Triste noticia la que conocimos ayer: la muerte del dibujante Mike Wieringo. Como no queremos poner una simple nota en la que comuniquemos su muerte, hemos decidido hacer una pequeña despedida conjunta entre algunos de los componentes de +QC comentando nuestras impresiones acerca de Ringo.Txema:
Adiós, Mike.
Primero me despido que siempre es lo más difícil. Se nos ha ido un grande, señores. La parca ha tenido a bien llevarse a Mike Wieringo, natural de Italia, que ha trabajado para todas las grandes editoriales americanas e incluso ha creado series como el universo fantástico de “Tellos”. Cómo se nota, Mike, que te lo pasabas en grande con Todd DeZago haciendo esta serie. Menudo derroche de imaginación y calidad.
Mike era un gran artista, sus rostros son fácilmente reconocibles, un gran narrador y con especial habilidad para recrear todo tipo de mundos. Desde los más urbanos (en Flash y Robin), de Ciencia Ficción (en los 4 Fantásticos junto a su amigo Mark Waid) o de fantasía en la mencionada Tellos. Yo descubrí a Wieringo al principio de mi etapa como coleccionista con una serie limitada de Pícara, para pronto descubrir sus trabajos con Spider-Man y Flash, dos de mis héroes favoritos. En los últimos tiempos lo hemos visto por la casa de las ideas dibujando a la primera familia de Marvel, y a punto estuvieron de echarles a él y a Mark Waid, pero menos mal que capacitaron y les dejaron acabar su etapa. También se le ha visto en Spider-Man, de hecho crearon una serie para él solito y para Peter David. Y lo último que ha dibujado y que terminara de publicarse a título póstumo es una miniserie del bueno de Peter Parker y sus amigos de los 4 F con guiones de Jeff Parker. Y si hasta hace poco dudaba de si comprarla, ya tengo claro que lo haré.
El fandom no se olvidará fácilmente de él, una persona accesible que contestaba siempre a los mails de los fans, y que realizaba todo tipo de dibujos, ya fueran de videojuegos, series de tv o películas. Una persona que a tenor de las fotos que circulan de él por la red, siempre tenía una sonrisa como la que plasmaba a sus dibujos.
Me repito. Se nos ha ido un grande, señores.
Descanse en paz
IvánN Díaz
Yo también conocí a Mike Wieringo en la miniserie de Pícara. Recuerdo que su dibujo me impactó mucho, ya que, en esa época (mediados de los 90) era un chavalín que disfrutaba mucho con el amerimanga y el estilo cartoon. Pasó a estar entre mis favoritos, junto a Jim Lee (cuyo estilo es cualquier cosa menos los dos que he señalado antes...), Madureira o Jeff Scott Campbell. Quizás no tuve nunca la oportunidad de seguirle como me hubiera gustado, ya que pocas veces se encargó de forma regular de las series que yo compraba, pero los cómics que tengo de Ringo los he mirado y remirado muchísimas veces.
Seguramente, Wieringo no pasará a la historia por ser un superventas o por tener una legión de dibujantes-clones que imiten su estilo, pero sí que, siendo redundante porque esto ya ha sido comentado, su estilo es único y sólo con abrir un tebeo o mirar una portada podías reconocerlo sin mayor dificultad y, sin duda, dejaba huella. De hecho, cuando aún tenía tiempo para dibujar, me gustaba "copiar" su estilo, su trazo limpio, estilizado, sin excesivo recargamiento.
Cuando descubrí su blog lo añadí inmediatamente a favoritos y lo miraba habitualmente, la última vez a principios de mes. Allí le vi bocetos e imágenes como las portadas para su nueva serie de Spider-Man o pin ups con personajes de Perdidos. Mi tebeo favorito dibujado por él es, sin duda, ése en el que Los 4 Fantásticos se encuentran con dios-Kirby. ¡Qué grande!
Ojosombra.
No llevo muchos años en el mundo del cómic, todavía soy algo joven e inmaduro en según qué aspectos. Yo cuando leo un cómic, lo disfruto sea el autor que sea y nunca me concentro en lo que está mal y en lo que está bien, aunque hay cosas que se ven a simple vista.
Mi primer contacto con Mike Wieringo, lo tuve en su etapa de Los 4 Fantásticos junto con Mark Waid y he de reconocer que sus dibujos me encantaron. Su estilo cartoon único me hicieron disfrutar de sus cómics y sus personajes, su diseño del Dr. Muerte me pareció de lo más escalofriante. Cuando supe que se iba hacer cargo de Spiderman me alegré, sin embargo, no estuvo demasiado tiempo en la colección y fue entonces cuando le perdí la pista, hasta hoy…
No será el mejor dibujante de la industria, no sería un dibujante superventas, pero él fue quién me hizo ver que Los 4 Fantásticos era una buena colección y me hizo disfrutar de sus dibujos. Larga vida a Wieringo.
Kike
Yo también le conocí en su etapa de los 4 Fantásticos junto a Mark Waid, y desde entonces se ha convertido en uno de mis dibujantes favoritos. Que decir sobre su dibujo, pues al menos te alegraba, con ese estilo suyo, que parecía darle siempre un aire más alegre a sus personajes, dejando ver el lado más alegre de la vida.
Y ya desde hace un par de años, seguía casi regularmente el blog de su página web, dónde se veían todos esos dibujos que hacía, y no se, siempre tuve la impresión de que debía ser una gran persona, y de estos autores a los que se debía conocer alguna vez, aunque fuera viajando hasta Estados Unidos. Llegue al punto de inscribirme en algunos foros, para comentarle alguna vez, aunque no llegué a hacerlo, cosa que lamentó..., incluso hace tiempo que busco su Tellos, en fin, al menos aún tengo algunas obras para disfrutar de su trabajo.
Aunque siempre le recordaremos, uno de los grandes, descanse en paz.
Y ya desde hace un par de años, seguía casi regularmente el blog de su página web, dónde se veían todos esos dibujos que hacía, y no se, siempre tuve la impresión de que debía ser una gran persona, y de estos autores a los que se debía conocer alguna vez, aunque fuera viajando hasta Estados Unidos. Llegue al punto de inscribirme en algunos foros, para comentarle alguna vez, aunque no llegué a hacerlo, cosa que lamentó..., incluso hace tiempo que busco su Tellos, en fin, al menos aún tengo algunas obras para disfrutar de su trabajo.
Aunque siempre le recordaremos, uno de los grandes, descanse en paz.
Ahora os dejamos con algunas declaraciones de varios autores que han estado o están muy vinculados con él recopiladas por Adolfo Rodríguez..
En primer lugar, su gran amigo Todd Dezago.
En primer lugar, su gran amigo Todd Dezago.
my best friend, mike wieringo, died yesterday.
he was a vegetarian.
he worked out everyday.
sometimes these things just happen.
he loved comics.
he loved drawing comics.
he felt very, very fortunate to have been working in
comics.
he was very good at it.
his comics, like him, were full of life.
full of energy. full of fun and hope.
he was my best friend.
we worked together on spider-man, the x-men, tellos,
and several other projects that will now never come to
pass.
we grew up together with comics, though we were
hundreds of miles away. we enjoyed all the same things
about comics; the action, the adventure, the fun. he
was a joy to work with. we laughed all the time. all
the time.
comics were his life and he worked very hard on them.
sometimes 16 or 18 hours a day.
he loved comics and loved the people who read them.
he loved you.
he was my best friend.
he was my brother.
i will miss him more than i can say.
todd
Mark Waid:
This doesn't make any sense.
Mike Wieringo, one of the best friends I have ever had, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was forty-four. Let me repeat that. He was FORTY-FOUR YEARS YOUNG. He was in great shape, worked out religiously, ate sensibly...and now he's gone, and this doesn't make any sense. We're supposed to be doing something at Marvel that will make FF pale by comparison. We're supposed to be working together on our own stuff until we're old men, too feeble to pick up our pencils, but that's okay, because they can't fall too far when you're sitting on a mountain of cash earned from all the comics publishers, animation producers, and film studios who have finally recognized and rewarded Mike's unique genius.
I could spend the rest of the day writing and writing and writing to explain how empty this makes the world and I wouldn't come close to getting it across. Mike's artistic style quietly influenced an entire generation of artists that followed. I could never get it into his thick, humble head in what regard he was held by his fellow professionals. Mike was a member of a very small club of illustrators--among them, Alex Toth, Michael Golden, Kevin Nowlan--who were so revered by their peers that the brilliance of their work was never a matter of debate.
I have more to say--much, much more--but I'm just not up to it right this second. I'm fielding calls, I'm making calls, and I'm trying to adjust to this feeling that I've lost my right arm. I've never done better work than with Mike, and I probably never will. I miss you, buddy. Thanks for letting me be your partner.
Karl Kesel
When the phone rings before 7 AM, a small pit forms in your stomach as you scramble out of bed thinking "this can't be good news." Of course, nine times out of ten it's a wrong number or empty air.
Today was that one other time.
I can't really believe Mike Wieringo is gone. It isn't real to me yet. He was in great shape. He exercised regularly. He complained about working long hours (like all of us!) but never about feeling tired or weak. Hell, we talked on the phone two days ago and it was just another chat with 'Ringo. I had no idea what was around the corner. Neither did Mike.
I had the honor of working with Mike as a writer and as an inker-- in fact, I probably inked more of his pages than any other penciler-- and he was a joy to work with, every panel, every time. His work was deceptively simple--there was so much knowledge and thought in every single line he put on paper. His work had a subtlety and sophistication that I really wasn't aware of until I began inking him on a regular basis. Then I noticed things like a small waver in a line indicating a muscle just starting to tense, or a tiny nick next to an eye to show slight annoyance or the beginning of a smile. His characters moved and breathed. His storytelling was crystal-clear. The worlds he brought to life were breath-taking. And whenever I inked him I tried my damnedest to capture all of that; to not screw up anything he'd given me.
Mike was one of my biggest boosters. God love him, he thought I was the very best inker for his pencils. The first time I worked with 'Ringo was as a writer/inker on a one-shot called Spider-Boy, and we were always trying to think up other projects that I could write-and-ink for him. More recently, I'd been stretching my penciling muscles, and Mike was nothing but encouraging and supportive. As I've developed my own sense of storytelling and pacing, the fact is no one has influenced me more than Mike.
The last time I talked to Mike we agreed that both he and I drew "action" not "violence" and, unfortunately, that limited our commercial viability in today's market. Mike commented, a bit bewildered, that only a few years ago his style was "The Look" that all the editors wanted to give their characters, but somehow, suddenly, that had changed. I'd been thinking about that a lot, even before I got the news about Mike, and this is what I decided-- this is what I was going to tell Mike the next time we talked:
Mike's art was about hope, not hopelessness. He drew heroes, not martyrs. And if that was wrong, thank you Mike for never being right.
I have a lot of framed original art on my walls, almost none of it pieces I've worked on. It just seems out of place to me to hang something I've worked on next to a Caniff or Kirby. The one exception is the cover to Fantastic Four #517, penciled by Mike Wieringo. It's my all-time favorite comic-book series, from a run I am very proud to have been a small part of, penciled by an exceptional artist and dear friend.
And it's never coming off the wall.
Karl Kesel
Peter David
I don't know what to say. I honestly don't. I know I should say something...I worked with the man. But just saying, "He was a terrific artist and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to co-create comic books with him" seems inadequate when faced with a 44-year-old vegetarian in great shape whose heart gives out.
Saying "My condolences to all concerned" likewise seems facile and insufficient.
No words.
PAD
he was a vegetarian.
he worked out everyday.
sometimes these things just happen.
he loved comics.
he loved drawing comics.
he felt very, very fortunate to have been working in
comics.
he was very good at it.
his comics, like him, were full of life.
full of energy. full of fun and hope.
he was my best friend.
we worked together on spider-man, the x-men, tellos,
and several other projects that will now never come to
pass.
we grew up together with comics, though we were
hundreds of miles away. we enjoyed all the same things
about comics; the action, the adventure, the fun. he
was a joy to work with. we laughed all the time. all
the time.
comics were his life and he worked very hard on them.
sometimes 16 or 18 hours a day.
he loved comics and loved the people who read them.
he loved you.
he was my best friend.
he was my brother.
i will miss him more than i can say.
todd
Mark Waid:
This doesn't make any sense.
Mike Wieringo, one of the best friends I have ever had, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was forty-four. Let me repeat that. He was FORTY-FOUR YEARS YOUNG. He was in great shape, worked out religiously, ate sensibly...and now he's gone, and this doesn't make any sense. We're supposed to be doing something at Marvel that will make FF pale by comparison. We're supposed to be working together on our own stuff until we're old men, too feeble to pick up our pencils, but that's okay, because they can't fall too far when you're sitting on a mountain of cash earned from all the comics publishers, animation producers, and film studios who have finally recognized and rewarded Mike's unique genius.
I could spend the rest of the day writing and writing and writing to explain how empty this makes the world and I wouldn't come close to getting it across. Mike's artistic style quietly influenced an entire generation of artists that followed. I could never get it into his thick, humble head in what regard he was held by his fellow professionals. Mike was a member of a very small club of illustrators--among them, Alex Toth, Michael Golden, Kevin Nowlan--who were so revered by their peers that the brilliance of their work was never a matter of debate.
I have more to say--much, much more--but I'm just not up to it right this second. I'm fielding calls, I'm making calls, and I'm trying to adjust to this feeling that I've lost my right arm. I've never done better work than with Mike, and I probably never will. I miss you, buddy. Thanks for letting me be your partner.
Karl Kesel
When the phone rings before 7 AM, a small pit forms in your stomach as you scramble out of bed thinking "this can't be good news." Of course, nine times out of ten it's a wrong number or empty air.
Today was that one other time.
I can't really believe Mike Wieringo is gone. It isn't real to me yet. He was in great shape. He exercised regularly. He complained about working long hours (like all of us!) but never about feeling tired or weak. Hell, we talked on the phone two days ago and it was just another chat with 'Ringo. I had no idea what was around the corner. Neither did Mike.
I had the honor of working with Mike as a writer and as an inker-- in fact, I probably inked more of his pages than any other penciler-- and he was a joy to work with, every panel, every time. His work was deceptively simple--there was so much knowledge and thought in every single line he put on paper. His work had a subtlety and sophistication that I really wasn't aware of until I began inking him on a regular basis. Then I noticed things like a small waver in a line indicating a muscle just starting to tense, or a tiny nick next to an eye to show slight annoyance or the beginning of a smile. His characters moved and breathed. His storytelling was crystal-clear. The worlds he brought to life were breath-taking. And whenever I inked him I tried my damnedest to capture all of that; to not screw up anything he'd given me.
Mike was one of my biggest boosters. God love him, he thought I was the very best inker for his pencils. The first time I worked with 'Ringo was as a writer/inker on a one-shot called Spider-Boy, and we were always trying to think up other projects that I could write-and-ink for him. More recently, I'd been stretching my penciling muscles, and Mike was nothing but encouraging and supportive. As I've developed my own sense of storytelling and pacing, the fact is no one has influenced me more than Mike.
The last time I talked to Mike we agreed that both he and I drew "action" not "violence" and, unfortunately, that limited our commercial viability in today's market. Mike commented, a bit bewildered, that only a few years ago his style was "The Look" that all the editors wanted to give their characters, but somehow, suddenly, that had changed. I'd been thinking about that a lot, even before I got the news about Mike, and this is what I decided-- this is what I was going to tell Mike the next time we talked:
Mike's art was about hope, not hopelessness. He drew heroes, not martyrs. And if that was wrong, thank you Mike for never being right.
I have a lot of framed original art on my walls, almost none of it pieces I've worked on. It just seems out of place to me to hang something I've worked on next to a Caniff or Kirby. The one exception is the cover to Fantastic Four #517, penciled by Mike Wieringo. It's my all-time favorite comic-book series, from a run I am very proud to have been a small part of, penciled by an exceptional artist and dear friend.
And it's never coming off the wall.
Karl Kesel
Peter David
I don't know what to say. I honestly don't. I know I should say something...I worked with the man. But just saying, "He was a terrific artist and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to co-create comic books with him" seems inadequate when faced with a 44-year-old vegetarian in great shape whose heart gives out.
Saying "My condolences to all concerned" likewise seems facile and insufficient.
No words.
PAD
Hasta siempre, Mike!!!
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