R.I.P. Jok Church, creator of Beakman’s World, You Can With Beakman & Jax

Jok Church, creator of both the Beakman’s World television show and the You Can With Beakman & Jax comic strip, has died. He was 67.
Church, who was born in Akron, Ohio, created You Can With Beakman & Jax in 1991 after a stint working at Lucasfilm answering George Lucas’ fan mail. The strip, which first ran in his local paper in Marin County, California, was the first comic ever drawn and distributed by computer—a Macintosh SE using Adobe Illustrator. A sort of guided question and do-it-yourself answer, You Can With Beakman And Jax invited readers to write in with their science questions, which would then be explained via an experiment the kids could perform at home. It’s still published today, and according to a San Francisco Bay Times story, about 80 percent of the letters the strip receives are from young women.
At its peak, the comic was published in 300 newspapers in 13 countries, reaching about 52 million readers. According to SF Gate, at the time of his death, Church was working on strips about why rubber balls bounce and what makes glue stick.