Every once in awhile you meet somebody that you just click with. Sully was one of those guys. It was a beautiful Colorado afternoon. The day was June 14th and the Denver Comic Con was opening the next day. Mile High Comics was having one of their great comic auctions, this one was special though. As I drove up Jason St I noticed a long line to get in. I expected this because of all the great things that were going on. As I pulled into the lot I gathered up my Reel Nerds gear, t-shirt, business cards and some stickers. I walked to the end of the line, and the young man in front of me was a big guy. He turned and smiled and said “This is so cool, huh?” I said “Ya it really is.” The tall man looked down on my shirt and said “What’s Reel Nerds?”. I was excited because our shirts got attention and the first guy I met asked about it. I told him about our podcast and gave him a business card and sticker and said my name was Ryan. Again with a big smile he said, “Hi Ryan, I’m Sully” (I didn’t find out until later that his real name was Alex but his friends called him Sully.)
So as we slowly marched towards the doors of the comic shop we got to talking. We joked about how our wives put up with our comic books and all of our other nerdy stuff. We also couldn’t believe we had wives! I mean we are nerds! He also said that his favorite character was Nightwing. I said “Sully, your favorite character is Nightwing and you are wearing an Avengers shirt!” He said “I know but the movie was badass! And I like all comics!”
We finally made it in and he said that he would say hi again but he was looking for a comic for his dad and a couple other things. I asked if he needed help looking and he said no that he wrote down what he needed but thanks. James came up to me few minutes later and said he met a really cool guy, named Sully! He was saying how nice and cool he was I said I had the same experience with him! He was the same way to two strangers, which says a lot about what kind of person he was.
The next day at Comic-Con we were frantic. We were doing interviews and setting up our booth and didn’t have time to scope things out. I will never forget when Sully came and saw us. He had a big smile(this is a recurring theme with him). He said “wow, you guys have great booth” With his smile you had to believe him, it was the most reassuring thing anyone said to me about our show. He then said that he was still on the hunt for items on his list and he would say bye before the show ended.
Sully returned a few hours later and was giddy. He said ” Ryan, check this out” He pulled out an amazing commissioned sketch of Nightwing! It was totally bad ass. I asked Sully if he wanted to be on our show. He declined but he said he would tweet and send us emails, and boy did he ever.
Sully became our number one fan(I like to think that anyways). At least once a week he would send us a tweet about movies we were seeing. A couple of times it would be at midnight and we would be waiting for the same movie, at different theaters. Here is my favorite tweet that Sully ever sent us:
@reel_nerds the movie brave and it suck ass!
Sully thought that it was “Brother Bear meets Freaky Friday”. Brilliant.
We only knew Sully for a short time but he became a friend. He was always funny and he will be missed. He helped us have another voice on our podcast by sending us funny and always great moments from movies he was at or experienced. This story isn’t about us. This is a story about a friend who was taken too early. We want everyone to remember that Sully was a great guy with an even greater smile, please remember him for that and the other 11 people who lost their lives. We were so lucky to have met him and we will continue to think of him every week we do this show.
To Sully,
Ryan Frost Host, The Reel Nerds
