PAPASAN

We wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who showed up last night and this morning for the wake and funeral. The amount of love and support we have been shown throughout this entire ordeal has been simply amazing, and we appreciate it more than we could ever put into words.

This week on the blog, we’re sharing some of our favorite memories of our dad. Although today wasn’t exactly a great memory, I wanted to share Adam’s eulogy with everyone here.

He would have been extremely proud of Adam—probably even more than any of us were today.

So, without further ado, and with no commercial interruptions:

I promised I'd show up with a haircut, a new hat, and a pressed suit... but I lie a lot.

- Carl Kolchak

That’s a reference to Carl Kolchak — and if you’ve never watched the show, you’re missing out.

When I first started writing this, I had one, then I scrapped it. Then I worked on that one for a bit, and scrapped that. Then about nine drafts later I finally decided that I can’t just keep scrapping these things. And if my Dad could speak today, he’d probably be like, “Ad, just do it,” and I’d probably just go back to the first draft.

A crazy special skill that guy had is that he could stand up in front of a crowd with no notes, and he could, off the cuff, riff for the duration of however long he had to stand at a podium. I always admired that — and Dad passed many skills onto us, but that’s just one I was never able to pick up on. But, I digress.

Years ago, Dad was explaining to me how the Japanese honorific san worked—how, in Japan, we’d be Fish-san. So, taking a complete shot in the dark, I told him that logically “Papa-san” should mean “Mr. Father.”

We both thought the idea of calling your dad Mr. Father was pretty funny. It was one of those things that sorta went to his head.

JOKE Like, these guys could have been calling me Mr. Father this entire time?

He loved it. For years after that, I called him Papasan.

It wasn’t until much later that I actually did my research. Funny enough, it was a slang term that American GIs used to describe older locals in Southeast Asia during mid-century military conflict. I actually wasn’t that far off. San is a term of respect. Papa-san. Mr. Father. Honored father.

There’s obviously no way to properly sum up our dad in a few minutes — but first and foremost, he was simply the coolest dad there ever was, and there’s not even a particularly close second.

And it’s no disrespect to any of the other dads in the room, but our dad was simply the best.

Joke Everybody should feel that way about their Dad, and if you don’t — I’m sorry. My dad gladly would have taken you in as an honorary son, so long as one of us vouched for you.

Andy Fish was an artist, an illustrator, a painter, a writer, a teacher, a collector, a mentor, a husband—he was a doctor

joke are we giving him doctor?

(honorary, but a doctor)

He was a wonderful friend—and to Matt, Joe, and me, he was our dad.
And with Dad, I think the beginning actually matters a lot —it’s got a real noir quality to it.

ANDY FISH 1

On December 27th, 1965, Andy Fish was born two months premature and seriously ill. He needed an emergency blood exchange to survive. The story, as it was always told to us, was that a call went out over the radio, and police officers, firefighters, road crews—ordinary folks working on a wildly chilly December night who happened to hear it—sped up to the hospital to donate blood for a baby who had the odds stacked against him.

And because of that, Andy got his chance.

He grew up here in Worcester, in a working-class city, to a working-class family, and I think that influenced him at his core. He knew what work looked like, and he wasn’t afraid to break his back for a paycheck. For a long while he did the sensible thing. He worked in a stable industry, had a steady paycheck, and a pension somewhere out there in the future.

And then he walked away from it because he wanted to be a freelance artist —a dream since childhood. Comic books. The big leagues. Will Eisner and Jack Kirby. Marvel and DC.

That sounds romantic when you say it quickly. But Dad worked tirelessly to get to where he was.

He put himself through art school, studied with the greats, honed his craft and managed to draw comics for a living. Something his childhood self could have only dreamed of. On top of that, he freelanced. He illustrated books, painted, wrote, designed, and taught. He took commercial jobs because there were bills to pay and a few boys to feed. And somehow, after all of that, he still found time for his own work because there were always more ideas in his head than there were hours in the day.

The plight of the creative—we witnessed it early.

Some of my earliest memories are sitting on the floor of his studio, pushing Matchbox cars through the carpet while he worked at his drawing table. I had no idea what I was watching. I had no clue what a deadline was. I didn’t know what a client was. I didn’t know what it meant to build a life around making things. I just knew Dad was working. He was working incredibly hard. He believed in himself, and in doing so, he manifested his future.

And that was kind of the atmosphere the three of us grew up in.

There was always another page to draw, another commission to finish, another book to read, another class to teach, another thing Dad had become enamored by, which eventually managed to influence us.

Dad also knew things no reasonable person should know. They’re the most fun of fun facts, and I’m so grateful to know them.

What significant creator appears in the opening chapter of the 1943 Batman serial?

How many guys owned and performed in Ray “Crash” Corrigan’s gorilla suit?

Who’s the only actor to have played Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers?

Did you know the lagoon from Gilligan’s Island is the same lagoon as The Creature from the Black Lagoon?

ANDY FISH 2

Dad’s language with the three of us typically revolved around an interest he passed onto us. A few days after he died, my brothers and I spent a few minutes in his studio together. His workspace is basically a mecca of everything that interested him. I sat down at his desk for a few minutes and just looked around. It’s something I’ve taken in so many times, but the first time without him. From the sightline in his chair, I could see Godzilla sofubis, a custom Kolchak the Night Stalker figure, a Remco Barry Goldwater figure, and a few Astro Boys.

Matt, Joe, and I had a very unique relationship with our father in that we all managed to share overlapping interests. We all love old comics, toys, Americana, and ephemera. We all think vinyl toys are neat, and that Jack Kirby is the best to ever do it.

But each of us picked up a corner of Dad’s identity through his interests. And in turn, we constructed our own identities. There was so much media that shaped our Dad, and our Dad managed to shape us.

I’m about to rattle off a list of things to do. I recommend you pick one or two in the near future, and do it. Alternatively, don’t. He was never in the business of forcing anybody to do anything they didn’t want to do -

As an aside, that’s another thing I admired about him —he answered to himself, and he owed nobody anything. Yet, he was one of the most generous men I've ever met. In these past few days, we’ve heard from quite literally hundreds of people about how he fundamentally changed the trajectory of their lives.

But back to the list:

Watch Hitchcock’s Psycho at the same time as your kid when they’re somewhere else and text each other through the whole thing so it feels like you’re in the same room.

Start your car and make sure “A-Punk” by Vampire Weekend is the first song to play
Go appreciate each line in Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and I mean REALLY appreciate it

Watch the ’66 Batman show and tell me whether or not you can find a father figure in Adam West

Stand in front of Winslow Homer’s The Gale and spend some time with the mystery of everything the painting refuses to tell you

Make a tape sculpture, dress it like a child, lay it down on a public bench then see how long it takes for the cops to do a welfare check

Look closely at Jacob Lawrence’s The Checker Players and decide for yourself whether one of them is trying to cheat.

Drink one too many gin and tonics and lay on the couch watching The Young Ones the next day

Make a splatter painting from 25 feet up and somehow make it the most interactive for 20 kids around you, making each one feel like their job is equally as important as the other

Go fire a Beretta M9 and understand the literal and cultural weight sitting at the ends of your fingertips

ANDY FISH 3

Stay awake until 3:30 in the morning watching The Wages of Fear and be late to a job you have never once been late to

Watch Humphrey Bogart & Cary Grant and observe how there’s so much to admire in two men who carried themselves in completely different ways

Go put on a Brooks Brothers suit and I promise you’ll feel the difference

Tell your boss to go to hell when the moral choice is clear and you know you’re right.

Show up for others and try to make it look effortless

Go drive a Mazda Miata with the top down and feel the breeze on your face if only for a few seconds

Work harder than anybody reasonably expects you to
And go sketch headstones in the cemetery where one day you’ll be laid to rest.

If you want to understand who our dad was to us, go do any one of those things. That’s the Andy Fish we knew. Look at one of those paintings, go fire that gun, walk with confidence and then observe those around you tighten up their shoulders because your presence is suddenly more respected.

Alternatively, take the version of Andy Fish that lives in you, and cherish it in the ways that we have. Encourage somebody, tell them to take the leap, tell them to pursue their dream. Critique them honestly when they ask for it.

I genuinely think some part of him believed he was immortal. He carried himself like he was always going to be around. And because he carried himself that way, I think the rest of us kind of believed it too.

But the more I think about that immortality thing, the more I think maybe he wasn’t completely wrong. Because I don’t think immortality is living forever. I think it’s leaving enough of yourself in other people that some part of you keeps going after you’re gone.

And I keep thinking back to those people in 1965. A few night crews of cops, construction workers, and firefighters. They gave him something of themselves, and because they did, we got sixty years of Andy Fish.

And in those sixty years, Dad spent a lot of his life doing the same thing. Giving something of himself to other people.

Papasan. Mr. Father. Honored father.

Thank you for everything. You were the best to ever do it, and it’s not even particularly close.