Richard Bartrop - Artist

I met Richard at a con, probably in Calgary AB, and probably around 2005. He did art for Okal Rel blog-hosted stories for over a decade, on and off, as projects waxed and waned.

I paid a modest honorarium which is one of the way I work with fellow creatives in growing the okal rel universe content in the world. But it was never enough to explain his reliability and attention to the nature of the stories and phenomena he illustrated. I think he had fun doing it.

Some of his work is listed in the gallery that appears on the legacy site at https://okalrel.org/saga/reference/graphics/ and associated with posts on the blog Alison and I puttered at in the 2000 at https://okalrel.blogspot.com/search/label/Richard%20Bartrop

The last project I worked on with Richard was "Murder in the Underdocks" - an unfinished story I was posting to the STORY category of Reality Skimming Blog in 2021. The last post went up in Oct 2021. I let Richard know I was stopping. The last email he sent me said ok, and let to let him know know if I ever resumed.

By the time I did reach out, again, his email address bounced and I discovered on https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Richard_Bartrop that Richard had been found dead in his condo Dec 8, 2024. I probably learned more about Richard's furry connections in the obituary than I ever knew about him during our mostly-by-email association. I'm glad his friends edited his entry to explain why he couldn't respond and to say goodbye.

Okal Rel has lost other creative contributors in the past. The tradition is to hail them as souls among the Watching Dead. So if you're watching, Richard, I just want to say thanks for flying with us. And we won't forget.

Below is one of my favorite illustrations, which Richard gave me free because it occurred to him to draw it. He liked the Vrellish. The image is called "The Pregnant Nersallian".

Ack rel. And thanks for your role in bringing the Okal Rel Universe to life in images.