John Cassaday, a towering figure in the mass-market superhero pantheons of DC Comics and Marvel Comics, has died at age 52 in New York following a period of failing health. The Fort Worth native’s passing on September 9 has been remarked by colleagues as the loss of a touchstone talent, to be “remembered by an entire industry for ages,” to quote a representative remark from a colleague, said writer-publisher Mark Waid.
A multiple winner in the annual Eisner Awards ceremonies — the comics’ counterpart to the movies’ Oscars — Cassaday had connected with the industry during the 1990s as an ambitious enthusiast, making his interests known at such trade shows as the original Dallas Fantasy Fair.
Artist-publisher Kerry Gammill of Fort Worth, longtime signature illustrator of DC Comics’ Superman franchise, recalls having known Cassaday “since he was about 15. For a teenager, he was surprisingly aware of great stuff from many years ago like the [1940s] Republic Pictures serials...
“Several years later, suddenly he was a big-name comics artist. I was so proud of him,” Gammill told the comics-journalism website downthetubes.com. “When I started my own horror-comics publishing venture [Monsterverse] in 2009, I asked John if he might be able to draw a short story for ... our first comic, Bela Lugosi’s Tales from the Grave... He was more than eager to ... help us get started.”
The co-creator of such epic-caliber titles as Planetary, Desperadoes, and I Am Legion, Cassaday also applied his sense of character-rich cinematic design to such long-established trademark titles as Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, and Star Wars. He received Eisner Awards (named after the 1930s comics pioneer Will Eisner) for Astonishing X-Men, Planetary, and I Am Legion.
Desperadoes author Jeff Mariotte credits Cassaday with the defining aspect of the characters for that offbeat Western series. After Desperadoes, published by WildStorm, John drew Ghost for Dark Horse, and his credits mounted to include such additional titles as The Avengers, The Flash, and Superman/Batman. Cassaday also parlayed a film-school background into occasional television-directing credentials, stemming from his passion for comic-book storytelling.
Memorial notices industrywide have likened Cassaday’s influence to the seminal work of such historic artists as Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, and Will Eisner, himself.