johnnywander
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Long Live Rook!
🕑 Added 2025-08-25 18:05:25 +0000 UTCHeads up for talk about animal death.
Man, this is tough to share. Rook had been in very slow decline since March. It's the same thing that happens to every cat once they become old enough; his kidneys started failing.
His condition rapidly deteriorated over the course of the past month, and we were advised to say goodbye to him a few days ago. He'd turned 20 this year.
Rook was my first pet who was truly mine, and Ananth's first pet at all. His adoption was one of the first things we did when we arrived in NYC. We went to a shelter with the intention of picking up an adult black cat and found him immediately: a sweet 4-year old boy who'd been dropped off in a giant tupperware box full of 17 cats from a cat hoarder the day before. They had to separate him from the rest of the cats from the box because he was being bullied.
His intake was so fresh he didn't even have a shelter name yet. He was just 5108-E. This was the first photo we ever took of him.
Rook was a huge part of our lives, and I'm so happy that we could share him with you. Thank you to everyone who ever asked after him or gave us a black cat themed thing or made a piece of art of him. The walls of our home are covered in little pieces of art of black cats, many of which were given to us by kind people at conventions. It makes me happy to know he touched you guys!!
I wanted to share some of my old comics and art of him. He was a huge inspiration to me-- a mild-tempered guy who would do tricks for food and loved to scream (and only got louder after he went completely deaf a few years ago).
Here's an unreleased original version of the Johnny Wander omnibus back cover, I always really liked how the cat paws came out!
A couple years ago the vet recommended we remove a troublesome birthmark on Rook's ear. They wound up taking off half of his ear. Afterwards we would always joke that he was pretending to be a reformed street-cat when in reality he'd actually never once been outside on purpose. (TNR'ed feral cats in NYC are ear-tipped to show that they've been neutered)
Honestly there was nothing funnier than Rook in a cone. He was our little clown roommate.
Rook's buddha face. He loved to sleep wrapped around my head, and if it was too warm, on my legs. His immense weight actually messed up my left leg in a way that I'm still recovering from. It's okay, I forgive you!
It means a lot to us knowing that our little cat will be remembered by lots of people. Thank you for knowing him, even a little!
Comments
skollipsism
You gave him such a beautiful long life. I'm so sorry for your loss, pet death hits hard. My kitty soulmate died of old age over 3 years ago and I still cry over him almost every day. Thanks for sharing your Rook stories with us <3 <3 <3 I adore every comic you have ever drawn of him and you have hugely influenced the way I draw cats emoting, especially when they are yelling for food.
Meisterj
I'm glad he got to live a good long safe life with you. I remember those JW comics fondly. Thank you got sharing some photos and art. It comes for us all, but I'm still sorry you had you say goodbye My big man, Vincent, is curled up next to me full of character and little baby meows and he's neither
