Everyone who knew Hal has lost a friend. And my tears for him were shed when I sat down with my daughter Wednesday evening, and gently told her he was gone…I found it impossible to hold it together when she ran into my arms weeping.

But now, I’d rather tell a few stories, most of which make me laugh. Understand, most of these stories are from my perspective, which is going to be a little different than anyone else’s. Many will be punctuated with photos, or video, or audio…I like to think Hal would appreciate that, especially considering how he put his book together visually, organizing the layout via graphics and then writing the text to match. And I know this, because I was around during that time…I got to see early drafts of chapters, and was the “go-to” guy when it came to doing non-standard things with the computer software he was using. You might recognize the photo on the right as the one from the cover of his book…but look at it carefully, as this was the way that publicity photo looked originally before Hal added the “S” on Jughead’s shirt, the buttons on his cap, and the other design elements he preferred over the original. If he were here now, I’d also probably say he spent hours making the guy in the photo more handsome, to which he would have a mildly obscene rejoinder. (That he inscribed this photo to me is an alteration from the original you couldn’t pay me to remove.) I don’t profess to have his eye for design, and he’d probably have a fistful of suggestions to make this look better, but I’ll do what I can to make him proud.
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From the New York Daily News: R.I.P. Jughead

David Hinckley, writer for the Daily News who has always been generous with his comments about the Friends of Old-Time Radio Convention, posted a goodbye to Hal Stone in his latest column. (Thanks to Sean Dougherty for the pointer.)