by Mike C.

I’m deeply sorry for your loss. Eric was a close childhood friend and former neighbor of mine. I last saw him (and Terence) on the day of Mrs. Mylonas’ funeral 20 something years ago. A few days ago, after all these years had passed, I was looking on Facebook for a way to reconnect with him; I was both saddened and stunned to discover this page.

When I read here that Eric had been “an accomplished author” it didn’t surprise me at all; He was always so intelligent. When we’d runaround as kids pretending to be our favorite super heroes he chose a character of his own creation: Bubble Man. Bubble man was a Green Lantern-like character who had the power to create anything with hardened bubbles (bubble arrows, bubble forcefields, you name it!) Eric always had an ingenious solution for everything and his hero could never be beaten!

One day, in about 6th grade, I remember being in his room and seeing a yellow box with all these Marvel Super Heroes on it. I was a big Spidey fan, so I was curious. I asked him what it was and he told me it was a game. I wanted to play, but he told me it was too complicated to explain. So he let me borrow it, I read the rules within a couple of days, and we both started playing it shortly afterward. And that’s how I got hooked on tabletop roleplaying games, which I still thoroughly enjoy to this day…

Over the years Eric and I took turns running the original TSR Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying game for each other. I took my inspiration from Spider-Man, while Eric was inspired by more sophisticated comics like DC’s New Gods. My plots were generally simple and street-oriented while Eric’s characters were always built for cosmic scenarios. When I ran the game, Eric usually played Prism, a hero he created who had a crystalline body as hard as diamond. Once I staged an alien invasion with 3 powerful (so I thought) rulers from another dimension. Prism took them on single handedly and (of course, as Prism always did) won. Most players would have left it at that, but not Eric. Once Prism/Eric realized that the scepter was the source of the defeated leader’s power, he had it surgically implanted in his back, giving himself a huge cosmic power boost! Of course that made him even more unstoppable!

When Eric ran the Marvel game for my own characters he always had these elaborate, grand, cosmic-level plots, while my heroes were always just street-level. Eric seemed to delight in putting those heroes into impossible situations that they could never get out of on their own! I still vividly remember the time that he (as Judge/GM) turned Action Boy into a tree and had Prism and all his cosmic level friends save him! What an embarrassment for Action Boy!

I slept over often, and we both played these games well into our high school years. I have fond memories of us sneakily staying up late (occasionally all night!) ignoring Mrs. Mylonas’ strict command to “Get to bed!” (But whenever she caught us defying her, she always seemed surprisingly cool about it.) Eric eventually got bored with playing the Marvel game and moved onto other things, but for as long as I can remember he always had a passion for video games. Eric was a video game genius! I remember him starting and finishing video games in the course of days. When he eventually got a job getting paid to play video games he invited me to get involved too, but I was skeptical and told him it was a scam. Boy was I wrong! (It was only a few years ago that I found out that he was actually quite successful with it!)

These are just a few of many memories that I have of Eric. I still think of him frequently and I deeply regret that I never got the chance to talk to him again, to reminisce and laugh about stories from the old days in the neighborhood.

RIP Eric Mylonas. I will always remember you.

Mike C.

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