original art

Fishnets Planet.

filed under Categories original art 2 Comments

So a while back, when he popped into the shop, I pestered Jed Dougherty about maybe commissioning a piece on a sketch cover for his new Image Comics series Free Planet. Jed (who’s an old friend of pal Dorian and a regular at the shop) said he’d be happy to do something for me, and asked what I’d like. I just said “oh, surprise me.”

And sure enough, Jed did surprise me, as a couple of days ago he popped back into the shop with this:


Now, I had expected a character or situation from the Free Planet comic itself, but, you know, I’ll take an original Zatanna drawing, absolutely. And as I said to Jed, maybe she is in the comic, just standing behind someone in a crowd scene or something.

That was some nice work by Jed, and I’m glad to have it. And if you all haven’t been reading Free Planet, give it a try!

What sound does the Swamp Thing Signal Watch make?

filed under Categories fantastic four, how the sausage is made, original art, pins, swamp thing 18 Comments

So I received a nice surprise in the mail on Tuesday…a postcard from Steve Lieber advertising the forthcoming hardcover collection of the Jimmy Olsen series he with with Matt Fraction:


If that cover seems familiar, here’s why.

On the back of the postcard is info about the book, plus a special handdrawn message from Mr. Lieber his own self:


A closer look:


Very nice. Made my day getting this card. And, if y’all haven’t read that Jimmy Olsen series yet, this is as good a way as any to check it out. It’s a great run, very funny and imaginative, and one of my favorites.

• • •

In other surprises-shipped-to-the-store news, I received last Friday an envelope from Marvel marked “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 6/16” so I went ahead and opened it up immediately because c’mon guys, I don’t have time for this “do not open until Christmas” nonsense. (And it’s “616 Day” for reasons discussed in the links I put in this post the other day.)

Anyway, inside was a note from Marvel saying they’re trying to get 6/16 to be “Marvel Day” or whatever, and they’re kicking it off with some new, branded variant covers for recent Marvels, like this one for X-Men #15:


So anyway, I put those out for sale on Monday, but not put out for sale was this item, a set of Fantastic Four pins:


Pretty cool, thinks me. And as someone who likes pins, I’m just gonna hang onto these, thank you very much.

I think future 616 Days may be better served by some kind of freebie comic instead of just “collectibles” to be marked up. (And if they’re going to ship pins like these with comics in the future, they might want to do a better job making sure the clasps on the back don’t get crushed into the covers of those special variants when the envelope containing everything is at the bottom of a box with piles of books on top of it.)

• • •

Okay, we kinda lost the thread a tiny bit with the Final ’90s Countdown, in which the intention was to only cover titles that began in 1990 or later.

However, this have resulted in a lot of hair-splitting and questionable decision-making and whathaveyou and sometimes something slips through the cracks, like 1989’s The Mask.

So, there will be some sidebars to the Final ’90s Countdown with some “Honorary ’90s Comics” — titles like Eightball and From Hell, all technically beginning in the very late ’80s but are very associated with the ’90s. Look, I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, but these comics should be discussed, even if they were disqualified from the initial vote.

It’s a little bit of a mess, but at least we get to talk about a bunch of good comics!

Not so much mad as jealous.

filed under Categories mad magazine, original art, pal brook 4 Comments

So pal Brook (whom I should make a category for on this site, he comes up often enough) (and so I have) made another original art acquisition…this time, an original page from a Mad paperback by Angelo Torres:


This is, believe it or not, Brook’s fifth page from the same book. I told him to keep going and get all the art from it…surely that wouldn’t be too hard.

I believe the book in question is History Gone Mad from 1977, drawn by Torres and written by Tom Koch. Brook only told me the name of the book multiple times and my aged brain didn’t retain the info. But, that seems to be the likely suspect.

And the piece is great…I love seeing the paste-up work and the handwritten page number on the original art at the top. And the linework is so clean, as is the toning. This is a beautifully and expertly executed piece of illustration.

The hand “acting” is wonderful, with the fella digging into his pocket for change, and the messenger waiting for the tip to be placed in his hand:


And oh, that messenger’s face — perfection:


And yes, that is a little “a. torres” signature newly added to the piece at the bottom there, between those wonderful pairs of shoes. What a great art piece this is. Thanks to Brook for letting me get my dirty hands and even dirtier blog all over it.

“All life is a blur of Republicans and meat!” — Zippy.

filed under Categories obituary, original art, undergrounds 3 Comments


Whelp, I suppose I’m an original art collector now, having followed up my Nancy strip purchases with this, an original pen-and-ink drawing of Zippy the Pinhead by his creator, Bill Griffith.

This is via the official Zippy the Pinhead webpage, though the actual arranging of the purchase had to be done via email (since the site’s payment processing is not working at the moment). This particular item allows you to pick either from a list of pre-selected “Zippy-isms” (like the ol’ standby “Yow! Are we having fun yet?”) to fill in the word balloon, or you can enter your own, if it’s not too long.

In my case I picked a Zippy quote from a published newspaper strip that probably baffled the squares but the real heads know:

And now here it is, an original Zippy pic in my very own home, bringing me inspiration and hope in this fallen world.

And I of course encourage you to get your own, or avail yourself of the many other goodies on the site. From the main page you can use a PayPal link to get yourself a signed copy of Griffith’s latest book, Three Rocks! Am I thinking really hard about doing so, even though I already have a copy? The answer is not “no.”

• • •

I want to note the passing of the great Bob Newhart, who escaped this world at the too-young age of 94. And I say “too young” because frankly, we could’ve used him around these parts for at least a couple more decades.

The comic book connection here is, of course, his short-lived sitcom Bob from the early ’90s, where he played a comic book artist. I watched most of these, and…well, Bob was always great even if the material wasn’t up to snuff. The one episode aimed directly at us nerds was the one where Bob’s character, “Bob McKay,” was accepting a comics award, with Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Jack Kirby, and for some reason Bob Kane, along with the always telegenic Sergio Aragones.

There was a six-issue run of Mad-Dog as a tie-in, supposedly the comic book McKay had worked on:

It was a flip book, featuring the “classic” version on one side (by Ty Templeton) and the “modern” dark, gritty version on the other (by Evan Dorkin and Gordon Purcell). The two different takes being a plot point on the show itself, you see. Haven’t read probably since it came out, couldn’t tell you a thing about it at this point, but…the creative teams give me at least some hope this is better than it should be.

So long, Bob.

Welcome to the house of sketches.

filed under Categories indies, original art 2 Comments

So Wednesday I mentioned I obtained a Pirate Corp$ sketch by Evan Dorkin about thirty years ago from…still can’t remember the guy’s name! Tad? Scott? Chickie? Chasley? No idea.

But I still have the sketch, and I realized it wasn’t fair to tell you about the sketch without showing it to you. As such, let me rectify the situation by presenting it now:


Nice pic of Blue and Charlie, I think! I adjusted the scan shown above to make the lines more visible. However, if you click on the pic you’ll get a very large image of the original unadjusted scan.

Pirate Corp$ (and later, Hectic Planet) was a fun comedy/adventure comic that well demonstrated Evan Dorkin’s penchant for being able to mix actual emotional drama with wild comedy. It’s another indie of yesteryear that I miss…unlikely to ever return, but at least I still have all the original issues to continue enjoying. And, of course, that wonderful original drawing.

It cost me two dollars in American loot (two-sixty Canadian).

filed under Categories indies, original art 4 Comments

At some point in the early 1990s, someone decided to hold a comic convention in our area, specifically in a large building at the Ventura Fairgrounds. It was also the same day as the usual giant swap meet that generally occupied the entire venue, so there were enormous crowds not there for the comic show that we had to navigate in order to set up our shop’s presence there.

Thirty years on I can’t recall much about the event beyond the inconvenience of trying to get in an’ out of there (especially during the middle of the day when one of us had to run back to the shop for something we needed). I do however recall three specific things (and one “maybe” thing):

1. Ol’ Forrest J. Ackerman speaking to a small but rapt group of fans, all of whom (Forry included) sitting on a bunch of folding chairs just kinda in the middle of the floor of the show, no separate room, nothin’ roped off. Just everyone kinda sittin’ there. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, especially Mr. Ackerman, a person I understand totally enjoying talking about stuff.

2. I bought a copy of volume one of the Action Comics Archive Edition for ten bucks in an auction.

3. The “maybe” thing: I believe it was at this show I picked up a group sketch by Evan Dorkin of the Pirate Corp$ cast for another ten bucks, from a fella who’d been active in the local comics retail scene at the time and was just trying to unload a bunch of his stock. Boy, I haven’t seen him in decades…I can’t even remember his name at this point. (Was it “Greg?” I can’t recall.) But I still have the sketch, framed and on display in the house! Anyway, if it wasn’t at this specific show, it was certainly around this time.

Remind me to scan and post that Pirate Corp$ sketch at some point.

And for 4) we’re back to a specific memory of this show, where cartoonist Mike Kazaleh was a guest, signing comics and drawing sketches for the folks who came to his table. Now, Mr. Kazaleh had then just started drawing for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics published by Archie, and that was the big selling point for his appearance at the show. As such, it appeared to be all TMNT all the time for him as he interacted with guests, drawing pics of Michelangelo and the other not-as-good Turtles, signing TMNT comics, and so on.

Now I was (and still am!) a fan of Kazaleh’s work, particularly of his creator-owned sci-fi anthropomorphic comic book series Adventures of Captain Jack. So, between waves of children hitting his table, I made my way over there, told him I was a fan, and asked if I could buy a sketch of Captain Jack.

Well, clearly he was surprised that there was actually someone there asking about something that wasn’t teenage or mutated or reptilian. He drew a quick but nice drawing in his sketchbook, ripped out the page, and handed it to me.

I said “Great! How much do I owe you?”

He replied “oh man, I’m just happy someone asked me about Jack. You can have it for free.”

Me: “Ah geez, I gotta pay you something.”

MK: “…Okay, how ’bout a dollar?”

Me: “Only a dollar? That’s not enough! …Look, I’ve got two dollars.”

MK: “Okay, sure!”

We had a pretty good laugh, and though I don’t remember the details of the other conversation we had, I do recall that I enjoyed talking to him. And yes, I should have at least given him $10, since that seemed to be the amount I was handing out at that show. If Mr. Kazaleh would like the additional eight dollars, I’ll happily send it his way.

Over the years, the sketch got stored away between some move or two over the last decade or so, where it stayed until I recently started digging through some boxes and pulling out some of my own old artwork. Now I have it out, and I need to find a frame for it.

And of course I’ve also finally scanned scanned it so I can show it off to you folks. I had to do a little brightness/contrast adjusting to maximize its visibility, as the art’s lines are pretty light. The actual paper is white, not this dingy color, I promise:


Isn’t that nice? I miss Captain Jack comics. I miss a lot of those ’80s/early ’90s indies.