Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #306 - Chris Rush

Episode Date: February 19, 2016

Mark remembers the life of Christopher Rush and shares stories about their interactions.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, well today, sign of a kind of a sad podcast. Normally, I do my podcast on Monday and Tuesday. If all goes well, I don't record on Wednesday or Thursday. Today's Thursday, and I actually, Monday and Tuesday went great. I recorded my podcast. But last night, I learned that Christopher Rush died.

And for those who might not know, Christopher Rush was an artist for magic. He was very instrumental in the early days. And someone I worked with, someone I knew, I personally knew. And I think Chris was worthy of a podcast. So this podcast is all about Christopher Rush, someone who will be sorely missed. So Chris is someone who I had a chance to work with and know and was a friend of mine.

So I feel like I wanted to give a little bit of a podcast to sort of talk about Chris and just share a little bit with you. I mean, I think he was very instrumental in the early days of magic in a couple of ways that some people might not even be aware of. And I want to sort of talk about that a little bit. I want to, I don't know, I just want to spend a podcast talking about Christopher Rush, who, who I was, like I said, very sad to learn that he passed away yesterday. Obviously, I was, like I said, very sad to learn that he passed away yesterday. Obviously, today, he died on the 10th of February.

So I recorded this many weeks ahead of time. By the time you hear this, this will be older news for all of you. But nonetheless, I felt I owed it to Chris to give him a podcast because he was a really great guy. Okay, it might be a little, a little hard. This is going to be a rough podcast for me, but an important one, I think. So, let me talk about when I first met Chris, because, so Chris Rush, for those who don't know, I came to work at Wizards in 1995. Chris already was working there. Chris actually had worked on Magic since the early days. In fact, if you ask what Chris worked on that you still to this day see, the answer would be he worked with Jesper Mirfors on making the mana symbols. So the

five-color mana symbols, those are Chris Rush's work. I mean, along with Jesper, but he had a lot to do in the early days with doing a lot of the graphic design and there's a lot of components that he worked with Jesper on that have become a basic part of the game. And he obviously did a lot of early illustrations.

I mean, he probably was most famous for doing Black Lotus, but he did over 100 illustrations. I'm going to get to that famous for doing Black Lotus, but he did over a hundred illustrations. I'm going to get to that in a little bit, about all the different illustrations he did. But first, I want to talk about sort of, this is, a lot of this today will be me talking about my interactions with him, just because that's the stuff I know. I'll talk a little bit about his accomplishments and things he did. Okay, so before I even came to work for Wizards, there was a thing that we used to do called Caravan Tours, which I think was the brainchild of

Steve, Steve Conard, the guy who was the lead designer on Legends, who was a good friend of Peter Atkinson. And Steve came up with this idea of what if we got some Wizards employees and some Wizards freelancers, so like people working on the game and the artists of the game, and took tours and went around the country. And so how the caravan tour would work is

he would take a couple employees and usually an artist or two and they would fly out somewhere and they would drive around and go to local game stores in whatever the area was. Usually they'd find a local artist. So they'd fly in one or two Wizards employees. They'd find a local artist who lived there because the artists freelance. And sometimes the employees would be artists

because there were a bunch of artists that worked. So I was asked at one point, and this is before I even worked for Wizards, but they were coming to Los Angeles, which is where I lived, and they wanted to know if I wanted to be involved in a caravan tour. And I said, of course. This was before I was, I think I was freelancing at the time, but I wasn't working yet full time. I was just a freelancer.

But I was doing the puzzles, and I think I was writingancing at the time, but I wasn't working yet full-time. I was just a freelancer. But I was doing the puzzles, and I think I was writing articles at this point. And so I was, at least to the magic audience, some of the people might know. So they said, hey, do you want to come do a caravan tour? And I said, oh, that sounds awesome. And so one of the people on the tour was Christopher Rush. This is when I met Chris for the first time. So for those who don't know, Chris, he was a small man. I am a small man, I relate.

He, very soft-spoken, Chris was one of the sweetest guys you've ever met. I literally, I can't remember him, I can't remember ever saying a mean word. He was really sweet, very soft-spoken, and he had a really passion for what he did. He loved art. He loved graphic design. And it was, I mean, I didn't interact with him all that much at work. I interacted a little bit, but all the interactions I had were great. And he and I had a bunch of awesome discussions.

I'm going to talk about one of those in a sec. But anyway, I met him. And I knew who he was because I knew his art. Obviously, I mean, he did Black Lotus. He did Lightning Bolt. He did, I think, Man of Flare. He did a bunch of the early ones. In fact, here, real quickly.

Let me just run down. This is all the art that Christopher Rush did. So I guarantee you, if you've been playing Magic for any length of time, the chance of you having played a card that he illustrated is pretty high. Especially if you've been playing for any length, you know, playing a little

longer. Okay, so these are all the cards he did, real quick. He did Abbey Gargoyles, All Hallows' Eve, Apprentice Sorcerer, Archangel, Artifact Possession, Basil Thrall, Black Lotus, Blacker Lotus, at my request, by the way. I might get back some stories of the arts for these. Blood of the Martyr, Blood Imp, Bone Flute, Booster Tutor, Brainstorm, Brass Man, Canopy Spider, Chicken Egg, Chronotog, Chronotog Totem, Circle Protection Black, Circle Protection Red,

Coal Golem, Collector Protector. He did a bunch of unglued. Craw Giant, Crookshank Kobolds, Dark Heart of the Wood, Demystify, Descendant of Kiyomaro, Desert Nomads, Dread Reaper, Elvish Pioneer, Elvish Scout, Aaron the Relentless, Field of Reality, Fire Drake, Flying Men, Forbidden Love, Forbidden Ritual, Forest, Finhorn Elder, Gauntlet of Might, Goblin Berserker, Goblin Grenade, Goblin Rhyme Runner, Granite Gargoyle, Green Mana Battery, Heed the Mist, Hell Swarm,

Acacian Infantry, Eastern Shade, Imaginary Pet, Imprison, Indomitable Whale, Infantry Veteran, Ishii Aki Crackpot, Join or Adapt, Jovial Evil,

June in a Freight, Knights of Thorn, Cormus Bell, Krivik and Hor, Lightning Bolt, Limdull's Paladin, Lotus Bloom, Malachite Talisman,

Mana Flare, Mana Leak, Mana Barbs, Metamorphosis, Moonring Mirror, Muse Vessel, Mirror Quadrapod, Mystic Restraints, Nass Asp, Necrite, Nether Shadow, Netherborn Phalanx, Nial Svane, No Daichi, Order of Devonhan, Opal Guardian, Overgrowth, Planes,

Power Leech, Prophecy, Rajin Spirit, Rakdos Ixbitter, Rakalite, Rakshath the Slayer, Wrath-E-Dragon, Relicbind, Reroute, Rod of Ruin, Rook Egg, Rook 2, which might be the token maybe,

Rune Sword, Safe Haven, Seraph, Snapping Drake, Snow-Covered Plain, Soul Grail, Sildevi Adnit, Steam Spitter, Stone Rain, Storm World, Suchi, Sanashin Falconer, Tablet of Eperture, Taunus Coffin, The Wretched, Tomorrow Azami Familiar, Tormod's Crypt, Twin Strike, Ur-Drago, Ursa's Bauble, So that's a lot of magic cards, and a lot of really famous magic cards. Okay, so here share some of my stories um so one of my so I met Chris originally on uh at the

um Caravan Tour and I was I was really excited to meet him because I mean at the time you remember

I was a Magic fan I mean I was freelancing for the company but I still was a Magic fan I played Magic um I actually in the early days I mean, I was freelancing for the company, but I still was a Magic fan. I played Magic. I actually, in the early days, I knew all the artists. Magic's outstripped my ability to remember all the artists. But there was a period of time where actually

I could name all the flavor texts and all the artists and I think the manicots of all the cards. And I was very familiar with Chris Verrush's work. So I was very excited to meet him. I was far more excited to meet Chris than... Chris, I mean, no knock on Chris.

I mean, I was like the puzzle guy of the doula. So I don't think Chris really had quite as much sense of who I was as I knew who he was. But he was just so nice. And I remember we chatted and he talked about... One of the things that was fun to talk with him about is just talk about his art. He loved talking about his art.

And I remember everyone asked him about Black Lotus. I remember the thing he always said is, because the artists don't know what piece of art you're going to make that's going to be the iconic thing. And that, Chris was like, he always used to say, he goes, wow, if I knew that Black Lotus was going to be Black Lotus, he goes, I maybe want to spend more time on it, you know. That one of the things that's really funny is the artist, I think it's very easy to sort of, like, see how you would have made things even better. And that Black Lotus is being one of, you know,

one of the magic card, you know, got so much focus on it. And there's usually a seldom in between the card the artist draws that's their favorite thing they've ever drawn and then the card that ends up being actually the card they're known for.

Because a lot of that has to do with the strength of the card and how much it's played. The most favorite card usually is tied to what the card is and so not necessarily

tied to what the best art they've ever done is. So anyway, here's my first story on Chris. Well, first ones I met on the caravan. Okay, so one of the things that, when I talk about Chris's influence lasting far beyond, like, he was an artist and he did a lot of art over the years, but his legacy lives on.

So here's my story of how his legacy lives on, which is Chris and I were flying, I think, to Gen Con. So one of the things back in the day is Wizards of the Coast used to send, and I'm not exaggerating, like 90% of Wizards of the Coast would go to Gen Con. Gen Con was a big deal. This is before we actually bought TSR, but Peter Atkinson, who was the CEO at the time, one of the founders, loved, loved, loved Gen Con. He loved role-playing, he loved Dungeon Dragons, and he loved Gen

Con. And so, Gen Con was where he had first premiered the game. I think it first went on sale. Yeah, it first got premiered at Origins, they first showed the cards, but I think it first went on sale. Yeah, it first got, sorry, it first was premiered at Origins when they first showed the cards. But I think it first went on sale at Gen Con.

And Gen Con just held a special place in Peter's heart. So anyway, we all went to Gen Con and I was my first, I had just been hired. It was the first summer

I was there. It's like, am I going to, of course, I had been to Gen Con in 94. Obviously, I talked about that story

recently where I went to try to get more work. And I ended up going to the first ever world championships. So anyway, we were going to have Gen Con 95. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to miss that. Oh, no, no, no. This wasn't 95. I started working on it. This was 96.

This was 96. So the first summer I was working there was 96. So anyway, so we were on the plane. I ended up sitting next to Chris Rush. And I mean, Chris and I knew each other. I mean, you know, I'd come to work there. And from time to time, I think the place we interacted, well, we obviously interacted for MagicSom. And I also was doing work

on the Duelist and I definitely interacted with him a couple times on the Duelist he sometimes would help out but anyway

so we were on we were on the flight and we were talking about I don't know whatever we got onto different ideas we had

I think I think I talked about how I had some ideas and that people just weren't necessarily receptive to all my I got some ideas I had big I think I talked about how I had some ideas and that people just weren't necessarily receptive to all my ideas. I got some ideas, like big ideas, but, you know, they were a little too big and people weren't as receptive to it. So Chris shared with me a story. He said that he had come up with a really cool idea for how to do basic lands. And he said, look, you don't need all, everyone knows how basic lands work. You don't really need all the text on the basic lands.

He goes, what if we just made basic land where it was just all art? And he said, you know, he thought it would look really cool. It would make basic lands look a little bit different. And he had come up with this idea and he had pitched it a couple different times. But people were like, oh, full art. No, that's, that's not, uh, you know, that's not the way we make cards. Um, and so he said to me that, yeah, he really thought like that would be a cool idea, but that every time he presented it, you know, he couldn't get any, he couldn't get any traction on it. Um, and I said to him, I like the idea a lot.

I thought that was a cool idea. So anyway, flash forward, I don't know, a year or so. And I'm working on Unglued. And I'm trying to figure out what to include in the product that might be something that's... Here's what I'm trying to do. I was trying to make a product that just had a lot of interesting quirky things in it and I liked the idea of pushing boundaries and doing things that just we wouldn't normally do

and so I came up with the idea of maybe doing basic lands in some way that was cool and neat and then I remembered Chris's idea of full art lands and so I said let's do full art lands and because the whole product was kind of this out-of-the-box weird product, I didn't get as much resistance as Chris got. So I was like, okay, it's the weird product. You want to do Weird Lands. Okay. But I remember is my big thing is I wanted to make them black border because I wanted people to play with them. And at first I was like,

oh, no, this is a silver border set. They should be silver border. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I go, I think it's okay to let people play with these lands. And there was a big fight. Not a big fight, but it was a fight to get them black border. And eventually we decided that we would do them on their own sheet anyway. Because being black border, they had to be on their own

sheet. But I'm like, I wanted to put one per pack. And that was another big thing. I said, you know what? I want to do this black border. I wanted to put one per pack. And that was another big thing. I said, you know what? I want to do this blackboard, or I want to put one in every pack. And I thought that'd be very popular, and obviously it was. And I remember when I finally I got it, I got okay and I got them,

and I waited until I think everything was done, and then I went and showed Chris the lands, and, oh went and showed Chris the lands, and oh, no, no, no, actually, sorry, I'm getting my story wrong. I think we did,

we had mocked them up at first, and I went and showed, right, I showed Chris after we mocked them up, and to get any feedback from him, and I said, Chris, here's something we're doing in Unglued, I thought you might like this. And I showed it to him, and I remember a big smile came to his face,

and he was like, oh, you remembered. And I said, yeah, it's an awesome idea, Chris. And now, you know what I'm saying, we did them Unglued, and then Unhinged, we pushed a little more, had even a tinier border, and then in Zendikar we ended up wanting to do something special, we brought him to Zendikar, and then brought him back to battle for Zendikar,

and so I feel like this is a part of the game, this is something that we'll revisit from time to time, and that is directly Chris's contribution. And like I said, and the man is, I mean, this is definitely somebody, if you love magic and you, you might not even realize that this is a lot of little things that Chris added. And in general, one of the things that I think is really important to understand is that in the early days, you know, there were not a lot of people at Wizards, and, um, Chris really,

his aesthetic and his eye, and it is something that definitely added a bit to the game, and I know, uh, I've talked a bit with Jesper about, about sort of Chris's contributions, and that, you know, Jesper and Chris, uh, Chris had the background in the background in graphic design, and so Jesper had worked with him. Because Jesper was a little more an artist, I believe, and Chris had a little more of the background in graphic design. So the two of them had worked together to sort of put together the frames and the mana symbols and stuff. And so, I mean, obviously a lot has changed over the years.

You know, the card frames aren't what the card frames were back in the early days. So the mana symbols have pretty changed over the years. The card frames aren't what the card frames were back in the early days. So the mana symbols have pretty much stayed the same. So let me talk a little bit about some of the stuff I remember. Chris's, some of his paintings and stuff. Because I remember one of the things that I wanted to do. So a few stories here. So I liked the idea of doing parodies. And one of my goals in

Unglued was whenever I did a parody, we wanted to go to the artists that originally did it to see if they could do the parody. And so we had a couple, so I remember Black or Lotus. I went and talked to Chris because the idea of Black or Lotus was I wanted a black lotus, but more, more of a black lotus, but more, more of a black lotus, you know, because I knew that card was going to be called Blacker Lotus. And so we went to Chris and said, okay, Chris, it's called Blacker Lotus. It's even more of a lotus. And I remember Chris was really excited.

Chris also got Chicken Egg, which was a parody of Rook Egg, which was his card from Arabian Knights. And I know he had a lot of fun with that. And then he also, he did the first Booster Tutor. So remember, originally, Booster Tutor was an Unglue 2, the one that never got made. And the thing that, if you've seen it,, seen it is, um, Chris got the idea of it setting in the store and the idea like you're using magic and you're actually getting the booster out of the store.

Uh, and he did a lot of detail work and all the background, like, I think he must have actually gone to a comic store or a store that sold magic cards and try to, you know, figure out all the things you could see. Uh, the detail work of that, I really like the detail work of that. Um, what else? the things you could see, the detail work of that, I really like the detail work of that. What else? I'm trying to think of other fun, I know that, the, so one of the things that I remember about Chris is, he always had a smile on his face, and he was, well in fact, here, let me, let me share my last story.

What happened was I had worked with Chris. He was at Wizards. And then at some point he went on to do other stuff. And I hadn't seen Chris in quite a while. And so I was at, my family was actually having a family reunion in Portland. And it just so happened, I mean, literally, like, coincidentally, across, right across the river, so like two miles away, was Grand Prix Portland.

This was back in 1994. And so my nephew was really into magic, and he really, really wanted to go, and I wanted to go. And my wife, Laura, who had never been to a Grand Prix before, said, oh, I'd like to come. So the three of us went. And I went inside and saw people and did my normal stuff and signed autographs and took pictures. And I did some interviews online because there was a live stream going on. But on my way out, there were a bunch of artists.

So I was looking around and seeing who the artists were and I saw Chris Rush. And Laura was with me. And Laura also knew Chris. Laura, for those that don't know, my wife worked at Wizards. In fact, she worked at Wizards before I worked at Wizards. She started in February of 95.

I started in October of 95. And she worked at Wizards up until the birth of my first daughter. And then she ended up leaving Wizards. So she knew Chris as well. So we saw Chris. And I think Steve Argo, I was like, oh, he saw that. Would you like me to introduce you to Christopher Rush? And I was like, no, no, no, I know Christopher Rush.

And I saw him. And he's like, Mark, how you doing? And I hadn't seen him in years. And it was a really nice reunion. Hugged each other. If you saw the day he passed, I posted a picture of me and him. That was from Grand Prix Portland. Laura took a picture of us.

And he and I chatted for a little bit. And that's the last time I saw him. But it was a very nice visit and I'm kind of glad I had the last chance to sort of see him. Like I said, I don't know 100% what he was up to. I mean, I know he went on doing graphic design and doing art. But the thing that I will always remember him, uh, the best is, um, the,

the, he was somebody who truly loved what he did. He was infectious in his love of what he did. Um, he was kind. He was, he was just one of the sweetest guys I knew. And it was rough. The same week he died, Wayne England, another very famous magic artist, who also was awesome. I didn't know Wayne personally, like I knew Chris. And so it was a rough week for magic. I mean, one of the things,

I mean, magic is now, this year it turned to 23. So a lot of the people, I mean, magic is now, this year it turned to 23. So a lot of the people that are working on magic, you know, especially in the early days are getting older. And it is, like, I remember Quentin Hoover was an artist from the early days of magic who died a couple years ago. And there have definitely been a bunch of pretty famous early magic artists who have sadly passed away. Let me talk a little bit. I read off a list of his cards early on, so I wanted to talk about a few of his cards, just sort of stories that I remember about art and stuff.

Okay, let's see. All Hallows' Eve. So All Hallows' Eve was from Legends I remember I think Chris is one of the ones I think Chris liked All Hallows' Eve I'm just trying to remember stuff Chris talked about

So it was It was a weird card in that It's one of the few cards in Magical Trivia on it that was printed as a sorcery but was later eroded to be an enchantment and the reason is it acted just like an enchantment

like you put it out and it did something and then it went away sort of and it didn't really act like a sorcery and so it later got eroded to an enchantment I don't know if it got eroded back to a sorcery but it's one of the cards where it's... There's not a lot of cards that are printer one card type. And the most ones I can think of are ones in which,

like, it was a misprint, but that wasn't a misprint. Just at the time, like, it's a sorcery. Now, I remember that card, because Chris really... I remember Chris commenting he liked that card. I mean, one of the things that's very interesting is I didn't talk like Chris didn't talk

a lot about his art I had some a little bit of conversation with him and like I remember when I met him at the Caravan Tour when I was

I was kind of a fan you know I definitely like one of the things I know when people meet magic celebrities is they connect with the thing

that you know like one of the things that artists do if you don't know is when artists go to events, they'll sit and they'll sign, they'll sign cards. And people will bring a lot of cards. Usually there's like some limit, like, oh, try to, you know, bring 10, 15 or something. But, you know, it's usually sort of a, not a rule or anything, it's kind of a guideline. And people will sometimes bring more cards. And Chris would sign however, no matter how many cards someone brought, Chris would sign how many cards.

And, you know, it's, I mean, you think signing your name is easy, but like sign your name a thousand times or two thousand times or three thousand. It gets tiring. And also, people really like the artist to try to draw something if they can and Chris was one of Chris's things is no matter how many cards people brought he would always sign them and he was always he loved talking with the fans he loved sort of hearing

people you know it's very funny like I said he and I had a few conversations about his art but I know when he met I had a few conversations about his art, but I know when he met with fans, one of the things about the fans is the fans, that's what the fans want to talk about, and so I remember he would talk all about different things, and people would ask

where inspirations came from, and the one thing that's funny is Chris would always point out the flaws, like he always would look at something and go, ooh, I could have done this better if I did this or that. And whenever I talked

about him in his paintings, it always felt like he was talking about what he's learned about it and how he could have done it a little differently if he did it today. Although I think Chris, one of the things that was fun is, I think Chris really enjoyed the fact that he just had some very, very iconic things.

I think the fact that he really did enjoy that he had done Black Lotus in the sense that, you know, Black Lotus is this forever, you know, icon of the game. And it is fun. I think Chris really enjoyed the fact that he got to be part of magic in a really deep, like, you're never going to disconnect Chris from magic. I mean, like I said, the mana symbols alone live on his legacy, but, but just the fact that like lightning bolt and, you know, black, black lotus, like this really, really iconic magic cards that, that from the beginning, uh, that have Chris's touch on them. Um, do I remember any other fun, the one place where I interacted with him, uh, normally I didn't do art stuff, so I didn't have to other fun the one place where I interacted with him

normally I didn't do art stuff so I didn't interact with him the one place I did interact a little bit was I had done the art descriptions for Unglued I wasn't the art director because there was an actual art director that did all the

I just wrote the art descriptions I did what we call the card concepting. Like, oh, what is this card? What is it? And I did the card concepting. And one of the things that I was very open with is I wanted to give the artists a lot of freedom to sort of have some fun. Because one of the things about the unsets is,

you know, they're very different from normal magic. And I know Chris had a lot of fun doing the unstuff and that he really enjoyed doing the parodies and I know he and I talked a bit about when he was trying to do Blacker Lotus or do Chicken Egg or whatever of trying to

he wanted this medium of, he wanted to sort of have a little homage to the original but also have a sense of funness to it. And I remember we I just remember having some fun talks with him where he was like sort of

he'd run an idea by me. I think he showed me sketches, I think, just because he knew I was so involved. And it was always, I love seeing sketches. Like he also did chaos, he did Collector Protector. So Collector Protector, the idea of it was, it was an aura that grants you power and toughness

based on how many copies you own of it. So the idea was, in order to be really powerful, you had to collect a whole bunch of copies of it. And then Chris came up with this fun idea of having the person in the picture wear armor and have the armor be magic cards. And I don't know, I think I... I don't remember exactly what my card concept was,

but I remember Chris came to me, and he had this idea, and I thought it was very funny, and so we talked it through, and if you've ever seen it, it's a very cute picture. So it's a guy on armor, but his armor is magic cards, and Chris made sure to make sure, like, he did it so that a lot of the cards are the back of the cards, but I think a few of them are the front, and he put a lot of time and detail into that. In general, he put a lot of time and detail into his stuff.

I don't know if you look through all his work. He really did have a lot of, um, he, he enjoyed the eye for detail. He was, wow. Um, I'm almost to work. Uh, yeah, like I said, this is, this is, um, I just really, I worked with a lot of people. Like I've worked at Wizards for 20 years now, obviously, and I've worked with a thousand people on Magic, if not more. And Chris was one of my favorites.

Hands down, one of my favorites. In fact, it's funny, because this morning I was talking to Laura before I was about to go, because I decided I was going to do a podcast, and I'm like, I didn't really know what I was going to tell. I didn't know what stories I was going to, you know,

and I just wanted to, I felt he was worthy of doing a podcast and I'm like I didn't really know what I was going to tell I didn't know what stories you know I just wanted to I felt he was worthy of doing a podcast and so I said oh Laura do you have any stories and Laura was talking about how

it's funny her story is she and he were flying on a plane to New York for The Gathering which was the Homeland pre-release

it was like one thing and she remembers that he she and he and a couple of people were playing some game. And that she was saying that he was doing something, he was making a joke. And she was laughing real hard. And that was her favorite memory. And I think the thing she said to me was, the thing I should have referenced earlier was that she can't ever remember a time

that he wasn't just really sweet. Anyway, and like I said her memory of him was of just sort of him laughing and making her laugh and so anyway like I said I'm I mostly want this podcast to just for those that didn't know Chris Fretch I mean

some of you might not have been playing Magic all that long. Maybe you've never actually played with the card as illustrated, although if you've been playing it any time, that's tough. But even if you didn't, I guarantee there's mana symbols on your card, and you probably played with a full art land. I mean, his touch on Magic will be felt for a long, long time. I mean, his touch on magic will be felt for a long, long time. And so I really wanted to do a podcast to kind of say farewell. Like I said, I've worked with a lot of people over the years. And a lot of nice people.

I don't want to imply that Chris is the only nice person I've ever worked with. But he was definitely one of the sweetest people I ever worked with. And I think one of the things that he taught me early on was he had such a strong passion for his work. And he was so excited. And I think watching him interact with the fans was one of the things that really sort of taught me a lot. Because I really was touched watching how he interacted and I try real hard when I interact with the fans to have that same

he always bonded with everybody and I really tried to emulate that I loved how much that he really tried to get a one on one with fans and really tried to bring forward what they loved about the game. Sorry. I'm historic.

My process went soon. So anyway, a little sadder. I don't usually have sad podcasts, so I'm not going to apologize for crying, because I do miss Chris, and I don't think you

can do a podcast in remembrance of somebody and not show emotion, so that's okay. Anyway, I just want to say that if you've never seen Chris' work, please do me a favor. Go and gather. Put Chris Rush in. Look at his work. He really did amazing art. Or even just take a look at the mande symbols.

Sometimes people don't really, you're gonna take them, blow them up big, look online, look at the mana symbols, look at the detail work. Um, they really are a really cool piece of graphic design that I don't, I don't know if people even stop to take a moment to think about that. Um, but anyway, um, I just, you know, uh, if you love this game, and I hope you do, listen to my podcast. There are a lot of people that have made Magic special over the years. And Chris Rush is definitely one of those people.

Maybe it's not a name that everybody knows. Hopefully most people know him. But if not, I think my podcast today was just to sort of say that there's so many awesome people that work on magic and have really had a touch on it. Chris was one of those. He was an amazing human being. He was a wonderful artist.

He was a great friend. And so you'll be missed, Chris. Rest in peace. Anyway. I'm in my parking space. Do we all know what that means? It means the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to make some magic.

Rest in peace, Chris. You'll be missed. Bye, guys. I'll see you next time.