Captured in a long-remembered photograph, Pafko was a helpless figure pressed against the wall and looking up as "the shot heard round the world" landed a few rows above him.
When reading about the elusive, often invisible comic superhero The Shadow, he works out that a clever crook could kill him by simply keeping his figure pressed down on the trigger of a Tommy gun and spinning around 360 degrees.
He kept the sustain pedal down a fair amount, and sometimes let his bass-clef locomotive figures press on without development.
In the second half of the 1990s, this gave rise to some unforgettable images of figures pressed together, imploring arms raised heavenward or hanging limply, lifeless corpses and victims slumped in the embraces of survivors, human beings shattered by grief, memorializing the terrible suffering of the war.
The Thursday morning announcement followed long hours of speculation Wednesday night, as political figures pressed Peña Nieto to take a stand against what many Mexicans view as a uniquely hostile U.S. president that wants to bilk the country for billions of dollars.
(After the call ended, he tweeted out his notes, which briefly made him a figure in press coverage of the campaign).
At one point, the Democrats who control Oklahoma and New Mexico threatened retaliation, but the Party lacks a DeLay-like figure to press the issue.
Labour will seize on the figure to press home arguments that Britain is developing a low-wage underclass, consigned to be at the beck and call of their employer in a miserable repeat of our Victorian past.
In addition to writing Climbing Higher, his 2004 autobiography that detailed his struggle with MS and the therapeutic effects of cannabis, Williams has hosted TV shows on the topic of medical marijuana, authored Op-Ed pieces in major newspapers and used his platform as a public figure to press legislators across the country to enact new drug policies based on compassion, reason and science.
Some Labor figures still press for peace negotiations, of course, but their voices don't get through.
