Cartoonist Kayfabe's Ed Piskor Dead At 41

[ZariusTwo]

Comic book artist Ed Piskor, best known for “Hip Hop Family Tree” and “X-Men: Grand Design” as well as being the cohost of YouTube talk show “Cartoonist Kayfabe,” died Monday, his family announced. He was 41 years old.

“It is with the most broken heart that I share my big brother, Ed, has passed away today,” his sister Justine wrote on Facebook. “Please just keep our family in your prayers as this is the hardest thing we’ve ever had to go through.”

Piskor’s cause of death has not been made public. But prior to his death, he posted what appeared to be a suicide note in which he addressed — and denied — accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior that became public just a week earlier.


The weekend of March 24, artist Molly Dwyer, 21, accused Piskor of attempting to “groom” her when she was 17 years old and called him “a creep.” As evidence, she released screenshots of texts between her and Piskor from 2020, including one that read, “Are you 17 or 18? Imma be so mad if you say 17 because this crushes me at that age.”

Soon after, another woman, Molly Wright, accused Piskor of asking her for oral sex in exchange for giving her his agent’s phone number.

An exhibition of Piskor’s art was scheduled to begin in April at the 707 Penn Gallery in Pittsburgh, but on March 25 it was indefinitely postponed after the allegations became public, according to the Pittsburgh City Paper.

On March 30, “Cartoonist Kayfabe” cohost Jim Rugg publicly broke business ties with Piskor, writing, “In light of this past week’s shocking revelations, I find it necessary to reevaluate my professional associations to ensure they align with my values of respect and integrity. Therefore, I have ended my working relationship with Ed Piskor.”

On Monday morning, Piskor wrote in a Facebook post, “I’m helpless against a mob of this magnitude. Please share my side of things. Sayonara,” including a link to an apparent suicide note that directly addresses a number of people close to Piskor. He also addresses people who have criticized him, including the aforementioned women.

https://www.thewrap.com/ed-piskor-di...y-tree-artist/

[Anarchistguy]

Goodness gracious...first Akira Toriyama, now this...

[frank_one]

I'm very sad to hear this. I loved his YouTube show and his passion for comics have meant a lot to me in these last years. I don't care what happened between him and those girls, people should not die like that. We live in such a dark and stupid era.

[Snowglare]

Terrible loss. I loved Hip Hop Family Tree. Piskor was incredibly talented, with many years of stories ahead of him.

If the allegations are true, that's awful, but I wouldn't wish death upon him. There had to be a better way to handle this.

[Anarchistguy]

Originally Posted by Snowglare

Terrible loss. I loved Hip Hop Family Tree. Piskor was incredibly talented, with many years of stories ahead of him.

If the allegations are true, that's awful, but I wouldn't wish death upon him. There had to be a better way to handle this.

In his suicide letter, he insists that he was innocent and that the allegstions are false. That's all we got from his side...

[frank_one]

I wonder what will happen to Cartoonist Kayfabe now. I doubt Peter and Kevin will show up again over there.

[ZariusTwo]

Originally Posted by frank_one

I wonder what will happen to Cartoonist Kayfabe now. I doubt Peter and Kevin will show up again over there.

Ed's note said there's a backlog of unlisted videos on their channel that he wants released, with the monetization on so his family can get a cut of the profits. It depends on what Jim wants to do, since he already made it public that he was cutting professional ties with him (though he apparently made peace with Ed the weekend of his passing)

[frank_one]

I'm sure right now Jim feels some pression on him and I'm sorry for him. He just needs to take some time off.

[Coola Yagami]

The most I found out is that once the allegations came out, everyone dogpiled on him in tweets and videos and it seemed he broke under the pressure.

Now those same exact people are saying things like 'oh such a shame' or pointing fingers at each other when they were the ones actually doing the dogpiling.

One of them, Jon de Arroz made constant videos on him and then made a tweet celebrating that he scared him off the internet (note, this was more referring to making the guy hopping offline, not knowing or intending for him to actually take his life), so now that he's posting all the 'R.I.P my guy' type of posts, he's getting blasted for the earlier posts.

[frank_one]

A "new" video has been uploaded on Cartoonist Kayfabe.

[staypuftweepel]

This was such a sad way for Ed to go. I’ve been a huge fan of CK for years. Ed and Jim always seemed so positive about talking comics and making comics. It was so refreshing just to hear two guys having a good time and talking about the comics people my age grew up with.

The sad thing is nobody learned anything from this and every side of the comic book twitter/YouTube world is to blame. I was blocking YouTube channels all day yesterday who were either making click bait videos to either monetize from the tragedy or last week dunked all over Ed and now we’re giving their condolences. Real tributes can be found which is nice. He may not have named people like that Arroz guy, but he was apart of it. So was EVS even though they’re just blaming SJW’s. Doesn’t matter I won’t see what they upload anymore. Not that I even knew that Arroz guy to begin with.

Ed and Jim made a lot of amazing content. Being able to watch Peter and Levin together while discussing around 10 Tmnt comics page by page was amazing. I watched it almost daily for years, but the TMNT stuff was always special since much like Kevin and Peter, Ed and Jim are two cartoonists trying to make it big with something. I hope Jim is able to continue to keep the channel going after he runs out of prerecorded videos, but I’m just being selfish. If I were him I would end it there and probably never return to social media.

[Anima Gemini]

This is extremely tragic. The world lost a great artist. The man was never even accused of doing anything that is actually illegal. Even if he had been, due process exists for a reason. People lie. Then there were random people with no knowledge of what did or did not occur who were lying about what the accusations even were, blowing them way out of proportion and reporting that he did things that no one ever even accused him of doing. I hope a lawsuit will be filed against all of the people who straight up made things up in order to destroy him and get attention, as well as against the news network who doxxed his family and put them all in danger. Accountabilty is needed. Absolutely heartbreaking and infuriating.

[BornAgain]

Ed was a fantastic artist and a good person.

[Mayhem]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

The most I found out is that once the allegations came out, everyone dogpiled on him in tweets and videos and it seemed he broke under the pressure.

Now those same exact people are saying things like 'oh such a shame' or pointing fingers at each other when they were the ones actually doing the dogpiling.

One of them, Jon de Arroz made constant videos on him and then made a tweet celebrating that he scared him off the internet (note, this was more referring to making the guy hopping offline, not knowing or intending for him to actually take his life), so now that he's posting all the 'R.I.P my guy' type of posts, he's getting blasted for the earlier posts.

I know we disagree on quite a few matters, but I'm completely in agreement here. Partly because that is what happened, partly because it shouldn't have happened, but it's a growing trend that anything toxic associated with anyone, it's action first ask questions later regarding social media. And we had two people make claims. It's not like Spacey for example who had piles of people chime in once the first came out.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

I know we disagree on quite a few matters, but I'm completely in agreement here. Partly because that is what happened, partly because it shouldn't have happened, but it's a growing trend that anything toxic associated with anyone, it's action first ask questions later regarding social media. And we had two people make claims. It's not like Spacey for example who had piles of people chime in once the first came out.

My understanding, at least with one of the cases, was the dude flirted with a girl that was 17 in a state that they're both from where 17 is legal. Kinda creepy since the dude was like 30 or something, but technically not a crime. There were no naughty pics exchanged (now that woulda been a crime regardless of state), no arrangements to meet up or anything, and no attempts to pursue her further.


Not sure about the second allegation, so I'll stand corrected if that one is a lot worse. But from what I hear the guy was just doing awkward flirting without actual intentions to do anything in real life, but he did make the women feel uncomfortable, and in modern day there is no greater crime than making a woman feel uncomfortable. And instead of just telling him outright 'uhhh can you not call me that, it makes me feel kinda uncomfortable' they'd rather blast him on social media years later and let the court of public opinion rake him over the coals.

Like I get it, men have given themselves a bad rap where they act all nice, but then become violent assholes when you say no, but sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. And hey, if the dude did go nuts on her if she told him 'don't call me that', that's just more evidence in her corner. Like what's he gonna do, get her banned from the comic shop?

[staypuftweepel]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

My understanding, at least with one of the cases, was the dude flirted with a girl that was 17 in a state that they're both from where 17 is legal. Kinda creepy since the dude was like 30 or something, but technically not a crime. There were no naughty pics exchanged (now that woulda been a crime regardless of state), no arrangements to meet up or anything, and no attempts to pursue her further.


Not sure about the second allegation, so I'll stand corrected if that one is a lot worse. But from what I hear the guy was just doing awkward flirting without actual intentions to do anything in real life, but he did make the women feel uncomfortable, and in modern day there is no greater crime than making a woman feel uncomfortable. And instead of just telling him outright 'uhhh can you not call me that, it makes me feel kinda uncomfortable' they'd rather blast him on social media years later and let the court of public opinion rake him over the coals.

Like I get it, men have given themselves a bad rap where they act all nice, but then become violent assholes when you say no, but sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. And hey, if the dude did go nuts on her if she told him 'don't call me that', that's just more evidence in her corner. Like what's he gonna do, get her banned from the comic shop?

That’s why when all of this came out I kept thinking I need to read more of the conversation to make my judgement on the matter. You can’t just post little snippets without any context. He never said anything illegal or asked her to do anything. A day or two after her original post she said something like he wasn’t a pedo he’s just a creep. But everything she said about him was just an assumption. Everything I read could be read as either innocent chatting or something potentially wrong. The only person who knew what he meant was Ed and he wasn’t given the option to explain the situation until his last letter. She should have talked to him.

I do think he probably had prior anxiety or depression. There’s something’s he’s said in past videos that I felt I could relate to when I’ve had some troubles. I just think this was the final push over the edge. Lots of times if you’re dealing with depression it feels like the world is against you and you’re alone, I couldn’t imagine feeling that way and having tons of people on the internet tell you exactly that.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by staypuftweepel

That’s why when all of this came out I kept thinking I need to read more of the conversation to make my judgement on the matter. You can’t just post little snippets without any context. He never said anything illegal or asked her to do anything. A day or two after her original post she said something like he wasn’t a pedo he’s just a creep. But everything she said about him was just an assumption. Everything I read could be read as either innocent chatting or something potentially wrong. The only person who knew what he meant was Ed and he wasn’t given the option to explain the situation until his last letter. She should have talked to him.

I do think he probably had prior anxiety or depression. There’s something’s he’s said in past videos that I felt I could relate to when I’ve had some troubles. I just think this was the final push over the edge. Lots of times if you’re dealing with depression it feels like the world is against you and you’re alone, I couldn’t imagine feeling that way and having tons of people on the internet tell you exactly that.

Like they say, just because you're paranoid about the world being against you, it doesn't mean that the world isn't actually against you.

And that's another issue. For every one person saying 'hold on, let's get all the facts first' there's 10-20 people sending the accused death threats. And in some cases, they go after the 'wait and see' people too.

[Bahamut810]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Like they say, just because you're paranoid about the world being against you, it doesn't mean that the world isn't actually against you.

And that's another issue. For every one person saying 'hold on, let's get all the facts first' there's 10-20 people sending the accused death threats. And in some cases, they go after the 'wait and see' people too.

Well, we live in a cyber world of #believewomen and #killallmen so what can we expect?

[LeotheLateBloomer]

That's such a horrible way to go. I'm not familiar with his work but I hate to see this stuff happen.

[ZariusTwo]

I loved that Kayfabe reviewed John Byrne's X-Men Elsewhen book, they even did so while taking a look at the bootleg trades for it.

Originally Posted by frank_one

A "new" video has been uploaded on Cartoonist Kayfabe.

More vids are being uploaded. It's great Jim is complying with Ed's last request