Comics has lost one its great souls in Rory Root. The man seemed timeless and immortal, despite all his health issues, and also ageless, but many people are reporting he was 50. The web is filled with outpourings of grief testifying to his endless supply of generosity, wisdom and support. Words like “trust” and “help” keep coming up, from customers from cartoonists, from friends. You did trust Rory because he did help. In an often fractious business he was always level-headed and far seeing.
His store, Comic Relief, was a model of the future, long ahead of its time. I remember visiting it for the first time back in the early 90s and Rory showing off, with justified pride, the handsome fixtures and the track lighting which made it not just an android’s dungeon but an attractive shop where people felt comfortable and enlightened shopping. He supported graphic novels long before everyone else figured out the were the future of the business, and knew his stock like no one else. Whenever I was writing a story about any business aspect of comics, Rory was on my short list of people to call, and our conversations were always full of information, humor and wisdom.
A few years ago Rory and I were both staying at the US Grant for San Diego and we shared a few cab rides home. He praised the hotel’s bunch and we agreed to meet on the Monday after the con for breakfast. In my brain dead state I couldn’t have imagined more pleasant company, or a better friend to share a meal with. I also remember him saving me a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which I was happy to purchase from him during the show.
Everyone will have tons of Rory stories, but he was such a fixture everywhere — standing outside with his hat, and the stainless steel coffee mug seemingly grafted to his hand, always with good advice for those who wished to follow it. Like another retailer sadly taken too soon, Bill Liebowitz, Rory exemplified the comics retailer who made a difference. People pick on retailers as a group, but men like Bill and Rory showed how important and vital this end of the business is. That they were so boundlessly generous with their time and knowledge was their real gift and legacy.
I want to quote some of the things being said about Rory because everyone needs to know how one person can make a difference:
Like many other people I know (including Ed Brubaker, Sophie Crumb, Adrian Tomine, Charles Brownstein and others) Rory encouraged me in this business at a very young age when he had nothing to gain from doing so. I first visited his mecca of the world cartooning, Comic Relief, on a spring break from Southern California as a teenager in the late-1980s. I didn’t meet him then, I just fell in love with his store. But when I became the news editor at The Comics Journal in my early 20s, Rory became one of the first people who encouraged me and supported me with advice and contacts. I don’t even remember meeting him — he just feels like one of those people I’ve known forever. He was a great person to get perspective from, and when I switched over to the publishing side our relationship only grew. I would be hard-pressed to think of anyone who was a stronger advocate for the kinds of quality cartooning being published by not just Fantagraphics but also Drawn & Quarterly, Last Gasp, Kitchen Sink, Top Shelf, Buenaventura, etc. The man knew his shit, and he quite often knew how to sell it better than we did.
But there are few retailers, publishers or creators who spent any amount of time with the man and didn’t walk away learning a dozen things about how comics work the way they do, and what things that could be done to make things better. It is the loss of that generosity of his knowledge (and it was truly encyclopedic and broad) that is going to be the loss that the comics industry is going to face over the next years. If only we had a few dozen Rory Roots, we could have utterly transformed the entire industry.
He was a great big burly guy, with long blonde hair and a constant hat. And I spent many, many late nights at conventions talking comics with Rory. Comics business, comics medium, comics philosophy. Once at Comicon, we actually sat in a hallway of the Horton Grand Hotel talking for so long that the spell was only finally broken by the morning newspaper delivery to the rooms.
Rory loved that store, he loved the business, he loved the art and he loved the people, and we loved him. Whenever we were in San Francisco we always visited the shop, and spent far too much money there. In San Diego every year at con, I would always find Rory and hang out for a bit. Neither place will be the same without him.
We lost one of comics’ gentle evangelists today, a man named Rory Root who preached from an overcrowded store crammed with graphic novels and comics of all description, or in the middle of a bustling convention floor, or really, almost anywhere that someone would listen. Oversize coffee mug brim full and ever-present in his hand, he’d move through his wares with the sure hand of a man who knew each of his customers — even ones he’d never met. He knew what you’d like, well enough to bet that you’d keep a book he guaranteed to take back. And he’d remember, even from year to year.
Rory was massively supportive to me, to Laurenn, to everybody. The only people who ever had a bad word for him were the people who thought he should give them all his fucking blood just for showing up, when he’d already given them half of it because they were in comics and he wanted to help. Rory was always a class act, and, in a field that has way too few of those, we really couldn’t spare him.
So pissed off right now. We couldn’t spare you.
Every time I walked into his store, or saw him at his booth at Con, within two minutes he could lay hands on something in his inventory that he knew I’d like, that he thought maybe I’d missed and would be damn glad to have heard about, and he was right every time. He was that kind of comics store owner – knew what was good, knew what his customers were into, knew a good match when he saw one.
There are many many more notes of condolence at this Newsarama thread, and more to come. Rory was such a lovely, lovely man, and we are all going to miss him terribly.
[Picture taken from Brett Warnock]
Damn. The only time I met Rory Root was years ago, during the Book Expo / Lulu Con in Los Angeles. We hadn’t met, but he was open and friendly to me, an industry hopeful back then when only a handful of comicbook publishers were exhibiting at Book Expo, and I was doing my damndest to sell graphic novels in a mainstream bookstore.
When I attended APE in San Jose almost as many years ago, I spent the Monday after driving up to San Francisco, and taking the BART to Berkeley, just so I could see his store. I can’t remember what I bought, but I do remember the store, because it was what a store COULD and SHOULD be.
I didn’t know Rory, but seeing this photo of him I realize that he had been part of my convention landscape for years. There are those people who are always there (or almost always, no one can be at every con) every time you go. They are the ones who’s presence, even if you never talk to them, make you aware that you have arrived back at that home we all know as the comic convention. You see them around and they see you and that’s good enough, because we’re all there for the same reason. We share in the love of comics. I appreciated that he was there, and now that I know he never will be again, I am profoundly sad. My heart goes out to his family and all who new him.
I was only there once, but I remember meeting him on that one occassion. Somewhere around 2000 or 2001. I hardly remember anything about the store except this overwhelming sense that I was in the best comic book store that I’d ever been in and I could hardly take it in or even figure out all the things about it that were so good. It was too good.
It was a yearly tradition for me to share a smoke break outside with Rory during San Diego – and he always had nice things to say about me and had immeasurable advice to dish out when I was involved in retailing – and then when I told him of intentions of leaving retail to self-publish my own book after spending a year overseeing the convention’s small press area – he was one of the first to wish me luck and to make I saved a copy for him.
Even on the rare instance that I’d went up to Wonder Con earlier this year, he caught me wandering the halls and asked when I was going to get around to printing a new one up – because it had been a while since he’d seen one- and I showed him the artwork for it and he said “good for you”.
Sadly, I never had the pleasure to visit his store – to check if he had ‘actually’ sold my copies of my first few Deposit Man books ( nor have I ever stepped in Berkeley before) or if he was pulling my leg. I have no doubt, with a captain of industry such as Rory at the helm: it’s reputation was and is still is legendary.
~
Coat
Was he really 50? I’m afraid he looks much older to me. Sounds like he was a great guy. My prayers go to his family.
You said it very well, Heidi. He seemed like the kind of guy who had always been around, and would always be around. It’s only in his absence that I’m realizing what an influence he and his store had on me and everyone else who loves comics.
Rory, if they have Internet where you are, I just want to tell you thanks.
For Immediate Release
Contact Beau Smith 304-453-6565
[email protected]
In Memory Of Rory Root
Busted Knuckles Memorial Toast To A Friend And Retailer
Ceredo, WV. (May 21, 2008)—This past week the comic book business lost a friend and innovative retailer in Rory Root, owner of Comic Relief in Berkley, California. In memory of Rory, I am dedicating this week’s Busted Knuckles to him and the friendship that we shared over the last twenty plus years.
Just click on the link below and join me.
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/busted/121134133134885.htm
A prince among men. Always had a terrific word of advice for an aspiring independent publisher, and an awesome, warm bear hug for me at every San Diego Comicon. I will miss him terribly.