Wasting the wide range of my xeno-tech training on a home office job was like putting a carpenter in charge of the psycho-ward. Like any fish out of water, I didn’t fit in. Bureaucracy said I…

« Hocus, pocus, witching stick! Stand and stare, obey me, chick! » — Engelbert Humperdinck, Hänsel und Gretel Here we are back in October already. I’m afraid there won’t be a full…

« Rockets, canoes, bagpipes, fish, good old chaps with patches on their elbows and jokes about Derrida: Glen Baxter’s world is always instantly recognisable. » — Harriet Lane As our mor…

« Calm down, Harris… this is no teleportational phenomenon we’re dealing with… » — Hawkman, “Yo-Yo Hangup in the Sky!”. In 1968, though DC was still handily outselling…

« Y’gotta develop an annoying compulsion if y’wanta get anywhere in this world! » — Dan Clowes’ Willy Willions (Eightball No. 5, Feb. 1991) Dorothy Polka, known to the world…

Hello all — I write this post under duress and internal protest. Given all the shit going on in the world, and the online omnipresence of larcenous AI, I readily admit that my desire to share…

« Neither of us had seen a ghost, but I knew what he meant. » I had planned to feature quite another tale this week, but seeing as we are in the torrid grip of quite the heat wave, I opted in the e…

« Denmark is like a secret little place with its own special language. » — Helena Christensen Here’s a post that has been a looong time coming. To wit: back on May 14th, 2015, I wrote: …

« Man’s constitution is so peculiar that his health is purely a negative matter. No sooner is the rage of hunger appeased than it becomes difficult to comprehend the meaning of starvation. It…

« I think the most gruesome thing in life is people — if they let themselves go. I’ve been letting myself go for years, and I’m beginning to feel gruesome. I want to entertain and…

« Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk. » — Tom Waits, Heartattack and Vine (1980) Another week, another heat wave… I had something…

« Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. » — George Orwell For its July 4, 1949 issue, Life Magazine pulled…

« Sunny down snuff » — Van Dyke Parks While I’m painfully aware that such things are inevitable, the past couple of weeks have been pretty brutal to the ranks of my musical heroes. Firs…

« I know what romance is, I’ve written more romance probably than anyone alive. » — noted feminist Bob Kanigher* Ready for another foray into that most neglected, dismissed and maligned of co…

« They were bitter, war-weary men and the old woman’s music was comforting — perhaps too comforting… » Writer and occasional penciller William ‘Willi’ Franz (1950-2026…

« Every Chick tract is a proven soul winner » — Jack Thomas Chick (1924-2016) Before we begin, one must advance past the primordial question: « Who the 𖦹!!!**! is Jack T. Chick? » This simple…

« No wonder psychedelics are threatening to an authoritarian religious hierarchy. You don’t need faith to benefit from a psychedelic experience, let alone a priest or even a sh…

« Now these men have no need for words… they know! » — Anonymous Now I won’t claim that Dick Ayers (1924-2014) was all that great an artist. In the early Sixties at Marvel, as an inker …

« Programmed for love, she can be quite tenderTreat her unkind, nothing offends herShe vacuums the carpet and doesn’t complainShe’ll walk the dog in the pouring rain. » — Was (Not…

« America’s top-flight intellectuals will one day hold entire conferences and seminars devoted to Sylviology. They will deconstruct her frame by frame with straight edge and compass, attempti…

« Jerry Grandenetti started out ghosting The Spirit, and nobody… NOBODY… captured the spirit of The Spirit better. Not content to stay in Will Eisner’s shadow forever, he forged his own uniqu…

« Remember you belong to nature, not it to you » — Grey Owl Why it took me this long to spotlight David Collier, who’s been one of my favourite cartoonists for decades, is, even to myse…

« It was exactly an assembly line. You could look into infinity down these rows of drawing tables. » — Gil Kane Some of our more sensitive readers may have noticed that we’ve been none …

« … drawn by a terrible hypnotic fascination, the gangster peers deep into Jim’s dark eyes and glimpses — DEATH! » — “The Spectre”, More Fun Comics no. 52 (Feb. …

« The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. » — Virginia Woolf It has dawned on me that we&#8…

« It is through his creation that the artist translates most certainly the man. Elegance of line, subtlety of colour, freshness of inspiration, modesty of feelings without ever falling into mushine…

« When a naked man is chasing a woman through an alley with a butcher knife and a hard-on, I figure he isn’t out collecting for the Red Cross. » — Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (1971) A…

« The cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people who were all replaced. » — Georges Clemenceau Commercially and creatively, the 1950s held some of the best and the worst years for the Americ…

« I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. » — Winston Churchill Recently, I’d been drawing a blank as to the topic of my next post. So I di…

« Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know » — William Shakespeare Joe Gravel’s work came my way when, if memory serves, eBay suggested one his cartoons. As a…

« Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism. » — George Augustus Moore (1852-1933) A fortnight or so ago, I came across an image that looked… familiar. It wasn’t s…

« “Obey the government”, said one croak. “We are the government”, said another. » — Ray Faraday Nelson I’ve been juggling several ideas for posts, most of them l…

« Dick’s Monster was something to behold. Whatever possessed him to put the creature’s nose up on the forehead is beyond us — but it worked, making it possibly the weirdest Franke…

« When I was a boy, I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream. » – Elvis Aaron Presley (1935 — ?) Today, somewhere, the King of Rock &#8…

« New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time. » — James Agate And another one gone… another one bites the dus…

« In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago. » — Christina Rosset…

Surprise! Happy birthday to Lois Lane artist supreme Kurt Schaffenberger (December 15, 1920 – January 24, 2002), here working under the alias of Lou Wahl, (he was also Jay Kafka, which would have b…

« What are you mumbling about? » « Oh, nuthin’! … just that  my false teeth get loose  an’ make a lot of noise! » Today marks the one hundred and third anniversary of the enigmatic Jack Cole …

« Parmi les champignons se cachent d’ignobles individus, des espèces savoureuses et des sujets tout à fait pacifiques… » December may not be exactly the month one associates with mushro…

« I can resist anything except temptation. » — Oscar Wilde A master from the Golden Age of comics, Matt Baker (1921-1959) is surprisingly well-remembered today. Part of it stems from his sing…

« The mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown. » — René Magritte Last month, we flew off to explore the wonders of Be…

« What’s that noise comin’ up from the cellar? It’s the restless bones of Boris and Bela* » It’s a cinch that William Henry Pratt, back when he was eking out a living in Can…

« May the man who has his finger on the button have a lovely day today / Hope nothing hangs him up or ticks him off or bums him out in any way / Lord, help him keep his cool cause he could pull the…

« Don’t be so sure! A guy that popular — he’d be a fool to fold up his act while he’s such a hot item!* » I’ve been a Steve Ditko fan for as long as I can remember. In fact, I was a fan even …

« Before he can become a wolf, the lycanthrope strips naked. If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you. » — Angela Carter (1940-1992) First of all, H…

« Don’t pay the ferryman!
 Don’t even fix a price! 
Don’t pay the ferryman… until he gets youto the other side. » — Christopher John Davison Grimm’s Ghost Storie…

« The sacred is found boring by many who find the uncanny fascinating. » — Mason Cooley I’ve expressed many a time my ambivalent affection for Golden Age Atlas horror comics: in short, …

« How could you be so sure? … they could be real! » — Reggie Mantle, believer Sure, it’s a hoary ol’ plot, used both to comedic and dramatic effect a gazillion times, but… as is o…

« Listen, Angel! If they’re out of bananas… I’ll meet you at the corner fruit stand! » Today, let’s combine our general theme with a celebration of the birthday of one of comics’ great,…

« True friends stab you in the front! » — Oscar Wilde First, the update: we’re off to Belgium for a much-needed vacation… which is frankly incompatible with our usual Hallowe’en C…