The Epilogue Is Only Just Beginning

I ventured forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go to the grocery store. For a year, a big white sign with friendly green letters has bid me welcome but with the caveat that by order of the governor, I must wear a mask.

Yesterday, that sign was gone.

The masks were not.

Everyone in the store, employees and customers were all wearing masks, as was I.

It's not so easy throwing caution to the winds after a year of being on high alert.

The news is looking good vis a vie COVID-19.

New coronavirus cases across the United States have tumbled to rates not seen in more than 11 months.

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths steadily dropped over the past week.

There seems to be some optimism that vaccinations are curtailing severe COVID-19 cases as well as the spread of the virus.

But while COVID-19 might be less of a thing than it was, it is still a thing, people can still get sick from it and sadly, people can still die.

Which brings us to David Anthony Kraft who died after several weeks of battling COVID pneumonia.

Kraft was a writer for comic books when I was a much younger Dave-El. He wrote Captain America, She-Hulk and the Defenders. It was under Kraft that former Defenders writer Steve Gerber's bizarre ongoing sub plot of the "Elf With A Gun" was resolved.

By running over the Elf with a truck.

Kraft and Gerber were good friends and Gerber created a character during his run on Marvel's Man-Thing named after Kraft, Dakimh the Enchanter.

"DAKIMH" as in "David Anthony Kraft Is My Hero". It seems Kraft had helped Gerber during a few deadline crunches.

David Anthony Kraft also wrote for DC including the Superman/Batman feature in World's Finest, Secret Society of Super Villains and Swamp Thing.

Kraft was the writer of the long lost Swamp Thing#25 that was scheduled for release in July 1976. An encounter between Swamp Thing and Hawkman was teased in issue #24 but the book was abruptly cancelled even though art by Ernie Chan was completed. The story was thought lost but finally the surviving pages of script and art were published in Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age#2 in 2018.

In addition to writing for comics, David Anthony Kraft work as a publisher produced two highly regarded magazines about comics, Comics Interview and Comics Revue. A lot of what we know and understand about the art and the mechanics of making comic books comes from Kraft's work in those two magazines.

David Anthony Kraft was also a prolific writer about rock 'n' roll and combined his love of music and comics for two special projects, a comic book telling of the story of the Beatles and an adaption of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Kraft was a smart and industrious creator.

And sadly a stark reminder that the battle against the coronavirus pandemic is not over.

As Mark Evanier wrote in his blog, Kraft's passing is "a reminder that while COVID-19 seems to be going away, it's still taking a lot of good people with it."

The pandemic may be in it's epilogue but that epilogue is only just beginning.

The tragic story of the coronavirus pandemic is not quite over.