{"id":1566,"date":"2007-08-13T18:31:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-13T22:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2014-12-20T15:20:18","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T19:20:18","slug":"rip-mike-wieringo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1566","title":{"rendered":"RIP: Mike Wieringo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>John Beatty<\/span> called me at work this morning to tell me the news. Mike Wieringo<\/span> had<\/span> passed away<\/span><\/a>. It was hard to fathom. Mike <\/span>was only 44 years old<\/span> and appeared in good health. He worked out, ate right and by all appearances was in fine shape. The news hit hard. Big Beatty<\/span> was at a loss… and so was I. What could be said? What could be done?<\/span>Mike<\/span> was one of the most popular artists currently working<\/span> in comics today. Fans loved him. Pros loved him. I never, ever, heard a single negative thing said about Mike<\/span> or his art. My dealings with Mike<\/span> were limited, but they were always positive<\/span>. I first met Mike <\/span>about 5 or 6 years ago. Mike<\/span> was gracious and kind<\/span> to both my son and me, but that’s the way he was with ALL of his fans. <\/span><\/p>\n

I became a regular visitor to Mike’s blog<\/span> and would often leave comments about his weekday posts. When Mike<\/span> posted a sketch of Rocky Balboa<\/span> along with his thoughts on the movie, I wrote to say that if he ever considered selling the sketch, I would be interested. Mike<\/span> wrote me back to say that several of the fans who post on his site had already suggested that I might like to have it for my collection. Mike<\/span> said that as he was drawing it, he thought the same and it was mine for the taking… gratis. Mike<\/span> went on to say that he would be honored to have his work appear in my gallery. Can you imagine? That’s the kind of guy Mike was. I suggested that if he wouldn’t take money, since he liked the movie, I would be happy to purchase the dvd for him. He said that wasn’t necessary, but did finally agree and acted like I was doing him the favor.<\/span><\/p>\n

I knew that my blog today would be about Mike Wieringo<\/span>. Mike<\/span> positively touched so many lives that I knew that my voice would just be one of the many remembering him, but I knew that I had to mark his passing. I figured that I would probably post the Rocky sketch<\/span><\/a> that he gave me. The when I checked my mail, I found a letter from my old friend Jim Ivey<\/span>. Jim <\/span>has always teased me about being a Sylvester Stallone fan<\/span>. One of Jim’s comments is that Sly has sad eyes<\/span>… and Jim <\/span>drew them on the envelope of his letter. Talk about appropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today Mike Wieringo’s family, friends and fans are in mourning<\/span>. Yes, there are tears in our eyes. We’ve lost not only a great artist,<\/span> but a wonderful human being<\/span>. My life was better for knowing Mike Wieringo<\/span>. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends and fans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Beatty called me at work this morning to tell me the news. Mike Wieringo had passed away. It was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58,56,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-comics","category-rip"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11402,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/11402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}