I'm sad. I've never even met the guy, but I'm sad. The most unbiased, logical and articulate animation critic and enthusiast has passed away. Will there ever be another guy like him? I find that when many critics and bloggers write about animation, they can sound biased, inconsistent, occasionally difficult to understand... Emru wasn't like that. I remember his Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda reviews being very well thought out, while others were either blindly praising or bashing said films. I won't name names. I loved that his main complaint about Kung Fu Panda was the abundance of fat jokes. He is, after all, a panda. Who else would have thought of that? This was a guy who was thoughtful. Yes, thoughtful. Not fueled by anger against Adult Swim or Seth MacFarlane, just a thoughtful person who knew a lot about animation.
Emru Townsend was an expert on a wide variety of animation. I mean, this encompasses the likes of Looney Tunes, The Nine Old Men, Frederick Back, Norman McLaren, Rock and Rule, Ralph Bakshi, Aardman, anime and manga, animation installations, and just about anything related to animation, comics, cartoons, etc. Part of the diversity of FPS Magazine was due to the diversity of its contributing writers, but Emru himself had such a wealth of knowledge on the subject, he could have written the whole damn magazine himself. I'm not saying he should have, I'm just saying he knew a lot.
I'll still check FPS every day like I normally (try to) do, but Emru was FPS Magazine. It's still a great publication, one of the best out there. I know for a fact that Tamu, Kino Kid, and the whole FPS Staff are going to keep the website running strong.
Well, anyway... he will be missed. One more thing though. For those of you who donated bone marrow in reaction to Emru, keep donating when you are able to. If you didn't donate, but wanted to, you can still help save someone's life. Visit Heal Emru for more information.
