In Memory of Daniel Robert Epstein
Written by Mark Osborne
Published on 06/13/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

When I surfed over to Suicide Girls this afternoon, I was greeted with some horrible news; their interviewer in residence Daniel Robert Epstein died today.

I dunno how many of our readers are familiar with him or his work, but he was a great interviewer who brought alot of passion and fun to his work. He interviewed everyone from Jhonen Vasquez to Kinky Friedman and brought a fun, conversational atmosphere to each one, perhaps even more importantly displaying an admirable depth and breadth of knowledge about each subject and their work that made the interviews incredibly vital and relevant even to the hardcore fans.

The interviews with Brian K Vaughan, Jhonen Vasquez, and Chuck Palahniuk will always live on as being his best in my mind, as they were the inspiration for how I've conducted every interview I've done since. I credit him with giving me the guts and the inspiration to go out and get the interviews with Ross Campbell, Tim Seely, Darick Robertson, and Steven T Seagle that I'm still amazed I pulled off.

There's a famous painting of these dead celebrities at a piano bar that gets parodied and updated every few years. I think the first version had James Dean and Marilyn Monroe in it, and the most recent one that comes to mind featured Kurt Cobain. Well if there's anything remotely similar to that in the after life, Epstein is on his way there and you can bet he'll be asking all the right questions and having a great time at it.