Tom Spurgeon, comics journalist, festival organizer, and all-around champion of the comics medium and the people who make them, passed away on November 13, 2019. Spurgeon had made his home in Columbus for nearly six years, moving into town to serve as the Festival Director of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, the ambitious multi-venue festival celebrating comics in its many different forms.
Many obituaries have covered Tom’s many, many contributions to the comics medium, from his award-winning website The Comics Reporter to his three books Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book, The Romita Legacy, and Comics as Art: We Told You So. He was the executive editor of The Comics Journal, he was the writer of the newspaper comic strip Wildwood, and he provided a constant stream of amusing bite-sized anecdotes about the comics industry and life on his Twitter feed. More importantly, Spurgeon was a steward of comics and a good friend to the people involved with making them.
Spurgeon was one of the most brilliant minds in comics, despite his self-deprecating personality and humor. He had an encyclopedic mind about comics (and many other things) and always seemed to be on top of the latest going-ons and publishing news in just about every part of the wider comics industry. That talent served him well during his festival director days, as he always had a knack for knowing which creators had a new book that would do well on the CXC expo f loor. He also seemed to know everybody – from the indy-est of comics zine makers to the biggest names in superhero comics. There was a lot of weight to his name, to the point that even young creators knew that getting a link on his site was a “big deal.”
Tom was also a good friend, always looking for ways to provide a little bit of comfort to the many people in the industry who were struggling in one way or another. He had that quintessential Midwestern politeness to him, tempered by years working on the West Coast for the publishing industry. Tom would always ask what he could bring to a gathering, he never overstayed his welcome, and he always tried to signal boost and support every fundraising project he could find. Tom cared for other people, even those he didn’t like. He would never hesitate to help someone in need, even if he was in the middle of a public spat with them.
Spurgeon is survived by his brothers Whit and Dan, and his mother Sunny McFarren. His legacy includes quickly turning Cartoon Crossroads Columbus into one of the premier comics festivals in the United States and a career of comics writing that can never hope to be matched.
– Christian Hoffer
Show Runner for CXC
Tom showed up. You never knew when, but you knew he’d be there. Few comics events happened in this city without him. But for all the ways that he loved comics, he loved its people more. Thus, if he knew a party or show or reading mattered to you, it mattered to him. You would spot him holding court in a corner in his instantly recognizable rumble, but don’t wait too long. By the time you turned around he was gone, silently whisked off into the night. But it was okay. That time was enough to know he cared.
He taught me many things: the intricacies of running an event, how to stay cool around famous people, a thousand names and book titles that would break my heart with their beauty. (Ever the realist, he would insist on reminding me that I developed a great patience for late e-mails thanks to him as well.) But his truest lesson was devotion. I’d known him for years before I learned he’d been in the seminary. It made sense in that wry way that some things simply did with him, though. The man knew what it meant to throw your heart after something, be it God or comics, to peer down at a carefully crafted plan only to ask: “Can we do better?”
He always wanted to do better, love back the hardest that he could.
He made so many of us want to do better.
I hope we have made him proud.
– Tracie Santos
Volunteer Coordinator for CXC
Thinking about my relationship with Tom can sometimes feel selfish. Only because most memories I have were at conventions and parties. Most discussions were only ever him encouraging me to make more work and him excited about my future.
The greatest gift Tom ever gave to me was his faith. In me, my work, my friends, and the community here. His faith was powerful and inspiring. He believed in me, made himself someone I could depend on. He inspired faith in the process, in the art form, and people. Faith that I sometimes can’t give to myself. He was always so sure, it was contagious.
It feels selfish because I hardly knew the man, and these are most of the memories that I have of him. It was only last year we started to become closer friends. I felt guilty for not spending more time getting to know this person that had such an influence on my life.
But after I left Tom’s memorial, I understood that’s just what he did, he had an impact. The details of our relationship are shared with many others who knew Tom as well. And even in passing, he left the example of how abundant and strong his faith was. Our connection was brief, but its memory will carry me. Life feels emptier without Tom, but the emptiness makes me thankful I’ve had and still have people that can make life feel as such.
Thankful for him, and the time I had with him.
– Alec Valerius
Columbus-based Cartoonist & Illustrator
My first long conversation with Tom was at a coffee shop in which he spent much of the time talking about his disappointment with each of the books he had written. But because it was Tom, this wasn’t sad or dull. It was like I was the sole audience member for a brilliant one-man show about the foibles of writing and publishing.
Tom had a quality that I’ve noticed in many people who are great at something, which is that he often hated his own work. He knew he was a talented writer, but was demoralized by the obstacles in time and health that hindered his progress.
Tom left behind a body of work that is observant and funny, and far exceeds his own assessment. I want to read Comics Reporter: The Collected Writing of Tom Spurgeon. Seriously, somebody should compile his best from Comics Reporter, The Comics Journal, Suck.com, and others, and publish this book. I’ll buy three copies. The cover can be that great photo of Tom as a toddler riding his four-wheel bike with a paper bag over his head, the one that was his Twitter avatar.
Columbus and the wider comics community suffered a great loss when we lost Tom, but he had already given us more than a lifetime’s worth of friendship, insight and clever turns of phrase.
– Dan Gearino
Columbus-based Writer & Reporter
It’s hard to talk about what Tom meant to CXC and the City of Columbus, because eight months after his death, I’m still trying to unpack daily what his loss means to me. In comics and everywhere else, he led me not to accept “less than.” The many testimonials to him since last November prove that empowerment of others without demanding return was his mystical faculty.
Tom and I got to know each other outside of boardrooms and the actual festival at the 2016 SPACE table to promote CXC. It was thoroughly educational. Young creators circled the table, terrified to approach. When they finally did, many were trembling and stumbled over words. Some forgot to leave. Tom was kind, but still lent his unparalleled critical eye to their work, and offered advice and counsel. He loved recognizing amazing potential in young creators and giving them a leg up through his website or the festival to get to the next steps of their careers – but not without the quality or work. It was then that I realized his effect on the comics world and how amazing it was he was in Columbus. I later got to see that effect in places like Toronto and San Diego. The people approaching may be household names instead of hopefuls with pencils and a photocopier. Tom was the same.
CXC administration is, well, hard. Sometimes there is conflict or hurt feelings about necessary decisions like who is in or out. I admired that Tom had an unwavering focus on quality, with a deep sense of compassion and fairness. That helped instill in many a grain of the massive respect Tom knew comics deserved. He could be brought to tears by a beautifully composed simple image, or an experienced creator who perhaps hadn’t received their due. He saw what issues creators have and attempted to solve them through various aspects of the festival.
Tom wanted everyone to feel welcome and comfortable in Columbus, and especially if they were experiencing some difficulty in career or life, spoil them a bit. It was this humanity and focus that made everything with the festival so easy to do. For every action or stance he took people could see, there were dozens of communications or research inquiries beneath the surface they never knew about. He was fallible, and sometimes he’d pick or escalate skirmishes for no apparent reason. It was often not to his benefit, but when the surface snit was peeled away, the underlying cause was sound. He rarely went back to show the work of his atonement.
Tom was Comics Jesus. He absorbed all of the blows from his errors, and willingly accepted the fallibilities of others to earn respect for the festival and art form and city and friends while he stood by not trumpeting for credit. He lent his kind, loving, and healing support to those in need. He wasn’t going away because you disagreed. He’d still be there. Until he wasn’t. That part is hard to reconcile. It’s easier when I think of the energy he leaves behind as a spark for all of us to fulfill his missions.
– Rebecca Perry Damsen
CXC Board President
Tom Spurgeon was a big person in every sense. Physically intimidating, widely known and respected, his presence was so impactful that you could feel the energy of a room shift when he sauntered in. He drove a big car, he slept in a big bed. He had strong, unshakable opinions; massive ambitions and ideas. Tom’s sense of humor was also huge, and if you ever really truly made him laugh, like a genuine giggly laughing fit, you might as well have won an Eisner. As a friend, Tom was sometimes big as an island in the middle of an ocean that I could wash ashore on for rest and reassurance. Other times, if we were arguing, he was an impossible mountain that I wanted to conquer, even minimize. He was right about everything — even when he was wrong — he was somehow right about being wrong. Tom could write or talk circles around anyone about literally any topic. He undoubtedly had a huge brain and a tremendous heart. At some point, many years from now, Tom will have been gone for longer than I was lucky to know him. At some point, I will be working with a cartoonist who hasn’t heard of him, didn’t get reviewed by him, or get to witness the weight of his presence, and this unsettles me. Because I don’t think I’ll ever have the words to describe the size of the hole he left behind, the breadth of the person he was, and who he challenged us all to be. It seems to me that he took all the words with him.
– Caitlin McGurk
Assoc. Curator Outreach & Eng.,
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum