I won't torment you like I did last year with the details on how I made my now annual tribute birthday cake for Aqualad. Instead, here are a couple of pictures of the finished product:

Labels: Aqualad, Memorial, Paul Norris

It was a year ago today that Leah died. I will never forget her. I will continue her tradition and remember her every year. Every time I read anything about Aqualad I think of her and wonder what she'd think of it. I'll sometimes hear some news and think I ought to e-mail her about it. I try to stay as even-minded and as light-hearted as she was. That is my ongoing tribute.

Thank you Leah. I miss you.

Labels: Memorial

Mark Evanier has More on Paul Norris.

Other memorials:

The Aquaman Shrine.

Comics Reporter.

The Captain's JLA blog.

ComicMix.

Newsarama.

The Beat.

Comic News International.

Comix Connection.

Comics Should Be Good.

No Smoking in the Skull Cave.

Daily Cartoonist.

La Covacha.

Es La Hora Da Las Tortas.

Neuras y Paranoias.

Crisei.

Quit Your Day Job.

La Peonza.

Bags and Boards.

Find A Grave.

Culpable y Perdedor.

Wonderful Wonderblog.

ComicList.

Labels: Memorial, Paul Norris

Today Leah Adezio would have been 48 years old. Her birthday became impossible to forget a few years ago, just another bitter pill in her life. Without Leah, this website would never have developed the way it did. Her enduring love of Aqualad and her joy in life will never be forgotten.


Thank you, Leah.

Labels: Memorial

News on the possible JLA film, which rumors say will include Aquaman. Other rumors state that OMAC may be involved.

Grandpa Griffith's MySpace page has their Aquaman song available to stream. Go take a listen. Thanks to Craig for the tip.

Joe points us to this Newsarama article which includes a link to Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo's pitch for Aquaman that will now never happen. I find it very interesting that the image in the pitch is the same one that Mike later dedicated to me on his blog. I'm even more honored now at Mike's unexpected gift.

Another Aquaman fan.

Rob shows off a Super Friends birthday card game, and includes a high res scan so you can play the game yourself.

Labels: Aquaman Shrine, Artwork, Fandom, Memorial, Movie, Music

I don't want to write this entry.


July 15th 2004, Mike Wieringo blogged about me and my love of Aquaman, and about his desire to work on Aquaman with Mark Waid. I'd never met him, but he still dedicated this sketch to me and my website. I was thrilled then, and continued to be thrilled as I followed his regular sketches on his site. This spring, he posted another sketch of Aquaman and repeated the desire to work on Aquaman, along with a description of what Mark Waid's previous idea had been like.


Newsarama is reporting that Mike Wieringo passed away yesterday after suffering a major heart attack. He was 44 years old. He will be missed deeply by the comic book community.

Labels: Artwork, Memorial

I urge everyone to pick up Aquaman #54. But not for the reason you might suspect. It's because Aquaman #54 is the first appearance of a tribute character in memory of Leah Adezio, who passed away early this year. This Leah will be giving guidance to Garth, aka Aqualad/Tempest, the character that Leah loved deeply all her life.


I don't think the current Aquaman title can be saved from cancellation, but if everyone whose life was touched by Leah bought a copy of each of the next few issues to remember her, it would surely go out with a bang.

Labels: Memorial

While part of me knows that most of you Aquaman fans just aren't going to be terribly interested in this note, I'm posting it here in honor of my friend Leah Adezio. She was a great Aqualad fan, and loved the character from an early age. As a result, she made a cake for Aqualad's birthday each year, March 6th. And in her memory, I put together a cake this year ("made" is too nice a word for what I cobbled together). This is the first birthday cake I've baked in years, and I'm not much of a baker, so it could have turned out better... still...

Yum. Batter.


Ok, into the oven for however many minutes the directions say... minus 3 minutes for the non-stick pans, so it says on the box. Hope they cook all the way.

Time to gather the decorations and frosting. The frosting says "wait until the cake is completely cooled". Oh. No wonder the last cake I made was torn to shreds by the frosting.


Aqualad is technically 47 years old this year, having first appeared in Adventure Comics #269 from February of 1960. Of course, he was already a few years old in that story, but I'm not about to stick my head into that muddled thinking. Heck, 47 is old enough!

Baked cake! Well, whaddya know, the directions were right. Definitely cooked all the way through. But why are they so lopsided? What did I do wrong?


After letting them cool in the pan for the suggested 10 minutes, it's over to the cooling rack for these cakes. OH NO! One of them cracked right down the middle as soon as I walked away for a second. Whatever shall I do?


Heh. I've watched enough Food Network to know that it's not really a disaster. The cake will taste just as good. I let the cakes cool more while I ran out on some errands, including getting some Tad Williams Writing Aquaman flyers run off down at the local Staples.

After I return with my flyers and other errands accomplished, I put the cracked cake on a plate and pull out the frosting. The cake is cooled through, but I've never frosted a cake successfully in my life, so my expectations are pretty low at this point.


Hmmm. Looks a little like a filled pancake. I was able to reduce most of the lopsidedness by putting the lop-ends opposite each other. But still somewhat disappointing.


Whoa. That looks almost good enough to eat!


And time to finish it off. Food Network makes decorating look so easy. I'll be lucky if anyone can read what the cake says.


And that's it for The Cake. This one will get the candles lit and a little party with it after dinner tonight. I plan on making one every year on March 6th from here on out. Both for Aqualad and for Leah.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARTH!

Update: My husband came home and looked at the cake, and said, "It needs gummy fish!" So I walked down to the local grocery and found some mini Swedish Fish, bought a buck's worth, and decorated the cake with little fishes.


Update: One last picture:

Labels: Aqualad, Memorial

According to the 1976 DC Calendar, today is Aqualad's birthday. As many of you know, Aqualad was the favorite character of Leah Adezio, and she told me that every year she would bake a birthday cake on this date and have a little celebration.

As Leah can no longer continue the tradition, I feel that I ought to continue it for her, and in her honor. For Leah, then, I'm about to go into my kitchen and attempt something I haven't done for many, many years. I'm going to try to make a traditional birthday cake, complete with candles, to celebrate Garth's 47th birthday.

I must warn you all that I'm a lousy cook, and not much better at baking, so this is a truly disturbing adventure for me. But I really can't think of a better way to remember Leah than to have birthday cake on Aqualad's birthday.

Wish me luck... pictures coming after the debacle...

Labels: Aqualad, Memorial

Leah would not want me to suspend "Ripples Through Time" just for her, but I cannot bring myself to read Aquaman tonight. I'll get back to it tomorrow, Leah, I promise!

Today I remembered Leah, and wasn't surprised to find that pretty much all my memories of her are good. I spent a couple of hours re-reading her livejournal, and remembering the pain and suffering she has gone through. How she managed to be so upbeat and inspiring in person is beyond me, but she was. I've not met her sons, but I heard and read much about them, and felt pride in them when she did.

I also spent a great deal of time today reading what others have had to say about Leah, both in blog entries and in comments. Here's some of them, in no particular order.

• Elayne tells us about her best friend.
• Peter David Remembers Leah.
• Dwight Williams.
• The Wenches Forum.
• Kathleen David.
• Colleen Doran.
• Kathleen Pearlman.
• The Beat.
• Jen Contino.
• Steve Chaput.
• CrossBonesMcCoy.
• Duncan McGuyver.
• Glenn (more here).
• Saphyne.
• Theresa Grant.
• Aries.
• Ysobelle (read this one).

The funeral will be Friday morning, details can be found here.

Labels: Memorial

About eleven years ago, I decided I wanted to make a website. I had done some searching, and hadn't found even one website about Aquaman, so I decided I'd make my website an Aquaman fan site. I posted an incredibly sparse page with the limited information I knew and asked for help.

The first person to respond to my plea was Leah Adezio. She gave me background information, ideas, and filled in the gaps in my knowledge. She also had an infectious love of Aqualad, and reading her comments on the character made me appreciate him even more.


It's hard to believe how little I knew back then. But Leah, and a few others who also found my page, filled me in and the website grew as I learned. Leah's love of the story and the whole concept of Aquaman and his world pulled me along. She strengthened me. She was a force. I admired her greatly for her even discussion skills and strove to be as eloquent as she was in her fandom.


For years, she and I corresponded on-line. Then an opportunity arose. If I could find a roommate, I could go to the 2000 San Diego Comicon. Leah came to my rescue. She was my roommate that year, and it was the best comic convention I've been to. She, in turn, introduced me to many people she knew at the convention. It was amazing, fantastic, wonderful. It was one of the best times I've had in my life. And much of that was due to Leah's presence.


The next year I returned to the San Diego Comicon, and met with Leah again. That year I had some issues with the hotel, and Leah stood by my side and helped me sort them out. She was an anchor. She saved me from myself. I cannot explain how much I owe her for those two short meetings, for those two small times we got to be together. I wish we'd been able to hang out more. If only the entire country wasn't between us, I would have gladly spent more time with Leah.

We continued to correspond. The occassional e-mail, phone call... we read each other's websites (she had a private LiveJournal). I didn't chat with her nearly enough. She was a great artist, and her project "Ari of Lemuria" was a book that I looked forward to someday reading. At San Diego she showed me pages of Aqualad fan work she had done, beautiful artwork that filled in a backstory for Garth. She consulted on the Tempest mini-series, and was thrilled about it.

Leah was active in fandom. She attended conventions, and was a member of Friends of Lulu. She was bold, exciting, interesting, and simply lovable. People who knew her liked her. I've been called many names (and deservingly so, sometimes), but I never heard anyone who mattered say a bad word about Leah.


When Elayne e-mailed me to let me know that Leah was sick, I immediately called Leah and left a message on her phone. I left a second the next day, but I believe she never heard either of them. The third day her phone's inbox was full. I considered flying out to the east coast, but Elayne said it was too late. So instead I waited, while hanging onto some faint thread of disbelief, denying to myself that this could be happening to someone like Leah, so full of life.


Goodbye, my friend.

Labels: Memorial

Peter David confirmed that Leah Adezio passed away yesterday after liver and kidney failure.

Labels: Memorial

From the GCD Mailing List:

This is the saddest notice I have ever had to pass along to my friends in comic book fandom.

I just received a call from Jerry's wife Jean of the news that Jerry Bails, The Father of Comic Book Fandom, died in his sleep today of an apparent heart attack. He was 73.

Jerry had been suffering a serious heart condition for the past several years. In recent months the physical discomfort he had experienced had kept him mostly homebound, but his mind remained as sharp as ever, thanks to the contact he was able to continue with friends and family through the internet.

At this time, details of any services or funerals are not yet known. According to Jean, Jerry's wishes were for something simple and the family are in the process of working on that.

Jerry was a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, he was a mentor, a teacher, a guide--whose wisdom and kindness helped make the world an even better place for many. But most important, I am and will always be deeply proud that I consider Jerry to be my friend. I am a little less not to have his wisdom gracing my ears any longer and I am much MORE knowing that I did have time on this earth in having that same wisdom touch my heart.

My deepest love goes out to Jean, Kirk, and all other family members and loved ones of Jerry.

-Ray Bottorff Jr

When I joined the GCD many years ago, looking mostly for more information about Aquaman, he was not just helpful, he was encouraging and wonderful. He sent me information about the people who worked on Aquaman and even sent me an original piece of Nick Cardy artwork, a page from Detective #293, which is framed and on my wall. Every time I look at it, which is every day, I think of Jerry and Nick. I was fortunate enough to meet Nick, but I never got to meet Jerry and I wish I had. Without Jerry, much of what I've done in hunting down the history of comics would not have happened. Without Jerry, my Aquaman website would be less interesting and less useful.

Jerry has been called the father of comic book fandom. Mark Evanier writes that he started Alter Ego and was one of the first people to put fans in contact with each other. He started checklists and compiled reports of the early creators in comics, many of whom would have been forgotten without his work. He reportedly wrote some of the earliest letters to editors. Comics were his passion and he delighted in sharing that passion with anyone interested.

Jerry was active on the GCD mailing list, and some of the most touching tributes I've seen have been posted there. My own initial reaction of shock and dismay was posted last night when I read the news. I had been thinking of him Thanksgiving morning. I wanted to e-mail him and ask a few questions. I decided to wait until after the holiday. It's too late now.

Labels: Memorial

Labels: Memorial, Random Panel

A stingray killed Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. Such deaths are extremely rare. Not that you'd know it from Aquaman's reaction...


Today, Aquaman, we all agree with you.

Labels: Memorial, Random Panel

Mark Evanier has the sad news that George Kashdan, longtime editor of Aquaman during the Silver Age, has passed away. Kashdan edited Aquaman from the early Silver Age into his own book. For more on the man, please go read Mark Evanier's obituary.

Labels: George Kashdan, Memorial