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There are few artists whose work is so good
that when I can find it I'm willing to buy it just for
the pretty pictures. Mike Wieringo was one of those
artists. His style, while occasionally
cartoony seem to glow right on the page. The
movement lines are fluid and graceful.
This made him a perfect fit for characters
like Flash and Spider-Man. It was Flash
where his art first caught my attention. Many artists
who have drawn Flash over the years have
either tried to clone the natural flow of Carmine
Infantino's work usually to the point of grotesque
parody or break away from it and get a character who
would look great standing still but didn't
seem to move right. 'Ringo found the golden mean. His
Flash was sleek and smooth looking but was
distinctively his own. When Mark Waid wrote: "My name
is Wally West and I'm the Fastest Man Alive'
it was Wieringo's magic that made you buy it.
Wieringo's best work was on Tellos. Even before
getting a chance to talk to him I could
tell that book was the one he put his heart and soul
into. Every page, every background, teeming with
life. Every page designed to be both dreamlike -- but
almost like you were there.
When my cousin was six or seven, right after his dad
had finished reading him The Lord of
The Rings, he stayed over at my house to be baby sat
while his folks did something. Tellos became
one of his favorite bed time stories. He's read his
copies of the trades so many times that I'm
probably going to have to get him new copies this
Christmas because they are practically falling apart.
I was lucky enough to meet Mike Wieringo at
several shows over the years. I spoke with the entire
Tellos crew last year at the Baltimore Comic Convention. Very few
people are up and about before 10 AM, so I got to have
a pretty extensive conversation with them about Tellos, comics,
advertising gimmicks and fandom. Half the time
he just laughed or said: "No, Todd, you can't tell him
that yet . . ." or "Yeah -- that ones okay. As long as
you don't mention . . ."
I went back to their booth later after locating
some stuff to get signed. Once I had gone to all
the bargain dealers I blew most of my budget at the
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund booth. My shirt was
fairly well covered with stickers reading 'Fight Censorship'
and 'I support the CBLDF' by the time I found out
'Ringo was still selling sketches. I did get a bunch
of comics signed. It was the last half hour or so of
the convention and upon seeing I didn't have enough for a sketch--
Ringo just handed me signed convention exclusive promo
items that they were selling without charging me. From all the
stories I've heard from fans (and other people who knew him
far better than I did), that wasn't an uncommon thing for him. It was
just part of who he was.
When my cousin got those autographed Tellos comics
last Christmas he practically climbed the walls. And
then when he heard the news, he took it bad. I took it worse.
I've met quite a few comics professionals. Very
few made me feel like we were just two geeks
discussing a subject matter that we both truly
loved. A lot of fans will miss Mike Wieringo the
artist. They'll miss finding out what 'That one' was
and what the thing Todd Dezago couldn't mention was. I won't tell. I
made a promise. Yes, I'll miss those too. But I
think I'll miss going to shows and just watching him draw. Or shooting the
breeze at 10 AM to help them get more people to the Tellos booth.
Art courtesy of Indigo Caldwell and http://www.kismetropolis.com
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