The surprise isn't how many articles and mournful farewells have appeared online following the death of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax, since we know who rules cyberspace, but it is astonishing how thoughtful and touching many of them have been, particularly Jason Heller's piece at The AV Club and this essay by Adam Rogers in The New York Times.
Me, I never played D & D. Or cared much for Star Trek. That was geek stuff to me. Sure, I had a Space: 1999 lunchbox (which I carried even after the show's cancellation, even into junior high, which...pretty embarrassing) and regularly read Starlog and the now-forgotten Fantastic Films and was briefly into Tolkien and, of course, pretty much had an out-of-body experience the first time I saw Star Wars.
But even then, I had other obsessions. Doc Savage and The Shadow, for instance. Sure, they're part of the pulpy origins of Indiana Jones (which leads to its own level of geekery), but I loved them as much for the cool art deco worlds they moved through as for the adventures they led. Many Doc Savage novels served as virtual travelogues of thirties-era New York City, which seemed like the coolest place in the world. And The Shadow flat-out killed guys ('twin automatics speak as one"), usually two-bit hoods whose lives weren't living, at least according to the twisted moral code of pulp fiction.
These things led to film noir, and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, and dark landscapes of the soul, which seemed so much more interesting than, say, Middle Earth. I watched movies and read novels of all types, and my obsessions spiraled and became more all-encompassing. I don't care much about Tolkien anymore, and a recent attempt to watch some episodes of Space:1999 resulted in stultifying boredom.
On the other hand, I found myself killing time in a bookstore yesterday, and instinctively picked up a copy of Star Wars Insider. The 100 Greatest Things About Star Wars, and Number One is...The Jedi Order? The hell? Everyone knows the single greatest thing about Star Wars is...
