Remembering Mike

I'd intended to post my second rough for the Perhapanauts pinup but I thought this was more important. Suzanne and I just got back from a weekend in Durham, working on Mike's house. Though we had a great dinner with Andrew and Vanessa Neal and Richard and Colleen Case, we were feeling a little depressed. It hit us around lunchtime today when we were packing up to leave. The house is nearly completely empty and is so devoid of anything "Mike" that it hurts a little. Worse, every time we make a repair or clean up the yard or do any kind of improvement, we realize that we could very easily have come down and helped Mike with this stuff when he was alive and removed at least some of his burden. Mike pretty much worked all the time. He didn't get weekends or holidays or four weeks of vacation like I do. If he took time off, that was money out of his pocket. I think back at all the times I emailed him complaining that I had to work an all-nighter or cancel plans to work over the weekend and I'm ashamed. He'd try to be sympathetic and offer encouragement but he was probably shaking his head and thinking, "Welcome to my life." Though Suze and I are probably being too hard on ourselves, every weekend in that house feels like a reminder of how much I failed my brother when he needed me.

I was in this state of mind when I got home to discover an email waiting for me on my work account from Ron Richards if iFanboy. It seems the guys at iFanboy teamed up with the very cool Augie de Blieck, Jr. of Comic Book Resources to do a video remembering Mike's career. It features interviews with Tom Breevort and everybody's pal Todd Dezago. Watching this video really cheered me up. Seeing how much other people appreciated Mike's work was heartening. I was also very happy to see Augie participating. Augie's always been a true and genuine champion of Mike's work and Mike seemed to like him a lot. It was also cool to see where Todd works. I've never been to his house in New York and he appears to have a very cool workspace. Certainly a lot neater than mine, which looks like a rat's nest.

It is with much appreciation and gratitude that I give you the link to the video that Ron sent me. Please check it out and subscribe to their podcast. (I did many moons ago.):

http://revision3.com/ifanboy/ringo

There's a downloadable Quicktime version on there too. I was going to make some petty quip about Tom Breevort putting on some pounds since the last time I saw him in San Diego (where he took one look at my portfolio, evacuated his bowels on it and then lit it on fire) but since I've put on even more than he has and he was always a stand up guy with Mike, I think I'll pass.

Todd looks good, though.