Star Wars & Flash Gordon artist Al Williamson dies

Williamson promotional art for cover of Dark Horse Comics' Classic Star Wars: Han Solo at Star's End (1997) TM Lucasfilm

Some sad news is crossing the interwebs today, hitting comic book fanboys especially hard.  Al Williamson, the renowned and Eisner-Award winning artist of such classic characters as Flash Gordon, Tarzan and Han Solo, passed away yesterday at the age of 79.

I will always remember Mr. Williamson for the stunning work he did on Marvel Comics' adaptation of "The Empire Strikes Back."  As a young comic book reader and an aspiring artist, his line work and draftsmanship were simply a joy to behold each month.  His collaboration with Carlos Garzon and the late Archie Goodwin on the six-issue miniseries is to me the best comic adaptation of a Star Wars film ever done. (I was a bit less than pleased by Marvel's Return of the Jedi adaptation which reunited the artistic team, but only lasted four issues and really truncated the story.  The artwork was still gorgeous!)

The irony to me is that Empire just celebrated it's 30th anniversary and now one of the great names associated with making it part of the public consciousness has been lost. 

Good bye Mr. Williamson. You will be missed.