Batton Lash, comics author and Comic-Con mainstay, 1953-2019

Some couples have a “meet cute” story. Batton Lash and Jackie Estrada began their romance with a “meet comic” moment.

“We met,” Estrada said, “because of comics.”

Lash was a Brooklyn cartoonist when he met San Diego’s Estrada during a July 1990 comic book convention in Chicago. At San Diego Comic-Con the next month, Estrada dangled an irresistible lure before Lash: original drawings by his idol, Marvel Comics legend Steve Ditko.

“Before the convention, we had a reception at my house,” said Estrada, who organizes the annual Eisner Awards at San Diego Comic-Con. “I made sure he and his friends came so I could show him my Steve Ditko art.

“That week,” she said, “we became a couple.”

Lash died Saturday at the age of 65 after a long battle with brain cancer. He had moved to San Diego in November 1993, and married Estrada two months later.

At comic conventions, Lash and Estrada became as ubiquitous as Captain America and Wonder Woman.

“They always seemed to be one of those inseparable couples that fit together perfectly,” said Mark Evanier, a writer of comics and animated TV shows. “They seemed to have a relationship that transcended husband and wife and also seemed to be manager and talent.”

Together, they founded Exhibit A Press, publisher of Lash’s “Supernatural Law.” Debuting in The Brooklyn Paper and the National Law Journal, the strip followed “Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre,” lawyers whose clientele included vampires, werewolves and other monsters. The work was collected in several volumes and inspired a series of stand-alone graphic novels.

“Few things in life turn out to be a reliable source of intelligent delight,” Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon wrote. “’Supernatural Law’ has a secure place on that short roster.”

A Brooklyn native, “Lash” adopted his nom de plume in high school. (Estrada, honoring her husband’s wishes, declined to reveal his birth name.) As an undergraduate at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, he pestered the administration until they agreed to offer cartooning courses.

His instructors there included two of the industry’s best-known creators, Will Eisner and Harvey Kurztman.

“He was influenced by some of the greats,” Evanier said, “but he developed his own unique style. He did comics that obviously came from the heart and the spirit.”

“He was a pioneering, independent comics creator,” said Rob Salkowitz, a comics journalist and educator. “He created an enduring story with ‘Supernatural Law’.”

Lash was also known for “Archie Meets the Punisher,” a 1994 mash-up featuring Archie Comics’ genial teens and a forbidding Marvel antihero; and a “Radioactive Man” series for Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics.

In 2009, he started illustrating writer James Hudnall’s “Obama Nation” on a conservative website. The strip became a lightning rod in 2011 when MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell blasted it as a “racist obscenity” using offensive stereotypes to caricature President and First Lady Obama.

“That was not Batton’s finest hour as a cartoonist,” Evanier said. “But I knew Batton. Batton was not a racist.”

Despite his long residence in San Diego, Lash remained a New Yorker at heart. He never learned to drive, often commuting by bike. He maintained a studio outside his home, once renting space above downtown’s San Diego Hardware Store. His wardrobe, too, reflected an Eastern fashion sense.

“In most comic conventions, he was the best dressed guy in the room — which isn’t difficult when half the guys are dressed as Klingons,” Evanier said. “But he was always a sharp, classy guy.”

After suffering a seizure in August 2016, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Surgeons removed a tumor two months later and he soon seemed to be in recovery. But just before last July’s Comic-Con, he was felled by another seizure.

“He had another MRI and it showed that the cancer had come back,” Estrada said. “Then he went very fast.”

He continued working to the end. “Supernatural Law: Grandfathered In” appeared at last year’s Comic-Con; Estrada is preparing a new “Supernatural Law” graphic novel, working off Lash’s scripts.

Besides Estrada, Lash is survived by three sisters and a brother, all residents of New York City. In February, memorials will be held there and in San Diego.