Joe Kubert, the grand illustrator of not-quite-civilized men and founder of the Kubert School of Art has died, aged 85 years old.
Kubert was a veteran of the Korean War and a Polish Jew, things which influenced his work. He was one of the early Marvel artists when it was still Atlas, and he has two sons, Adam and Andy, who have worked on everything from Neil Gaiman's Marvel:1602 to DC's pre-new 52 event Flashpoint to X-Men, Batman, and Marvel's Ultimate line. You can draft a straight line from Kubert Sr.'s work to that of his sons, so his influence lives through them. Joe Kubert was known mostly for his work on Hawkman, Tarzan, Tor, and my personal favorite of his oft-drawn characters, Sgt. Rock.
His style was rushed-looking and minimalist in many cases, but also dark and evocative and hard-edged when it needed to be. The school he founded has been going for more than 30 years and training comics artists and illustrators that whole time, so even if you're not expressly familiar with his work, you probably are in a less specific way.
Joe Kubert was one of the titanic men of comics, and he's got a lot of stuff out there you ought to pick up and read, but you probably won't. If you decide not to suck as a human being, though, there's the above featured title, Between Hell and a Hard Place (a Sgt. Rock story, natch, by 100 Bullets' Azzarello), Fax from Sarajevo (one of the first non-comic comics I ever read, and a brilliant piece of work) and Jew Gangster, which I read a while ago but you can probably still find around places, if you look.
Finally, here's Joe talking about himself from last year.