E’ molto triste dover scrivere il ricordo di Stan Goldberg, collega talentuoso, gentile e modesto come solo i grandi sanno essere.
Stan e signora vennero a farci visita, in Italia, nel corso dell’irripetibile (e irripetuta) Lucca Comics di fine ’99, insieme ai tanti altri amici giunti dagli States in visita di questa kermesse e dell’Italia, più in generale.
L’esperienza gli aveva lasciato un ottimo ricordo, e ne parlò nel corso di un’intervista sul leggendario The Comics Journal.
Per alcuni di questi nostri ospiti, come Jerry Robinson, Frank Springer o John Buscema, sarebbe stata l’ultima Lucca.
Stan era molto orgoglioso del suo (ottimo lavoro), dell’apprezzamento ricevuto in seguito allo storico, impensabile incontro fra Archie e The Punisher, che gli aveva fruttato un riconoscimento a San Diego.
Stan era quello che le parole di Mark Evanier, a lui molto più vicino, e per lungo tempo, sanno descrivere molto meglio delle mie.
Stan was born in 1932 in New York and went to work for Marvel when he was 17, primarily as a colorist. In fact, there were periods at Marvel when Stan either headed the coloring department or was the coloring department. He colored all the early super-hero titles in the sixties. He was the man responsible for Spider-Man‘s costume having the colors it has. He was the man who made the Hulk green and so on. The artists whose work he colored all thought he was terrific.
He also had a long career drawing, usually in what we think of as the “Archie” style. He occasionally did something more realistic but mainly drew comics like Millie the Model for Marvel, Swing with Scooter for DC and Archie for Archie.
Most of these were unsigned and some that were signed were signed with someone else’s name since the Archie company didn’t like to find out their artists were drawing that way for competitors.
No one has ever totaled up how many pages Stan drew of Archie and his friends but the total was certainly well into the thousands. That association lasted for 40 years, ending in 2010 and he was startled and puzzled when it did end. For the last decade or so with them, he was not only kept busy but did many of their most prominent works, including the Archie newspaper strip, the much-publicized Archie-Punisher crossover comic and most covers. He told friends that he honestly did not know why they had suddenly decided to dispense with his services.
Stan aveva 82 anni, aveva subito un attacco cardiaco il 13 agosto e non si era ripreso. La sera del 31 se n’è andato.
