This is a job for Superman!

Fresh commission, done for Ethan Breedlove over at Ancillary Characters.  It's sort of a re-creation of JH Williams III's Superman 636 cover, by way of Joe Shuster.

Slurpeeeee! live in studio @ WKNC FM, late 1988/early 1989

So, not funnybook at all, but back in the day this is what me and my bros David Poole, Jac Cain, and Chuck Ross did.  This was recently digitized by our old sound guy, and it's got somebody else's tune as an intermission- I need to do some editing!  But in the meantime, you can edit it yourself after you right-click and download it here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/migol/Slurpeeee+on+WKNC.mp3

Update, 4/27/13
More unearthed Slurpeeeee!, this time from June '89 at The Brewery in Raleigh NC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/migol/Slurpeeeee+NC+Music+Showcase+6-1-89.mp3

Jean Graham Powell

It's nuts to me how little there is on the interwebs about folks that are 15-20 years gone.  My aunt Jean (technically great aunt, never called her that, though) was with the Washington Star in one capacity or another from the sixties until its doors closed in 1981.  She is unknown to Google, and in this, the week of her 85th birthday, I'm changing that, with a pic of Jean taken by Star staff photographer Ray Lustig in 1968.  She's been dead just over 20 years now, but here she is, on the internet, forever:

Jean would take me up the east coast to comic conventions (New York!  Philly!  New York!), she was a total funnybook enabler.  She lived in an apartment building with a 7-11 a flight of stairs away.  A 7-11 with a spinner rack.  Not 20 footsteps from her front door.  I could buy comics IN MY JAMMIES.  Good times, great aunt.

Happy birthday, Jean.


Update, 3/18/13

Let down by my scant knowledge of Jean's career, I contacted Jean's BFF and fellow Star staffer Barbara Kober and got this back:

"Jean was a general reporter in the Portfolio features section of The Star.  And later an editor of the Saturday section.  She was chosen for that job because she understood how to use color in a newspaper, which was fairly new at the time.  She was also a master of good writing, and always-- unlike most editors and reporters-- kept a dictionary on her desk.
Because of her experience at the Raleigh News & Observer she knew the fashion business as well as any fashion editor.  When I had to edit, actually rewrite, the copy of The Star fashion editor, who couldn't write her way out of a plastic bag, Jean had to edit me because I knew nothing about fashion.  And she always managed to make the story better."
And the best part: "...her favorite meal in the fancy French restaurants we often went to was jambon et le grits."  Jean Powell, classy ham & grits girl.

Here's a shot of the Star newsroom, Jean is seated three in from the right, and that's Barbara at her side.  And below that, just because it's great, is a shot of Jean (and loads of photographer finger) in Barcelona, 1971.

Adam West Batman

I was asked if I'd ever drawn an Adam West Batman, said "no", and went about fixing that:

Link!

Parker discusses POSSIBILITIES.

Meskin Wrangles an Eisner!

This week the Will Eisner Awards judges selected Mort Meskin for automatic induction into the Eisner Hall of Fame.  A handful of folks have worked to keep Mort's work from vanishing into the past, chief among them Jerry Robinson, Dylan Williams, Steven Brower and Ger Apeldoorn (who almost single-handedly filled the internet with Meskin content), nice that it's paid off.  Also, mad props go to Fantagraphics for publishing Steven's terrific Meskin books.  Go buy them, and then let's lobby the hell out of DC to print Vigilante and Johnny Quick collections.  It's the year of Mort!

Once, giants walked the earth.

Jack Kirby,  inks by Bill Everett.  Thor #175, April 1970.

A giant, anyway.  19 years ago today, Jack Kirby shuffled off the coil.  It was six days after my mother died, and capped a monumentally lousy week.  

I knew my mom way better, but I did meet the man once.  Anyone that's ever had more than one Kirby conversation with me is tired of hearing me mention it again, but I shook Jack's hand when I was 12.  Tons of times.  In fact, I spent two solid days finding crap for him to sign and then going and waiting in his line again. There were other things afoot at the convention that weekend, but I was on a mission.  Jesus, Kirby was in the room! JACK KIRBY.

Anyway, that happened.  People live, people die.  Young and old, some you know, some you don't, really.  A couple of them had massive impact on my life and how I've lived it, and they died in the same week.  And that was a hell of a thing.