Back in the day...

Here's an artifact from the early 1990s -- two of them, in fact. First, a clip of the once-famous Levis 501 commercial featuring Rob Leifeld, filmed back when Image Comics ruled the world. Rob shows up around the two-minute mark, so be patient (or scroll ahead)...



Nice, eh? Wonder why that SPIKEMAN comic never hit the stands? Must've been a victim of the comics industry collapse that hit a few years later.

And here's the second comic-related artifact from the early 1990s, a (very) short sequence from the last issue of my own self-published comic book VIOLENT MAN that spoofed the ad you just saw.

The premise for the joke was that I had sold the rights to VIOLENT MAN right before he became a huge hit (yeah, right) and Leifeld was now the artist on the book. It was all very meta, believe me, and very self-indulgent, too. But hell, it was a self-published mini-comic! Aren't those supposed to be self-indulgent?

The real joke was that I was incredibly slow putting out those issues, so a spoof of a commercial from 1991 finally saw "print" in 1994. The even-bigger joke was that the issue ended with a cliffhanger, and though it's been almost 15 years, I've never once seriously considered going back to finish the story. When I originally finished the issue, I had myself sitting down to watch the end of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, making some comment about how Lucas ended the story in the middle, making me wait years to see what happened.

Ho ho ho.

Want to see the best part of that final VIOLENT MAN issue? Check out this entry on my pal Jay Geldhof's blog, where he reprints the bee-yoo-tiful Playboy style centerfold he did for the comic -- gratis! Now that, my friends, is what comic book art is all about.