Dustin Gebel
Edward ‘Ed’ R. Piskor Jr., the creator of comics like Hip Hop Family Tree, X-Men: Grand Design, and former co-host of podcast and YouTube channel Cartoonist Kayfabe, has died. He was 41.
Piskor’s sister confirmed his passing in a Facebook post earlier today. The confirmation comes after a post from Piskor stating an intention to take his own life while maintaining his innocence in relation to recent sexual misconduct allegations.
Piskor rose to popularity in the comics scene with his Eisner-Award winning series, Hip Hop Family Tree, which detailed the early history of hip hop, across four volumes published by Fantagraphics.
His work on the series would then lead him to develop a similar series for Marvel in X-Men: Grand Design. The series, which ran across three installment saga, retells the story of the X-Men from the ‘60s up through the ‘90s, in one cohesive narrative.
Red Room, the most recent work by Piskor, created controversy in the form of a variant cover, illustrated by Jim Rugg, homaging the art of Art Spigelman’s Maus. Rugg, the other co-host of Cartoon Kayfabe, apologized for the variant cover at the time. Rugg also recently parted ways with Piskor due to the allegations of misconduct.
In March of 2024, comics artist Molly Dwyer revealed messages between her and Piskor from 2020. Dwyer stated that these messages were exchanged when she was 17 years old. Days later, a second woman, Molly Wright, came forward with similar allegations of inappropriate comments from Piskor in now deleted social media posts. In Piskor’s comments from Monday, he made an apology to Dwyer but refuted Wright’s allegations.
An obituary for Piskor confirmed the passing, which a part of can be read below. The full obituary can be found here.
He is survived by his loving parents, Edward R., Sr., and Diane (Blazevich) Piskor; cherished siblings, Robert (Natalie) Piskor, Justine (Joshua) Cleaves, and Brianna Piskor; and treasured nieces and nephews, Lucy, Calvin, Carson, and Brynn.
“If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.”
