Sunday, February 20, 2005

Pitching in

I was reading The Comics Reporter the other day, which is not surprising considering it's one of my favourite websites. This post caught my eye. At the time, that little update at the bottom wasn't there, so most of you probably understand where all this is going. I did my civic duty and informed the blog's author, comics historian Tom Spurgeon, of how the facts were.
For the record: Carlo Tullio Altan, who died earlier this week, was one of italy's foremost authorities in cultural anthropology, and i've quite often had to check out his books while studying this discipline. He lived in Aquileia, not at all far from here, and is survived by a son who is a celebrated cartoonist, Francesco Tullio Altan, one of the best we've got. The anthropologist's death had a worryingly low media attention, only partly justified by the current state of affairs.
So anyway, i write the email to the author. Literally a split-second later, i get an answer.

> Thank you so much. Can I publish your full letter as
> well?
>
> Tom


No more than two minutes the post had been updated. That man sure has fast fingers. In fact, it took me longer just to answer his message with these simple words:

If you wish, although it would lower your usual
standards :-)

-R.


When i checked back some hours later, my full letter was nowhere to be seen. He's a very wise man, i told myself.
The following day i noticed my name on his homepage(it's under the Letters To CR sidebar), linking to this.

There goes his reputation, i said.