Al Williamson R.I.P.

AL WILLIAMSON, the celebrated and award-winning comic book and newspaper strip artist, passed away yesterday at the age of 79.

Al Williamson's career began during the American comic book industry's golden age of the 40s working for various publishers and assisting on the Sunday Tarzan newspaper strip.

The artist was to make a name for himself during the 50s as part of that illustrious E.C. Comics crowd of creators whose work remains critically acclaimed to this day.

E.C. was the place where Williamson honed his draughtsmanship on books like Weird Science to become the consummate artist and the go-to guy when publishers needed heroic adventure in the science fiction mould.

That's why King Features invited him to draw Flash Gordon in the 60s, then the following decade for Marvel he began adapting Star Wars and subsequently drew the newspaper strip serial of the George Lucas saga,

A frequent collaborator during those features was the late writer/editor Archie Goodwin. Other notable creative works they produced together included strips for the Warren line and the Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip serial.

Later decades found Williamson working primarily as an inker for Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. Whatever he worked on he never overshadowed the pencil artist, but always gave them style and class.

Al Williamson will be sorely missed. He was a great talent in his own right who continued to influence other artists through the decades of his life, and no doubt will continue to do so even with his passing.