January 22, 2021
    • DC Comics
    • Big Two Reviews
    • Marvel Comics
  • Indie
    Random
    • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers Team Up in BOOM! Crossover

      Jason Sacks
      July 15, 2019
      Boom! Studios, IDW, News, Press Release
    Recent
    • 4.0

      Review: Beast Wars #2 another chance to change the past

      Stephen Cook
      March 3, 2021
    • 4.5

      Review: THE LAST RONIN #2 Hurts So Good

      Daniel Gehen
      February 19, 2021
    • TIME BEFORE TIME—A HIGH STAKES TIME TRAVEL SCIENCE FICTION SERIES SET TO LAUNCH THIS MAY

      Daniel Gehen
      February 19, 2021
    • Reviews
    • Archie Comics
    • Boom! Studios
    • Dark Horse
    • IDW
    • Image
    • Oni Press
    • Valiant
  • Reviews
    Random
    • 5.0

      Pilot Season: Twilight Guardian #1

      Jason Sacks
      June 9, 2008
      Reviews
    Recent
    • Singles Going Steady – Vowels, Who Needs Them?

      Daniel Gehen
      March 8, 2021
    • 3.0

      Review: X-MEN LEGENDS #1 Delivers A Dose of Nostalgia

      Daniel Gehen
      February 22, 2021
    • 4.5

      Review: THE LAST RONIN #2 Hurts So Good

      Daniel Gehen
      February 19, 2021
    • Singles Going Steady
    • Slugfest
    • Manga
      • Reviews
    • Small Press
      • Reviews
      • ICYMI
      • Tiny Pages Made of Ashes
  • Interviews
    Random
    • Seth Fisher: Head Case

      Jason Sacks
      June 2, 2001
      Interviews
    Recent
    • Interview: Jon Davis-Hunt Talks SHADOWMAN

      Daniel Gehen
      June 8, 2020
    • Interview: Becky Cloonan talks DARK AGNES and Her Personal Influences

      Mike Nickells
      March 4, 2020
    • Simon Roy

      Interview: Simon Roy on His Inspirations and Collaborations on PROTECTOR

      Mike Nickells
      January 29, 2020
    • Audio Interview
    • Video Interview
  • Classic Comics
    Random
    • Frank Miller's Ronin Pt. 4: Eyes in the Darkness

      Jason Sacks
      August 5, 2016
      Classic Comics, Classic Comics Cavalcade
    Recent
    • VISITOR is the Quintessential “SPIRIT” Story

      Daniel Gehen
      March 26, 2021
    • Countdown to the King: Marvel’s Godzilla

      Daniel Gehen
      May 29, 2019
    • Honoring A Legend: Fantagraphics To Resurrect Tomi Ungerer Classics

      Daniel Gehen
      February 15, 2019
    • Classic Comics Cavalcade
    • Classic Interviews
  • News
    Random
    • Image/Skybound Announce New Series Heart Attack

      Jason Sacks
      August 20, 2019
      Image, News, Press Release, Previews
    Recent
    • TIME BEFORE TIME—A HIGH STAKES TIME TRAVEL SCIENCE FICTION SERIES SET TO LAUNCH THIS MAY

      Daniel Gehen
      February 19, 2021
    • Image Comics and TMP Announces SPAWN’S UNIVERSE

      Daniel Gehen
      February 18, 2021
    • SAVAGE DRAGON IS A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH THIS MAY

      Daniel Gehen
      February 17, 2021
    • Press Release
    • Kickstarter Spotlight
  • Books
    Random
    • Review: 'The Furnace' is a Fascinating Graphic Novel of Ideas and Relationships

      Jason Sacks
      July 9, 2018
      Books
    Recent
    • Collecting Profile: Disney Frozen

      CB Staff
      November 22, 2019
    • Collecting Profile: NFL Superpro

      CB Staff
      August 31, 2019
    • “THE BEST OF WITZEND” is a Wonderful Celebration of Artistic Freedom

      Daniel Gehen
      September 15, 2018
    • Review: ‘Machete Squad’ is a Disappointing Afghan Memoir

      Jason Sacks
      July 31, 2018
    • Review: ‘Out of Nothing’ is the Antidote to Our Sick Times

      Jason Sacks
      July 23, 2018
    • Review: ‘Bizarre Romance’ Shows Rough Edges in the Early Days of a New Marriage

      Jason Sacks
      July 10, 2018
What's New
  • Collecting Profile: 6 Most Expensive Comic Books April 2021 Update
  • Collecting Profile: Guardians of the Galaxy
  • Collecting Profile: 1990 Marvel Universe Trading Cards
  • Collecting Profile: Red Sonja
  • Collecting Profile: Dr. Doom
  • VISITOR is the Quintessential “SPIRIT” Story
  • RSS Feed
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Contact Us
  • Write for us!
  • Visit Video Game Break!
Home
Columns

Steve Gerber: Alone on the Planet of the Absurd

Jason Sacks
February 15, 2008
Columns, Comics Bulletin Soapbox

“B O Z O You’re bozos, bozos, bozos!!”
– the Celestial Mind Control Movement, Defenders, 1976

You’ve probably read by now that the great comics writer Steve Gerber passed away recently of pulmonary fibrosis at the age of 60. His passing meant a lot to me. I’ve loved Gerber’s writing since I first discovered it as a kid in the mid-’70s. Gerber’s work had an amazing power and honesty to it that few writers ever even thought of approaching. His comics were autobiographical, which is astonishing in light of the fact that among his most popular characters were a mindless, muck-encrusted creature that lives in a swamp and a giant talking duck. Somehow that fact didn’t matter. Gerber’s stories were compelling in their neurotic genius. Robert Crumb’s neuroses are haunting; Gerber’s were charming. That’s the coolest thing about Steve Gerber to me.

He was most prolific in comics between about 1974 and 1978. During that time Gerber often wrote four comics per month in addition to innumerable letters pages. For some writers, having to produce at such a blistering pace forces them to write formulaic stories. The feeling among most writers in that situation is often that they have no time to be original.

But with Gerber the opposite seemed to be true. Because he had to write so quickly, Gerber didn’t have time to censor himself, to really analyze what he was writing. His writing in that era seemed to flow from Gerber’s id straight onto the page. Innermost thoughts became written words with a minimum of mental censorship. His angst and concerns and crazy, loopy ideas were all flung onto the page with a passion and energy unique to him. And far from being self-indulgent hackwork, Gerber’s writing was astonishing and compelling. There was an honesty and passion in Steve Gerber’s writing that has rarely appeared in a Marvel or DC comic of any era.

I never met Steve Gerber, but I feel like I saw inside his soul. How could I not? Gerber bared his every time he wrote a story. His stories may often have featured super-heroes, but they really were about the most compelling stories of all: the battle of one man against his inner voices and against the random and bizarre society around him.

Gerber’s comics were full of turmoil of a very different sort than was found in most comics stories. Where most comics were morality stories of one type of another, Gerber’s stories always seemed to be about something deeper and more compelling: the struggle with personal identity, the random crazy forces of life, the dislocation that an intelligent, well-spirited man feels when surrounded in a world full of, well, bozos. Gerber once wrote a comic titled “Planet of the Absurd.” To Gerber, it seemed, his whole world was absurd.




As Tom Spurgeon has pointed out in The Comics Reporter, Gerber was unique in that he brought an underground mentality to an overground world. Gerber was brilliant, perhaps the best ever, at channeling the witty and slick patter that Stan Lee originated while at the same time subverting the very form that he was embracing. In Gerber’s stories, scenes flow by with such charm, rhythm and cleverness that you hardly realize that characters are miserable, the world is full of random actions, and strangeness is right around the corner.

Only Gerber could create a transgendered superhero, Starhawk, in 1976, and not have the character feel like a freak. Only Gerber could create the Gerber Elf, a little man in an elf costume who kills random strangers, in 1975, and somehow have the character not feel like a bizarre non-sequitur. (Well, okay, it is a bizarre non-sequitur, but that’s kind of what’s cool about it.) Only Gerber could create a comic about a showgirl and her pet ostrich and have it work wonderfully, as he did with Nevada in 1998. And yes, even today, I doubt anyone other than Gerber would have the audacity to remake the great mystic hero Doctor Fate as a down-on-his-luck alcoholic ex-psychologist who could care less about fighting evil, as he has been in Countdown to Mystery.

See, there’s the problem with writing about Steve Gerber. Most all of his comics were so rich in content, so audacious in thought, and so intelligent in conception, that I want to shout from the roofs about every single one of them. Omega the Unknown, his funhouse-mirror take on Superman, was haunting and beautiful and poignant. His take on the Thing in Marvel Two-In-One is an underrated look at a man, Ben Grimm, who has come to terms with the demons that used to haunt him. I could go on and on. And I’m tempted to do so, but, you know, there’s several dozen articles about Gerber out there floating on the Interweb. Heck, the gray lady The New York Times even published an obituary for Steve Gerber.

Can you believe that? The damn New York Times cared enough about Steve “Baby” Gerber to give him a nice obit.

But in the end, after all this passionate, pseudo-intellectual praise I give to the dear, departed Mr. Gerber, the best praise I can give you is that his writing has really touched me deeply for most all of my life. Steve Gerber’s comics have been constant companions to me over the years. As a kid I was haunted by the mystery of Omega, and continue to be haunted by that comic today. As a kid I thought Gerber’s stories in Defenders were weird and wacky; now I see the inherent existential power of the characters and their true, transcendent humanity. As a kid I thought his Howard the Duck was funny; now I see it as the brilliant, subversive creation of a man whose life was slowly driving him crazy.

Steve Gerber was the rarest of the rare: a genuine comics genius who was funny, self-effacing and tremendously intelligent. He was truly one of a kind.

I never met the man, but I knew Steve Gerber intimately.

Comics Bulletin SoapboxJason Sacks

Share On:
Tweet
Steve Gerber: Alone on the Planet of the Absurd
Trapped in a World He Helped Us Tolerate

About The Author

<a href="http://comicsbulletin.com/byline/jason-sacks/" rel="tag">Jason Sacks</a>
Jason Sacks
Publisher Emeritus
Google+

Jason Sacks has been obsessed with pop culture for longer than he'd like to remember. Jason has been writing for Comics Bulletin for nearly a decade, producing over a million words of content about comics, films and other media. He has also been published in a number of publications, including the late, lamented Amazing Heroes, The Flash Companion and The American Comic Book Chronicles: the 1970s,1980s and 1990s. Find him on Facebook and Twitter. Jason is the Publisher Emeritus of Comics Bulletin.

Related Posts

  • Reliving the Craziest Decade in Comics History: An interview with Jason Sacks

    Mark Stack
    January 2, 2019
  • Top 10 Thoughts About Jack Kirby

    Jason Sacks
    August 28, 2017

Latest Columns

  • Revisiting the Witchblade/Fathom/Tomb Raider Crossover

    Daniel Gehen
    February 8, 2021
  • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 2

    Daniel Gehen
    December 4, 2020
  • The Full Run: Usagi Yojimbo – The Wanderer’s Road Part 1

    Daniel Gehen
    October 30, 2020
  • Comictober 2020: DRACULA MOTHERF**KER

    Daniel Gehen
    October 27, 2020
  • What Looks Good for the Week of 10/14/2020

    Daniel Gehen
    October 12, 2020
RSSTwitterFacebookgoogleplusinstagramtumblr

Comics Bulletin is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for website owners to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com, audible.com, and any other website that may be affiliated with Amazon Service LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, Comics Bulletin earns from qualifying purchases.

All content on this site (c) 2018 The Respective Copyright Holders