It was quite the shock, when a friend reached out yesterday morning and asked if I’d heard that Louis Small, Jr. had passed away on Monday. I hadn’t, of course. Louis—an amazing artist who excelled at what’s known as pinup-style “good girl art”—had exited comic publishing a decade or so ago, and it had been impossible to track him down (though I tried a few times). But to learn that he was suddenly gone…yeah, I never expected that.

I’ve told the story before, on this blog, of how I first met Louis, but I’m happy to retell it: In 1992, I was a longtime Vampirella who’d been excited by the launch of Harris Comics’ revival of the character, following the closure of Vampi’s original home, Warren Publishing, a decade earlier. Louis was the penciler of the new comic, teamed with writer Kurt Busiek and inker Jim Balent. Louis had quite the eye for drawing beautiful women (a self-taught artist, by the way), and Vampirella #1 was his first comics work. With sales exploding on that debut issue, Louis and Vampirella helped usher in (for good or for bad) what became known as comics’ Bad Girl Era.

Problem was, for some reason or other Harris Comics didn’t do a whole lot to promote Louis’s contributions, which left him feeling extremely put out. The situation worsened at the 1993 Great Eastern Convention, here in NYC, where Louis appeared at the Harris booth to promote Vampirella, only to discover they were instead promoting the work of the artist intended to follow him on the series.

That’s the point where we met. As I wandered the aisles, taking a break from selling my small-press comics, a fellow smaller presser named Christopher Paris called me over to his table, where he’d been speaking to a genial-looking fellow: “This is the Vampirella fan I was telling you about!” he said to the guy while he pointed at me. “He loves your stuff!”

When Chris’s guest introduced himself as Louis Small, Jr., my eyes almost popped out of my head, and I thanked him (a bit too) enthusiastically for his work on Vampirella’s revival. It totally charmed him, and he asked what I did in comics. I explained I was a small presser with a character named Lorelei—a Vampi-inspired succubus—who was planning on expanding to full-size comics. Louis asked if he could see my stuff, so I led him to my table and showed him my Lori comics.

“You know what?” Louis asked, and proceeded to tell me about his problems with Harris. “But you, you’re showing me so much respect for my work… Would you be interested in me doing a cover for you? I’ll do it for free.”

Wow. Well, how could I say no?

Louis did two covers, in fact, when the full-size Lori comics debuted: Lorelei #0 and Lorelei #1. (You can see his #0 cover on our digital comic Lorelei #1: The 30th Anniversary Edition; I have plans to reprint the cover for #1 on a separate project.) A few years later, he provided cover art for what would become Lorelei Presents: House Macabre. We also collaborated on the original concepts for Hearstopper: The Legend of La Bella Tenebrosa, before he had to bow out of the project early on. And I’ve still got layout sketches from a Lorelei comic story he and I had talked about doing, but never got around to.

Louis became quite the popular artist following his Vampirella debut (of course!). He was artist and cocreator (with writer Robert Rodi) of the sexy spy series Codename: Knockout, for DC Comics, then went on to work on various DC projects that included Adventure Comics 80-Page Giant (a Supergirl story inked by Jackson “Butch” Guice, who also passed away this year) and Batman 80-Page Giant #3. For Marvel, he drew Ka-Zar; for Continuity Comics, Ms. Mystic; for Image, Witchblade; for Valiant, Ninjak, Solar: Man of the Atom, and The Chaos Effect.

He even patched things up with Harris, returning to pencil a number of projects (Vampirella Strikes, Vampirella Strikes Annual, Vampirella/Shi, Vampirella/Lady Death) as well as tag-team with fellow artist Amanda Conner on story arcs for a relaunched Vampirella monthly series written by megastars Grant Morrison and Mark Millar.

I was last in touch with Louis around 2012. He’d contributed a pinup (“The Pan-tom of the Opera”) for “The 13 Days of Pan-demonium” art project that promoted the launch of my Pandora Zwieback character, and I’d sent him a copy of the graphic novel Lorelei: Sects and the City, which he enjoyed.

After that, Louis just sort of faded away from the comics industry. I know he taught art for a number of years, and I understand he became a regular at conventions and comic shop appearances, keeping in touch with his fanbase while inspiring the next generation of comic artists to pursue their dreams, as he had done. I’m glad he was able to know how much he was appreciated.

Louis, you were a hell of a great guy, and a hell of an artist. I wish we’d been able to work together more, but I’m glad for the time we had, and appreciate the encouragement you showed to a struggling small presser.

Rest in peace, buddy.