beccabear67
Well-Known Member
My long time long-distance friend and prolific fanzine artist, contributor and creator Taral Wayne MacDonald passed away in Toronto on July 31st of this year, just three weeks ago.
Taral Wayne (1951-2024)
I recently picked up some late '70s non-fiction SF and saw his art and a LOC in two Algol/Starship issues for the first time and thought of emailing him and asking about those times/people only to find info on his death at 72. The last time we communicated was in late March of this year and I was going to make a lightly humorous reference that he could call me Mam'zelle Crapsibah for not writing sooner. His art amazed me often and I was discouraged as much by his lack of wider acclaim as anything else in the 'world' pf SF/F/comics. He did get multiple Hugo nominations for best fan artist over the years and did produce at least two full comic books of an anthropomorphic rabbit character named Beatrix with PNW sf fan and artist Steve Gallacci. We stayed in touch through various major personal losses for decades, from writing multi-page letters back and forth to emails once I finally got full online circa 2000. We were only able to meet in-person once when I was in Toronto over twenty years ago; an earlier scheduled meeting when he was out on the west coast was scuttled by the weather unfortunately.
I hope fans remember his name and his works, he and they were a large part of mine and I will greatly miss not being able to communicate with him again in this life.
Just before Taral I/we also lost cartoonist and author Trina Robbins and 'Joshua Quagmire' who were both also very generous with their time and communicating with me about cartooning and SF/F/comics.
Taral Wayne (1951-2024)
I recently picked up some late '70s non-fiction SF and saw his art and a LOC in two Algol/Starship issues for the first time and thought of emailing him and asking about those times/people only to find info on his death at 72. The last time we communicated was in late March of this year and I was going to make a lightly humorous reference that he could call me Mam'zelle Crapsibah for not writing sooner. His art amazed me often and I was discouraged as much by his lack of wider acclaim as anything else in the 'world' pf SF/F/comics. He did get multiple Hugo nominations for best fan artist over the years and did produce at least two full comic books of an anthropomorphic rabbit character named Beatrix with PNW sf fan and artist Steve Gallacci. We stayed in touch through various major personal losses for decades, from writing multi-page letters back and forth to emails once I finally got full online circa 2000. We were only able to meet in-person once when I was in Toronto over twenty years ago; an earlier scheduled meeting when he was out on the west coast was scuttled by the weather unfortunately.
I hope fans remember his name and his works, he and they were a large part of mine and I will greatly miss not being able to communicate with him again in this life.
Just before Taral I/we also lost cartoonist and author Trina Robbins and 'Joshua Quagmire' who were both also very generous with their time and communicating with me about cartooning and SF/F/comics.
