The King Is Dead, Long Live The...

The past week has been Bad, Sad, and Mad. My friend and colleague Tom Spurgeon died one month shy of his 51st birthday. I've had trouble coping with this fact and find myself crying at odd moments.

Quite frankly, I cannot imagine the world of comics, the mainstream, the alternative, the mini, or the underground without Tom's verve. From his tenure as Executive Editor at The Comics Journal, to his daily newspaper strip Wildwood, to his website The Comics Reporter, to his role as the Director of The Cartoon Crossroads Columbus annual four day festival affiliated with the Billy Ireland Library of Ohio State University his presence was an essential force. His kindness to authors and artists, his very intelligent criticism and open mind without any particular agenda made him one of a kind.

The last few years he has linked to my short stories from The American Bystander and to my blog whenever he thought there was a comic worth reading. A kindness that I am very grateful for. 

I first met Tom in the 1990's at one of those Fantagraphics parties that took place at Groth Manor. This was still the era, albeit the tail end, when people from both Fantagraphics and Sub Pop were hanging out together in the "alternative" social scene of Seattle.

These parties got very wild at times, loud music, lots of people, plus Gary enjoyed blowing things to smithereens with dynamite. I can still remember the glistening of tiny porcelain toilet fragments in the rainy late night sky and the tinkling sounds they made as they fluttered to the rooftops of the neighbors houses.

If you've ever spent time engaged in heavy drinking with writers and cartoonists then you know it can become tedious as people play the unspoken of parlor game of who is the most glib and witty person in the room. Tom was naturally funny with a sharp sardonic wit, which made you want to spend time with him. His sense of humor was marvelous, cynical at times, and natural. I could see that he was made this way. There was no affectation, he was simply purely funny. If anyone reading this had the privilege of being his friend when he was a boy, that must have been one hell of a blast.

Since Tom's death, other people more qualified than I am have been writing about his career accomplishments, which are varied and many. I don't have anything to add on that front, so I've decided to keep this in the realm of the personal anecdote.

Tom often had a feature on The Comics Reporter website Called "Five for Friday" where he would pose a question and request readers to email him five answers that he would publish the following Friday. So to honor Tom, my Five for Friday question is: "Name your five most memorable Tom Spurgeon experiences". The lower the numeral, the more important the experience.

5) The Thanksgiving Dinner at Gary Groth's house in the late 1990's when Tom was the Executive Editor of The Comics Journal. In front of almost everyone in attendance, during dessert (which means a lot to Gary) Tom told Gary that he ought to interview me in The Comics Journal. The Editor bossing the Owner was highly comical, as were Gary's rejoinders. Gary did eventually interview me.

4) When Tom interviewed the cartoonist James Sturm for The Comics Journal, he mentioned the short story that James and I collaborated on in 1994. At that time James was recovering from a serious eye injury and the surgeries to correct it. His surgeon had forbade him drawing in order for the eye to heal properly. James kept writing and worked collaboratively with several Seattle cartoonists of the time to handle the drawing.

The story we did together is titled Float and it was published in Belgium. Tom and James discussed our collaboration in the interview and reproduced a couple of pages as illustrations. During his time in Seattle James co-founded the Stranger weekly and wrote his first graphic novel. After departing Seattle, he co-founded The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont and has written numerous books and essays. His accomplishments in the world of comics far exceed mine, so for Tom to bring me up in an interview was extremely gracious.

3) In an article he posted on The Comics Reporter in 2012 about introducing friends to books they were unaware of, especially friends who might not be soaked in comics particulars.

Tom wrote "I mean, I know that I have friends that would find Marjane Satrapi easier to understand than Ted Jouflas; I suppose that's a main reason I lend out Persepolis more than I do Filthy. Both are fine books, and the art form is better off for our having both. Is there anything more to it than that?"

When I first read this on my daily perusal of The Comics Reporter I was stunned. Tom favorably compared my work to Marjane Satrapi, a woman who is a graphic novelist, illustrator, film director, and winner of numerous international awards, both for her books and films. Moi? 

2) The Day that Tom showed up at my office half the man he used to be. After moving to New Mexico, if Tom had business in Seattle he would drop into Fantagraphics. I knew that Tom had almost died from an infection of flesh eating bacteria and had undergone major surgery and a coma during his lengthy recovery. But he was in New Mexico and I was in Seattle when this happened, so I hadn't seen him in a couple of years. We had spoken on the phone and emailed, but that was it. I had no idea that he had lost over two hundred pounds.

My desk was situated with my back to the door (not a good idea) when suddenly I was confronted by a tall skinny stranger with a shaved head and a closely cropped beard, who was wearing a nice sports coat, slacks, and a dress shirt. He said nothing and just stood there kind of glowering at me. I was apprehensive, wondering when this person was going to introduce themselves, wondering who he was, and what he wanted. Still nothing but silence on both our parts. At some point between thirty seconds and a minute he started to smile and it was then that I recognized him and exclaimed "Tom!".
He started laughing at me and with me too. He had punked me and was delighted. So was I.

1) The day that Tom told me I am an Idiot. It was years ago and I won't go into the particulars here, but suffice it to say that we hadn't been arguing, and that his statement was delivered with blunt force combined with an exit. In the moment he hurt my feelings, but as the day wore on I understood that he was right and that I had been treated to the ultimate masculine kindness.

I love you Tom. God Bless You.