John Walthers, 1954-2014
The Punisher, Vol 2, #57 —©Disney/Marvel LLC
Alas, this blog seems to be enumerating the departed members of the Marvel Bullpen community. This one though, speaks of a dear, personal friend. Not exactly childhood, but not far removed. My High School buddy, John Walthers.
High School of Art & Design, midtown Manhattan, all us artistic types were given introductory courses in advertising production technology, sculpting, photography and other stuff. In the second year we declared our specialization and that’s how I met John.
We both wanted to be architects. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We both studied under several accomplished professors, Dr. Erwin Mueller, Alice Knight and Harold Krisel – remarkable, memorable teachers. John was quick and smart, very funny when he wanted to be.
We got better acquainted over one summer. He had to undergo a kidney transplant and I took his phone number before summer vacation started. I called to see how he was and we yakked for an hour. He was recuperating on his back for pretty much the summer as I recall. Thus we spoke every few days.
About what I can’t recall now. Love, life and the future is what it must have been. We both enjoyed old movies and thus had a lot to talk about there. We both went on to criss-cross paths up at City College. Around that time, he tried making a movie. We had talked a lot and he really wanted to try. He went to the extraordinary trouble of putting a casting call in Variety Magazine and we got a couple of recognizable character actors! He actually rented equipment, set up sets, built a large building cut-out to be shot through a window and tried some lighting tests. Which was fun and I wonder where that film noire experiment is now.
We both found college frustrating as we had gotten a taste of the creative life and world of art thanks to Art & Design. I bailed out after two years, he stayed on, eventually transferring to Brooklyn College.
John managed to visit me at Marvel one year. He often found jobs in Manhattan and we would catch meals together and yak some more.
At some points in time, close together, he began to work for and with his mother, Maureen, and seriously began body-building. His mom was editor and then publisher of the Ridgewood Times Newsweekly (Borough of Queens historians must forgive me, this “small” local paper changed its name and I forget from what to what…). She needed John’s talents as designer, paste-up and mechanical artist and in he went.
Not long after he signed on to this news gig, he had to learn Adobe Photoshop. Now, me, I pick away at this and that in PS and associated Illustrator—but he had to learn everything. This was the high end of publishing! We had even more to talk about. ‘Complain’ about was more like it! He really got worked up whenever he had to upgrade his Photoshop license!
Time passed, as it does. John had been promoted to Editor/Publisher, I had been set free from Marvel but had discovered the Punisher Armory. I had recently been taking pictures for the first Marvel “coffee table” book and often dragged my gigantic camera rig into the office. I was holding down Punisher Line Editor Don Daley’s couch one day when Don sprang up as though yanked on a string. “I need a photo cover!”
Don would do that. With little warning or preamble, he would toss an idea out in that chopped up, jumpy way he had and let the target figure it out. Which is what I liked about Don. He blurted out the basics, not burdening me with extraneous details or half-lettered set of pencils of the book. The Punisher, shot in the head, head covered with bandages, all he’s got is amnesia and a gun! You know a guy, right? Go!
I had one of those swell Japanese plastic pistol models that were one-to-one replicas of each component part. Which was what I believed would have been a Frank Castle classic, a Colt Government Model 1918 in .45APC. So remarkable were these models that they had small explosive caps that fit in the “automatic pistol cartridge” and would fire well enough to cycle the receiver mechanism, even ejecting a shell!
So that was the easy part!
Getting hold of my perfect physical specimen, getting him into town and have him hold still long enough for several photos was the hard part! John was a very busy fellow back then. He did have one thing that made it much easier for him to drive into town—where my impromptu studio was (at my childhood friend James’ office which was in lower Manhattan)—a Press Pass!
These magical devices would allow such a legitimate member of the press, the ability to park that car anywhere and at any time whatsoever. “Freedom of the press” not being interfered with.
We enjoyed a quick meal, then got over to the office where I had set up my large-format camera gear. I took a bunch of exposures and we locked up shop around 9:30. Amusingly, his was the only car on the street and there was the snail trail of a street sweeper curling right around it. Press Pass! Very hard to come by in NYC.
There are a couple more of the alternates like the above. They are slight variations and thus not included. John was a perfect model and did not mind holding his pose for all the time I spent fussing with the lights.
This is the wrap-around cover for, I believe, the direct market books. (It’s wretched trying to explain what those are so I won’t!)
But of course, the large chrome that was used for the cover was not returned by the separators/production. As usual. So the cover itself will have to bear mute testimony to all the time spent lighting my old pal’s eyes and wrapping his head in gauze.
My friend had a high pressure job, weekly deadlines with all manner of reporters, news outlets and let’s not forget advertisers—breathing down his neck. Also taking the needs of his employees seriously with a shrinking, shifting market for such a “small” local newspaper…
Sadly, his dad passed not too much before he did and apparently of the same sort of thing, heart disease. He remarked to me that it was because he worked out so rigorously that he was able to survive the few heart attacks he endured that I knew of. His sister Patty was the quietly efficient health professional that I got to know just a little when I made it out to Brooklyn (they lived scant yards from the Queens borderline, so it was hard to know where they lived as opposed to worked!). His mom survives him, which is a terrible event to bear up under.
I am glad to reveal that John Walther is the man behind the bandage. I know he was tickled then by what we would now call cosplay. If we never truly die so long as someone remembers you, then I hope I have upped that potential by enlarging the audience. This mild bit of philosophizing would have been one of the endless things we would talk about. And that I miss greatly.