Jose Gonzalez, considered the definitive artist for Warren's black and white VAMPIRELLA magazine, passed away at age 70.

I used to buy VAMPIRELLA at the comics shop only when there was no FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND to be had. At age 8, I had very little use for erotic horror comics. I remember leaving an issue at a friend's house once, and his very stern Republican mother called my mother and said, "Don't you ever let him bring this garbage into our house again!" Who knew boobs made some adults so uptight? Not me. The woman's son, my friend, grew up to be a brain surgeon with such a raging drug addiction that he left the operating room in the middle of brain surgery on a patient to go snort cocaine. He lost his license and runs a landscaping business now. I can't help but think that had he grown up in a less repressed environment, and had been allowed to ogle the two-dimensional splendor of Vampy now and then, he'd still be probing people's brain tissue with a scalpel for a living. I also had the snap-together Vampirella model kit, but her arms and legs always fell off.

Anyway, Gonzalez was a hell of an artist--such realistic drawings--and he definitely made a significant contribution to the world of adult oriented horror comics.