Chuck
By The Eva Monkey on Monday, February 22nd, 2021
I didn’t know Chuck really well, but like a lot of people in the convention scene that you saw several weekends out of a year, we were friendly, and enjoyed sharing our love for various nerdy things with each other. In my case, that largely revolved around Evangelion, and other closely associated works.
I don’t remember when I actually met Chuck, he was just always there, he was always a part of Otakon, either working registration, or running around with that slight hobble that he had. For a number of years, he would have that mass of convention badges, proof that he was a veteran of the scene, that he had been around for ages. He made me want to collect more badges, and add more notches to my convention belt.
Chuck was hard to miss, he was older than many of us, and with that bushy beard of pure white, he stuck out among the crowd. I recall a friend once referring to Chuck as something like “Father Time”. It might not have been out of affection or respect, but there’s something fitting about it. Chuck was always there, and I thought Chuck would always be there, as if mortality somehow didn’t apply to him.
Chuck first entered my orbit when I began my tenure as a panelist. It might not have been the first Evangelion panel I presented, but he attended several, and sometimes we would talk a bit after. He was old enough to be my father, but it didn’t matter, we connected over a mutual love of Evangelion and similar anime.
In the mid 2000s, years before smartphones became ubiquitous. Chuck carried around a manilla folder with various bits of fan art or funny images he had printed off the internet. It’s quaint in retrospect, but he had figured out his own low-tech, analog way of image sharing. Someone mentioned he showed them an image from the extracanonical Evangelion visual novel Girlfriend of Steel, where Evangelion Unit-00 goes fishing, complete with an Eva-sized fishing pole, basket, and folding chair.
In particular, I remember him enthusiastically showing me an Evangelion fan art by Denise Jones, parodying Ghostbusters and featuring the fan-designed Diemay angel, in place of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Like pretty much all of us, Chuck would eventually upgrade to a smartphone, and would continue to enthusiastically push cute cat pictures and silly memes to our attention, as we congregated in the hallways at Otakon staff meetings.
Having spent years in the Evangelion fandom, people have contributed various items to my collection. One particularly unique item he gave me many years back was an unused guest badge for Hideaki Anno, writer and director of Evangelion, for Otakon 1999. The story goes that Anno was so narrowly a guest that year that it was never formally announced, but such that a badge was still printed for him. For whatever reason, it failed to coalesce in the eleventh hour, and at this point, seldom few will even remember the circumstances. One of the only pieces of physical evidence of this bit of Otakon apocrypha is that unlaminated guest badge. As Chuck told me, he saved it from a pile of materials that was destined for the trash. He said he figured someone would treasure it, and so he passed it along to me years later. To this day, it is one of, if not the most prized item in my collection. It’s a long shot, but I would like to have Anno sign it some day.
Chuck was a part of Otakon’s history, and it’s fitting that he would play a key role in the creation of the Otakon museum. He collected and preserved numerous items, going all the way back to the first Otakon in 1994. I know he won’t be forgotten anytime soon, but I’m relieved to know a part of Otakon will endure as his legacy. I hope more people will take the time to visit the Otakon museum in the future.
Whether I was an attendee, a panelist, or a staffer, Chuck was always there. He was friendly, kind, hardworking, dependable, and he gave a lot to the conventions that he frequented. Otakon will not be the same without him. The next time I’m able to go, I’m bringing my now sizable collection of badges, and if anyone asks, I’m going to tell them about Chuck.