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Category: Obituary

Ever After: John Crowley (December 1, 1942 – August 8, 2026)

Ever After: John Crowley (December 1, 1942 – August 8, 2026)

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John Crowley

John Crowley has died, at 83. He was my favorite living writer, and remains one of my favorite writers of all time. He was born in 1942 in Maine, and grew up in Vermont, Kentucky and Indiana. He went to the University of Indiana, then to New York, originally with a goal of working in film, and indeed he has written numerous scripts for documentary films.

But his true calling was surely prose, and in 1975 he published his first novel, The Deep. A dozen more novels followed, including a four-book series collectively called Aegypt. He also published more than two dozen short stories, and many essays. He was a Professor of Creative Writing at Yale beginning in 1993. His wife, Laurie Block, is a documentary filmmaker.

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Remembering Gerry Conway

Remembering Gerry Conway

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A few of the many comics Gerry Conway wrote for Marvel over his long career: Amazing Spider-Man #129, first appearance of the Punisher, illustrated by Ross Andru, October 30, 1973; Tomb of Dracula #1, illustrated by Gene Colan, November 16, 1971; and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #1, illustrated by Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito, September 28, 1976. Cover art: Gil Kane & John Romita, Neal Adams & Sam Rosen; Sal Buscema

Having ‘come into’ comics as a child in the very early 80s, the Bronze Age of Marvel was probably the genre-defining era for me.

And given my dual penchant for Spider-Man and The X-Men, that meant that the two most defining voices of the Bronze Age were Gerry Conway and Chris Claremont.

I grew up reading a lot of Gerry’s writing some 8-10 years after he originally wrote it and I always found it more centered and engaging than most of what was on the newsstands in the mid-late 80s. He had an amazing sense of earnestness when it came to depicting the inner workings of his characters and his voice was seminal in the fragile humanization of many superheroes that went hand in hand with the decade of the Bronze Age.

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James Sallis, December 1944 – January 27, 2026

James Sallis, December 1944 – January 27, 2026

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I am gut punched to hear that author James Sallis (December 1944 – January 27, 2026) has died. James was the closest thing to a writing mentor I had. He was a friend, and certainly one of the most talented writers I’ve ever known.

He lived in New Orleans when I moved there and I met him at a book signing. Though he was already pretty famous in literary circles, he was incredibly down to earth, and he invited me to his house for several literary parties he and his wife, Karyn, threw. Though at that time I’d only published a few short stories, he spoke to me as a peer.

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Goth Chick, January 13, 1966 – November 18, 2025

Goth Chick, January 13, 1966 – November 18, 2025

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Sue Granquist, aka Goth Chick

Sue Granquist, the Chicago blogger and technology professional who wrote Black Gate‘s Goth Chick column every Thursday for sixteen years, passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday.

Sue experienced a cancer scare earlier this year that led to an extended hospital stay and multiple surgeries. She was on the mend, and when we spoke Tuesday afternoon, she was already back at work — as the Director of Supply Chain Operations at CDW in downtown Chicago — and was looking forward to returning to her regular Thursday blog spot. She passed away three hours later. She was 59 years old.

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The Last Legionnaire: Jim Shooter, September 27, 1951 — June 30, 2025

The Last Legionnaire: Jim Shooter, September 27, 1951 — June 30, 2025

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Jim Shooter, photo by Alan Light

Jim Shooter, a precocious kid from Pittsburgh who started writing comic book stories at thirteen and who then went on to have one of the most consequential careers in the history of mainstream comics as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, has died at the age of seventy-three.

Shooter was appointed to Marvel’s top editorial position in January, 1978, and during his controversial decade at Marvel’s helm (he was fired in April, 1987), he left an unmistakable imprint on the company and on the comic book industry as a whole.

Most comics historians and many of the artists and writers who worked under him agree that Shooter made many positive and badly needed changes early on (such as returning art to artists and giving artists and writers royalties in certain circumstances) but later became increasingly rigid and dictatorial, and people have already spent many years and will doubtless spend many more trying to reach a just assessment of the pros and cons of his tenure at Marvel. (You can find a detailed account of those years in Sean Howe’s excellent Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, though of course some people say the book is too hard on Shooter while others say that it isn’t hard enough.)

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Damien Broderick, April 22, 1944 – April 19, 2025

Damien Broderick, April 22, 1944 – April 19, 2025

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Damien Broderick

Australian writer, editor, and critic Damien Broderick has died, April 19, 2025, just a few days short of his 81st birthday. He died peacefully in his sleep after a long illness. He is survived by his wife and occasional collaborator Barbara Lamar.

I had known Damien quite well online for decades, including interactions in newsgroups and on mailing lists as well as personal correspondence. We met only once, at the World Fantasy Convention in 2017, in San Antonio, TX, where Damien lived at that time; and we had a nice if brief conversation. Damien was showing signs of physical frailty at the time but was still mentally sharp. I had the honor of writing the foreword to his 2012 collection Adrift in the Noösphere, and to reprint a couple of his excellent short stories.

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Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

Two Howards Fathering Sword and Sorcery – Swords Together!

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Left: The memorial booklet for Howard Andrew Jones given to attendees at the February
22nd Celebration of Life. Right: Sean CW Korsgaard gives his eulogy for Howard.
Foreground: Christopher Rowe, Cinda Hocking, John C. Hocking. Photo by John O’Neill

A Celebration of Life for Howard Andrew Jones (HAJ) was just held in Evansville, IN, Feb 22, 2025.  The event gathered friends, family, and over a dozen author colleagues. Numerous online memorials and tributes had been posted leading up to this. Links to many are listed at the bottom of the post; reading these reveals wonderful insights. This article aims to honor HAJ slightly differently by echoing excerpts from his blogs intermixed with remembrances and emphasizing the importance of community.

It struck me that when discussing HAJ, there are always references to REH (Robert E. Howard, indisputable “Father of Sword & Sorcery Genre”). Whereas REH kicked off the genre with his heroes in the 1920-30s (Conan, Bran Mak Morn, Kull, etc.), a hundred years later, the other Howard, our dear HAJ, championed S&S, wrote S&S, and built a community of S&S readers & writers.

You may already know that HAJ edited the online Flashing Swords ezine (links to internet archives below), grew Black Gate in print and online, edited the Harold Lamb series, led the Tales from the Magician’s Skull Magazine, and wrote copious amounts of pulp and fantasy fiction (Asim & Dabir, Ringsworn, Pathfinder, Hanuvar). He did all that while immersing himself with authors and readers.

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Howard Andrew Jones, a Mentee’s Perspective

Howard Andrew Jones, a Mentee’s Perspective

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Howard Andrew Jones at GenCon, 2023

In 2019, I had an idea: a lot of my friends loved reading sword and sorcery fiction, but they didn’t write it. They would say, “One day.” Many of my undergraduates also expressed interest in writing fantasy, but they often felt discouraged by form rejection letters (genre magazine slush piles are epic). Having studied the history of genre fiction, I knew about the old tradition of “fanzines”— not-for-profit amateur publications that provided a low-stakes outlet for new writers. Just submitting work, collaborating with an editor, and seeing it in print can transform someone’s self-image from being just a reader to being a writer.

So, after some conversations with friends and a bit of encouragement, I started thinking seriously about launching my own zine.

As an academic, I’m deliberate by nature. I like to consult and take my time. Honestly, if I could have formed a committee for this, I probably would have. Instead, I decided to email someone: Howard Andrew Jones.

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In Dreams: David Lynch: 1946 — 2025

In Dreams: David Lynch: 1946 — 2025

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David Lynch is gone; he died Wednesday at the age of  seventy-eight, bringing one of the strangest careers in American film to an end and leaving the rest of us to try to reach a conclusion as to what it all meant.

He never made a western. He never made a romcom or a workplace comedy. He never made a “prestige” period picture. He never made a buddy movie or an action movie or a heist movie or a (straightforward) crime movie. Not for him was getting hold of a franchise and riding it until it died of thirst in the desert; he wasn’t interested in making Mission Impossible 6 and 7/8. The only things he made were David Lynch movies (as the producers of Dune found to their dismay), and those were about as far out of the mainstream of American cinematic entertainment as it is possible to get and still be permitted within the city limits of Hollywood.

I resist calling him an “experimental filmmaker” — though there is a grain of truth in the description (in the effect of his work more than in its intent) — because I don’t think he was experimenting at all; I think he had a cement-solid vision of what film was and what it could do, and he knew precisely what he was up to every single minute.

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Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

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John O’Neill and Howard Andrew Jones at the World Science Fiction Convention, Washington DC, December 19, 2021

Howard Andrew Jones is dead.

It’s hard to write those words. Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim.

We eventually published three Dabir and Asim tales in Black Gate, and within a few years Howard’s editorial contributions had become so essential to the magazine that we named him our first Managing Editor. He ran our non-fiction department, single-handedly recruiting and managing over a dozen contributors to fill some 80 pages every issue with thoughtful essays, book reviews, gaming coverage, and much more.

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