Thank you and good afternoon

I am saddened at the death of Dick Giordano, aged 77. When I was falling in love with comics in the 1980s, he seemed to pop up all over, inking a Batman here, a Wonder Woman there; the epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. Before Batman had fully supplanted Superman in my affections (a pivotal moment in my life…), he inked John Byrne’s Superman re-launch The Man of Steel. It was only later that I discovered his famous earlier work – his inks on Denny O’ Neil and Neal Adams’s groundbreaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Batman.

As I understand it, by the 1980s the art was just a sideline for Giordano – in his day job he was DC’s Executive Editor, leading its creative output, and helping to drive some of the most important comics of the past 30 years including Crisis On Infinite Earths and Watchmen.

As part of this role, Giordano used to write a column appearing in each DC comic, called Meanwhile, and I will probably remember this even more than his beautiful inks. He’d write about the comics DC was publishing, about their future plans, about the creators, about whatever tickled his fancy, really. He used to sign it off “Thank you and good afternoon”.

Whatever your hobby, interest or passion, it thrives if you are in a community of likeminded enthusiasts. I had few friends who collected comics, especially after I moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg in 1983 (I had to convert some friends into comic collectors!) Meanwhile made me feel as though I was part of something. I would not have used the word then, but I was in a sub-culture; a secret club of collectors, enthusiasts, intellectuals, aesthetes, imaginauts.

Thank you, Dick Giordano, and good afternoon.