Not my normal newsletter...

In memory of Jeffrey Veregge...

If it’s not already obvious, I’m a bit of a geek for a lot of things - scifi, LOTR, games, and yes, comic books. I’m also an anthropologist who did his grad work in the #PNW. Imagine how jazzed I was when I met the collision of two of those worlds in the person of Jeffrey Veregge. Jeffrey was a husband, a father of three, a member of the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and a truly original artist. You can find his work here.

He died a couple weeks ago after fighting undiagnosed Lupus for over 1,000 days including spending over 900 days in the hospital. I normally don’t go for the language of battle when it comes to disease, because the disease just doesn’t care but man, Jeffrey did. The things he came back from during that time, the setbacks he and his family endured, I can’t even imagine. What I can image though is that he put up a battle as heroic as the figures he drew.

These are the alternate covers he drew for Marvel Voices. I have all of them…I mean, how could you pick just one?

As an anthropologist, I’m also really aware of the shifting line between being a fan of something from another culture and appropriating it. So when I was mulling over getting a tattoo in the style of Northwest Native art, I reached out to Jeffrey to ask if he thought that would cross the line. He told me, very graciously, that it was all about intent and that mine would honor the work instead of appropriate it. He also said that he’d do the drawing of one of his images that I could take to the tattoo artist and that if anyone had a problem with it, they could call him. It was shortly after that conversation that he fell ill.

Let me clear - I never got the chance to be actual friends with Jeffrey - we were acquaintances at best but in every interaction I had with him, he was friendly, open, and generous with his time. I love his art and will miss seeing anything new from him. I’m sure his family will miss him greatly. The full story in the form of updates is here. The world is dimmer without him in it but I hope he is at peace

This is part of a collection he did for the Space Needle. Can be found here.