I remember when I first learned of the Mirage Turtles many years ago going out and trying to find all of the books on those turtles with the red mask, and running into a book that was not a comic book though a game. I never could figure out the game, too much reading for me. Though the information I did figure out, like the Turtles bios, were great. I would often refer back to those books and seen it as the official information on the Turtles, better than the toy packages, video games or other books that came out. The Palladium RPG books was my source for TMNT stats.
As I kept going in fandom I remember picking up the book "Turtle Treasury" where I read the story of how Palladium Books is the reason that Mark Freedman (Surge) even got introduced to the Ninja Turtles. Many of you have heard me talk highly of Palladium for this, without them we don't know if there would of ever been the cartoons, movies, toys, ect... or if any of us would of ever even heard of Ninja Turtles. I stress it often that I feel these guys are wonderful, and deserve so much more credit in TMNT History.
The Writer of the book is Mr. Erick Wujcik. I got the Honor to meet Erick for a few minutes at the Palladium Books open house last May. At this event I thanked him for his work on TMNT and got him to autograph my T-Shirt. He was very nice, though also very busy since he was doing panels and games. He was so alive, you could just see it in his eyes. This is someone I had hopes to meet again.
Today I got a message, one that deeply saddens me and I was asked to pass this message along to others...
Erick Wujcik, the author of the TMNT RPG and various sourcebooks, among many other books, is dying of cancer. The time he probably has left is measured in weeks.
We started a blog to commorate his life while Erick can enjoy reading all the well wishes. it is
erickwujcik.comPlease feel free to pass this information along to others, as well as make comments on the blog.
I have already made a post to the blog, and I hope many others join in on this. Though I'm really sorry that this news is here, it's never easy to see anyone go. So let's all be support to a man who have helped touch all of our lives, even if he didn't realize it.
