John Slaby, the artist who designed the artwork for all of Title Fight‘s releases from The Last Thing You Forget onwards, as well as the mural in Wilkes-Barre that was immortalized on the Hyperview cover, has passed away. His parter Laura broke the sad news on Saturday, writing, “I’m devastated to have to announce that my beloved John has passed away today, February 16th 2024. John died peacefully with me, his sister Melissa, brother in law Eric, and his parents Mary and John, telling him how loved he is by us all. To be loved by John G Slaby is the greatest gift I have ever received in life.”
Title Fight have also posted a lengthy tribute and photo gallery, speaking about their time meeting John in the Northeastern PA music, art, and skateboarding community in the early 2000s, asking him to work with the band in 2008, and the impact that he left on them and those around them. It reads:
We were fortunate enough to come of age in a time in Northeastern PA where it felt like culture was created out of thin air. Music, art, and skateboarding flourished and yet were largely ignored by most people, which created an interconnected and underground network for us to discover. The North East Skate Crew regularly hosted video premiers at Cafe Metropolis, the same venue where we first began playing. Those early videos were foundational for us, and the skateboarder we gravitated towards the most was John Slaby. You could easily see personality through his parts. This was the early 2000s.
A short period of time passed. We become a band and were trying to release music in earnest. In the same amount of time it took us to figure out what we wanted to sound and look like, Slaby had become an established fine artist. He had a cohesive body of work that was instantly recognizable: meticulous, transcendental depictions of nature with small but thoughtful moments of human intrusions, like a sticker, trash, film crew, or a train. In 2008, we asked Slaby if he would be interested in working together to create art for our debut on Run For Cover, a 7” we called The Last Thing You Forget. He agreed. We were ecstatic. It was like getting a commission from Henri Rousseau, if Rousseau lived two towns over and could fakie nosegrind.
We continued working with John for all of our releases, our work and his becoming more intertwined over time. Our entire aesthetic was defined by John’s work, and continues to be so to this day. We wouldn’t have been able to become the band we were able to become without the worlds that John helped create, the visual one that is seen on the covers of our records and the physical one we existed in at home.
Title Fight is forever grateful for the guidance and friendship we received from John. We will love and miss him forever.
John also went on to do artwork for other bands’ records, including Turnover‘s 2017 album Good Nature, and Title Fight’s old friends in Tigers Jaw‘s 2019 “Eyes Shut” 7″. Tigers Jaw cancelled their acoustic show at Philadelphia’s City Winery because of the news of John’s passing, and will be rescheduling it for a later date.
Alex Russin of Cold World (and the older brother of Title Fight members Ned and Ben Russin) posted the Title Fight Shed artwork and wrote, “You see an abandoned warehouse but for some of us this is hallowed grounds. The art that this place gave us defined generations. No one outside our world cared then but, god damn do they care now. And nothing could ever visually encapsulate that more than this painting. This is my favorite album art of all time. 💐 P. S. @johnslaby may be the only artist who throws an 85mph fastball.”
Rest in peace, John.
