First, the late Gram Parsons, maker of "Cosmic American Music", first country artist to act like and hang out with rock and roll stars, collaborator with the Byrds, Emmylou Harris and the Rolling Stones, founding member of the seminal country-rock outfit The Flying Burrito Brothers, and drug casualty at age 26. He would have been 57 today.
Also, today is the 65th birthday of the great Jim Steranko. Steranko blew everyone's minds with his innovative multimedia and graphic design techniques while illustrating Marvel's Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., among others (see my horror comics post below) in the swingin 60s, then moved on to do many more great magazine and paperback covers, found his own magazine publishing company, write two histories of comics, and many other things. Everything but draw a regular monthly comics series, it seems... Steranko is also an accomplished magician and escape artist, and served as the inspiration for not only Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle character, but served as part of the inspiration for Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Despite his relatively low profile, Steranko's done some incredible stuff. Go here for a great cover gallery, and click on Steranko's picture above for a recently updated fan site. And yes, I stole the picture from the Dragon*Con bio page that can be accessed by clicking the link in Steranko's name. It was the only decent picture I could find on the Web of the man!
Boy oh boy, I love that Shadow cover. Death has "four kings"...but the Shadow has the Ace of Spades, plus his automatic! Damn!
