[CW: Suicide, exploitation] Cartoonist Ed Piskor, creator of Hip Hop Family Tree and co-host of comics YouTube channel Cartoonist Kayfabe, was accused last week of grooming by a cartoonist who posted screenshots of a conversation she had with Piskor when she was 17 and he was 38. Two women soon came forward with their own experiences. This morning Piskor posted a response on his Facebook (Currently unavailable) denying any ill intent and expressing suicidal feelings. Shortly after, his family confirmed that he was dead. Ed Piskor was 41.
Piskor's early professional work was with Harvey Pekar, illustrating American Splendor strips as well as the books Macedonia (Co-written with Heather Roberson) and The Beats: A Graphic History.
Piskor's solo project, the hacker tale Wizzywig, brought him to the attention of venerable blog Boing Boing, where he serialized his look at the 'viral propagation of a culture', the Eisner-winning Hip Hop Family Tree.
Following the completion of Hip Hop Family Tree Piskor began Cartoonist Kayfabe with friend and fellow cartoonist Jim Rugg. What began as two friends flipping though and discussing issues of Wizard: The Guide To Comics and the bad old good old days of American comics in the early 1990s, CK quickly grew to include shop talk about craft and production, deep dives into cartoonists oeuvres, and interviews with many prominent creators.
As the channel grew in popularity, Piskor began work on X-Men: Grand Design, distilling decades of mutant continuity into a 250 page story. Piskor provided a 'director's commentary' for the first 12 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
[CW for all links in following paragraph]
Piskor was a polarizing figure, accused by some for cultural appropriation in his work and speech and often criticized for talking shit about peers and adopting a 'bad boy' persona. His enthusiasm for outlaw comics, independent publications from the '80s and '90s that featured hardcore violence and sex inspired Red Room, a splattercore horror series that featured dark web snuff films. Piskor received more criticism after revealing a variant cover for an issue of Red Room that parodied Art Spiegelman's Maus. Jim Rugg, who had been providing variant covers that parodied several famous comics, took responsibility and apologized, as did Piskor and publisher Fantagraphics.
When reports of his behavior were made public, Piskor was at work on Switchblade Shorties, a daily strip about a gang of latchkey kids having spooky adventures.