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John Buscema Dies Aged 74
Posted: Thursday, January 10
By: José de Leon From the John Buscema Official Website and Trading Post
 John Buscema passed away January 10th, 2002.
We had been in contact with him just a couple of weeks before, and he was in good spirits. The family asked us to let his friends and fans know that visitation will be held at The Bryant Funeral Home, 411 Old Town Road, East Setauket, NY 11733 on Sunday, January 13th from 2 to 4pm and 7 to 10pm. The funeral will be held Monday morning. For more information on the services or where to send donations or flowers contact the funeral home at (631) 413 0082.
If you would like to send an email to John's family, with well wishes and remberances, email us at johnbuscema2002@yahoo.com and we will forward your emails to them.
John Buscema was born on December 11, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York.
His earliest artistic influences were Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Burne Hogarth's Tarzan.
John attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. And while still in high school, he spent about 18 months at night studying life drawing and design at Pratt Institute
In addition to all his formal training, John spent a great deal of time visiting museums and studying the works of the Old Masters; Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Rubens and Raphael. Later on, when John started working professionally, he was influenced by the art of the famous illustrators of the '40's and '50's, such as Al Dorne, Norman Rockwell and Robert Fawcett, to name but a few.
John began his career at Marvel in 1948, back when it was known as Timely Comics. He stayed on staff for a year and a half, and afterwards worked free-lance for a variety of companies. The comic market starting shrinking during the 50's, so in 1958 John left the field and went into advertising.
And there he stayed, until 1966, when his old boss Stan Lee called him out of the blue and made him "a very attractive offer" to come back and work for Marvel.
John had been with Marvel ever since, and had worked on all of Marvel's major characters. In the 1970's he began his own art school and wrote the best selling book, How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way with Stan Lee.
In 1996 after almost 50 years of meeting deadlines & drawing monthly titles, John quietly retired from the comic book biz.
Five years after his "retirement", John remained busy and in great demand. For instance in May, 2001 he attended a con in Italy & in July he was one of the Special Guests of the San Diego Comic Con. During the San Diego show, Vanguard Press unveiled The John Buscema Sketchbook, featuring drawings from John's personal collection.
In September, DC Comics released the long awaited ,Just Imagine Stan Lee with John Buscema Creating Superman and in December 2001 John finished penciling 22 pages for an upcoming DC book.
But it was in the fall of 2001 that John was diagnosed with stomach cancer. And although he remained eager to work, completing many commissions for his fans and working steadily for DC, on January 10th, 2002 he succumbed to the illness.
As for his family, John's granddaughter Stephanie Czerwinski is now taking up comic art and has been an inker series from Slave Labor Graphics. John's son John Buscema Jr. is a race car driver with his own website.
http://www.total.net/~iggyowen
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