Death and the comics community

Last night brought the news of the death of Rory Root, whose Comic Relief in Berkeley has for years been a mandatory stop every time I'm town for an academic or legal whatever. As any number of people have observed, the shop is a reader's paradise, a place where an anonymous visiting law student could see an issue of Plastic Man & chat not about its condition or Overstreet price, but how cool it would be if DC would reprint the entire Jack Cole run. Paul Levitz' poignant eulogy on Blog@ is essential reading, especially for the way it captures how for many people a comic store is not so much a shop as a community:

Most of you know someone a little like Rory, because it’s the reason the comic shops are some place we love to visit: run by folks who share a passion for their brightly colored contents and their friends who are, coincidentally, their customers.