The brilliant painter James Bama has left us just days shy of what would have been his 94th birthday. A master of the super-realism school of art, Bama grew up wanting to be a comic strip artist — Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon was a major inspiration — but he made a strange turn. His art skills led him into painting, mostly for paperback book covers and advertising art.
Lovers of comics knew his work though, particularly for the box art for the Aurora monster models (and certain other depictions of the classic Universal Studios monsters) and for his 60+ covers for the Doc Savage novels. The man excelled at both monstrous figures and heroic ones, as well. Eventually, he also became an accomplished illustrator of western imagery and many placed him as high in that category as any other artist.
It is difficult to overstate his influence on the field. I never met an illustrator who didn't cite him as an inspiration, especially in his command of lighting and body language. You can look over racks of paperback books of the sixties and seventies and see dozens of artists who clearly aspired to be him, especially because that's what so many publishers wanted. The obits haven't started being published yet but when they are, you'll see others talking about his enormous talent and impact.