RIP David Bowie and Alan Rickman

This past week the nerd community lost two greats, Daid Bowie and Alan Rickman, both 69, both taken by cancer too soon.

David Bowie was primarily a musician and would not seem to be nerd material but "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" went a long way to show how wierd he could be and an artist for the geek squad. But he really sealed the deal with his role as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Labyrinth was an '80s classic about a girl who was obssessed with a story about a girl wh falls in love with the Goblin King and gives him her brother, then mistakenly plays it out in her own life when she wishes the goblins would take her baby brother. Jareth, the Goblin King whisks them away to a Labyrinth which she must navigate within thirteen hours if she wants to take back her brother and her wish. Along the way she meets a colorful cast of characters all portrayed by puppets, yet all of the audiovisual special effects paled compared to Bowie himself who offered up the best soundtrack of at least any Jim Henson movie, possibly any movie. The puppets and puppeteers may go no after Jim Henson, but there will neve be another Labyrinth because there will neve be anothe rJareth because there will never be another David Bowie.

But it wasn't enough for just one legend to leave us, we also lost Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman got his big break, arguably, playing Hans Gruber, the villain in Die Hard opposite Bruce Willis. He then wnet on to play a variety of characters from dark and evil(Severus Snape in Harry Potter), to colorful and heroic (Galaxy Quest) and everything in between (Dogma, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Mostly the characters came off very similar, but very powerful and none of the movies would have been the same without Rickman adding his signature touch. Just ask any Potterhead if they could imagine anyone else capturing the sinister persona of Severus Snape, or any Hitchiker's fan imagining anyone else giving that robot it's signature depressed voice(really, nobody else could have done it like Rickman).

Truly we have lost two great artists, some afterlife has just gotten a lot more entertaining. I have no affiliation with any cancer charities, but I do endorse giving to your favorite cancer charity so that the experts can fight cancer and prevent tragedies like this from happening again.