Phil Lasorda R.I.P.

My first email of the day-July 4th 2008-was word from an old friend, Bill Cucinotta, that our other old friend and Comico publisher, Phil Lasorda died.

I then found this at Heidi MacDonald's blog:

"We’ve received word that former Comico publisher, Phil Lasorda, passed away yesterday. In addition to running the company which published such titles as MAGE and THE ELEMENTALS, Lasorda was a creator himself, with the book AZ. No further details are available at this time."

I'm very sad to hear this news-the few of you who read this blog know of my professional past at Comico Comics-Phil was a very important part of my professional life in comics- if not for him taking a chance on my still amateurish work back in '83 I may never have gotten into this biz-a job which has become a huge part of my life these past 25 years-I can never thank him enough.

Phil and I never became close friends but we did work together on 3 issues of his book AZ-they were changing their books over from B & W to color and Phil chose myself and my partner Rich Rankin to draw his series-those three 30 page issues never saw the light of day (thank goodness ;o) but they were a great training ground for me-i needed that time to hone my art and learn the discipline of monthly comic books-that time with Phil led to our doing the ROBOTECH MASTERS series for Comico.

I will never ever forget his generosity to a guy who just wanted to draw comics.

Farewell, Phil.