I had a blast drawing Haspiel’s character Billy Dogma in this here image: my birthday card to Brooklyn’s own maker of the donuts, Dean Haspiel, which was yesterday. Happy birthday, Son Head.

Speaking of broad shoulders, here’s a preliminary drawing I did of Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon (as well as the villain, Abner Cadaver; see below). I thought it’d be cool to show them here considering how I was recently interviewed over at the Daily Crosshatch regarding “Twisted Savage Dragon Funnies”.

ITEM! Remember the debut issue of the new literary magazine, Cousin Corinne’s REMINDER? Yeah, well, the comic section titled “Comix Block” has been recently reviewed by Jeffrey C. Burandt for Graphic NYC. It’s a great, insightful review that while praising the works within, also questions whether the comix section should really be clumped into a “block” or not.

Man, this entire post reeks of “me, me , me”, huh? Ooops. Above is a great Alex Toth page that I’ve been looking at for years yet still haven’t come across the entire story. It’s from an issue of “PLOP”, I believe. How great would it be to have a collection of Toth stories from the 70s? He did some random and wild stuff in that era, and although it’s fun to hunt or discover back issues, longbox hopping isn’t conducive to introducing, nay, convincing readers that Toth was the best.

I recently listened to a Mark Chiarello interview over at Sidebar, and Mark recounts his relationship with Alex Toth. Thing is, Mark was trying to put together a Toth book but was always being met with resistance from DC (which led to his unfortunate but expected falling out with Toth). The overall interview is really good, but it kills me that a Toth book is an “almost-was” and not a staple in everybody’s library.

Finally, I recommend listening to Todd Hignite’s interview over at Robin McConnell’s INKSTUDS. Hignite is the writer/curator of the recent “Art of Jaime Hernandez: The Secrets of Life & Death” book. It would be insulting to just briefly explain how much of a considerable impact this book has made on me, so I’ll save it for another time. For now, listen to the interview and read the book.