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This issue is about some incredible final words, the Halloween special that killed The State, funny tweets, workplace scandals, bodies ruined for comedy, and much more.

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Iconic Comic Book Writer Keith Giffen’s Final Words Are the Best Comic-Con Burn Ever

Some comic book artists averse to the sights and smells of the average Comic-Con will flippantly remark that they’d “rather die” than go to the nerd convention. So far, though, Keith Giffen is the only one who has put his money where his mouth is.

Giffen, 70, was a legend of the serialized superhero comic book medium, having worked with DC, Marvel and Dark Horse over the span of an almost 50-year career. The co-creator of classic characters such as Lobo, Rocket Raccoon and Jamie Reyes, the third character to assume the title of The Blue Beetle, Giffen passed away on Monday, as confirmed by his friend and longtime collaborator Paul Levitz.

The Hilarious Halloween Special That Killed The State

Back in the early 1990s, MTV decided it wanted to stretch its wings and develop its own programming beyond its nonstop slate of music videos. Only one problem — it had no money. “They needed cheap, youthful programming, and a large amount of it,” says Michael Ian Black in I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. “The way to do that is to hire inexperienced people who will work for almost nothing—like the State, a sketch-comedy troupe I helped start at NYU in 1988. Fairly quickly, we ended up on MTV, which then launched the careers of several marginally successful comedians who you may or may not know today.”

TWEET OF THE DAY

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