Thomas Yeates’ ARTNEWS

News of Al Williamson’s passing hit me pretty hard. I want to say how sorry I am to his family for their terrible loss. Just a few months ago his lovely wife Cori told me that though very frail Al still had his beautiful smile.

Al’s gifts to me were immeasurable and I feel incredibly honored to have been his friend. There is nobody else who is anything like Al Williamson. There are people with extraordinary talent and there are people who are enormously generous souls and there are people who are a hell of a lot of fun to talk to and be around, but I’ve never known anybody who had all those traits, except Al.

His best art is so dazzling to me that it is almost supernatural. His whole classy approach, his figure drawing, his sense of design and his line, his line is sheer poetry. He was a consummate connoisseur of what he used to call “the good stuff”. And that “good stuff” could include an obscure old illustrator no one else knew about or a young artist he’d just met. He loved art, particularly comic art and he would share that with anybody else who loved it and welcome them into his home just to enjoy his collection.

All that plus he was a dashing handsome wise-cracker with a glint in his eye and a devilish smile. What a guy. I wish we had more of his art and more time with him but what a gift he was, and still is really, to this crazy world.

He always wanted to do John Carter and he always wanted to do Flash Gordon meets Luke Skywalker. I hope he and Archie Goodwin and Roy Krenkel are working on the layouts now.

Here’s to ya’ sport!
Thomas Yeates
6/16/10

Here are two new Tarzan commission drawings. The one with Tarzan on safari was a gift to Uwe Reber, who runs my website. You can see him in the background with the backpack. The girl in the foreground is his lovely wife Katrin.

I’m very sad to hear that my friend Al Williamson has passed away on 12 th of June at age 79. He was a very good friend, collaborator on some projects and such a cool guy. He will be missed.