Death of a Funny Forumite

[deckardcanine]

I've written eulogies for family before, including a pet, but never for someone I knew only from the Net. It's a little awkward when the departed's appearance, job, and other personal RL information are a complete blank to me. Nevertheless, my latest online acquaintance to die meant a lot to me.

It was probably nine years ago that I first exchanged emails with Ragnar Fyri on the "Kevin & Kell" mailing list. In other places, he went by RF57 or especially Won-Tolla. You may recall me mentioning him five months ago as the originator of "Freefall Klifs." He also created the shorter-lived CG webcomic "Adventures in ASCII," in which all characters were graphemes, and he contributed many cute hand drawings to the One Million Giraffes project. Mainly, he was known for commenting frequently on lots of comic sites -- possibly more than anyone else I've seen -- with a surreal wit and nearly unequaled knack for puns despite having English as a second language.

Ragnar's death at 54 is not entirely a surprise. A few years back, he abruptly disappeared from all his usual hangouts for two months without warning. We were right to worry: He had had an emergency hospitalization. Details are hazy, but it sounds like he collapsed bleeding without an obvious cause of injury. I'd heard no more about his health since.

My circles of the Net just got poorer. Forumite deaths happen rarely enough (to our awareness) that we have no real tradition besides a thread of mourning. I'm thinking of helping to resume the klif practice so that his legacy may live on, tho none of us will be as funny as he was.

Comments

[ccdesan.livejournal.com]

He will be sorely missed.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Argh, I remember those Kilfs, many of them were funnier than the strip they were based on. He also had to be really clever sometimes, setting up a nearly blank first panel as the punchline. The world got a little bit dimmer.