Last Kiss Honeymoon Disaster Insurance now available!

If all of your unrealistic dreams don’t come true (Finally an orgasm!), we’ll send you a replacement spouse and as many Mai Tais (paper umbrellas extra) as you can drink before passing out.

Be safe! Send a bucket of money (No pennies!) to

Last Kiss Department of Broken Dreams

P.O. Box 0000 1/2

Big Scam, OK 66666

Unlike this unhappy couple, I’m planning to have a great time on my trip. This Tuesday I’m flying to the Big Apple for the New York Comic Con. (I’ll be at table D14 in Artist’s Alley.)

The con runs Oct. 8-10, but I’m arriving in town early to visit with friends and attend the pre-show ICv2 conference. And, if there’s time, I might even catch up on some sleep before things start getting crazy!

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

More about “Widow” artist Dick Giordano:

“The First week I was there (DC Comics) I went to Dick’s office, one of the messiest, most comforting places I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time in, to ask him for guidance. I explained I had been given no specific set of responsibilities…I asked him what my job was exactly. He just sat back, gave me one of those wonderful Dick smiles and just said: ‘You’ll figure it out.’

“And, of course, he was right. With his wind at my back and all the support I could have ever asked for, I got to do everything: learn, create, innovate, play, change.

“Few people know how to lead creative people to do their best work…Thank you, sir, for being the best boss and teacher I ever had.”

–Richard Bruning, VP-Creative Director, DC Comics, January 2003
from Michael Eury’s Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time

Art by Giordano. ©2010 DC Comics

“When Dick left DC the second time, I told friends the company was losing its heart. That’s not to say no one who remained there or came…after Dick…acted on their generous impulses or…strove to be fair to…freelancers. But that kind of behavior never again seemed to me to be a core value of the company.

“He was a good guy because he was a good guy. He wasn’t a good guy because it was a smart way to do business, although it surely was…He wasn’t a good guy because the company mandated that persona. He loved comics and he loved comics people. He was a good guy…”

–Tony Isabella from Tony’s Online Tips, March 29, 2010

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

Darn sex manuals. How dare they put out editions that are upside down…

Is there anything better than reading comic books in bed with your sweetie? No, I didn’t think so.

This is a recolored version of a comic that ran in The Seattle Times two years ago. Yes, a major daily newspaper actually had the guts to run a comic with a flamboyantly gay theme. Well, for about a second and a half the paper had the nerve. After that, it was no more gay jokes. No sexual references. Stick to relationship humor. Oh, and be outrageous, but don’t offend anyone.

What happened was that the editor who hired me to be “outrageous”, left the paper before my series started. His overworked replacement never checked to see what cartoons her predecessor had selected to run. And apparently no one else did either–until it was too late. Then the paper started getting complaints.

No, this cartoon is not the reason The Seattle Times eventually dropped Last Kiss. That happened nearly a year later and it was largely based on the paper’s still ongoing financial problems. Features, staff and whole sections of the newspaper have been cut. So it’s not like I was singled out.

But this gay-themed comic haunted me. After that, I was constantly second- and third-guessing myself. Was a gag tame enough for the paper? If so, was it still funny? What sort of humor did my editor really like? Towards the end, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of it. But by then the financial crisis was in full bloom and it was too late.

I don’t think I’ll have that problem with my new publisher: GoComics.com. I’m getting a lot of support from my editor and no one seems even slightly worried about me overstepping any boundaries. And, frankly, they shouldn’t. I have lines that I don’t want to cross.  My goal is not to offend anyone. I just want to be funny.