Social media and text messages spread Wednesday evening announcing the passing of Tom Spurgeon, a former Comics Journal editor, the founder and overlord of The Comics Reporter, an excellent critic, a insightful interview, a fine writer, a smart, funny person. His brother Whit confirmed the terrible news on Facebook.

There will be no small amount of remembrances of Tom, as there are many--myself included--who have been given platforms and audiences due to the attention he bestowed. For decades, Tom's attention to comics, the artists who create them, the critics who write about them and the fans who read them helped build an online infrastructure where this artform could be loved, discussed, worshipped, argued about, reviled, consumed, created, magnified. There are a handful of people who built a "comics internet" that was more than just places to talk about new products to be consumed. Tom was and has remained one of that handful. There was no part of comics that did not interest him, and yet he never stopped being his own person.

This is a bad day for comics, and every other time there has been one of those, heading over to the Comics Reporter and refreshing it until he had his own take on the badness helped put it all together. It is hard to believe that I won't ever get to do that again.

[Links, will be updated, feel free to email editorial@tcj.com with yours]

Obituary at The Comics Reporter, by Douglas Wolk.

Obituary at the The Columbus Dispatch, by Erica Thompson.

Our obituary of Tom Spurgeon, by Michael Dean.

Obituary at The New York Times, by George Gene Gustines.

There will be a public memorial on December 14th at 5:00PM, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. More information is here at Facebook.

A Special Five For Friday at The Comics Beat.

Brigid Alverson at Smash Pages.

Chris Arrant at Newsarama.

Bart Beaty at What Were Comics.

Benjamin Birdie at Multiversity.

David Bitterbaum at The Newest Rant.

Christopher Brayshaw at VanAnoydyne.

Ryan Carey at Four Color Apocalypse.

Henry Chamberlain at Comics Grinder.

Rob Clough at High-Low.

Sean T. Collins at Attention Deficit Disorderly.

Brian Cronin's obituary at CBR.

Oliver East at Patreon.

Warren Ellis at his site.

Erik at Disney Weirdness.

Mike Evanier at News From Me.

JP Fallavollita at Biff Bam Pop.

Brian Fies at The Fies Files.

Dan Gearino at his site.

Randall Golden at Midlife Crisis Crossover.

Milton Griepp at ICv2.

Simon Hanselmann's classic riff.

Dean Haspiel at Man Size.

Charles Hatfield at Kindercomics.

Glenn Hauman at ComicMix.

Christian Hoffer at Comics MNT.

Domingos Isabelinho at The Crib Sheet.

Rich Johnston's social media round-up at Bleeding Cool.

Sean Kleefeld at Kleefeld On Comics.

Austin Kleon at his site.

Joshua Leto at Medium.

Mike Lynch at Mike Lynch Cartoons.

Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat.

Tim Midura at Comics Pit.

J. Caleb Mozzocco at Every Day Is Like Wednesday.

Nick Mullins at nijomu.

Brian Nicholson at Longbox Coffin.

Nealalien at Nealalien.

Kim O'Connor at The Shallow Brigade.

Kelsey Painter at Word of the Nerd.

Ken Parille at Blog Flume.

Summer Pierre at Paper Pencil Life.

Chris Pitzer at Adhouse.

John Porcellino at Maybe Blogging Will Help.

Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly.

Mike Rhode at Comics DC.

Gil Roth at Virtual Memories.

Gil Roth's 2012 Conversation with Tom Spurgeon (with New Introduction) at Virtual Memories.

Brian Salvatore at Multiversity.

Brett Schenker at Graphic Policy.

Alex Schumacher at his site.

"Scoop" at Diamond's Previewsworld.

Alex Segura at The Sunday Longread.

Mark Seifert's obituary at Bleeding Cool.

Jeff Smith at Boneville.

Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin.

Bob Temuka at The Tearoom of Despair.

Steve Thompson at Booksteve's Library.

Obituary at Tripwire.

Jay Yaws at Comics Now.