Whit here, and I have such terrible news that I can barely find words: my beloved friend and OMGcatrevolution co-curator Hannah has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I’m completely devastated, and I know so many friends, teachers, students, colleagues, and family members of hers are, too.

My friendship with Hannah dates back to internet messageboard communities of long ago, and when it turned out she and her partner-turned-husband Jacob lived nearby in Silver Lake, I invited them over for what turned out to be an awkward evening of film-viewing, since the 1975 exploitation film Island of Death opened with man-on-goat action and never looked back. From there, we hung out now and then in L.A., Chicago, and NYC, and the last time I saw her was at SCMS in Chicago this year, when she gave the talk featured in this post.

Hannah was an absolutely brilliant film scholar–her work on animation has a witty confidence to it, and at SCMS she opened with the hilariously audacious gambit, “What is cinema?”–it got a nice full laugh from the audience. She was also a charming, sweet, insightful, supportive friend, as others who were closer to her know even better than me. For my part, running this tumblr with her was the most fun I’ve had on the internet since Facebook ruined the messageboard world, and it was always a delight to see what obscure film-cats she came up with. Sometimes we’d cross paths and scoop one another’s cats, and that light competition was also fun.

I can’t believe she’s gone. My heart goes out to Jacob, Sam, her mother Carter, all her friends and colleagues. I can’t imagine continuing this tumblr without her, so this is probably it for OMGcatrevolution–I want the final word here to be one of loss, love, and respect for Hannah. The world will be less bright without her, the cinematic cats less delightful. Goodbye, my friend, so many will miss you.