Ed, One Year Out

Somewhere on the Murder-Suicide Spectrum

A colleague of mine reported taking some flak for describing the demise of Edward R. Piskor, Jr., as a “murder-suicide.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” supposedly, was a typical response.

“Let’s talk on the phone some time,” was my colleague’s follow-up.

I asked my colleague which part of the term seemed to be problematic: “murder” or “suicide.”

“That’s a good question,” my colleague replied.

I don’t have time for phone calls, which is why I wrote about ten thousand words about the tragedy beginning about a year ago on my blog. I did this for several reasons, first and foremost very selfishly to process the tragedy for myself; secondly, to let people know what I thought and where I stood and hopefully to avoid such uncomfortable conversations—and euphemism and hypocrisy—in person.

For better or worse, I figure, people should know where I stand and steer clear if necessary.

Over the past year, a number of people have come up to me to thank me for my words, for sticking up for Ed, for keeping his memory alive, and for keeping the tragedy in people’s thoughts when they would rather move on (as I’m sure many Jerusalemites would have preferred to have moved on after the crucifixion, or many Athenians after Socrates drank the hemlock).

These people, for the most part, hadn’t so much as “liked” my posts on social media, by the way. But, whatever.

I wasn’t doing it for that.

Last summer, I wore a Pittsburgh Pirates cap to some of the bigger comics shows. One long-time acquaintance asked me if I was a Pirates fan. I told him it was to commemorate Ed, whom I had known professionally since before he had broken into comics. The fleeting expression on the fact of my acquaintance was ambiguous—did he consider Ed a reprobate who had gotten what he deserved or an innocent who had gotten the shaft from the unruly mob? He only mumbled, “Yeah, that was a tragedy.” On with the show.

I was doing it, I suppose, to get to the bottom of why Ed had to be taken from us so soon, and—needless to say—so prematurely.

A year on, I am still mystified by the forces that coalesced to destroy Ed Piskor, first his career, and within the span of a week, his life. What had induced this sudden paroxysm of paranoia and mass hysteria in late March 2024? What respective pathologies drove one wannabe cartoonist with little discernible accomplishment by her own admission to gun for Ed for years—after, by all accounts, a couple of casual and consensual hookups—and another with demonstrable talent whom Ed had sincerely encouraged but apparently couldn’t take a compliment to sound a falsely urgent, panicked alarm about non-existent sexual misconduct—when there had never been a single known victim of record who’d ever been materially harmed in any way?

(Need I compare this echo-chamber gossip mongering with the extensive allegations of actual sexual misconduct—rape, harassment, professional intimidation—leveled at a noted comics-and-fantasy author, backed by sworn affidavits, police reports, and investigative journalism in the year since? How sadly handy.)

Could spite and jealousy and inflated social-media status jealousy have been the only culprits in the demise of Ed Piskor?

What, are you calling me a murderer?!

Well, if the shoe fits.

I’ve listened to a number of people over the course of the year insist that Ed chose his path—as if somehow he should have withstood the utter destruction of his career within 48-hours, like the World Trade Center towers should have withstood the impact of those hijacked jet airliners and had absolutely no right to collapse like that, steel-melting inferno and all.

Nonsense.

To my mind, that lets people off the hook too conveniently. That lets me off the hook for not reaching out to Ed with a word of support when I still could have, when it might have meant something.

A year on, there are still vicious monsters out there saying horrible things about Ed Piskor to his family and friends. I can only presume they were never his fans to begin with, never fans of comics, never concerned with the art from of cartooning to one tenth of the degree to which Ed was. They are only status-jealous monsters.

Murderers?! If the shoe fits.

There are many people who miss Ed and his work and his passion for cartooning and creativity and will never know his encouragement and intelligence. And that’s a shame that will always make my eyes water.