Robert Mayer, a journalist and author of the 1977 superhero novel Superfolks, died July 23 at the age of 80, Bleeding Cool reported. The cause of death was complications from Parkinson's Disease.
Mayer attended the City College of New York and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. While in journalism school he received a Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, and after graduation he joined the Washington Post before going to work for Newsday, where he spent the next 10 years of his career.
Six years into his tenure at Newsday Mayer became its New York City columnist, and in 1968 he won the National Headliner Award, given to the best feature columnist in the country. In both 1969 and 1971, he won the Mike Berger Award, given for the year's best writing about New York City, and was the first person to ever win it twice.
In the 1970s Mayer moved to Santa Fe, N.Mex., to concentrate on writing books. He wrote 13 novels and three works of nonfiction. Superfolks, perhaps his best-known work, is a novel meant for adults that satirizes and deconstructs the superhero genre. It proved influential to major comic book writers like Grant Morrison, Kurt Busiek and Alan Moore.
Over the years he continued his reporting and also became a writing teacher, leading workshops at his studio in Santa Fe. He completed one last novel before his death, which will be published by About Comics sometime in the near future.