To my best buddy...

The shock and sorrow I feel at the loss of my best buddy Colin Fawcett will never fully heal, I realise that, but life has to move on and thanks to my partner, daughter and good friends I'm now willing to sit at my desk and try and figure out what to do next. I'm helped too by my knowledge of what Colin would say. He'd insist that he had a good life and therefore I should be happy for him, that he spent his time on Earth (this time around) living a good life, constantly spreading cheer and being an all round jolly fellow. But then my own selfishness tells me I should still be angry. Angry that he had to leave us, angry too that he never really knew just how many people loved and admired him. But then again, and without getting too spiritually deep here, I know he knows now...so I should be happy for him, as he'd insist upon.

As you can see from these two images, he was an accomplished artist. I have always loved to see his work, from the very first days, back in the '80's, when we found a common respect of the work of Jean Moebius Giraud. One of us would pop around to the other's flat with the latest Moebius book, both keen to wallow in the mastery...but I would often get as much joy from looking at Col's latest drawing or sketches as I would from the new book. He possessed a real understanding of line that I found so appealing, knowing full well that he'd one day be a great comic book artist. Sadly, that never happened, though he worked briefly as an inker (his work over my Zorro was beautiful), he found the deadline pressure a bit too much, far too invading of his desire to learn and grow as an artist. Eventually he found a comfortable home in computer games, recently impressing all around him with his work on Wipeout, but I was always a little sad that he hadn't pushed harder to be his dream comic artist...he could have been so darn good!

He even LOOKED like a comic book artist!

I could rant on about Col for hours, but here's not the place. All I really want to say is that I was honoured to call Colin my best friend, my best bud, my right hand man and my best man, not to mention my front man in our rock band! He was always so much fun to be with, like no other. His many friends all over the world have been shocked at his passing but all our lives were lightened by his friendship and we will not forget the great man. Fly high my Friend.

(thanks to helicopter Kris for the image of Col at Glastonbury)