SilentComedyMafia.com

One of the members of our community of interest, Cole Johnson, has passed away:

http://strippersguide.blogspot.com/

I had a few very cordial interactions with Cole over the years, as he and I had many similar interests. My condolences to his family and friends.

Rest in peace. You shall be missed.

Hopefully he's watching stuff like HAT'S OFF, HEART TROUBLE, Montgomery & Rock shorts, and Fox Sunshine Comedies.

And he's telling Hal Roach, Al Christie and Henry Lehrman a few things they didn't know about their own studios.

I didn't know Cole well at all, having only met him at Slapsticon and later having lunch with him once at Mostly Lost a year or so back. I contacted him back in August with the hope that he might have one or two images in his collection that could be used in my upcoming book on Henry Lehrman, and this led to an hour-long phone conversation where we talked about silent comedy, old films in general, old comic strips, and his hometown of Levittown, PA, a place where I once lived way back when. He alluded to having some medical issues, but didn't go into any sort of detail, nor did I pursue it. What followed was a number of emails with all sorts of great images, and several mailings of other materials. I didn't know that he was an aspiring cartoonist, but his mailings quickly proved that. Two of them:




I wish now that I had gotten to know him better; he seemed like a genuinely nice guy.

Tom Reeder