2007 ended with death.
Back in the early 90s when the Internet was still in a state of semi-flux I was a member of Compuserve. For a small monthly fee I got to sign on Compuserve and use them much the way I do Yahoo today for free. Back than it seems there was Compuserve and AOL. Compuserve had forums from all sorts of interests and one of them was for comic books. I signed on immediately and soon found myself in a world of fans and pros. This was before everyone and their brother was on the net and not all the pros were on the computer. This was before MySpace and blogging and Face Book and all the other stuff that we all associate with the Internet today.
One of the first people I met online was Paul Grant. Paul was a frequent visitor to the Comic Book Forum on Compuserve. He was a lawyer for Ford Motors when he wasn't writing reviews of comic books on Compuserve. I remember many a conversation with Paul online. He had a way of making you feel right at home. I was still feeling my way around the whole online thing, heck even the comic writing was just really getting started at that point.
Not long after that I went to the Chicago Con in...well, I think you can figure that part out. This was back before Wizard bought the con and turned it into whatever it is today. This was when the convention was still at the Rosemont Hotel and a lot of the tables for the artists and writers were set up in the hallway. This was the first convention I ever attended as a "Pro" and have a table and everything. I was sharing a table with an artist that I was working with at the time and have over the years, Terry Pavelt.
It was at Chicago I met Paul in person. I can still remember it. I had went out for some food, and was trying to navigate my way behind the tables and along the wall and between all the other writers and artists back to my spot which seemed all the way at the other end. I was trying not to spill anything and not to step on anyone when I heard a voice call out my name. I looked up to see why Paul used the name Zeus online. He was a big bearded bear of a man with a huge smile. I did almost trip and he told me to be careful. It's funny how some things stick in your mind. Somehow that meeting has stayed with me over the years.
I can't say that Paul and I were that close. We talked, some at the convention and a lot more online. Compuserve was bought out by AOL and became a shell of itself until it finally disappeared. I drifted away from comics for awhile and didn't hear anymore of Paul.
But most of you reading this can understand what I mean when I say you can make real friends online. I've done it since I started blogging. I may not have met a lot of you, but I've come to conisder quite a few of you as friends.
So it was something of a shock to read around the end of the year that Paul Grant had died. It took me by surprise. I hadn't really thought of him in years and now to hear that he was dead. I wish I had some witty or profound saying here to tie all this up in a neat little bow, but there's not much I can add except that Paul was a good man and I considered him a friend.
4 comments:
Ah yes...CompuServe...I actually still had them until about a year ago when they finally pissed me off...
I hear you about how you fit into the scheme of life in what we used to call "In Real Life" versus on the internet...These years, there's much less of a separation of the two...
I have some friends (and I don't use that term loosely)that I came to know through the internet... Some of those people I've not ever met in person but consider them high up on the list...Some of those I've spoken to on the phone but not in person...and some have become incorporated smoothly into both...Ultimately, it's the same standards I use to determine those qualities in friends whether in person or online...Sometimes it's even easier online...
Wow, compuserve is still around. I thought they were completely gone. I know for awhile AOL was still keeping them as something of a seperate entity on the web, but it was nothing like the old compuserve I knew.
Yeah...AOL kept hounding me to switch over to them instead of CompuServe...but I figures if it wasn't roken...why fix it??? Finally...it did "break." They severely cut access numbers so I couldn't keep connected...When I contacted Customer Service, they said it was to keep rates low...you know, they were doing ME a favor! I told them if I couldn't stay connected...they were of no use to me anymore...I thknk it was just one step closer to them becoming fully integrated with AOL...just my opinion...
I used to have AOL, after compuserve. I found I really don't like AOL. AOL had that mind set back in the day that they were the be-all and end-all of the computer world. Another company that thought they were so big nothing could go wrong for them, I guess they found out otherwise.
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