Dick Giordano

Dick Giordano, longtime comic book editor and inker, died March 27 at age 77 from leukemia complications. If you don’t know the name, you should. He was one of the major forces behind the so-called Silver Age of comics.

Here are a few reasons why he should be remembered:

• As an editor at DC Comics, he oversaw the Watchmen (characters who first saw life as the Blue Beetle, the Question, the Peacemaker, et al., under his guidance when he was editor at Charlton Comics) and The Dark Knight Returns — two of the big three comics (along with Maus) celebrated for bringing comics into a postmodern world and influencing countless comic book writers and illustrators working today.

• He edited and inked the Crisis on Infinite Earths series.

• He inked more DC pages than anyone, DC President and Publisher Paul Levitz told The New York Times for Giordano’s obit. That could be why it seems he worked with just about everyone in the industry at one time or another — either he worked for or helped launch them.

• He started the now standard policy of listing writers’ and artists’ names on covers.

If you want to see the type of work Giordano influenced during the Silver Age, take a look at The Silver Age of Comic Book Art, by Arlen Schumer.