________  ________  ________   
   2024-04-08                                   /        \/        \/    /   \  
                                               /       __/         /_       _/ 
   there's  a hundred  ways I  want to write  /        _/         /         / 
this,  there's a  thousand  things I want to  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
say, but  every  time  I  sit  down  to  try    /        \/        \/    /   \
nothing sticks. I just bring up a blank file   /        _/         /_       _/
or page and stare at it because to commit it  /-        /        _/         /
to words is to commit it to reality and part  \________/\________/\___/____/
of me  holds out  hope it's all just  a dumb
misunderstanding or mistake.

   a glitch in the Matrix, a waking dream I'll snap out of.

   there was  someone I knew.  I didn't know them well,  we exchanged messages
maybe  once or twice,  but they were someone  who would change you  instantly.
their heart burned with a  creative  passion  so powerful it was  radioactive,
their  knowledge and  enthusiasm  for art glowing so hot  it'd transform  you,
infect you, and drive you to be knowledgeable and to be enthusiastic.

   we came from the same roots, were forged from the same elements, mixed from
the same  chemicals  and we were cut from the same cloth,  carrying  ourselves
with an unflinching swagger, punching above our weight.

   and I count myself among the hundreds if not thousands  that have identical
stories, uplifted and driven by an intoxicating passion to create and share.

   cartoonists, comic artists, musicians, designers,  writers, authors. people
I call hero,  people I call senpai,  people I call friend, people I call peer,
and  people who  feel the same way about me,  a whole  spectrum  of talent and
experience and creativity could point to him and say "that's the guy" - that's
the guy that made me want to read more,  learn more, create more,  share more,
be more excited, be more generous, be more colorful, be better.

   but now he's gone, sunk under ugliness and cold-hearted meanness, sentenced
to death  by an unfeeling,  inhuman species that takes and hates and revels in
their toxicity.

   a week ago,  Ed Piskor was driven to suicide by his peers, pressed to death
under the weight of the witch-finders' stones, his death will leave a wound in
the cartoon and comic industry that will never close and his loss will leave a
hurt in me that will never heal.

   my heart has joined the thousand.



EOF