Peter David: S&D

PAD's best work recently was his atonishing run on Captain Marvel (cancelled about 6 months ago with #25) which was frequently the best book mainstream Marvel were putting out (Alias trumping it, obviously, and The Ultimates). I'm looking forward to him being back on Hulk, though how long for still seems to be under debate.

His cause hasn't been helped in my eyes by the (entirely unfair) fact of his public persona as industry pontificator and messageboard frequenter. Even when he was right he was annoying about it.

I think his strength as a writer lies in balancing moods. The closer he gets to doing out-and-out humour, or out-and-out Serious Stuff or out-and-out corny soap shit the worse he gets: Hulk and X-Factor worked cos you were never quite sure how seriously you'd have to take the next story/issue/page.

I can't believe I forgot Captain Marvel! I somehow never got into it even though it was always good when I picked it up. I don't know, I was on a tighter budget then, too, so maybe I just didn't want to drop something I was already reading.

X-Factor was classic when I was younger.

But it wasn't exactly exciting, and I think that it was the comic that got dropped when I read Warren Ellis' last Come In Alone column about how buying stuff because the characters used to be interesting, or the writers used to be great, isn't helping anything. Coincidentally, Young Lobo had just been added to the team.

Hulk and X-Factor worked cos you were never quite sure how seriously you'd have to take the next story/issue/page.

This is very true, and most noticable in the Marla Dies storyline, where he got some laughs out of Rick trying to convince Doctor Strange that everyone comes back from the dead. And still, Marla stayed dead (well, for a respectable length of time, at any rate).

Peter David had a stroke.

I have had a Stroke

We were on vacation in Florida when I lost control of the right side of my body. I cannot see properly and I cannot move my right arm or leg. We are currently getting the extent of the damage sorted out and will report as further details become clarified.

PAD

Here's hoping for a quick and full recovery.

!!!

He's doing pretty well; in rehab with a long road ahead, but prognosis is pretty good. He's updating his status on his website as opposed to his wife's updates for the past weeks. I take that as a good sign.

right on, it's been way too long since I clicked on ILC apparently

Bum. Just saw X-Factor is being cancelled. Though this interminable demon war story is not working for me. I have a personal prejudice against fantasy in essentially sci-fi superhero comics, which is dumb given how un-sci the fi is, but I can't help it.

Cancelled due to PAD illness, or bad sales?

sales, I think, though they're spinning the "it's reached its natural end" line, which may be a bit true

I haven't kept up with PAD's recovery, but here's a line from an Evanier SDCC update: "Peter David, looking like he was never sick a day in his life, played our Secret Words game and later, we played it with the only person I know who’s a superstar of British television, Jonathan Ross."

R.I.P. to this guy

I find this incredibly sad. It seems like he never stopped working like a demon his entire life, and he still couldn’t pay for his healthcare. What a shit payoff.

I loved X Factor and Hulk as a kid, and the 2000s relaunch of XF was a great comeback. Back in the 2010s, finding an old paperback of Imzadi on holiday helped push me out of a longterm depression and taught me to enjoy reading again. So I’ll always be grateful for that.

tbf he was crowdfunding to pay his tax bill years before he was crowdfunding to pay his medical bills so he may just have been bad with money