“No one can possibly understand the esteem and respect I’ve always had for Joe Kubert, from the time I was 10 years old. Joe was — and in my mind, is — the kind of creative talent that we need in our industry. Not just a talented person but also a good businessman and a great father. And then of course there’s that other thing. Up until his death, he was healthy as a hog. There are those who believe Joe Kubert could walk through walls and take the walls with him. Joe was a man in the greatest sense of the word..." — Neal Adams

Joe Kubert passed on ten years ago today. An absolute legend in the comic book industry--see the encomium above from Neal Adams, himself a comics icon--Kubert's career spanned an astounding seventy-five years. As this great Inkwell bio points out, Joe was one of the few comics giants to be admitted to various comic book halls of fame as a writer, artist and inker. In Comic Book Valhalla, Joe Kubert sits at the high table.

As Mike Pascale asserts in his Inkwell essay:

"In an unprecedented, nearly 75-year career, Kubert did it all, drew it all and influenced and impressed all who had the good fortune of meeting him. Through his teaching, his crystal-clear storytelling, dynamic figures and his deep, atmospheric inking, Joe Kubert created a legacy that few can match and none will surpass."

I covered Joe Kubert’s foundational, decades-long involvement with sword-and-sorcery in comics in this blog post.

On a personal note, a Joe Kubert cover led me to Edgar Rice Burroughs, which then led to Conan the Barbarian and Robert E. Howard. Thanks, Joe.

Raise a glass to the shade of one of the titans of S&S comics, sword-brothers.

Feel free to check out the career-spanning gallery of Kubert art below.

Very early Kubert from 1945, when he was nineteen years old.

Tor #5 from 1954. Tor was a character that Joe returned to again and again throughout his long career. This was the type of Kubert art that inspired a young John Buscema.

Yep, that Gardner Fox. Just imagine if Gar and Joe had teamed up to do some sword-and-sorcery comics around 1965. When it comes to (Silver Age) Hawkman, he was a superhero with a fairly Sword & Planet background, Fox and Kubert both being fans of Burroughs.

August 1972. This was my first baby-step toward ERB and then on to Conan the Barbarian and Robert E. Howard.