Gary Friedrich, known for his work as a comic book writer across various genres of the medium as well as having co-created Ghost Rider, passed away due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 75 years old.

Friedrich was born in Missouri, growing up with an interest in writing and contributing to his high school’s newspaper. He was also pals with fellow future Marvel Comics writer, Roy Thomas. After graduation, he went to work for local papers, editing and laying out much of the publication in addition to writing articles. After the papers folded, he received a call from Thomas, inviting him to try his hand at freelance comic book writing.

Some of Friedrich’s early stories consisted of romance stories for Charlton Comics, before he began contributing more to Marvel on a variety of different wavelengths. He wrote for Peter Cannon… Thunderbolt as well as helping to script the debut of Blue Beetle in Captain Atom. As far as Marvel is concerned, he began with the company on Westerns such as Kid Colt, Outlaw and Rawhide Kid before moving into war stories on books like Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos.

Marvel made a lot of use of Friedrich’s abilities as a utility guy, and was often given work on stories and books that were in a transitory period. He’d contribute to comics such as X-Men, Captain America, Captain Marvel, The Incredible Hulk, and many more. In 1972, he co-created Ghost Rider/Johnny Blaze for Marvel, and would later co-create the Son of Satan as well.

Friedrich’s other work included some horror work for Skywald’s black-and-white comics, and later work included freelance contributions to Atlas/Seaboard Comics (on books such as Tales of Evil and Police Action) and to Topps Comics (Bombast). Save for his brief early 1990s work for Topps, Friedrich had essentially left the comics business by the end of the 1970s.

His comic book career and contributions were honored with an Inkpot Award in 2007.