Yesterday I received the sad news that author, historian, and collaborator James Loewen had passed away after a long struggle with cancer. I’d gotten to know and work together with him over the past year and a half, and he was a positive, no-nonsense kind of person— and one who had a jarring head-on embrace of his mortality and life’s arc.

I’m still working on a graphic adaptation of his influential book Lies My Teacher Taught Me, trying my best to carry the torch and keep these extremely relevant ideas and conversations going at all levels across society. What he wrote about is at the very heart of our current, ongoing social and political crisis. Lies and Sundown Towns were very influential on me and most of my work since 2008.

I hope to do him justice— Rest In Peace, Jim.