Jay Kennedy, editor-in-chief of King Features, died last week at age 50 in a boating accident. Tom Spurgeon has a full obituary at The Comics Reporter. Before helming one of the largest and most venerable newspaper comic-strip syndicates, Kennedy had a colorful career in the comics industry that included writing some of the early serious essays on comics, publishing The Underground Price Guide, working as comics editor for Esquire, and cowriting strips with the great Lynda Barry.

As the King Features editor, Kennedy was intelligent, dedicated, and intensely and genuinely engrossed in his chosen medium. I have never heard anyone in comics say a word against him, and a comics editor, particularly in the cutthroat landscape of newspaper strips, has plenty of opportunities to attract enemies. I remember Daniel Pinkwater, whose comic strip Norb (drawn by gifted political cartoonist Tony Auth) was briefly published by King Features, speaking warmly of him, even as he poked fun at some of the less stellar comics in the King Features stable.

Somewhere I still have my first rejection letter, received in response to a comic strip I submitted to King Features in my freshman year of college. Anyone who's seen the early Narbonic strips knows how crude my cartooning was at the end of college, and four years earlier it was, well, definitely not ready for prime time. Despite this, my form letter arrived with a handwritten note from Kennedy himself, encouraging me to keep trying. Anyone who's ever submitted work to a publisher knows how rare it is to get a personal response from anyone, let alone the editor-in-chief--but it was standard procedure at King Features. I had mine framed.

Jay Kennedy was good people. He's going to be missed.