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Marty Pasko – RIP

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D. D. Degg May 11, 2020 1 minute 1 comment

Comic book writer Marty Pasko has passed away.

Martin Joseph (Marty) Pasko
né Jean-Claude Rochefort
August 4, 1954 – May 10, 2020

Friends Paul Kupperberg and Paul Levitz broke the news on social media.

covers via Grand Comic Database

Marty began writing comic books in the early 1970s, and was a writer and editor into the 2000s. Though by the late 20th Century he had moved into writing for television. Wikipedia gives a brief profile.

Marty’s comic strips:

When DC Comics decided to challenge Marvel Comics on the newspaper comics pages in 1978, it was Marty who got the job of scripting The World’s Greatest Superheroes. Marty had already written stories for most of the heroes in their comic books, including the Justice League of America team-ups. Later, in late 1982 – early 1983 he would write a story for the Star Trek comic strip; another creation he had also done in comic books.

In between those two efforts he joined with current Dick Tracy artist Joe Staton and worked up a proposal for a Raggedy Ann and Andy comic strip.

As Marty explained it:

H. Michael Sisson, who was, at the time I first met him, a licensing director at ITT-Bobbs- Merrill, then the owners of Raggedy Ann and Andy. Michael had been instrumental in saving the 1977 Raggedy Ann animated feature by bringing in Chuck Jones to complete the film, effectively replacing the original director. Ever since that experience Michael had been trying to turn the venerable children’s property into a syndicated comic strip. The idea was to do comedy-adventure that was less in the spirit of Johnny Gruelle’s classic children’s books and more like the animated film, which gave the ragdolls more of a life outside Marcella’s bedroom and a bigger supporting cast, to boot…

…the next thing I know I’m in NY, making a handshake deal with Michael to prepare a syndicated strip sample — fast. So I quickly hire Joe, who in turn hires Bruce [Patterson], and a week’s worth of sample strips are prepared in, like, a week. The project didn’t sell — it was a humor strip with continuity, and there weren’t a lot of those around at the time (Gasoline Alley was on its last legs), so syndicated strip editors — a notoriously risk-adverse lot at that time — passed.