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Cover Stories
Comic book companies will sometimes have a cover drawn for a book
and then before it goes to press, someone in the office will say, "Jeepers, that
sucks" (or words to that effect) and they'll have it retouched or completely
redone. So here we have some examples of...
King of the Comics
   
He never called himself that but everyone else did. That's because he was in on the creation of more memorable characters and
concepts than anyone else in the field. I was honored to know and work with one of the comic book field's authentic geniuses so I've assembled
a special section on this site devoted to...
You Were a Good Man, Charlie Schulz
For a guy who couldn't pitch, couldn't fly a kite and couldn't talk to the Little Red-Headed Girl, Charlie Brown sure had good
timing. And maybe his cartoonist couldn't win a ball game either, but he sure could create the most popular comic strip of all time. I
wrote this in Las Vegas the day after that cartoonist died and when I went downstairs afterwards, no matter where I went, I was hearing snatches of
conversation about...
Tee Vee Funnybooks
Years ago, a company called Western Publishing used to put out wonderful comic books based on popular TV shows of the day. Here's
a look at their glorious and spurious output...
Comics by the Guy Whose Website This Is
I've co-created a mess of comic books over the years. Here's a section devoted to The DNAgents, Crossfire, The Mighty Magnor,
Space Circus, a few others and, of course, Groo the Wanderer...
And here's a section devoted to when I've worked on characters in which I have no proprietary interest. I call it...
Among the many things I do that will never net me a dime is to host an infinite number of panels at each year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Here are some of those chats...
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Comics as Relay Race
Any time more than one creative talent works on a comic book or strip, it can turn into a real tag-team match, as discussed in these
columns...
Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!
It may be the only thing Janet Reno and Dan Quayle ever agreed on: Neither of them have a good word to say about Garry Trudeau's bully
pulpit of the funny pages...and I find I don't like too many politicians who don't. Of course, I don't like too many politicians. Here
are some thoughts about political humor, comic strips and political humor in comic strips, as exemplified by...
A sad part of writing a column about comics is how often you have to write obits for people whose work you admired. And in most
cases, they're people you knew and liked personally. Here's a sampling of such columns...
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Strange Bedfellows
Here's a piece that will make more sense if you take note of the date when it was originally published. It's some thoughts that I
had when I was asked about doing comic books that sometimes incorporated even a smidgen of...
Con Game
Each year, thousands of unprepared people venture into those scary, foreboding events known as comic book conventions. Many do
not make it out alive. To increase the odds of survival, we've prepared this handy-dandy reference work...
Comedy Before Christ
Between B.C. and Wizard of Id, Johnny Hart's syndicate claims that he's the Number One syndicated cartoonist in the
world. I don't think he is. When this was published, I got a number of angry letters defending his integrity but not one that argued his
claim was accurate. We call this...
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