Bwah ha ha ha ha
October 12, 2023 3:09 PM Subscribe
Keith Giffen, legendary comics writer/artist (Ambush Bug, Justice League International, Legion of Super-Heroes, Trencher, the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle, and much, much more) has passed away at 70, and left a final Facebook post for the ages.
He will be fondly remembered and sorely missed.
Man knew how to rock a 9 panel grid.
posted by Artw at 3:17 PM on October 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Artw at 3:17 PM on October 12, 2023 [10 favorites]
There is a Giffen storyline towards the end of his run writing Legion of Superheroes that is up there with the end of the first Fallout game in terms of greatness.
The legion fights a long, painful fight to free Earth from an alien invasion… and then a few short weeks after liberation, the planet basically does a Krypton because of toxic waste left behind by humanity before the invasion ever happened. We are our own worst enemies.
The panel with a cosmic-scale Death of the Endless looking down at Earth as it all goes down is just… perfection.
He wrote that.
This from the same guy that forever linked Martian Manhunter and a hilariously unhealthy love of Oreos in my head for the rest of time.
Damn.
posted by FallibleHuman at 3:21 PM on October 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
The legion fights a long, painful fight to free Earth from an alien invasion… and then a few short weeks after liberation, the planet basically does a Krypton because of toxic waste left behind by humanity before the invasion ever happened. We are our own worst enemies.
The panel with a cosmic-scale Death of the Endless looking down at Earth as it all goes down is just… perfection.
He wrote that.
This from the same guy that forever linked Martian Manhunter and a hilariously unhealthy love of Oreos in my head for the rest of time.
Damn.
posted by FallibleHuman at 3:21 PM on October 12, 2023 [12 favorites]
a hilariously unhealthy love of Chocos.
posted by SPrintF at 3:27 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 3:27 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
I am SO MAD that I can't share that facebook post with my Ambush Bug & Justice League International obsessed brother, who died in November 2021. Of all people I know, he would have most appreciated it.
Keith Giffen's madcap, metatextual and innovative take on superheros is such an influential era for DC Comics. You'll never see another writer quite like him again. Comics get plenty meta nowadays, sure, but nothing will ever capture the refreshing contrast of goofiness he brought to an industry full of grimdark pouches. Like, the man created Lobo, for god's sake.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:29 PM on October 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
Keith Giffen's madcap, metatextual and innovative take on superheros is such an influential era for DC Comics. You'll never see another writer quite like him again. Comics get plenty meta nowadays, sure, but nothing will ever capture the refreshing contrast of goofiness he brought to an industry full of grimdark pouches. Like, the man created Lobo, for god's sake.
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:29 PM on October 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
The Levitz/Giffen era Legion of Superheroes is my LSH always and forever.
By all accounts I've heard, Giffen was a good guy. I never got to meet him in person, but he did interact with me. I used to write letters in to the LSH letter column in the late 80s on the regular, and was involved in LSH APA fandom in those days while I was in HS and college.
One day during, I think, freshman year of college, my mom called me to tell me that I'd gotten some packages delivered back home. Turns out that Giffen was sending folks who wrote in to the LSH letter column pages of original art from the book as a thanks for being active and involved. Just, boom!, have some comic pages out of the blue, kid.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:31 PM on October 12, 2023 [18 favorites]
By all accounts I've heard, Giffen was a good guy. I never got to meet him in person, but he did interact with me. I used to write letters in to the LSH letter column in the late 80s on the regular, and was involved in LSH APA fandom in those days while I was in HS and college.
One day during, I think, freshman year of college, my mom called me to tell me that I'd gotten some packages delivered back home. Turns out that Giffen was sending folks who wrote in to the LSH letter column pages of original art from the book as a thanks for being active and involved. Just, boom!, have some comic pages out of the blue, kid.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:31 PM on October 12, 2023 [18 favorites]
Thank you for The Main Man.
Just The Biz left now. :-(
posted by Artw at 3:47 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just The Biz left now. :-(
posted by Artw at 3:47 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
JLI and JLE happened at exactly the time when I was exploring comics for the first time since I'd been a child. That exploration was inspired by Alan Moore's run on "Swamp Thing" and Grant Morrison's work on "Doom Patrol" and "Animal Man", but I had a soft spot for the idea of the Justice League from way back, so I picked up the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire run from issue one on.
Great stuff. Entirely unlike anything else going on at time, and refreshingly uninterested in trying to be. I'm gonna pull my JLI Omnibus Vol. 1 down off the shelf and indulge in some nostalgia.
Thanks, Mr. Giffen.
posted by Ipsifendus at 3:52 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Great stuff. Entirely unlike anything else going on at time, and refreshingly uninterested in trying to be. I'm gonna pull my JLI Omnibus Vol. 1 down off the shelf and indulge in some nostalgia.
Thanks, Mr. Giffen.
posted by Ipsifendus at 3:52 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
And, I forgot to add: the scene in JLI where Batman one-punches Guy Gardner out cold will live forever.
posted by Ipsifendus at 3:56 PM on October 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by Ipsifendus at 3:56 PM on October 12, 2023 [17 favorites]
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posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:03 PM on October 12, 2023
posted by gentlyepigrams at 4:03 PM on October 12, 2023
One punch!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:10 PM on October 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:10 PM on October 12, 2023 [11 favorites]
I first noticed him as penciller on The Defenders during David Anthony Kraft's run and found his (at that time) enormously Kirbyesque style fascinating. I'd lost track of what he'd been up to when I found first Ambush Bug and then Justice League International. Ambush Bug is without doubt my favourite metatextual fourth-wall-smasher and I think JLI must be the most influential comic book people generally don't know - I hear echoes of its tone in lots of modern superhero movies, especially James Gunn's work (it was on Gunn's Bluesky feed that I read about Giffen's passing). Very sad. He should definitely be better known.
posted by Grangousier at 4:18 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Grangousier at 4:18 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
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PunX, The Heckler, and his run on Deadpool were some of my very favorite comics.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 4:31 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
PunX, The Heckler, and his run on Deadpool were some of my very favorite comics.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 4:31 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Batman one-punches Guy Gardner out cold
“I’ll say this for Batman: he’s efficient.”
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:43 PM on October 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
“I’ll say this for Batman: he’s efficient.”
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:43 PM on October 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ambush Bug has been my favorite DC character since his little run-in with the League of Substitute Heroes. I owe Mr. Giffen all the beers, ever, just for that one creation.
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posted by hanov3r at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
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posted by hanov3r at 4:58 PM on October 12, 2023 [5 favorites]
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posted by egypturnash at 5:04 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by egypturnash at 5:04 PM on October 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Hey Kent! You've got your bib on backwards!"
No dot, he was an ! man.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:29 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
No dot, he was an ! man.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:29 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Trencher!
That brings back weird memories.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:45 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
That brings back weird memories.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:45 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by jameaterblues at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2023
posted by jameaterblues at 5:56 PM on October 12, 2023
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Not a DC girl generally, but anybody who likes J'onn is all right by me.
posted by praemunire at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2023
Not a DC girl generally, but anybody who likes J'onn is all right by me.
posted by praemunire at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2023
So many great comics.
He did a lot of really great and twisted comics.
posted by Spike Glee at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2023
He did a lot of really great and twisted comics.
posted by Spike Glee at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2023
His JLI was so good. Imitated (remember when "serious" books like Suicide Squad and X-Men would then have a "light-hearted" issue), but never bettered.
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posted by gtrwolf at 11:27 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by gtrwolf at 11:27 PM on October 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Justice League Antarctica for life.
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posted by Joey Michaels at 1:08 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by Joey Michaels at 1:08 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ambush Bug is the hero Deadpool wants to be when he grows up.
posted by Hogshead at 1:53 AM on October 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by Hogshead at 1:53 AM on October 13, 2023 [12 favorites]
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posted by Smart Dalek at 3:41 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:41 AM on October 13, 2023
@Hogshead, I was about to say something similar.
I remember when everyone was flipping out over Deadpool. I was like, this is some F#cking cheap knock off of Ambush Bug. Marvel totally ripped that character.
I still have my Ambush Bug mask from my first RPG Convention in 1986. It was a handout for a module called Don't Ask! for the old DC Heroes RPG
Keith Giffen, I really enjoyed your work.
Sad to see you go so soon.
posted by garbhoch at 4:05 AM on October 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
I remember when everyone was flipping out over Deadpool. I was like, this is some F#cking cheap knock off of Ambush Bug. Marvel totally ripped that character.
I still have my Ambush Bug mask from my first RPG Convention in 1986. It was a handout for a module called Don't Ask! for the old DC Heroes RPG
Keith Giffen, I really enjoyed your work.
Sad to see you go so soon.
posted by garbhoch at 4:05 AM on October 13, 2023 [6 favorites]
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posted by mikelieman at 5:04 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by mikelieman at 5:04 AM on October 13, 2023
Somewhere I have a Polaroid that middle school-aged me took of my dad reading one of my issues of Ambush Bug in whenever that would have been, '84 or '85. My dad was a commercial artist. He liked Giffen's work, but I remember that he was more impressed with a house ad for Jack Kirby's The Hunger Dogs. "That guy can draw!" In my youthful arrogance, I countered that Kirby was old and people didn't draw like that now. My dad, who was right, just shrugged.
I thought about this because my dad died about ten years later, not quite 74, after a lifetime of destroying his body with alcohol and cigarettes. He was in a terrible state by the time he died.
And yet he was almost four years older than Keith Giffen when Giffen died. I don't know what killed Keith Giffen, but I do know that he spent his life working in a field that does not provide health benefits. I hope that he had the money to see good doctors throughout most of his life, but my guess is that health care was not a major priority for someone who surely had other, more immediate concerns -- even if his work made him, as I would hope it did, a solid income.
Giffen created characters that made companies a lot of money. He co-created Rocket Raccoon, which has surely made Disney millions -- billions, depending on how you look at it (Rocket is undeniably key to the success of the Guardians films). His stories inspired and influenced film and TV storylines that have made a lot of people rich.
I beat this drum every time one of these creators dies. But it's hard to get over. These people have been exploited. It's gross.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:47 AM on October 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
I thought about this because my dad died about ten years later, not quite 74, after a lifetime of destroying his body with alcohol and cigarettes. He was in a terrible state by the time he died.
And yet he was almost four years older than Keith Giffen when Giffen died. I don't know what killed Keith Giffen, but I do know that he spent his life working in a field that does not provide health benefits. I hope that he had the money to see good doctors throughout most of his life, but my guess is that health care was not a major priority for someone who surely had other, more immediate concerns -- even if his work made him, as I would hope it did, a solid income.
Giffen created characters that made companies a lot of money. He co-created Rocket Raccoon, which has surely made Disney millions -- billions, depending on how you look at it (Rocket is undeniably key to the success of the Guardians films). His stories inspired and influenced film and TV storylines that have made a lot of people rich.
I beat this drum every time one of these creators dies. But it's hard to get over. These people have been exploited. It's gross.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:47 AM on October 13, 2023 [9 favorites]
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I've never been a DC guy, but Ambush Bug was my jam as a teenager in the 80s.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:01 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've never been a DC guy, but Ambush Bug was my jam as a teenager in the 80s.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:01 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Damn. I loved Ambush Bug when he debuted. Something about the character hit just right for me. I particularly loved Argh!yle, the Doctor Doom Sock character, too. That's just the perfect vibe for comic books, IMO.
70 is far too young. GNU, Keith Giffen.
posted by jzb at 8:21 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
70 is far too young. GNU, Keith Giffen.
posted by jzb at 8:21 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
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Comics were a teenage obsession of mine and both Ambush Bug and his Legion left a lasting impression on me.
So yeah, this sucks. I really wish we hand another 15-20 years of Giffen on Earth.
posted by suetanvil at 8:36 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
Comics were a teenage obsession of mine and both Ambush Bug and his Legion left a lasting impression on me.
So yeah, this sucks. I really wish we hand another 15-20 years of Giffen on Earth.
posted by suetanvil at 8:36 AM on October 13, 2023 [1 favorite]
So yeah, this sucks. I really wish we hand another 15-20 years of Giffen on Earth.
I agree. But ultimately, we only have the number of years we are Giffen.
posted by notoriety public at 9:53 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
I agree. But ultimately, we only have the number of years we are Giffen.
posted by notoriety public at 9:53 AM on October 13, 2023 [4 favorites]
Jokes aside (although I hope he'd have laughed at it!), I also appreciated his work back in the day. I had the entire (sadly short) run of The Heckler. But I never got a chance to C'Est Hay to him in person.
posted by notoriety public at 10:00 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by notoriety public at 10:00 AM on October 13, 2023
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posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:31 AM on October 13, 2023
posted by scaryblackdeath at 11:31 AM on October 13, 2023
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posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:51 PM on October 13, 2023
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:51 PM on October 13, 2023
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posted by Artw at 3:16 PM on October 12, 2023 [4 favorites]