Another death in the family, alas.
When I created Critters back in the 1980s, it was largely so that I'd have a publication in which I could publish the work of cartoonists within the funny-animal genre that I liked (Stan Sakai, Freddy Milton, J. Quagmire, and Steven Gallacci), as well as on occasion chiseling some work out of other cartoonists in the same ballpark (Jim Engel, Mike Kazaleh, Ty Templeton, and Mark Armstrong). A side benefit was that as the comic became better known, I started to receive submissions from other cartoonists, several of whom became regulars in the magazine.
One of my very favorites was "Fission Chicken," a hilariously deadpan super-hero parody written and drawn in a sort of Scott-Shaw!-meets-Paul-Coker-Jr. doodly style by John P. Morgan. "Fission Chicken" ran in a number of Critters (including as a solo feature in one of the late, one-feature-per-issue issues), and when I pulled the plug on Critters I was especially sad to leave ol' Fish homeless.
John continued to produce the occasional "Fission Chicken" story, released a book collection of some of the Critters material, and eventually started serializing new Fission Chicken stories on his website, while also "reprinting" classic older material. I'd lost track of him for years until Edd Vick passed along the unfortunate news that John had died last December 30th.
Another good guy, gone far too soon. Although none of his work is in print, several "Fission Chicken" stories can be downloaded and read from his still-extant website, fissionchicken.com — have a look. Enjoying John's work one more time (or for the first time) would be the best way of honoring him.
