Craig Maloney

The Internet's a funny place. You make friends you never meet, and sometimes inevitably you lose a friend, too. In June of 2024, the Internet lost Craig Maloney, a creative contributor to free culture, RPG, podcasting, and open source.

I never met Craig, or even talked to him, but I became a fan of his the day I discovered his Open Metal Cast, a podcast that played indie heavy metal licensed under a Creative Commons license. The music he uncovered was really good, and it accounts for several albums in my music library. I was never much of a radio listener, but I love podcasts, and his Open Metal Cast was THAT "radio" show for me. You know the kind of show. The one you eagerly anticipate because you genuinely have no idea what the DJ is going to play , but you just know it's going to change your outlook on the week. Craig introduced me to so much great music, and every beat of every song reinforced the promise and vigour of culture that artists and fans share freely with each other and each other's community. Every song was a kind of anthem for open source and open culture, and Craig's introduction each week was the voice.

Craig also contributed to Pepper & Carrot, a comic book series by David Revoy (I use some of David's amazing artwork on my website). Eventually, Craig's in-depth knowledge of the fictional universe Pepper & Carrot produced an RPG based on the FATE system, available on Itch.io. I have yet to play the game, but not being a fan of FATE I have to admit I'm mostly interested in the game for what it reveals about the lore. Obviously, the Pepper & Carrot project was lucky to have a contributor like Craig. He cared about the world, and he made it available to somebody who likes comics but habitually picks up RPG source books first.

Craig did a bunch of stuff online, all in the same spaces as me. He probably didn't know I existed, but he was appreciated. I'm sorry to see that he's gone now, and I'm happy to have benefited from his work and his hobby. And realistically, I'll continue to benefit from what he gave the Internet, and that's a pretty cool legacy.