Oops! I never posted the cover (with the text) that I did for Comic Buyer’s Guide #1676. The art (with some extensions and touch up line work by colorist Allen Freeman) is by the great Dick Giordano. Dick allowed me to scan a lot of his old romance cover art years ago and I’m delighted to finally be able to use it.

Below is what the scan (from a photostat) looked like before I cleaned it up and Allen extended the art so that it’d work as a CBG cover. Click image to enlarge.

In 2001, I interviewed Dick Giordano about romance comics for my Last Kiss comic book series and Dick kindly loaned me a ton of his old romance cover art to illustrated the piece.

I only used a small fraction of the art for the interview. My intention–with Dick’s approval–was to use the remainder of the scans for art in future Last Kiss projects. Unfortunately, there were some problems.

The scans were from aging, sometimes discolored, and occasionally very dirty stats of old romance covers. Even worse (from my viewpoint) at least half of them had Zip-a-tone as part of the art which tend to create moiré patterns when scanned.

Cleaning ‘em up was a lot of work and–in some cases–was beyond my abilities at that time. So I shelved most of it.

Ten years later, I’ve finally started dipping into the scans–using the cleanest of them. And what a joy they are!

I think today’s comic is particularly gorgeous. And it’s just plain fun for me to see how colorist Allen Freeman responds to this lush, detailed art. Frankly, I think it’s some of Allen’s best coloring. (More to come in the weeks and months ahead.)

The art for today’s gag presented somewhat of a dilemma for me. The broken heart on the cover was originally there as a place where the publisher could hype the cover story. But I really didn’t need the space for the gag I dreamed up.

I tried using different text to fill the space. But it all seemed to take away from the main gag. So I finally opted for just an empty, broken heart–which is probably more symbolically appropriate than anything I could write.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.”

Well, there you have it. The end of the story and…possibly the end of Mitzi.

Looking back, I think it was a mistake to break the story into such small episodes. Showing just two-panels an episode — for most of the story — created some weird breaks in the action and dialog.

Of course, now that it’s all on the web, you can read the entire story from the start in a single, fun sitting!

Dick Giordano Tribute Wrap Up:

We’ve also reached the end of my memorials for “Widow” artist Dick Giordano.

In retrospect, was it absolutely nuts to stretch these tributes out over three weeks and 17 different episodes? Absolutely! By the end of the first week, I felt like I was running the world’s longest online wake.

In the future, nobody–no matter who they are–gets 17 tributes on this site. Heck, even when I die–I’m only giving myself 16!

On the other hand, if anyone deserves 17 tributes, it’s Dick Giordano. In the course of researching Dick’s life I found myself truly inspired by the graceful, balanced way he lived his life. He didn’t just accomplish great things. He had fun doing it.

I’m going to close with a few words from Dick’s former assistant, Michael Eury whose entertaining biography of Dick Giordano is well worth the space on your bookshelf:

“Dick Giordano is a mutant. He was born with the power of unbridled optimism. He’s always smiling, and…just about everyone in the comic business likes him. This has led to his ability–as an artist, an editor, a teacher, and an editorial administrator—to encourage the best from creators, guiding innovative series…

“Some comic folks are known as much for their self-promotion as for their published product, but rarely has Dick Giordano beaten his own drum. His career can, however, be best assessed by his relationships with his collaborators and coworkers, and with the characters to whom he’s helped breathe life. By those measures, Dick is one of the industry’s giants…”
–Michael Eury, April 2003
from Eury’s introduction to Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.

“I know of no way I can begin to pay the debt of gratitude I owe Dick Giordano. Dick is responsible for much, if not most, of what’s been good in what I’ve done for the past quarter-century…Dick hired me…when I was one of the worst prospects in publishing…and he did so against the advice…of his managerial colleagues. No one has ever believed in me like that. Such faith is a gift beyond valuing…

“He’s not good at everything, however. He has little gift for self-promotion, which may be why he is not as renowned as he ought to be. That’s a shame because it means that young artists and editors don’t profit from his good example.

“Somebody ought to do something about that.”

–Dennis O’Neil, Feb. 2003
from Michael Eury’s Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.”

I knew that “Widow” artist Dick Giordano drew and edited zillions of romance comics. But it wasn’t until I read Michael Eury’s biography Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time that I realized how intimately comics and romance were intertwined in Dick’s life:

“In 1954 artist Sal Trapani [a Charlton Comics staffer] announced his marriage to an old classmate of Giordano’s and asked Dick to be in the wedding. At the ceremony, usher Dick Gordano was paired with bridesmaid Marie Trapani, the sister of the groom, and was instantly enchanted by her striking beauty. In a scene that played out of a romance comic story (minus the heartache), Marie caught the bride’s bouquet and Dick, her garter. The two began dating and very quickly fell in love, becoming engaged shortly thereafter…[Dick and Marie] were married April 17, 1955.”

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

The “Widow Miss Muffet” storyline resumes tomorrow and wraps up Friday. In the meantime, here’s another mini-tribute to the artist of that saga and today’s comic, the late Dick Giordano.

“…Detective #457…showed me how much Dick Giordano was responsible for the greatness of those Neal Adams comics that I thought Dick had been ‘just inking’.  This was a comic drawn with beautiful realism, perfect line work, dramatic lighting, phenomenally beautiful women, and all the things that made those Neal comics wonderful, only Neal wasn’t around for this issue.  It turned out DICK WAS THE GUY who had been doing much of that all along.  And there was a subtle difference in the storytelling.  It was somehow more accessible, more “readable”, more directly told, than I was used to from this familiar style, and in many ways I LIKED IT BETTER!”

–Ty Templeton at http://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/sad-to-hear-about-dick-giordano-passing-away/

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.

“Dick [Giordano] holds the record of having inked more pages than any other artist in DC’s history. And this was from a man who had a full-time job, for most of his working years.

“For those of us who had the honor of working with Dick, you knew there was a unique quality about his leadership that made you feel like you could achieve anything…If he called you into his office for doing something stupid, you’d walk in shaking but walk out feeling like you were a million bucks.”

–Karen Berger, Executive Editor of DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint
from Berger’s March 29, 2010 memorium for Dick Giordano

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.

More About Dick Giordano…

“Several [Charlton Comics] artists…did less than their best because they had to work faster to put food on the table, but Dick Giordano’s talent enabled him to be fast and still do great work…

“Dick was too good to stay at Charlton so he moved down to DC Comics…

“He worked hard and achieved a lot…He was willing to pay the price for success, long sleepless nights at the drawing board, long boring rides on the train, and the constant struggle to be the Last Man Standing in the DC office.

“I always admired Dick and what he achieved. I never envied him.”

–Joe Gill former Charlton Comics staff writer, December 2002
from Michael Eury’s Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Covers by Dick Giordano. Art and characters ©2010 DC Comics

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.

How Fast is Fast?

Dick Giordano started his comics career at the Iger Studios and was such a fast inker that some of the other artists asked him to slow down.

The Iger artists were paid by the hour when they took work home. By turning out pages so quickly, Dick made it look too easy.

Later, though, when Dick started working at Charlton Comics the staff artists were paid by the page. So the faster they drew, the more they made.

Dick was “dazzled by the speed of the more seasoned staff artists.” One artist could pencil eight pages a day. Dick could “only” manage two — which was still darned fast!*

“I’m kind of fast. Anybody from my generation…is usually a little faster than the people who’ve come up recently because…the only way you could get a decent salary in the ‘50s and ‘60s was to do a lot of pages…

“You had to learn to cut through the unimportant stuff, to make only the important lines show up so you could do a few more pages.” —Dick Giordano in an interview by John Lustig, 2001

*Info in the first four paragraphs is summarized from Michael Eury’s Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.

Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.

“I met Dick [Giordano] for the first time when I was 15. I was convinced I was ready to work for him at Charlton. Needless to say, he threw me out of his office — not unkindly, but firmly — leaving me with a single remark. To paraphrase, ‘Your work is too timid — be brave.’

“Dick has no memory of this meeting, and hey, why should he? But a day doesn’t go by that, as I sit at my drawing table, I don’t recall that remark and try a little harder to be a little braver.

“Like an awful lot of my peers, I owe Dick Giordano a huge debt — both for the professional advice and direction he gave freely and with love — but more importantly, for the example he set…The guy’s a prince for God’s sake.”

–Howard Chaykin, January 2003
from Michael Eury’s Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? To read “Widow Miss Muffet” and other Last Kiss comics in German click here.