Remembering Seth Kushner with images and words

The comics world continued to pay tribute to Seth Kushner this week, following his passing on Sunday. Michael Cavna has an amazing gallery of Kushner’s many amazing photos of comics creators, an astonishing body of work, along with tributes from Neil Gaiman, Becky Cloonan and many many more.

Seth’s “final photographs seem to capture things that the camera shouldn’t have been able to, considering the casual ease that he set up his shots,” the talented Jeffrey Brown tells us. But then, “That’s what artists do,” says the gifted Rick Parker. “They see right to the heart of their subjects.”

The above photo, from Mocca in 2010 of the dream panel of Paul Pope, Dean Haspiel, Frank Miler, Kyle Baker and Jaime Hernandez is but one such image.

Seth’s close friend Hannah Means Shannon has a a wonderful rite up of his memorial service which was held this past Wednesday.

For that reason, the thoughts that friends and family shared, the tributes to Seth, were that much more immediate, conversational, and brutally honest, in my opinion. Other funeral services I’ve been to now seem lacking in this quality of direct communication among the people gathered. We celebrated Seth as if he was in the room, since he still felt like he was. Another thing that may have made the gathering and speeches seem surreal to many of Seth’s creative friends is that, in a few instances, they felt like one of the many spoken word events Seth took part in or attended. Events where people performed prose or read aloud from projected comics.

As Hannah notes, Haspiel read one of Seth’s comics aloud, surely the only memorial service I’ve ever attended that included that, but it was so touching. Another speaker quoted The Dark Knight Returns, and a third Death’s line from The Sandman: “You get what anybody gets – you get a lifetime.” And someone else quoted Star TtreK II: “I have been and always will be your friend.”

Seth would have loved all this. And I think showing the universal power to comfort of these words from once disreputable mediums was an especially fitting tribute for him.

And as Dean put it, “Seth did more in a hospital gown than some people do in a year.” If there is one lesson to be taken from Seth’s horrificly young passing, it’s that you only get one chance to go around this world, and not taking advantage of this is a true tragedy.

Most importantly, there is an ongoing funding effort to help Seth’s wife Terra and son Jackson. His family meant everything to him, and please keep them in your thoughts.