They call him...

From the Associated Press...

Howard the Duck Creater Gerber Dies
Feb. 15, 2008, 9:50 PM EST
Steve Gerber, the comic book writer and creator whose signature character was the alienated, cigar-chomping Howard the Duck, has died. He was 60. Gerber, who also co-created Marvel's "Omega the Unknown" and created the 1980s animated series "Thundarr the Barbarian," suffered from pulmonary fibrosis.

RIP, Howard...



I can think of one person who will be especially sad about this loss...



... my Gramma, Martha Louise Curran.

Oh, you're confused? Let me explain...
The year was 1986 and our Gramma, through the goodness of her old lady heart decided to treat my two older sisters and I to a film, a talkie, a moving picture if you will. At the time, my Gramma had a passion for ducks, she collected stuffed mallards, bronze statuettes of ducklings, commemorative plates with ducks on them, and even had a hand-painted cloth trash bag of loons swimming among reeds velcroed to her glove box which she was very adamant about us NOT touching because it was hand-painted and our sullied child hands would ruin it... this was a bone of contention for me, but I digress.
Apparently, on that fateful day in 1986 Gramma decided it would be a good idea to take her granddaughters to see a movie about a duck. My sisters and I were not terribly thrilled about seeing it, but hey... free movie? When you're 5, 6 and 8 you take what you can get.
My research suggests that Howard the Duck was rated PG, so I have to assume that when Gramma rolled into the megaplex with three girls in tow, the movie theatre employees wouldn't bat an eyelash... perhaps assuming that we were not as innocent and wholesome as our appearance would suggest. How could they denote from our cherubic faces alone that, in fact, we were raised on whole milk and PBS? They probably thought we were jaded cable whores who ate Pac Man cereal and watched Kids Incorporated to our hearts delight. And they were wrong. Dead wrong.
No amount of therapy can erase what I remember seeing during the first (what felt like) half hour of Howard the Duck. We saw duck boobs... and heard certain duck puns and double entendres that no child of Sesame Street or 3-2-1 Contact should ever hear. It took our Gramma a touch longer than it might take anyone else to discover that this movie was not suitable for her nerdy little granddaughters.
Howard made it all the way to earth and into a seedy nightclub before she was able to digest the many visual clues that would suggest that not all movies about cigar chomping (seriously??), wise-cracking (c'mmoonnnn!!), Leah Thompson seducing ducks were meant for the delight of an old lady and her grandkids (Oh, Gramma!!).
She then escorted us on our very first movie walk out and probably took us to the Candy Shoppe where we got old timey penny candy including Mary Janes and dots on paper... and then we probably went to the Grist Mill and/or the Little Red School House - both of which were more our speed back then.
We have since forgiven Gramma for her movie mix-up, which has proven to be part of her character since recently she went with her friend Carmel to see this film:



When they really meant to see this film:



Please note... the SINGLE unifying factor between the two is that they have the word "Legend" in the title.