So long, fare well

Two giants of my youth died recently.  The film critic Roger Ebert and the comic book creator Carmine Infantino.

Living in the cultural backwater that was Lee County VA in the mid to late 1970's there were three things that kept me going, Time and Rolling stone magazines, they kept me abreast on current affairs and music and some films, books in general and comic books in particular, no matter how badly my cousins and their hideous parents treated me I could always retreat in to the worlds of books and comic book to escape them for a time, and Siskel and Ebert's movie review TV show.

Watching Siskel and Ebert let me know about all the new films and the important films that were out that I knew I would one day see and enjoy.  Their show also let me know which ones to stay away from and once VCR's became ubiquitous, I finally got to see most all of the films they talked about.  I looked forward to their banter and to their takes on the films of the day and I'll always be grateful for the way they talked about film, it made it more accessible to a bumpkin like me.  Right up to the end Ebert was a fighter who kept plugging away and doing what  he loved best, writing and talking about film.  He will be missed.

I was a huge consumer of comics when I was a kid and the name Carmine Infantino was splashed all over the DC Comics I read.  It seemed like he had a hand in almost every comic I remember reading back in the 1970's.  I wasn't crazy about all his work but he was so prolific, you couldn't help not like one or two titles he worked on.  He wasn't of Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko status in my book, but he was nearly there.

Rest in peace you giants.