Gene Day

Gene Day, the Canadian artist whose longest-running assignment was his work on Marvel's Master of Kung Fu, died on September 23, 1982. The cause of death cited was a massive coronary. Day, who was born and raised in Ontario, had been a prolific fan artist before turning to professional comics. He was one of the mainstays of the short-lived Canadian magazine Orb, and produced a large amount of work for Myron Fass's Countrywide Publications comics in the mid-'70s. After working briefly for Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach Comics, Day began to work for Marvel. He turned in at least one pencil job, Peter Gillis's Caleb Hammer, before deciding to focus his energies on inking. In this capacity, he worked on Star Wars, Marvel Two-in-One, and, especially, Master of Kung Fu. When regular penciller Mike Zeck left that series with #102, Day took over the penciling, racking up close to two years on the title. At the time of his death, he had just left the book and was preparing to move to DC, where he had been offered Detective Comics. Day's last, uncompleted assignment for Marvel was an issue of Indiana Jones. Richard Howell would finish it.