Sorry that this one isn’t funny or has anything to do with the comic.

It was… 2001? Maybe a month or two on either side of 9/11, I don’t rightly remember, that my first webcomic, FLEM comics, suddenly gained a HUGE hit spike in the logs. Seems this site, Bartcop.com, had reposted this strip with full attribution. Thusly, I learned of Bartcop.

I emailed him, and he responded every time. We weren’t close bros, hell no – his political view were MUCH farther left than mine. We argued a little, in private. But I dug his style – he had no fucks to give about rousing some rabble on the blogospheres. He’d seen some shit, in his decades on this planet, and a lot of what he said was negative – but at least it was funny. I learned a lot from his updates – don’t bow to the haters. Mock them in public. And although I didn’t agree with everything he posted, his site has been a staple of mine, usually read once a month, for the last 13 years. A lot of laughs and a lot of things to think about.

I’m probably not going to respond in the comments here. I’m sure a fair amount of you will have nasty shit to say about him – hell, some of it’s deserved. He was a rabid punk rock superstar of political mockery. Like the Daily Show if they had more balls. He straight up flipped the bird to his detractors every day. He noted on his site, years ago, that he’d been diagnosed with leukemia. I knew he wouldn’t be around forever. Still… I learned tonight of his passing. And it hit me harder than I expected. A lot harder.

The world is a little bit worse off without him. That’s all I can say.

Permanence is an illusion. This one’s for you, Terry.