Having received an absolutely-expected rejection letter from Baen has brought mixed feelings.
Tossing a work into the slush pile of one of the major publishers is – given the number of submissions they receive and the amount of time they have to consider each work – an utter lottery. Art is subjective, even pulpy art, and good work can simply miss the right set of eyes.
That said, I got a nice little personal note (beyond the standard form letter copy/paste) indicating there was genuine interest. It may not have made the final cut, but someone over at Baen flagged my first attempt at a novel as a real possibility for publication, and, as we stagger out of 2016, that’s enough to feel like a minor victory.
In Search Of often comes up, but many remember him for his writing, his comic creations, and his photography. Here was a man who was willing to look at what was considered strange and alien with respect, and welcome it with open arms. In an age when we flew star ships on strings and leveled nuclear weapons at members of our own species, he worked to make familiar that which was alien. In an age when body shaming was an accepted standard, he risked his reputation to take photos that demonstrated the beauty outside the supposed ideal. 
I’m witnessing the future happen before my eyes. When I was a youth the ground was thick with death rumours regarding the celebrities of the time. I seem to recall Marilyn Manson having died at least thrice of overdose, and Eddie Murphy was, I believe, in at least one fatal car crash. It was easy for this sort of thing to get started, as the internet’s connectivity and ease of verification was just beginning to filter down into high school libraries. It was, strangely, often up to radio hosts to dispel such folklore.
