The other day, we had the sad news here of the passing of veteran comic artist Ric Estrada. Now, you get to see a snippet of me interviewing Ric on the Golden Age Panel at the 2001 Comic-Con International in San Diego. (The other panelists — you get fleeting glimpses of some of them — included Ramona Fradon, Irwin Donenfeld, Chuck Cuidera, Mart Nodell, Alvin Schwartz and Julius Schwartz.) This video was shot by the loyal, devoted videographer, Mike Catron. Thank you, Mike…for this and for preserving so much history and so many of our friends.
The anonymous artist Ric is talking about at the beginning was Dan Barry. I don't think there's any reason not to mention that, given how it's common knowledge Ric later ghosted the Flash Gordon newspaper strip for Mr. Barry. And as much as I loved Ric, I'm not going to embed this without telling you all that in the shot of me at the end, I weigh 100 pounds more than I do today. At least.
But forget about me. This is intended to give you a wee taste of what a charming, self-effacing man Ric Estrada was. This is only two and a half minutes but I think you'll understand…