Very sad to hear today of the passing of our friend Simms Taback, noted illustrator, children’s book author and activist for artist’s rights. He was a hero to a lot of us in the graphic arts. Here is a post from last June, which Simms saw and liked. In the year plus of grace that he had since deciding to stop immiserating treatment for pancreatic cancer Simms got to travel, be with family and friends and hear what he meant to them. Our thoughts are with them at this time. My reflections are reprinted below.
Is This Perfect or What?
Hands down, the cover of the year. Sometimes montage is the best you can do and here it is. Idea, image perfectly blended, and with great panache. Congrats to Newsweek. The Lampoon lives!!!
Fred Foy, aside from Norman Corwin, perhaps the last man standing of the Golden Age of Radio, was the great voice of The Lone Ranger program, as well as countless shows a couple of generations grew up with. 
Christopher Connel as Oliver Kilbourn in the remarkable play “Pitmen Painters” at the Manhattan Theater Club. A true story of working class artists: English coal miners who transcended their circumstances by way of and through art. An art appreciation class became an art class and the audience goes along for the ride, getting to enjoy some of the most vigorous and passionate art chat anywhere. Some of it cuts so beautifully to the core of things you just want to frame the speeches. I suspect I’ll be reading a few to future classes of mine. A highlight is when the Kilbourn character becomes, almost against his will, more connected to what happens in art than his own instructor. 
