Kref my BFF? How so? I met the man only once and sent him directly home.
I met Kref in the wee hours of the OTF morning, when just about everybody but Aruss, Kref and me were asleep. Kref was a professional cartoonist, who’d worked mostly freelance but had put comics in such prestigious magazines as PLAYBOY and THE NEW YORKER. But he was retired now and felt left behind as the science behind cartooning had changed, and Kref hadn’t the resources to keep up.
It was a short relationship, lasting only five years, but in that time Kref and I became close friends, BFFs if you will.
We had a lot of fun. Kref was probably the best humor writer on the board, and his cartoons regularly opened the OTF morning shift. When Davis got fired, Kref dreamed up and prepared buttons for each member’s candidate. Numerous members asked Kref for help on personal projects. He prepared a bawdy book cover satirizing my first book, showing a scantily clad woman posing on top of Mount Rainier. I used the parody as my sig until Peegs asked me to take it down. (boobs may have been too large). I’m not aware of Kref ever turning anybody down.
As Kref and I both had free time, we burned up phone lines night and day. If my wife heard me laughing and saw me on the phone, she’d mouth “Kref?” and I’d nod. She liked Kref too; she loved his cartoons.
Shortly before his death, under Aruss’ guidance, Kref, Club Jockey and I started a serial mystery we planned to post on the OTF. We actually wrote and posted several chapters, with Club Jockey and me alternating chapters, and Kref editing.
I told Kref that if he couldn’t come up and see us, I’d come down and see him. I set up some book store signings around Indianapolis and gave Kref the dates. I’d been invited as a guest of honor at St. Paul’s Italian Festival, and Kref and I decided to meet there, over some good pasta. But he dropped in to see me at the bookstore earlier in the day, and what I saw shocked me.
Kref was a dying man. Rail thin, his pallor was gray. I’d seen the walking dead before — in 80s San Francisco. I know the face of the Reaper.
Almost too weak to stand, there was no way Kref would survive St. Paul’s. So I sent him home, to rest, hopefully to sleep.
Shortly after that, my wife and I moved to Arizona. Kref and I stayed in touch, even though his OTF activities had fallen off. On every call, Mike would complain about how tired he was and how difficult caring for his ninety-nine year old father had become. Mike’s sleep was becoming erratic, and he feared caring for his father would kill him. But he would not see a doctor.
We’d only been in Arizona a month when Eric, Kref’s son, called me with the bad news. Kref had passed away. I think it was cancer, but if Kref knew he had cancer, he’d never mentioned it to me.
With Kref’s passing, I lost interest in my daily OTF activities. I rarely post now, preferring to lurk. Also about the same time, Club Jockey disappeared. I don’t know if Kref’s passing played any role in Jim’s decision to leave or not. I haven’t asked him. But for me, every time I look at the AOTF now, there are two big holes. One is Andy; the other is Kref.
I met Kref in the wee hours of the OTF morning, when just about everybody but Aruss, Kref and me were asleep. Kref was a professional cartoonist, who’d worked mostly freelance but had put comics in such prestigious magazines as PLAYBOY and THE NEW YORKER. But he was retired now and felt left behind as the science behind cartooning had changed, and Kref hadn’t the resources to keep up.
It was a short relationship, lasting only five years, but in that time Kref and I became close friends, BFFs if you will.
We had a lot of fun. Kref was probably the best humor writer on the board, and his cartoons regularly opened the OTF morning shift. When Davis got fired, Kref dreamed up and prepared buttons for each member’s candidate. Numerous members asked Kref for help on personal projects. He prepared a bawdy book cover satirizing my first book, showing a scantily clad woman posing on top of Mount Rainier. I used the parody as my sig until Peegs asked me to take it down. (boobs may have been too large). I’m not aware of Kref ever turning anybody down.
As Kref and I both had free time, we burned up phone lines night and day. If my wife heard me laughing and saw me on the phone, she’d mouth “Kref?” and I’d nod. She liked Kref too; she loved his cartoons.
Shortly before his death, under Aruss’ guidance, Kref, Club Jockey and I started a serial mystery we planned to post on the OTF. We actually wrote and posted several chapters, with Club Jockey and me alternating chapters, and Kref editing.
I told Kref that if he couldn’t come up and see us, I’d come down and see him. I set up some book store signings around Indianapolis and gave Kref the dates. I’d been invited as a guest of honor at St. Paul’s Italian Festival, and Kref and I decided to meet there, over some good pasta. But he dropped in to see me at the bookstore earlier in the day, and what I saw shocked me.
Kref was a dying man. Rail thin, his pallor was gray. I’d seen the walking dead before — in 80s San Francisco. I know the face of the Reaper.
Almost too weak to stand, there was no way Kref would survive St. Paul’s. So I sent him home, to rest, hopefully to sleep.
Shortly after that, my wife and I moved to Arizona. Kref and I stayed in touch, even though his OTF activities had fallen off. On every call, Mike would complain about how tired he was and how difficult caring for his ninety-nine year old father had become. Mike’s sleep was becoming erratic, and he feared caring for his father would kill him. But he would not see a doctor.
We’d only been in Arizona a month when Eric, Kref’s son, called me with the bad news. Kref had passed away. I think it was cancer, but if Kref knew he had cancer, he’d never mentioned it to me.
With Kref’s passing, I lost interest in my daily OTF activities. I rarely post now, preferring to lurk. Also about the same time, Club Jockey disappeared. I don’t know if Kref’s passing played any role in Jim’s decision to leave or not. I haven’t asked him. But for me, every time I look at the AOTF now, there are two big holes. One is Andy; the other is Kref.