I get that people are supposed to die, but slow it down already!
Earlier this week Martin Nodell, the creator of Green Lantern, passed away at 91. A few weeks ago we lost Dave Cockrum (co-creator of X-Men characters like Colossus, Storm and Nightcrawler) to diabetes.
My sister once bought me a t-shirt that had one of his X-Men covers on it where Cyclops battles Havoc. It was titled “My Brother, My Enemy” — nice.
I still wear that shirt.
In sports, we lost Lamar Hunt yesterday. When Zeldman and I did the Chiefs site three or four years ago, we visited Arrowhead Stadium and their offices and I learned all sorts of Chiefs history and trivia as well as how much of the NFL’s history had to do with Lamar Hunt. He led the creation of the AFC and coined the term “Super Bowl” among other things.
In entertainment, we lost Peter Boyle. I knew him solely as the monster in Young Frankenstein when he became the dad on Everybody Loves Raymond. I loved how they had him dress up as the monster for Halloween and how his character was named “Frank.”
I was at the season opening Knicks game on October 31, 2001, sitting on an aisle, and he was walking up the stairs coming right at me. I recognized him and said “Happy Halloween” and he smiled. I thought that was the coolest thing, saying Happy Halloween to Young Frankenstein’s monster.
Damn.
Thus ends the “happiness and light” era of my blog.
Brian Alvey 