John Strejan, widely considered one of the world's greatest paper engineers and an early pioneer in pop-up books, died of cancer in Los Angeles March 26. He was 70. Strejan, known by the name Silverblade, began his pop-up career at the Elgin Davis Art Studio. Davis founded Graphics International in the late 1960s which in 1974 became Intervisual Books. Strejan did the National Geographic series of animal books from 1987 to 1997 as well as Snoopy and the Twelve Days of Christmas and The Pop-Up Book of Gnomes.