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Pop Focus: A Stan Goldberg cover gallery

Veteran comics artist Stan Goldberg passed away earlier this week at age 82.

Best-known for his decades of work on the various Archie Comics titles, he was also the colorist on many of Marvel's early superhero books. And he teamed with writer Stan Lee for many years on Millie the Model.

Goldberg drew hundreds of covers, but hopefully the smattering below provides a good representation of the work he produced over a long career that gave joy and provided lots of laughs to generations of comics fans.

My 11-year-old daughter is a big Archie reader, so I've seen loads of Stan's work around the house over the past several years.

Goldberg retired from Archie in 2010, but his work still appears regularly in the company's various digests and reprint titles, and likely will continue to do so for many years to come.

One of Goldberg's last works, an Archie-style short scripted by Tom DeFalco and featuring Peter (Spider-Man) Parker, is set to appear in a Marvel 75th anniversary special out next month. You can see a page from it below.

Most scans from the Grand Comics Database.

Twin Peaks Happy Meal!

Via Dangerous Minds:

Thomas Pynchon edits "Simpsons" guest dialogue

Reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon is providing a guest voice spot to an upcoming episode of "The Simpsons" and is reportedly such a big fan of Homer that he edited one of the jokes.

The National Book Award-winning writer, who has appeared in three episodes of the long-running Fox comedy, insisted that the writers on one of his episodes remove a line in which Pynchon's character says, "Marge is a great cook. No wonder Homer is such a fat-ass."

...On faxed notes to the Simpsons staff, Pynchon wrote, "Sorry, guys. Homer is my role model and I won't speak ill of him."

He also changed a few of the lines to incorporate some Pynchon puns. Originally, Pynchon was supposed to describe Marge's cooking as "scrumptious." The publicity-shy author of V changed the line to "V-licious."

Pop culture roundup: Stan Goldberg; Spike Milligan

Stan Goldberg, a veteran Archie Comics artist who was also a colorist and illustrator of Millie the Model for Marvel in the 1960s, passed away last weekend. Comics historians Craig Yoe and Steve "Booksteve" Thompson have a nice tribute here.

We'll post our own this weekend as part of our Sunday "Pop Focus" feature.

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A statue honoring British author/humorist Spike Milligan was unveiled in London this week. Milligan was a member of the famed Goons, along with Peter Sellers on BBC Radio in the 1950s and 60s. Monty Python's Terry Gilliam sits with the statue in the pic below.