It’s been a little too long since we’ve all seen Wolfman getting kicked in the nards.

“Just who is this…Neilalien?”

I wrote that nearly 8 years ago. Neilalien was the first comic blog I stumbled across and the first I linked to. Up until that point I thought I was the only one, when in actuality Neilalien and a handful of others had already beat me to it.

Neilalien turns ten today, and so does the very concept of comic blogging. Ten years at this is quite the achievement, but I think what’s even more remarkable is that he was doing this for well over two years before the first great comic blog explosion. That’s over two years of sending his astral form out from his Sanctum Sanctorum and into an empty, uncaring void, waiting patiently for the rest of the comics community to play catch up.

Reflecting on this occassion, what resonates most with me about Neilalien isn’t his longetivity, but his involvement. When I shuttered my old blog, he was there to chastise me, and when I began this one, he wrote to welcome me back into the fold.

Happy anniversary, Neilalien! May your Orb of Agamotto never dim!

I hope you got a kick out of the John Buscema Conan newspaper strips I’ve been running along the top of the site for the past few weeks. I wanted to emulate the feel of a newspaper page, where if you miss a day it’s gone for good. Sunday pages can be found here.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with the artist as conducted by J. David Spurlock and found in the John Buscema Sketchbook, where it seems that Buscema faced the same problems with the limitation of the strip format that Eisner ran into.

David: You also did the newspaper strip and movie adaptations.

John: I only did seven weeks of the newspaper strip, and then I dropped it because I didn’t want to do it. I penciled and inked seven weeks, and I wasn’t too happy with the format, because the panels were half the size of the panels I was normally used to working on. After I dropped it they gave it to somebody else, and I don’t know what happened to it.

David: Ernie Chan who had been inking a lot of your Conan work took it over. You did some Sunday strips. too.

John: I did a couple. Initially I was excited about the newspaper strip but I wasn’t too happy about the fact that they were paying me my comic book rate. It’s assumed that strips pay more money than comic books. But I figured, “Well, if it clicks, who knows what will happen?” So I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” They wanted seven weeks in advance, and I started working on it. When I found out the size of the panels, I knew I wasn’t going to continue it, because I couldn’t do anything creative. It was so damn small!

David: I know Al Williamson had the same problem when he was doing Star Wars. He kept complaining to the syndicate about loss of detail, the reproduction was lousy, and their answer was, “Simplify the art!” And he said, “You hired me because you wanted realism, and now you’re telling me to turn it into a cartoon!”

John: The problem in the art world is, the guys who are buying the artwork are not artists, they’re editors, and they often don’t know art from a hole in the ground.

Sketch by Buscema from the back of one of his pages.

Click to embolden!

One of my favourite things about Japan is the amazing ways they’re able to put wasabi into so many snacks. This though, took me by surprise.

The Wasabi Kitkat!

I tried it out with my fancy new fiance’s family. As I ate it I was delighted by the flavour! I turned around to tell them how great it was only to see a look of pure disgust on all their faces. I was the lone wolf lover of this spicy chocolaty treat.

Click to embolden!

Happy Valentine’s Weekend, J!

From Dear Nancy Parker by various unknown hands.

I’ve been mostly absent these past few weeks because my demo has been occupying most of my attention. One of the more pleasant aspects of combing through my old work is stumbling across a piece I was sure had been lost. Such was the case with the scene sampled above, still one of my favourites.

Click to embolden!