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Friends Pay Tribute To Chris Reilly (1967-2014)

Chris Reilly was a Renaissance Man from the Eighth Dimension.

I knew Chris for almost two decades before he suddenly passed away on June 10th.

People have asked me if I knew the cause of death.  Does it really matter? He’s gone.

Almost more than anything else, Chris loved comics.  Good comics.  Bad comics.  It didn’t matter.  He loved the medium.  He wrote a number of books including Rogue Satellite Tales, a trilogy of  Punch and Judy books, co-created and edited the Strange Eggs anthologies, Igor, and Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  He was a contributor to The Comics Journal and wrote a story for The Tick’s 20th Anniversary Special Edition and had fulfilled a lifelong dream by writing a Gumby comic.  He had several projects in various stages of development including O Tesla The Death of Topsy, The Villain Scheme and most recently, Monkey Loves Bird.

He was a Harvey and Ignatz-nominated writer, an Eisner Awards judge, and a truly unique individual.  Along with my memories of Chris, several of his friends were kind enough to share their thoughts (some of which originally appeared on their own sites and have been reprinted here with their permission).

Chris, we all miss you, and I hope you found some peace.

Stefan Blitz

Chris Reilly was my very first arch enemy.

I met Chris around 1995 when we both would hang out on Wednesdays at the same comic book store.  The crowd there was pretty tight and over time, I became friends with all of them.

Except Chris.

Chris would burst into the store and would start his rant; telling stories, recounting his week – what he did, what he read and what he watched.  And he got most, if not every fact completely wrong.  Most times you could decipher where he stopped reading or watching something.  The information would start making no sense.  I’d frustrate myself trying to correct him without sounding like an ass.

It would not be unusual for him to recount his week’s adventures only to have someone say, “Chris, that happened on The Simpsons.”

He’d pause for a moment, laugh, and move on.

The thing about Chris was he truly believed everything.  And that’s what eventually won me over.

Being friends with Chris at times could be a challenge.  He had his share of demons, but he also had a heart of gold.  He was passionate about a number of eclectic things, and the information that he did get right was often shocking.  Nothing was too highbrow or lowbrow for his tastes.  He read every issue of Cable and Deadpool.  Make of that what you will.

He was also the only person that I ever met that actually “booed.”  We’d see a movie and he would literally boo and give a thumbs down in the theater.

Chris even wrote for this site for a bit, and I called him on a bad choice he made and we stopped talking for about two years.  My father had been diagnosed Alzheimer’s at the time and prior to our feud, he’d end every conversation volunteering to be a pallbearer.  I had to explain that my father hadn’t died yet (and didn’t for another year).

He was extremely close with his late father and when he lost him, I reached out and we reconnected.

And of course, re-establishing that friendship once again invited a number of challenges back into my life.  Just a few weeks ago he called me at five in the morning, waking me.

“Hello?”

“Hey Stefan—It’s Chris.  I saw that you called?”

“Three days ago.  I’m sleeping can I call you back?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, did you see X-Men yet?”

“Chris, I’ll call you later.”

“Just one thing—“

That was Chris.

I interviewed Chris for the release of his book, Strange Eggs Jumps The Shark and had him recount my favorite “Chris story”:

For the sake of historical record, can you tell the raccoon story?

One day they announced a possible rabies outbreak in Rhode Island. That night/morning I got off work at the bar and drove to my friend John Teehan’s house. I saw, though beer goggles, what I thought was a gray tabby cat in a bush and kneeled down to pet it.

“Nice kitty” I said sticking my hand in the bush, and then the screaming started as the rabid raccoon reputedly bit my hand.


I went to the hospital and said a Bush Monster attacked me.

I had no idea what it was, but it definitely was not a cat.

The hospital called animal control who found the poor beast still in the bush, too sick from rabies to walk. They told me I needed a rabies shot/shots. Three injections into each bite. I had twenty bites on my hand four of them piercing fingernails.

I got up and said it had been nice knowing them, and then the cops guarding the door stopped me and told me I could receive the shots voluntarily or they would quarantine me and give me the shots.

Then my mother walked in with the vaccine. I thought I’d died and gone to hell.

My mom worked as a doctor’s assistant next door at Pediatrics Center Inc. and they, for some reason were the only medical facility to have the vaccine on hand.

When they got the call, she heard my name mentioned and to make a bad situation a horrific one volunteered to deliver the vaccine. From the look on her face, I would have rather gone another five rounds with the Rabid Bush Monster.

Long story short, I was technically the first person in Rhode Island in 42 years to be infected with rabies and in state’s history, it’s only rabies survivor.

I’ve picked up the phone several times over the past week to call Chris before realizing that he was no longer with us.  Chris was larger than most rooms; opinionated, enthusiastic and colorful, all in the best ways.  He was my friend and I miss him.

Chris recently was incarcerated for a short time (for reasons not entirely clear) and he worried me a bit once he was out, telling me he missed prison and the camaraderie it provided.

I like to think, it was in no small part because it was an attentive audience.

Bob Burden

I used to hear from Chris Reilly a lot in the wee hours, while I was working. I put him on speakerphone and let him roll. I managed to get a word in here and there and even had some good discussions now and then. 
A very kind person, he meant well and would do anything for you. But you could tell when he was drinking. And you could tell that the drinking was taking a toll. 
About 2 minutes after we loaded up our Thrilling Visions art book that we did our last Kickstarter for, I got your email about Chris. Oddly enough there was an old sketch from the 70s that had a character there, that was a dead ringer for Chris, when he would be – say – about 56 years old. 
I ran across it as I was going through all the old steel ammo cans that I keep my old art sealed airtight in, and scanning art for the book, a week or so ago. So I hadn’t seen this picture in many years. As I scanned it, I saw the resemblance – at least for me – to Chris. Or what he would look  a lot like in later life. 
I think Pie Alley is from up around that New England area where Chris lived. It was a weird, odd coincidence, since I had drawn this 20 years before I knew Chris. I have no idea why I chose Pie Alley, and probably heard it mentioned in college as I was on a floor with a lot of kids from Boston.

Anyways, I will miss Chris, and wish him well in the hereafter. I’ve seen too many of my “broken winged”, substance abuse, comic friends cash in the last few years. Jim Royal, George Carragonne, and now Chris. Hope they’re all up there in the comic book lounge, arguing about how many Spectres can dance on the head of a pin.

Derf Backderf

I’ve known Reilly for awhile. Met at SPX years ago. I contributed strories to all his “Strange Eggs” projects, which were fun books, even though they didn’t sell for shit. We’d stayed in touch and Reilly was a regular on my Facebook threads and Twitter feed. 
In 2013, I finally made it to Rhode Island. RISD brought me for a couple days, to visit classes, and do a presentation and signing for my book, My Friend Dahmer. Reilly came to the evening presentation and afterwards he and I walked to a nearby pub for dinner and a few beers. We sat down and ordered and I noticed he was still wearing his long, khaki raincoat.
“You gonna take that off?” I asked.
“Naw,” he replied. “I’m still wearing my pajamas.”
Why did he go out in his jammies at 8 at night? Because he was Reilly! So I spent a couple hours talking and sipping beer with Reilly, in a raincoat and pajamas. Classic.

Devon Devereaux

Chris Reilly was my Quint. If you have never seen Jaws, Quint is the salty old New England fisherman who lived a life of unbelievable stories. Along with Chief Brody and Hooper, he was out to catch the great white shark that terrorized Long Island.

One story that really sticks out to me was in 2010, I was meeting up with Chris in New York to pitch our book to my agent at the time. He showed up late in a trench coat with a black eye, explaining to us that he defended a woman’s honor at a bar in Rhode Island a few nights before. He hadn’t slept in 2 days. He then told us he was late getting to the meeting because he was at Katz Deli, waiting in line to get a sandwich. He was stampeded by a large group of folks and dropped his tray. He turned around to see Paul Reubens dressed full on as Pee Wee Herman, randomly showing up to promote his comeback. After the meeting didn’t go so well, Chris and I were hanging out in lower Manhattan. He was telling me about the time his old band was playing a show at CBGBs. After the show, they saw this crate opening in the streets with no locks. He opened it up and wandered the underground of New York like a Ninja Turtle. He stopped in mid story and looked up. He realized he was under the CBGB sign and was standing on the opening of the underground entrance he had gone into 20 years ago.

When Chris died, we were finishing up a comic book about a mysterious fisherman, a carnival of circus freaks, vampires and an unsolved murder among other things. I’m still piecing together how the story is supposed to end. I met Chris a few years back at Comic Con in San Diego. That was when he asked me if I wanted to do the art for a very personal book he was working on called Fish Tent, later renamed Josh Lobster. As things go in comics, life got in the way for both of us and I am only now finishing up the final art for the book. The last conversation we had, he was telling me about the crappy day he was having but some local Crips had given him a ride home and they were really a bunch of sweet guys. At the end of the conversation he had me laughing and he was laughing. We once again talked about our love of Jaws and how excited he was for San Diego Comic Con next month.

I always felt a little like Hooper or Chief Brody keeping up with Chris, decoding and making sense of his stories. Chris made everyone’s life a bit more interesting and fun, kind of like an old movie. I will remember him for the big heart he had and his loyalty to his friends and family. Along with being a talented writer, he was a hospice worker and had a great love for animals. I’m not even sure of how many animals he was taking care of when he passed. We miss you more than you would have ever known. I only wish you could see all the tributes and love you are receiving when you were still here. Lots of love my brother

Kevin Atkinson

I met Chris Reilly around 20 years ago. Before I could seem to stop it, he was writing stories featuring my comic book characters. Among other things, my characters would meet up with his characters and interact in various scenarios. This intrigued me because Chris possessed a singularly wild imagination and his ideas were great. He wrote stuff with my characters I would love to have thought of myself. Thus, I found myself pulled inexorably into the Reilly Zone from which it took years to escape. Fabulously talented and one exasperating muther fkker was Chris.

After about 6 years of our beautiful and ridiculously ignored series, Rogue Satellite Comics, Chris and I parted ways. I think it was mostly my fault. I was probably in a shitty mood and pushed some buttons of his I shouldn’t have. He flew into a rage and we didn’t speak for around 5 years. We both found much greater success and visibility in the comics world not working together. But then, for some reason we sort of picked up where we left off and began collaborating again. It wasn’t quite the same as in earlier years. Chris seemed to not be as prolific as before and was often difficult to communicate with. Still, A Complex World, our final project, is one of my favorites.

We had one Great Adventure towards the end of Chris’s life which I’m legally obligated not to comment on. But if he blabbed about it privately to any of you, I can tell you that for once Chris, the Teller of Tall Tales, was not bullshitting.

The success we had with The Thing I Can’t Talk About gave me great hope for a future working with Chris. I could see our ideas were actually quite sellable and planned to use the upswing in our fortunes to aggressively pursue them. Chris would call about every month or so with plans for us to begin on a new comic but he never actually wrote anything. Finally, just days before he died we talked and he seemed very much like the old Chris. I was almost sure this time he would get it together and produce. But then…..

Chris left me with a gold mine of great stuff to play around with, but if course it’ll never be the same without him.

Thanks for your talent and vision, Chris.

Jackie Estrada

Here are some photos of Chris that I’d like to share

Chris with Steve Ahlquist at the 2007 San Diego Con.

Chris, me and Batton at SPX (2005?)

Chris clowning around at SPX 2008

Chris with the other Eisner judges 2007, Whitney Matheson, Jeff Vandermeer,  James Sime, Robin Brenner.

I wish Chris had done the autobiographical comics we were always urging him to do. He had so many wacky stories that were begging to be told in comics format.
He was incredibly loyal to his friends and he loved comics. I miss him.

Ben Towle

My friend Chris Reilly passed away this week.

I first met Chris Reilly in Bethesda, Maryland at the 2003 Small Press Expo. SPX was a lot different then–as was I. The Expo was held in a smallish hotel in the heart of Bethesda proper and it was a much, much smaller event than the indie comics behemoth it’s become. It wasn’t as polished as its current incarnation, but there was a sense of comradery to the event that came with the turf for a not widely-known event in the very beginnings of the “graphic novel boom” days.

As for me: I was at SPX for the first time as an actual comics creator hawking my own book (Farewell, Georgia)–and not just by myself at a table, but at the big SLG table, alongside tons of other actual, well-known comics people. I’d been to Heroes Con a few times and to an earlier SPX (or maybe two?) but I’d never been behind a table selling a book before–and to a newcomer that comradery can seem like an impenetrable barrier. As if I weren’t nervous and awkward enough, when I showed up to pick up my badge, my name was nowhere to be found. Ultimately the situation got sorted out (you can see I had to hand-scrawl my name on a blank badge) but it was a rocky start to an intimidating situation.

My trajectory through the world of comics would likely have been a very different one if I’d not had the good fortune to be seated at the SLG table next to Chris Reilly. I’d eventually get to know and be friends with lots of people I met at that SPX, but I walked in not knowing a soul (remember, this is pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter) and left feeling like I was–even in some small way–part of a larger community of like-minded comics practitioners, and Chris was instrumental in that.

If you’ve met Chris, I don’t need to tell you that he was one of the most enthusiastic, energetic, outgoing, and just plain amiable people you’re likely to encounter. He introduced himself, said he’d read and liked my book, and we immediately hit it off. Hanging out with Chris in the hotel bar at the SLG-sponsored afterparty in the company of big name comics folk like Evan Dorkin and Frank Miller is to this day one of my fondest memories from any comics event.

In the years that followed, Chris and I became good friends, spoke regularly, and collaborated on many comics projects. Chris’s enthusiasm for comics was infectious. When he got an idea in his head, there was no stopping him. The first project of his I got involved with was an anthology he and his friend Steve were putting together called Strange Eggs. Comics people ruminate on anthology projects all the time but all to often never actually put the projects together, but within a few weeks of agreeing to do a story for Strange Eggs and maybe “help out” a bit with production (I wound up doing pretty much all the production work on the series), Chris was emailing me completed story after completed story by people like Roger Langridge, Derf, Crab Scrambly, Tommy Kovac and tons more.

We did two more issues of Strange Eggs and more odds and ends projects together than I can list here, often with me illustrating Chris’s stories.

Page from The Boxing Bucket. Words: Chris Reilly. Pictures: Ben Towle

Chris’s writing was as manic and unpredictable as he was. “Madcap” is an overused term, but his writing was indeed madcap: sometimes dark, always funny–in a way that used to be a lot more commonplace during the “black and white boom” than what followed. Beyond his actual comics storytelling, though, Chris was a consummate storyteller of all varieties. Answering a call from Chris entailed an hour-long commitment at a minimum. Get a few beers into Chris at a con hotel bar and he’d regale you with stories about being bitten by a rabid raccoon (as recounted by Stefan Blitz above), playing in a band with Cheetah Chrome (“Gothic Snowtire”), or trying Flaming Carrot-style to read every single submitted single issue comic in one sitting the year he was an Eisner Awards judge.

More so than anyone else I’ve ever known, Chris was a creature of comics conventions. No one enjoyed being at comics industry events the way Chris seemed to. His already vigorous personality fed off the bustling energy of any comics convention he attended. He was genuinely perplexed by people wanting to “decompress” (a phrase he particularly loathed) after a day tabling at a con.

As far as I could tell, Chris Reilly didn’t sleep. There were many times I remember leaving Chris at some afterparty or late-night bar at a con hotel at two or three in the morning. I’d have been bleary-eyed, stumbling back to my room….and yet, the next morning bright and early, there’d be Chris–apparently unfazed–setting up his table, regaling me with tales of some hotel room party I’d missed out on in the wee hours.

Chris often seemed to be operating just on the periphery of the comics community. In one of the most bizarrely ignored comics events of late, he successfully sued Dreamworks for copying the design of one of his characters from his 90′s comics series, Rogue Satellite Comics.

(Above: Minion from Megamind. Below: Kingfish from Rogue Satellite Comics, drawn by Kevin Atkinson)

The last time I saw Chris in person was at the San Diego Comic-Con last year (2013). One of his lifelong infatuations had been Art Clokey’s Gumby and he’d finally gotten the chance to follow in the footsteps of one of his favorite comics of all time, the Gumby Summer Fun Special (Bob Burden and Art Adams, 1987) and write a licensed Gumby comic. The first issue or two had gone well, but he was clearly frustrated that he’d written an issue (and I’m guessing paid partially out of his own pocket for it to be illustrated) that wasn’t being released.

Chris had a backpack full of Gumby issues with him and we were poring over them at this semi-cheesy San Diego bar in the wee hours of Saturday night when a crowd of tipsy twenty-something women burst through the door with their dudebro companions.

The ladies asked us about the comics we were looking at and when Chris explained that he wrote Gumby comics, they went nuts. “OHMYGAWD! YOU WRITE GUMBY?! I FUCKING LOVE GUMBY!!” Chris–as was his nature–gave out Gumby comics to everyone and signed copies for anyone who asked. The drunker these women got, the more they loved Gumby apparently. “I FUCKIN’ LOVE GUMBY!!”

I spoke to Chris after San Diego 2013 via phone several times and I could tell all was not well. He hadn’t been well, in fact, since he suffered an exhaustion-related health event (a stroke of some sort?) when he was an Eisner judge in 2007. Since then, his behavior had been erratic and on the phone he often seemed scatterbrained or oddly out of it. Other times, he was his “old self,” though.

“Comics will break your heart,” Charles Schulz famously said. I sure think comics broke Chris’s heart.

I could have been a better friend to Chris. I should have been a better friend. I don’t, though, realistically think there’s anything I could have said or done that’d have would have altered the course Chris was on.

That’s “The Boxing Bucket,” a character Chris and I came up with. It won’t surprise anyone who knows either of us that it’s a silly, bizarre character that makes no real sense at all. What IS surprising is that we thought the character’d make a good basis for a themed anthology (Strange Eggs II: The Boxing Bucket) and that people actually submitted stories for it. Even MORE surprising, someone (SLG) actually published it.

I could choose to have my last remembrance of Chris be my final phone conversation with him–where I had to make a rude early exit thanks to the appearance of the cable installers. I won’t, though. Instead I’ll remember him after Comic-Con, embraced by some random girl raving “I FUCKING LOVE GUMBY!!” while he proudly and generously gave away signed copies of his work.

I miss you, Chris.

John Teehan

Over at my personal website, I posted a short story entitled “The Honest, Truthful, and Hand-to-God-I-Swear-I’m-Not-Making-This-Up Story of How I Met Chris Reilly” which was, of course, a pack of lies. I didn’t write a fancy of fiction because Reilly’s own stories were similarly less-than-truthful, but more as an homage to Chris’s creative tendencies–not that I even came close to a Reilly-minded story.

As for the actual story of how I met Chris Reilly… I can at least truthfully report that zombies were involved.

1985, my roommate Bob and I had lived in Providence for a few months, but hadn’t made many friends yet outside of school or part-time work.  We had, however, recently hooked up with an old hometown friend and gave him our address. One Friday evening, Bob and I are sitting around reading or something–we had no TV at the time–when there was a banging on the window. We go to the door and there stands this maniac holding a huge television set, demanding to be let in. Behind him we see our hometown friend lugging a VCR, and a few other people behind him with cases of beer.
Yeah, we let him in.

What followed was one of what would be many “Dawn of the Dead” parties in which we’d watch Dawn of the Dead and treat it as a drinking game. It would be years before I actually made it to the end of the movie. The maniac with the TV?

Chris Reilly.

He was loud and opinionated. He freely and openly mocked everything and everyone. He should have been the kind of guy you’d want to punch in the head until candy fell out, but there was such an open innocence behind his entire character that you really couldn’t stay mad at him long. As Bob and I were absorbed into the crowd that included Chris, I got to know him better. He re-introduced me to comic books. I had stopped reading them prior to the original Crisis series, and he walked me through the Crisis and all the changes thereafter. He lent me comics, introduced me to the new world of comics–making me a fan of such great titles as The Badger, Flaming Carrot, Reid Fleming (the World’s Toughest Milkman), Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, and so many more.

Chris also turned me on to cinema. Not just movies, mind you. Sure, we watched a lot of schlock movies, adventure movies, wacky comedies, and so on, but he also introduced me such classic films as Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, Arsenic & Old Lace, and Mutiny on the Bounty. Chris’s knowledge and love for comics and movies was infectious, and slowly I became a bit of an aficionado of both, thanks to him.

Over the years, we had been roommates, we shared cars, we worked together, wrote together, were in a band together, and committed misdemeanors together. We did other shit, too, but I don’t know if statutes of limitations vary from state to state, so it’s probably best to leave some stories to be told in dark alleys alone. No one got hurt…at least not seriously.

I could start telling Chris Reilly stories here and now–and not be close-to-finished after a week of ceaseless, bloody-stumps-for-fingers typing.  It may sound a touch cliché, but Chris was a larger-than-life character. He attracted adventure and trouble. He attracted good folk. He was a magnet for life and that he has passed on is no small tragedy.

Speaking personally, I can say he was a big inspiration for me and what I’m doing with my life these days. After years grinding away in print shops, I struck out on my own–going full-time freelancing my layout work, getting into publishing, writing professionally, and being an artist. Oh, Chris wasn’t the _only_ inspiration, but he was a big part of the package. How could one say to any of those things, “Oh, that’s too hard,” and then look at Reilly’s own gumption to make it in the comic book world? (Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question.)

Was he always easy to deal with? Lord, no. He could even be a burden, sometimes. But I think we can all agree that when you balance everything out, our lives were enriched by his presence.

So, yeah… an inspiration.

And I’ll tell one Chris Reilly story… maybe not as legendary as others, but important to me. The night my mother died, no one could get in touch with me. I had had a very long night and had accidently knocked my phone off the hook (this was before cellphones were everywhere). Chris broke into my apartment, waking me, and nearly got his head caved in by a pool cue. Once it all set in, and I’d confirmed the news from home, Chris refused to leave me and insisted I stay with him that night. We spent the rest of the night watching movies and talking. Come morning, he handed me the keys to his car and said not to worry about bringing it back any time soon.

That was Chris.

Oh, and it should be noted that Chris could take a punch or a kick to the head like no one else. I dunno… I just felt it was only fair to point that out. He had a thick, thick skull, and it worked to his advantage. And he loved animals.

Always remember that last bit.

I’m going to miss you, Chris. Wherever you go, there you are.

James Sime

Chris Reilly, ah man, why’d you have to leave us so soon?

In a world of unique characters like the comics industry, Chris stuck out like a beacon with a truly larger than life personality I will never forget. He and I had a special bond as we were Eisner Award judges together in 2007 (a *very* intense experience) and in more recent years we came close again thanks to both of us being on Facebook.

On hearing the sad news of his passing, fellow judge Whitney Matheson and I spent an entire week trying to find this one very specific photo of the three of us at her Pop Candy Meet-Up. It’s a really great picture, Whitney is making a funny surprised face and Chris and I are both kissing her cheeks.
 
Over the course of several days I dug through three computers, four hard-drives and around 5,000 photos on my Flickr account trying to find it. But you know, I think Chris would have loved it this way and somewhere he’s having probably having such a laugh at us!

But we did find some other pictures! This one is from San Diego Comic Con and it always makes me smile – a reunion of the ’07 Eisner Judges with Chris, Robin Brenner, myself and Whitney Matheson. Too bad Jeff VanderMeer couldn’t join us for that. I really loved that sharp suit Chris was rocking that year.

RIP Chris. And thanks for all the laughs and the camaraderie. I’ll miss you.

Whitney Matheson

I met Chris while we served on the Eisner judging committee in 2007. The job, which required five of us to determine the year’s most notable comics, was a fun but exhausting one. On the first day we met, I remember Chris, myself and fellow judge James Sime stayed up the entire night talking about comic books. After that, Chris treated me as if we’d been friends since birth.

Chris was creative, devoted and kind. Like many artistic people, he had his struggles, and I truly hope he is now at peace.

I used to see Chris at comic conventions every few months, but I’d missed him the last couple of years because, well, life got in the way. I wish I could speak to him just one more time. I’ll treasure our lengthy, funny, passionate discussions.

Dan Vado

Chris Reilly had a way about him. That’s really the thing that sums him up best. HE had a way of making you laugh, then making you pull your hair out. He had a way of calling at the exact right and wrong time. He had a way of convincing you he had a plan or some grand idea and then alternately convincing you that he was making everything up as he went along.

Chris was wildly creative on paper and in life. He was they kind of guy who would have your back in a heartbeat (and, on one memorable occasion in Toronto he literally jumped in and had my back when some fans went a little crazy).

As crazy as he could make me sometimes, his next idea always seemed like the one that would break through for him. It was hard to say no to him in the same way that it was hard to stay on the phone with him past that first hour of a phone call. I always tell people that you could not convince me that what Picasso saw when he opened his door in the morning was what he painted, the world just looked that way to him. Same thing with Chris I think, what he wrote was maybe how he saw things in life. Weird, off-balance, manic and alternately both mean-spirited and kindhearted.

Chris Reilly took up the cause of our little publishing company years and years ago. He was a devoted fan, hard-working creator and passionate advocate. He wanted nothing more in life than to write that one book that would be successful for him and us together. Sadly for both of us we never had that big success, but it did not take way from the coolness of what he was putting out there.

Chris will be missed. 

Jennifer de Guzman

Chris was an utterly unique person with a mind teeming with weird ideas. Luckily for me, I got to be part of seeing some of those ideas hit paper during my time at SLG Publishing.  Chris had a way of making everyone excited about comics, which is clear when you see how many talented artists he worked with on his many personal projects and the creators who contributed to the anthologies he edited. All of us will miss him.

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