"Now that I'm in love with a geek."

As I was leaving work one day last week, I bumped into Steven, the boyfriend of our admin manager, Wendy.*  Steven is a talented artist who has been involved in the production of several major animated series such as The Avengers, as well as writing and drawing several independent one-off comic books and developing other personal creative projects.  In addition, he's an ardent comic book fan, and as such our conversations tend to turn in that direction.

We chatted for a few minutes until Wendy came downstairs, and then I walked along with them on my way to the bus.

As part of the conversation, I commented to Steven, "I've been waiting to say this to someone who would know what I was talking about - my god, Bernie Wrightson died!"

Steven replied, "Yeah!  I didn't even know that he was sick until I heard that he was dead, but apparently he's had brain cancer for quite a while."

At this point, Wendy piped up with, “Wrightson defined the look of the modern zombie, didn’t he?” ** 

I'm reasonably certain that until she met Steven, Wendy would have never heard of illustrator and comic book artist Bernie Wrightson, let alone be able to cite his contributions to the aesthetic of the undead.  It touched me a bit to think that, as part of their relationship, she'd learned and retained this bit of arcane trivia regarding Steven's interests.

 I couldn't help but think of my wonderful girlfriend Karli, who bought us tickets to Science World for our first date, and who has in our two short years together happily joined me in visiting giant robots in Japan and Star Trek exhibitions in Seattle, texted me Star Wars jokes, stood in a Borg regeneration alcove, taken me to Game of Thrones improv, listened to astronauts sing, slept in haunted houses, watched episodes of Doctor Who with me, purchased me a 75th anniversary edition of The Hobbit and a Halo UNSC M6 sidearm, helped me relive my childhood, and even contributed to this blog.

So, on behalf of geeks everywhere, I'd like to express our gratitude to all of the significant others like Wendy and Karli who have endured, enabled and embraced the fandom of their partner. Thank you so very VERY much - it makes us feel loved.  For a lot of us, that hasn't always been the case.

- Sid

 

* Wendy is a fine person who has an unfortunate habit of hiring people with no knowledge of Star Trek.

** If any Walking Dead fans out there were wondering why the final episode of this season was dedicated to Bernie Wrightson, now you know.