Good remembrances of Peter David include Mike Sterling’s pair of posts at Progressive Ruin and Caleb Mozzocco’s at Every Day is Like Wednedsday, and I recommend you read both of those.

It’s awkward to talk about a contemporary writer’s death because our relationship, of course, was parasocial, and in no way equates to the experience of Peter David’s family and friends who lost him — but this one sure stings.

Keith Giffen’s death struck me as the first passing of a comics creator whose work I really felt like I knew and followed, but Peter David, I read all 80 issues of his Supergirl, 55 issues of his Young Justice during formative years, month in, month out at the local comic book store. That writer never met a pun he didn’t like, but his ability to write those teen sidekicks like people instead of bland archetypes is yet unmatched. Plus Fallen Angel, plus plus his Star Trek work, which is only one of the many reasons Peter’s death hits hard across such a swath of fandom.

I know that what came to be known as Imzadi II was reportedly not Peter’s favorite, and so perhaps I’m a bad fan to say I don’t recall if I ever read Imzadi proper, but I haunted my local bookstore waiting for Imzadi II to come out. In those years when Next Generation had moved to movies and post-series novels were few and far between, Worf was on Deep Space Nine, and a new hardcover promised to not only follow up on Jadzia Dax’s death but also detail what led to the end of Worf and Deanna Troi’s relationship — I was there for it.

Not to mention David’s hilarious, often edgy and bloody Star Trek: New Frontier, the first independent “new” Trek novel series in my experience with its own continuity, debuting during the short “serial book” craze of the late 1990s (see also Stephen King’s The Green Mile). They were novels, but I swear they read like episodes, if not like seasons — I not only mailed away for the Mackenzie Calhoun action figure, I even reviewed New Frontier novels on this here site.

All of which is to say, this was a particularly strong parasocial relationship for me. It had been a while since I’d read Peter’s writing — the Star Trek novel landscape had changed and Peter’s comics work was mostly for Marvel — but quite assuredly his characters crossed my mind often. I think we can all agree that after Marv and George, Teen Titans has never been as effective as it was when Peter wrote it as Young Justice.

A selection of posts from this site on Peter David’s works follows (many written by our wonderful guest reviewers). The GoFundMe to help support Peter’s family is still open. May his memory be a blessing.

• Fallen Angel Vol. 1
• Fallen Angel: Down to Earth
• Ask Collected Editions #2 – Young Justice Cartoon and Trade Paperbacks - A speculative look at Peter David’s DC career around the rise of collected comics
• The Atlantis Chronicles
• Star Trek: New Frontier: The Returned Book One
• Star Trek: New Frontier: The Returned Book Two
• Star Trek: New Frontier: The Returned Book Three