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Remembering Jim
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A Small Tribute to My Friend and Creative Collaborator, Jim
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July 1, 2006 -- I want to talk briefly about the passing of a very good friend of mine this week. His name was Jim, and although I never met him in person, I will always miss him, our e-mail conversations, our video-gaming, and his friendship. He liked comics (Fantastic Four especially). He liked Star Trek (gotta watch out for Gorns!). He was funnier than I am, that's for sure.
Jim and I met playing the online RPG City of Heroes. Our meeting was completely random; we were both waiting for other friends who weren't around and teamed up just to kill time. We continued to play together after that. He was a great player with a great sense of humor. He kept me in the game when I seriously considered quitting. Eventually I did stop, but he helped draw me back in: Playing with him was always a blast. We also had great plans to write our own hilarious costumed hero comic. The cover image for "The Professionals" seen in my portfolio was to be the first of our collaborations (he created half the characters!).
Without going into too much detail, Jim had been ill for quite some time. He spent the recent months in a Florida hospital, two hours' drive from his family and friends. His wife was kind enough to take the time to contact me and post on her blog about his situation, in between driving to be with him every day. He was less than a week away from being moved to a hospital closer to their Orlando home when he passed this Wednesday morning.
Thank you all for letting me go on like this. Again, even though I never met him in person, he made me feel like we had been friends for years. His son joined us in City of Heroes and his wife has always been kind to me in her e-mails and on her blog. The chances of meeting someone in an online game are so astronomically low; there are thousands of people playing at any one time. To meet someone so spectacular, and to know him for even such a short time, makes me feel incredibly blessed.
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