Rory Root Died
The world got a little crappier today. Rory Root died of complications from a hernia operation. For those who don't know, Rory ran Comic Relief, the best comics shop in the country. Nobody disputes that he was the heart and soul and brains of the store, built it from nothing and made it what it was.
I wandered into Comic Relief in 1989, at the age of twelve. I didn't leave for about six years. Like most adolescents, I didn't really have much money of my own, and in most comics shops I wouldn't have been able to enjoy much. Rory, however, insisted on a free-reading policy. New issues and trade paperbacks were out on the shelves to be enjoyed, and you could read all day without buying anything or having the staff give you so much as a cross look. That was my education.
I read Matt Wagner's Mage three or four times before I finally scraped together the money to buy it. I discovered Harvey Kurtzman because Betsy's Buddies had boobs on the cover. (That's a big deal when you're thirteen, okay?) It took me a long time to give manga a chance, but when I did it was because it was free to read and Rory recommended some.
I discovered Will Eisner in Comic Relief. I still remember reading The Building for the first time and being amazed that comics could do that.
I discovered EC Comics in Comic Relief. There were some really nice reprints coming out around that time, and I didn't even really know they were from the 50s, I just knew I'd never seen anything like them and I read them and reread them even when they gave me nightmares.
I discovered Alan Moore in Comic Relief. I read D.R. and Quinch and wondered what about the style seemed so similar to some of the other really cool stuff I'd read.
I actually met Jack Kirby in Comic Relief. First I just waited in line to shake his hand like everyone else, but then two hours later I came back and he was still there, chatting with Rory and a few diehard fans, telling stories from the 30s and answering geeky questions and refusing to say a bad word about anyone he'd ever worked with.
1989-1995 was a bad period in mainstream American comics, overhyped and underwritten superhero saturation fed by a hollow collector boom, in so many unopenable plastic bags that it's called the Mylar Age of Comics. If I'd been in any other comics store, I wouldn't have been able to read anything without paying for it, and if I did pay for something it would likely as not have been written by Rob fucking Liefeld or somebody. There'd have been nobody to push the good stuff from the small publishers, nobody to nurture an interest in comics as an artform rather than an investment, nobody to let a kid loose to explore all the worlds on all the pages.
Rory's dead and I should be writing about him, and I know this post is mostly about me. That's because I'm not qualified to write about Rory's life. He touched too many people, changed too many lives and fortunes, did too much for too long for an artform that everyone used to dismiss as irrelevant trash. All I can do is tell a little about how he touched my life, what his work and his store meant to me.
Without Rory Root, I wouldn't be anything like the man I am today. I wouldn't have the life I do, I wouldn't be the person I am. For good or ill, he changed my life irrevocably, just by running the best comic book store there ever was. And I'm far, far from unique in that, but it's what I have to remember him by.
I wandered into Comic Relief in 1989, at the age of twelve. I didn't leave for about six years. Like most adolescents, I didn't really have much money of my own, and in most comics shops I wouldn't have been able to enjoy much. Rory, however, insisted on a free-reading policy. New issues and trade paperbacks were out on the shelves to be enjoyed, and you could read all day without buying anything or having the staff give you so much as a cross look. That was my education.
I read Matt Wagner's Mage three or four times before I finally scraped together the money to buy it. I discovered Harvey Kurtzman because Betsy's Buddies had boobs on the cover. (That's a big deal when you're thirteen, okay?) It took me a long time to give manga a chance, but when I did it was because it was free to read and Rory recommended some.
I discovered Will Eisner in Comic Relief. I still remember reading The Building for the first time and being amazed that comics could do that.
I discovered EC Comics in Comic Relief. There were some really nice reprints coming out around that time, and I didn't even really know they were from the 50s, I just knew I'd never seen anything like them and I read them and reread them even when they gave me nightmares.
I discovered Alan Moore in Comic Relief. I read D.R. and Quinch and wondered what about the style seemed so similar to some of the other really cool stuff I'd read.
I actually met Jack Kirby in Comic Relief. First I just waited in line to shake his hand like everyone else, but then two hours later I came back and he was still there, chatting with Rory and a few diehard fans, telling stories from the 30s and answering geeky questions and refusing to say a bad word about anyone he'd ever worked with.
1989-1995 was a bad period in mainstream American comics, overhyped and underwritten superhero saturation fed by a hollow collector boom, in so many unopenable plastic bags that it's called the Mylar Age of Comics. If I'd been in any other comics store, I wouldn't have been able to read anything without paying for it, and if I did pay for something it would likely as not have been written by Rob fucking Liefeld or somebody. There'd have been nobody to push the good stuff from the small publishers, nobody to nurture an interest in comics as an artform rather than an investment, nobody to let a kid loose to explore all the worlds on all the pages.
Rory's dead and I should be writing about him, and I know this post is mostly about me. That's because I'm not qualified to write about Rory's life. He touched too many people, changed too many lives and fortunes, did too much for too long for an artform that everyone used to dismiss as irrelevant trash. All I can do is tell a little about how he touched my life, what his work and his store meant to me.
Without Rory Root, I wouldn't be anything like the man I am today. I wouldn't have the life I do, I wouldn't be the person I am. For good or ill, he changed my life irrevocably, just by running the best comic book store there ever was. And I'm far, far from unique in that, but it's what I have to remember him by.
Labels: comics
