Kurt Busiek

—by Chic Young & Jim Raymond, 1949

A BLONDIE daily. Dagwood is explaining a newspaper story to the dog.

Comics are good.

Yeah, but the next one, rather than the last one. Despite the shiftiness of the current drama, there are always better things to it than in previous eras.

—by Frank Robbins, 1946

A JOHNNY HAZARD daily. A seaplane is landing on a jungle river, at a South American penal colony. "Ha, Penal Camp nombre seex! 'Ere, Ma'mselle...one finds a purgatory on Earth...a steenkeeng hole of rotteeng vegetation and men!"

Comics are cheery!

Yep. Just didn’t get to dig in to his character.

I like Jack and wanted to reclaim him from obscurity. Unfortunately I wasn’t around long enough to focus on him enough.

...turned out to get a great lift from it.

And that provided character drama, too, as they negotiated those feelings.

I wanted a rookie -- not a newbie superhero, but someone who was qualified to be an Avenger but was overawed by it, like a new member of the New York Yankees. I wanted that viewpoint. Firestar came along with that, and got to be a neat reversal -- someone who didn't want to be an Avenger and...

I hope so. There's a lot planned, if and when my doctors solve my migraine problems.

I don't think it's bullshit, but I don't think it happens naturally, either. Bending that arc requires steady, dedicated work.

Sure. But also exploring the Vision/Wonder Man connections, and spurring character growth for the Vision.

They're all stuck together, in interesting ways.

Welcome! I hope I don't bore you too much.

Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked it and I appreciate the note.

I don't think so. It just gets dented badly from time to time.

I like Wonder Man. And I thought it was bananas for Marvel to do a story establishing that he was immortal and then a few months later, kill him.

No way I was going to leave him dead. And I wanted him back for Vision/Wanda/Wonder Man drama, too.

"How can we take what they already have and monetize it for ourselves?"

...America were cool. But really it was the bunch of them together; they just looked so "right."

I liked the name "Sir MacHinery" for Machine Man a lot; I swiped that from a children's book about a robot. And I liked Grimalkin, Quarryman and Kreature. As far as George's designs went, his Scarlet Witch was of course a knockout and a fan favorite, and his Photon, Tigra, Quasar and Captain...

...amazing. It was a ridiculous treat, and his inventiveness never flagged over the next 3 years.

Yeah, George was fearless. He just said "Bring it on!"

Jarvis's tavern was all his. The medieval Avenger names were mine, mostly cooked up while on an airplane headed to Florida. The designs were almost all his -- I made a suggestion here and there in the plot, but he took it and made it all...

It's a little early for a drink and I'm kinda maxed out on pain meds, but hey, whaddya got?

I dislike living in this kind of interesting times.

I would rather live in the part where the arc of the moral universe is bending toward justice. I hope we can get on with that again soon.

Pardon me. I just felt the need to vent.

Donald Trump is a shithead asshole and the worst President.

I realize this isn't news. I could have said it'd be like this in 1985, but nobody asked me.

Anyway. Iran, vote suppression, anti-green, anti-LGBTQ+, simultaneously anti-semitic _and_ anti-Palestinian, racist, corrupt, everything's awful.

Reddit post headline: "I ordered DC Finest Metamorpho and the store sent me an autobiography of Netanhayu." Picture: The back cover of Netanyahu's book, with a recommending quote and a smiling color head shot.

It's just not our century

Cover - Superman and Deadman

Splash page original art - Deadman

Story page 4 - six panels of Deadman

Story page 13 - six panels of Superman and Deadman.

DC Comics Presents 24 (1980) was covered by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, who also provided the interior art for a Len Wein script.

Mind you, I already have all the books and will probably never read them again. But I wouldn’t buy new copies.

But “separating the art from the artist”? That I can do, if I find it useful.

I think there’s so much that kid can experience, they don’t need Harry Potter. That’s not to say it should be outlawed. But there’s more else out there than they can read/watch/hear in a lifetime already, and new stuff coming all the time. For my part, I’m not giving Rowling another dime.

I'll have to catch up to it. I've liked what Okorafor work I've read.