I guess I'm breaking the first two rules just by posting this...

... but apparently there was a real life Fight Club recently in New York's Union Square. Here's a picture...


And here's a link to the story.

Buy my comics, make me rich: BLUE BEETLE #27

No CATWOMAN this week, kids, but I do have an issue of BLUE BEETLE on the stands. It's a done-in-one deal, which means if you've been tempted to sample one of DC's best books (and I'm not saying that just because I wrote a couple of issues), this might be a fine time. It's got young romance, teen angst, the destruction of a shopping mall, a discussion of "The Old Man and the Sea" and, of course, a fight with demons. Here's the cover...

Nice, eh? It's by Rafael Albuquerque, who also provides the interior art. Give it a chance -- I don't think you'll be disappointed. I had a swell time writing it.

Q: Is Sharon Stone an idiot?

A: Why yes, as a matter of fact, she is.

Apparently, when asked about the recent quake in China at the Cannes film fest, Ms. Stone had this to say: "Well, you know, it was very interesting…I am unhappy about the way Chinese are treating the Tibetans… Then all this earthquake,all this stuff happened, I thought, is that Karma? When you are not nice, the bad things happen to you."

Two observations:

1. This is just as asinine as some Christian moron like Falwell or Robertson saying 9/11 happened because of the wrath of god on our sinful country.

2. Why would anyone ask Sharon Stone about the earthquake in China? Or anything else, for that matter? She's famous for flashing her nether regions in BASIC INSTINCT 18 years ago. End of story.

Buy my comics, make me rich: CATWOMAN #79

Out today, kids, is CATWOMAN #79, which finally brings our gal Selina back to good ol' Gotham city. Here's the cover by Adam Hughes, which I think conveys just the right triumphant note...

As always, bring your comments, questions and (ahem) criticisms here and I'll do my level best to address them.

Rest in peace, Will Elder

Wow. This is a bad one.

Will Elder, one of the most talented, influential and just-plain funny comic book artists who ever lived, has died at the age of 86.

I've written before about how seeing reprints of the comic book version of MAD as a kid was one of those road to Damascus moments in my life, a vision of comic book satire so startling that it actually scared me a bit. Wally Wood's babes were impressive, sure, and Jack Davis' art was intriguingly grungy, but it was Elder who really did it for me, whether it was his twisted version of Riverdale High in STARCHIE! or Melvin Mole using his last nosehair to dig a path straight to the electric chair in MOLE!

For instance, I can still remember seeing this panel of Wedgie Van Smelt trying to sell a freshman a school pass in STARCHIE! Funny, sure, and brilliantly drawn, but there's a darkness to the drawing, a way the characters have weight and menace the real Archie kids don't. People say Elder was a master mimic -- and he was, probably the best the field has ever seen -- but even that title is selling him short. He didn't just duplicate the styles of other artists, he twisted them slightly, revealing the rough sides of those smoooooth house-style pen lines.

And, all mimicking aside, the guy could draw too -- draw like a master. His own art style had an inviting, open feel that nevertheless made the most of well-placed shadows and varied line weights. Just check out this panel from MICKEY RODENT!, where Elder's own style offers a dark, disturbing contrast to the familiar, friendly style of the Disney studio. In fact, that's the joke!

I'm talking a lot about Elder's MAD work because (a) that's what really had an effect on me, and (b) I happen to have my copy of TOTALLY MAD handy, so it's easy to find images. But MAD was just the beginning for Elder -- he did brilliant work (usually with his friend and collaborator Harvey Kurtzman) for HUMBUG, TRUMP, HELP, PAGEANT and PLAYBOY. The "Goodman Beaver" strips for HELP are beautiful examples of Elder's black-and-white line work, and for luscious color cartooning, you really can't do any better than PLAYBOY'S "Little Annie Fanny." (Thankfully, almost all the Goodman strips are collected in Fantagraphic's massive WILL ELDER: THE MAD PLAYBOY OF ART, and almost all the Annie strips are available in two collections from Dark Horse. )

Speaking of, I really can't recommend MAD PLAYBOY OF ART highly enough. Besides the Goodman strips, it includes several strips from MAD and PANIC, rare stuff from PAGEANT, HUMBUG and TRUMP, lots of Elder's personal work (and it is bee-yoo-ti-ful) plus an extensive biography and, to top it all off, an intro from Dan Clowes. If you have any appreciation for satire, comic book art of just plain brilliant drawings, get yourself a copy post-haste.

I never had the chance to meet Mr. Elder, but I've read dozens of interviews with friends and co-workers, most of them still amazed at his sense of humor and the crazy practical jokes he used to pull. It's rare -- maybe even unique -- for such an apparently wild personality to be housed in the same body as such brilliant artistic skills, but in Will Elder's case, it was obviously the perfect combination.

We won't see the likes of him again. Just be glad we did at all.

Hard to believe...

... it was ten years ago today. For the record:

Favorite Album: "Songs for Swingin' Lovers"

Favorite Movie: "The Manchurian Candidate"

Favorite Book: Pete Hamill's "Why Sinatra Matters," especially the first chapter describing a low-key night out with Sinatra sometime in the 1970s.

And, in movie news, Martin Scorsese is apparently considering a biopic of the man himself. Scorsese's definitely the one to direct something like this, but who the hell are you going to cast?

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.

Finally.

Look what I got in the mail yesterday, thanks to the generosity of my CATWOMAN collaborator David Lopez...

Yes, it's the much anticipated (by me, anyway) trade collection of FINALS, the four-issue Vertigo mini-series that was my pro comics debut way back in 1999. Never been reprinted here in the states -- or in English, for that matter -- but Recerca Editorial reprinted it in Spain. Jill Thompson, FINALS co-creator, picked up a copy during a recent trip to Europe, and David was kind enough to send me a few for my own files.

It's a nice little package (and by little, I mean it's almost an inch shorter than your average U.S. trade). Printed on crisp, white paper so those colors of Rick Taylor's really pop. No extras, but it does have all the text pages that kicked off each issue, and Jill's great covers are part of the book, acting like chapter headings. The cover itself is the original cover of issue 1, and the back cover has a detail from issue 3's cover.*

Couple of odd little touches, though. There's a profile of Jill and me on the inside back cover, and while they use a photo of Jill (I think it ran on an issue of COMIC BOOK ARTIST a few years back, for me they use the old X-ray Spex logo (i.e., the one at the top of this blog). Also, my Spanish is a bit rusty, but I'm pretty sure they twice credit me as writing Y-THE LAST MAN. Sorry guys -- that's Brian K. Vaughan.

Next step: Figure out who owes me money for this little book.

* Here's a little behind-the-scenes info about that third issue cover. It shows Nancy, the budding cult leader, and her followers desperately cramming for final exams. The table, naturally, is littered with coffee cups, text books, scraps of paper and ... jelly beans? Well, those innocent looking beans were originally intended to be speed, which I figured was the natural method desperate students at a school like Knox State would use to assist them in their late-night studies. (I've heard tell that even in actual, non-fictional schools, that sort of thing has been known to take place.) But apparently, while it's OK to show all manner of sex and violence in a Vertigo comic, it is not OK to advocate the use of amphetimines as a study aid. (At least on the cover -- Jill did manage to sneak a few prescription bottles of something into the scene in the actual issue.)

Well, the Marvel Universe is centered in New York...

Nice to see that Harry Bliss, who drew the cartoon for this week's New Yorker Caption Contest, is a fan of classic Jack "King" Kirby Marvel monster comics...

Even better -- this week's cover is by Dan "The Man" Clowes. (Which I unfortunately can't find a decent image of to post here. Sorry!)

Update: Mark Evanier reveals the exact cover Mr. High Faluting New Yorker cartoonist swiped.