In Memory of Ed Piskor

What We Lose and What We Leave Behind

On April 1st, comic artist Ed Piskor took his own life. Ed was a brilliant artist and writer, a one stop shop able to draw, ink, script, and letter all of his own work, and do it all with a unique style and quality. Ed was the complete package; writer, artist, colorist, letterer, the kind of talent who would be a household name if the comic book industry hadn’t spent the past 30 years avoiding creating household names. Ed rose to fame through underground comics, his big break coming from his series Hip-Hop Family Tree chronicling the rise of Hip-Hop in the 1970’s and 80’s and while he would primarily work on his own original projects, he did work with Marvel from time to time as well as run a podcast called Cartoonist Kayfabe. If you want a better understanding Ed and what was so impressive about his work, I’d recommend listening to the touching tribute given to Ed by comic legend Rob Leifeld on a recent episode of his podcast. Ed was also subject to a very intense cancel campaign in the week leading up to him taking his life. Ed left a gut wrenching suicide note, where he in no uncertain terms says that it was the public humiliation campaign that lead him to take his own life. In Ed’s note he says “I was murdered by Internet bullies”.

It’s this cancel campaign that’s the reason that I’m ultimately writing this and that this whole situation was brought to my attention. Across the social media I run for this account as well as my personal accounts lots of people sent me Ed’s note. I recognized Ed’s art style when I looked deeper into it, but I’ll admit until the last week or so, I’d never read any of Ed’s work. Ed’s passing and the circumstances surrounding it ended up making a somewhat surprising amount of waves in the press. Internet harassment related suicides are generally ignored if the harassers are doing it on behalf of a pet progressive cause and the target is sufficiently unpersoned prior to their death, which Ed’s case certainly fits that criteria. I figured it would go over like the suicide of video game composer and developer Alec Holowka, who took his life in 2019 after a similar incident and strange struggle session denouncements from the people who were supposed to love him.

I think a confluence of factors allowed for Ed’s story to gain more traction than it would’ve in years past. While moral panic harassment campaigns are still common, especially in creative industries, there has been at least some shift in the public response to it, with critical or at the very least skeptical voices being more present, maybe not enough to achieve a critical mass of change, but at least enough to see a change the public response as compared to similar situations in years prior. Additionally the fandom surrounding comic books has found itself in an identitarian meta-culture war (colloquially known as comicsgate) in recent years and the journalists and comics professionals that were instrumental in the vigilante campaign against Ed were predictably members of the “social justice” wing of the comic culture conflict, and the opposing side drew a great deal of attention to Ed’s death, and the progressive side’s part in that. The final, and most important factor I believe in Ed’s death gaining traction in the news however was simply that he was a deeply beloved talent. Ed’s death saw an outpouring of support from some of the most prominent names in comics like the previously mentioned Rob Leifeld and Mark Millar to Hip-Hop legends like Chuck D, all of whom not only mourned the loss of Ed, but remarked on the senselessness of the public humiliation campaign that preceded his death.

Before I go further I feel like I need to touch on a few things. Suicide is rarely monocausal and journalists are traditionally cautioned to assert that a single factor caused someone’s suicide I share that belief. Research has also concluded that suicide is often an impulsive act. There has been a tendency from people (including Ed himself) rightfully outraged by the events leading to Ed’s death to place the blame solely and neatly at the feet of the of the mob, but I don’t agree with the assertion that Ed was “murdered” as has gained traction. Ed took his own life, obviously what he was put through in his last week of life played a significant factor in that, but it was ultimately Ed’s choice, and I think that choice is important, it doesn’t make what happened to him any less cruel or a tragedy. The media in recent years has shown no issue tying suicides are the result of individuals resistant to progressive causes, like saying Nex Benedict was killed (first formally and then more metaphorically) by anti-lgbtq sentiment when it was eventually ruled a suicide, or that the suicide of programmer Byuu was caused by Kiwifarms. I think that’s wrong in those cases, I’m going to stay consistent. I understand people feel differently, and I understand why they feel that way, I’m not trying to antagonize anyone, I just disagree with the characterization of Ed being “killed”.

I don’t want to talk about Piskor’s cancellation all that much, because Piskor was so so, so much more than the last week of his life. An unfortunate side effect of Piskor’s actions is that it forever ties him to that moment. But at the same time I feel the need to acknowledge what happened so that anyone reading can grasp the nature of the entire thing. The short version is that Piskor was accused of inappropriate, but not illegal behavior, messaging someone significantly younger than him (though of the age of consent). Ed admits he spoke to this woman, and probably shouldn’t have, but denies any sexual intent in his words and that they were taken out of context. Additionally the then-17 year old was adamant that he made no kind of sexual passes or requests of her. He was accused of offering to trade industry connections for sex after the first allegation by a different woman, which he categorically denies, insisting that the relationship he had with this person was consensual and initiated by her, and he has no real connections to offer anyway. In the wake of these allegations, Ed saw work opportunities disappear overnight, contracts cancelled or put on hold. A gallery showing he had coming up was postponed, which resulted in the local Pittsburgh TV news showing up to both Ed and his parents house trying to get comment, the news crew didn’t bother to obscure the house addresses. A week later, Ed was gone.

I’m going to celebrate Ed for his talent, because that’s how he deserves to be remembered. I’m also going to talk about my own experience, perhaps against my own better judgement, in hopes that this reaches the next person to find themselves in Ed’s place. It is a lonely thing what Ed went through, and perhaps it is foolish or egotistical to believe anything I write could change anything, but I’m going to do my best to leave a light on for people who find themselves lost, because that is also what Ed and so many other deserve.

“The Best At What I Do”

To try and understand Ed I did something I’ve done frequently throughout my life, I turned to the X-Men, in particular Ed’s X-Men: Grand Design. I read a little bit of Hip Hop Family Tree and while I enjoyed what I read, I admittedly was more pulled towards Ed’s take on the X family.

Grand Design is a special project among X-Men comics, rather than simply being given control over a group of mutants in an ongoing story, Grand Design is instead an original project to retell X-Men history in a single streamlined story. If you’re a fan of X-Men you inherently understand what a monumental undertaking that is. If you’re not a fan the X-Men universe is one that is so constantly beset by a constantly rotating cast of hundreds of different characters and teams, retcons, reboots, deaths, fake deaths, resurrections, time travel, clones, false realities, and alternative realities, that trying to condense say, the entire history of say the Catholic Church, down to 250 pages may actually be a simpler task. Grand Design in its entirety covers roughly 30 years of X-Men history, from before the first issue in 1963 to the end of the Claremont run in the early 90’s, spanning hundreds of issues across multiple different series, that Grand Design tells it’s story so well and coherent, or at least as coherent as the source material allows is itself an amazing feat. It’s obviously a 1000ft view of the material, you’re not going to get all of the depth and character development you would get from reading every issue of a Claremont arc, but if you’re looking to get an idea of the history of this world and it’s characters, as well as the big moments that shaped the canon, Grand Design is well worth your time.

Ed’s writing is usually the biggest point of the criticisms I’ve read of him. To some extent it’s fair, there can be lots of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened” in both what I read of Family Tree and in Grand Design. But it’s worth noting here that Ed’s capacity for both of these books is one more of a historian than an author. Like all historians he’s trying to tie disparate events into a narrative, trying to figure out which points are the most important for the reader. It requires a great deal of editing, and an eye for what’s really important for the structure, and also the very difficult decision of figuring out what you have to leave out, and for what it’s worth, I think Ed was very good at that. If you’ve read any of my writing, you’ll notice I struggle with this myself. It’s also worth noting that a decent amount of X-Men history can really only be explained as “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened.” so I’m not sure how much of it is his fault. Ed talked like a Hip Hop guy from the 80’s and 90’s, that quality is present in Ed’s writing, some may not like it, I find it charming, and it’s certainly unique. Among the many things I found impressive about Grand Design was Ed’s ability to balance his own sensibilities while still maintaining the best parts of the many creators he’s been tasked with compiling.

It is the art where Grand Design really shines. Piskor’s work drew heavily from the likes of R Crumb whose work has had far reaching influence on American cartooning, but is generally missing from mainstream comics. While Ed is obviously reigning in some of his influences in order to match certain aesthetics, Marvel comics simply aren’t drawn like this, especially now. Ed is able to strike a balance between the silver and bronze age roots of the source material as well as his own style and as a result Grand Design feels wholly unique in the in the superhero comic landscape. It can feel like a fool’s errand to try and critique a visual medium via the written word, but know that every one of the 260 odd pages of Grand Design are as lovingly crafted as the handful I’ve attached to this article.

What is obvious from grand design is that it is a labor of love. Every panel is painstakingly designed and laid out, the amount of detail on a single page rivals what can be found in an entire modern comic book. Ed took the responsibility of creating a condensed history of the X-Men seriously, and that is apparent every second I spent reading it. Grand Design is a love letter, and like most great love letters, it reveals just as much of the best qualities of the person writing it as it does the subject. Ed loved the X-Men, and reading Grand Design it’s a joy to learn exactly what and why Ed loved about it.

If there is some semblance of comfort to be found in the senseless loss of Ed, it is that his work will live on. The passion in everything I read by him is palpable and I think that’s what remains so charming about his work. His skills as an artist were among the best, but it’s the love of what he’s doing that carries it. Years from now, people will pick up Hip Hop Family Tree or X-Men Grand Design or one of Ed’s other projects and understand, intimately, why Ed loved these things the way he did. No matter the tragedy, Ed’s work lives on.

“I Didn’t Think It Would Hurt So Much”

I’ve had a couple people who follow this blog tell me I should write more about my experience being cancelled, but I just can’t really stomach it. I have a tendency towards egomania, something that definitely came out during my time in the woke musician fold, and the self mythologizing required to write autobiographically feels dangerously close to that gravitational pull. The handful of times I’ve waded into it I immediately just see a lot of what I detest in myself; self reverence, a tendency towards the maudlin, resentful and counting all my grievances. The grief I feel for what I lost is an Ocean, and I’ve found that even wading in one can quickly find themselves adrift without sign of shore, leaving you with the only option to drink it all in.

More practically, I’m not comfortable being vulnerable anymore, even under a pseudonym. I’ve watched a community tell me how important it was to be vulnerable only to use that vulnerability against me, I have no interest in providing the people who wish to hang me more rope.

But Ed’s passing has left a hole in me for weeks now, his note reverberating in my skull. There’s been some writing here and there about being on the receiving end of our new digital witch hunts, but not a lot, and even if there was I don’t think there are words to describe the depth of the pain. Most people just disappear, which is understandable, once you’ve seen the full power of the village being turned against you, heading into the woods and keeping your head down becomes really the only path.

I wish I could approach this with the laser precise venom Pat Kindlon did, as I do with most things. But it’s all too close to a wound on my spirit that’s never quite been able to scar. The cool derision works really well for dealing with the mob, it’s all they deserve and if you’re looking for that, Pat’s pieces say it more concisely and wittily than I could ever hope.

But for the mob’s targets, who I’m trying to speak to, I think the only way to get through to them is to let them know that you see their pain. Pain, the kind of pain Ed described as “chipped little bits of my self esteem away all week until I was vaporized.” in his suicide note I think can really only be treated with empathy and sincerity. I’m probably going to overdo it here, I’ve never been good at doing middle ground, but if I’m gonna do it, may as well go all the way. Why cut myself open for a half measure?

I’m not here to recount how awful I have felt for sympathy, sympathy is cheap and no amount of “I’m sorry that happened to you” has ever made me feel better. I’m doing it for two reasons, first, perhaps futilely, that maybe, fucking maybe, it worms its way into the head of one of the rabble and causes a second thought before the next time they call for a head on a stake. For that, I’m not holding my breath. More importantly, to show the people who read this, who find themselves in Ed’s place, that these words are coming from someone who has gone through what they’re going through. The sad truth is that if you haven’t gone through it, you’ll never get it, and every day I’m thankful that most people will never get this, but it means that almost every person you try to talk to doesn’t understand. Hearing someone who has absolutely no idea what this is like tell you that being cancelled is “just a mindset” grows old and I can’t help but start planning out a murder when some CBT therapist asks me if I’ve tried not thinking about it. If there is any wisdom I can impart, its come from the frontlines.

I have written and rewritten a note like Ed Piskor’s final statement more than I can count. I have planned my death as often. I was a suicidal depressive even before I got cancelled, but losing everything pushed it into high gear, the shame, the loss of nearly every friend I ever had, and the outlet of music that had kept me going through every up and down left me lost. I lost nearly a decade, most of my 20s, walking around in a miserable haze, periodically getting as close to the edge of ending it as I could before something eventually pulled me back on the path of my miserable trudge. I, like lots of people, found myself dead in all but body. Life became little more than a hollow simulacra.

Every single person I have ever met who has gone through the kind of public humiliation spectacle Ed did has a letter ready to go. It’s sad to say, but people listen to suicide notes, far closer than they listen to a notes app groveling apology or denial of wrongdoing. Going through these things there’s a profound feeling of being ignored, because you are. Who you are, how you feel, what you’re saying, ultimately means nothing to these people, anything you say will either be mocked or used against you, often both.

Conversely it’s very difficult to ignore something written in blood. If you don’t believe me take a quick glance at the coverage of Ed’s situation prior to his death, and then look at the drastic change in tone and all of the people who entered the fray once Ed had passed. That’s not really a shot at the people who came out of the woodwork to defend Ed in death, the people who lead these cancel campaigns are a special kind of psycho who have been given a tremendous amount of punitive power to upend the lives and careers of whoever is unfortunate to fall into their sights. I understand not wanting to jump into a fight that doesn’t involve you because you gotta think about feeding your kids, I don’t think that’s cowardice.

We love the dead, because the dead are easy to love, they are static and in the end we are left with the choice of what we want to take with us when we stand in front of the casket, most of us choose the good. The living of course, are much harder to love, it proves much more difficult to embrace the jagged edges and the failures that accompany a living, breathing human being. It is easier to eulogize Ed in death than it is to advocate for him in life. It is easier to build a monument to Piskor’s memory than it was to rebuild the broken man who took his life that day.

Part of the reason I bristle at the assertion that Ed was “murdered” is that having been in that position, I know very well killing myself was ultimately my decision. The fact that Ed chose death over continuing to deal with these people is crucially important. That was sort of the whole point, especially in relation to being cancelled. I’d had so much taken from me, killing myself was finally giving me a choice. “Fuck you, fuck this, you can’t fire me, I quit.” I would get a say in how I was being treated insofar that I was opting out. One of the things that makes being cancelled so hard is that you immediately lose any ability to control your own story, a monstrous image of you is built in the imagination of those looking to justify what they’re doing to you. Suicide, at least in my mind, was a way to wrestle back the slightest bit of control. Write the final chapter, place the last and ultimate period at the end and be done with the thing. Throw one final wild punch at the world and hope it does enough damage, win or lose, who cares, I won’t be around to see it. For me it was just as much a action of aggression as it was despair.

I wanted to be a artist more than anything, a musician, it had been at the heart of everything I did, something that everything I did had been working towards for nearly half my life, and the half before it had been spent figuring out that that was all I wanted to be. I built a project I was proud of, had a place in the community that I was happy with and had worked hard to earn, opportunities had finally started opening up, after years of throwing passion at the wall something was finally resonating, I had friends I loved dearly. And in a matter of hours, I had nothing, all the opportunities I had disappeared, all my aspirations now dead ends, a phone full of numbers I could no longer call. There wasn’t even a term for what was happening to me at the time, I couldn’t even put a name to what this torture was. “Cancel Culture” ultimately became the cutesy term to describe the phenomenon of having your entire life nuked by a mob of extrajudicial lunatics.

Without my dreams of becoming a musician, I was unanchored, I couldn’t find anything out of life that I wanted, let alone wanted as much as I had wanted to play music. No accomplishment meant anything, because it could no longer serve a larger goal. I walked around so overloaded with pain, feeling everything while also feeling numb. I couldn’t find a reason to live. I tried every therapy imaginable, therapists tried their best but there wasn’t a playbook for what I was going through, there still really isn’t, nobody could tell me how to deal with this. I tried every combination of meds to try and make each day bearable to little success. I couldn’t see any point in getting better when all the doors in life I wanted to walk through had closed.

After years of sleepwalking without direction, years waiting for a phone call that would never come that cleared everything up, watching people you spent your entire life with act like you don’t exist, watching the world move on without me, I hit the big breaking point after years of continually crashing through the last breaking point. I pushed farther than I ever had, all of the different plans became one plan, all of the different drafts of the note became one note. I was ready. Eventually I was deemed a danger to myself and placed under supervision for my own safety. You think you hit bottom, and then you find out the floor doesn’t exist. I felt so far from the love of the world I had once felt so fully, I now lived in a sea trench of my own misery, I believed the light of the surface would never reach me again.

But I found a light. It was there, alone in a hospital ward I could not leave, sitting on a twin bed with no sheets, staring at my shoes whose laces had been confiscated that I found a reason to live. It was faint, but it was something. At certain depths, in the absence of light, some of the creatures that inhabit the deep sea evolve bioluminescence, that is to say, they create their own light. Something beyond my understanding finally clicked into place.

It was simple, just a promise to myself that I would not let my final act on earth be forcing the people I love to find my body. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for a bedrock, I could build off that, that’s a goal. Simply asserting “I am not dying here, I am not leaving life behind because of the way people have treated me” was enough to crystalize a path forward, a refusal to bend, a refusal to break. From there I decided that I didn’t want all the people still in my life to have to live with the worst version of me, they deserve better, I deserve better. Being cancelled made it impossible for me to see a future and my past a liability, but to hyper focus on the present, that did something. “What do I do to get out of this hospital and go home?” and then the next immediate thing. Little building blocks, little incremental promises to myself and others moved the needle little by little.

There were some other major changes I can’t really talk about without fear of doxing myself, but among other things, there was a pretty major breakthrough for how the more chemical elements of my condition were managed. Then came a promise that I wasn’t going to keep living in the rubble of my past life. I had stayed there for so long, desperate for people to notice just how devastated I was, hoping that if I kept my life a museum to the damage done someone else would care enough to do something about it. Trying to put things back into place felt like destroying evidence. An injustice had been done to me, the world had moved on, I was ultimately the last person to care about it, moving on felt like letting them get away with it, letting go of even an inch of it would make me the final person to betray me. The last thing you want is for someone to say “see, he turned out fine” to justify what was done to me. But as is a common theme here, I was only hurting me and the people I loved, the people I hated didn’t have to deal with the bitterness and resentment that controlled me, they didn’t live in the rubble, many built houses atop my body.

So I went back to school with a goal, I found a job that I’m good at and can stand to do that I threw myself entirely into. I built on top of the rubble, it doesn’t change what happened, it doesn’t mean that I’m no longer angry at what happened to me, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel the ache of the life I could’ve had, it doesn’t mean there aren’t certain people who if I ever ran into again it wouldn’t end in blows, but I don’t want to live in rubble, I don’t want my loved ones to either. I built because it’s the only thing you can do.

Going through all this made me feel fundamentally unlovable, that there was nothing good about me because of something I didn’t do, and I believed it. I told myself I was a piece of shit anyway, since I assumed everyone else thought it, and that worked as an excuse to not grow, to take the easy way out for a long time. But eventually I realized that I have to fight for me, I have to fight to be better, because if I won’t who will? I thought that people lying about me on a massive scale erased all the good in me, but in reality it only obscured it, and I had to fight to make sure it shined through, and I’m glad I did. My life is better than I could have ever hoped, and it started with simply planting my feet and refusing to let something that wasn’t true and I had no control over take another second of my life.

I’d rather not think about the hole I almost tore in the world. I’d rather not think about what I very nearly put everyone I love through for the rest of their lives. I do not hate that part of me, but he is asleep after decades of insomnia, and I’m still worried that he may be far more easily pulled from sleep, I’d prefer to let him rest. Even now I feel within earshot.

So I understand Ed Piskor painfully well. I wish I could find him somehow, and explain to him what I’m only able to understand now, that the only people that will carry the wounds he understandably wishes to inflict on those who hurt him will in the end be the people that he loves. There is no appealing to the humanity of fanatics who have appointed themselves to head up the inquisition, even now a search of twitter will find that the people who cheered on the digital lynching that lead to his real suicide doubling down on their actions. It is his family, his friends who ultimately must live with his absence. It is not our enemies that will find our bodies, plan our funerals, and face the impossible challenge of living without our warmth, it is our loved ones, and even if you believe none of those people remain, I assure you they do. And if you believe they would be better off without you, I promise you they aren’t. If you feel there’s no one left to mourn you, I guarantee you there is, and killing yourself is not the way you want to find out you were wrong. No matter how much of a burden you think you are in life, I assure you that finding your loved one’s body, the empty seat at the table, the phone number that now goes straight to voicemail will all weigh heavier on the ones you love than anything you could be in life. I went to too many funerals for peers in my 20s, and I will tell you that for the people that are left behind, the hole you tear never closes, the heartache is carried.

I know if you are carrying what Ed was carrying, you’re likely feeling enough guilt as it is, and I’m not trying to guilt you here, but to help you see what I saw outside of the tunnel vision that clouded my view for so long, and show you what allowed me to hang on. Getting through this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but every inch I’ve gained is mine.

I was fortunate, you should know that I am not writing this of my own accord, I am writing this because the people I love, and the people who loved me, stepped in before I made a permanent decision. People I pushed away for years. You do not have to be an artistic genius for your presence to be missed. Delete the note. Give your gun, your pill bottle, your razor, your noose to someone you can trust to keep it away from you. For better or worse there are A LOT more people who have gone through this now than there were a decade ago, there’s people you can talk to. And because there are a lot more people who have gone through it, there are also a lot more people who are just sick of all this shit. There is community to be found, there are people who will listen to you and help you, and more, there are people who understand you.

I cannot give you your hope, you unfortunately have to find that for yourself. But I am here to tell you, that when you’re ready, you can stand up. You do not have to live with these people’s boot on your neck. It doesn’t have to be today, you can do it at your own pace, but you can do it. These people want you dead, that’s their endgame that they’re too cowardly to admit it or do it themselves. Any punishment that has no path to redemption is only interested in ending you, formally or informally, in spirit if not in body. If you are failing to muster a reason to live at the very least don’t do these psychos work work for them. These people aren’t deserving of your time or consideration, they definitely don’t deserve your life.

There is a future, things will never go back to what they were, but they can be different and there are more people than you know ready to help you. The people who believe that you are not your worst day far outnumber the people who think you are, they’re just quieter, you can’t hear them because they aren’t screaming at you, but their hands are at your back to help you up. Among the unending tragedy of Ed’s death is the fact that I’m pretty sure, especially considering the circumstances, he could’ve continued his work eventually. If his passing has shown anything it’s that more people than he possibly could’ve imagined wanted the best for him.

Ed’s note made it clear he really saw no other choice besides living as an outcast pariah or death. I’ve sat in that seat before, I understand why he saw it that way, I’ve seen it that way, and I understand the choice he made given the options. And I know that Ed will unfortunately not be the last person in that seat. But if you are in that seat, and you are reading this, I want you to know that there is another choice, in fact there are infinite choices. It’s your choice, nobody else can make it for you, but I hope you choose to live, and I promise that more people than you know hope you choose to live too, and I promise that it’s worth it. Take heart in knowing that there is infinitely more joy in the world than all of the misery these people can muster.

God Loves, Man Kills

Ed is gone. There’s one less artist in the world, I don’t think anyone is any safer. There’s nothing “restorative” about this, nor does it remotely resemble any kind of “justice”. It’s simply social assassination wrapped in the language of virtue and compassion. That is why it is so pernicious. One need not forget that the residents of Salem believed the hundreds they sent to hang did so on behalf of “keeping the community safe”. “We protect us” could’ve easily been engraved on each stone placed on Giles Corey’s chest.

While there’s never a shortage of morons insisting that I’m trying to make excuses and provide cover for the actions of “bad men”, the heart of my work criticizing these harassment campaigns disguised as accountability is a belief in the absolute necessity for due process. One’s livelihood, their reputation, their works, their community, our society intrinsically understands that these things are at the core of a person, and as such, understands that mobilizing society to deprive anyone of them is a grave undertaking and does so with a great amount of trepidation. This is of course one of the greatest ideas in the history of civilization, the idea that the state, which in itself is simply a formalization of the “community” the puritans constantly invoke, does not inherently have the right to punish whoever it chooses. Those who scoff at that concept, who happily join the mob, and argue they have the right to do whatever they want in the name of “protecting the community” are simply fascists wrapping themselves in the cloak of virtue. These people pushed Ed’s back against the wall to the point he saw no other way out, and they deserve to be reviled as the fucking pigs they are.

Ed deserved love and compassion and understanding, because he was a human being like all of us, consciousness thrust upon him without any choice of his own. He deserved loyalty from the people who called themselves his friends. He deserved the presumption of innocence we are all entitled to under the law of this country. If he did something wrong, he deserved the opportunity to make it right with the people he wronged, he deserved forgiveness and a path to redemption, because we all fall short, not have his worst moment broadcast across the internet for the entertainment of strangers.

Ed, if these kinds of things ring in the eternity you now belong to, I hope when the light found you it healed your heart, I hope all the love in the world that you didn’t feel has taken you into it’s arms. I hope you know just how much you were loved, and just how much you were missed, by your family, by your friends, by your collogues, idols, and mentors. And I hope that Ed’s loved ones can find some form of healing and though it will be a long wait, that when you are finally reunited with Ed, it will feel like no time at all.

We do not choose the crosses we bare in life, all we can do is pray for the strength to carry it with dignity. No matter what you’re going through, there is no hole so deep that the light cannot find you.

And I promise, it will.

Ed’s family have started a gofundme to raise funds for expenses related to Ed’s passing, you can donate to that here. If you are interested in purchasing Ed’s work you can use this website to find your local comic shop.

I can be found on instagram @jacktorrancefakeshisdeath and on twitter @jtorrancesghost. You can reach me via email at jacktorrancewrites@proton.me