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And the Smooch Award goes to…
I hereby present vigilant reader J. F. Phillips of Nashville, TN with a genuine, except-no substitutes Smooch Award for spotting this Shoe cartoon which tickled me silly. This episode of the comic by Gary Brookins & Susie MacNelly which not only mentions “Last Kiss,” but even refers to my original source material “First Kiss.”
Congrats and thanks, J.F.
(This is the first Smooch Award I’ve ever given out. And therefore a collector’s item worth at least three or four cents. Will there be Smooches? Who knows? Certainly not me!)
Last Kiss Creators Lustig and Blake at San Diego Comic-Con 2026
Without romance comics, there’d be no Last Kiss. So am I excited to be on “The Looks of Love: The Evolution of Romance in Comics” panel?
You bet! I love good romance comics. (Sometimes I even love bad romance comics.) Romance is an under-appreciated comics genre with tremendous variety in themes and sub-genres. And often gorgeous art.
So please join me Thursday, July 23, at 9 p.m. in Room 29AB at the San Diego Comic-Con. The panel features a lively group of romance comics experts, pros and academics: me (John Lustig), Thomas F. Zahler, Sydney Heifler, Michael Dooley, Bruce Simon, Rand Hoppe, Jim Krueger and Jaime Hodge.
My Signing Schedule at Prism:
If, for some reason seeing me at the panel isn’t enough for you, please drop by Prism Comics (Booth 2144 in Hall C) during the week. My autograph schedule at the booth includes several with Last Kiss contributing writer Jenny Blake!
—Thursday, July 23, 1-2 p.m.: John Lustig with Jenny Blake & Michael Varrati
—Friday, July 24, 9-10 a.m.: John Lustig with Jenny Blake
—Saturday, 4-5 p.m.: John Lustig with Jenny Blake & Sarah Gailey
—Sunday, July 26, 11 a.m.-noon: John Lustig with Mike Pingel & Neo Edmund
Jenny Blake gets the Finger…Award for Excellence
I’m also thrilled to announce that during the con my pal and frequent Last Kiss conspirator Jenny Blake is receiving the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing.
“As is always the case, the judges considered many nominations that were submitted to us and we picked two that stood out as the right choices,” chairman, writer and historian Mark Evanier remarked. “Both writers–the other is the late Martin Pasko–met our criteria of having generated a large and significant body of work that hasn’t received proper recognition and probably not proper compensation.”
Jenny wrote, and in some cases created, a number of DC’s and Marvel’s most unusual and interesting characters.
Jenny’s Panel Schedule Includes
—Transgender and Nonbinary Creators Stay Relevant and Proud,Thursday July 23, 2026 4:00pm – 5:00pm PDT, Room 9
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Captain LOL + Rubber Chicken: Har-Har!
I don’t normally do book reviews. But there’s very little—if anything—normal about Craig Yoe’s Captain LOL + Rubber Chicken: Har-Har!
(Full disclosure: Craig’s a friend and sent me a copy of the book. But that didn’t influence my review. Because it takes more than that to bribe me. At least $1.50 more.)
At first glance Captain LOL appears to be aimed squarely at kids. It’s full of puns, fart jokes and “dad jokes.” But as the copyright page states, “This book is for kids + immature adults only!”
At last! A book for those of us who never left childhood!
The book is many things at once: Yes, it’s set up as a joke-a-page book. (Most jokes were submitted to Craig by kids. And I love that each child is credited in the book.)
But it also functions somewhat as a graphic novel–illustrated by Craig in his wildly unique cartoon style. He fills each page with an insane amount of visual humor and running jokes. Plus bit of trivia related to the jokes. And…
Well, I’d be wholly amiss if I didn’t mention that every page of the book has an actual hole in it. Craig digs deep and uses “the hole” to create hole-related humor. (I think Craig has invented a new form of humor with this. If so, he has the whole hole field to himself.)
In short, the book is a hole-y experience, wildly inventive and I recommend it highly!
Available on Amazon here: https://tinyurl.com/hbrdzd7b
Why I (Mostly) Missed the San Diego Comic-Con
I apologize to everyone who came to see me and didn’t at the San Diego Comic-Con.I take my signing times seriously and I love meeting my readers. Unfortunately I was sick almost the entire con. Some days I barely got out of bed.
Hopefully, I’ll be back next year and things will go much, much better!
Last Kiss creator at San Diego Comic-Con
If you’re going to Comic-Con International (San Diego) I’d love it if you stop by Prism Comics’s Booth 2144. I’ll be there signing, selling, soliloquizing–but not singing–every day at the following hours along with other special guests:
Wednesday, July 23
7 – 8 pm – Jessie Ledina, John Lustig
Thursday, July 24
11 am – 12 pm – Alison Bechdel, John Lustig
Friday, July 25
12 – 1 pm – Tilly Bridges, John Lustig
Saturday, July 26
1 – 2 pm – Jon Macy, Josh Trujillo, John Lustig
Sunday, July 27
3 – 4 pm – John Lustig
Last Kiss Featured in Forbes Article about Romance Comics
For Valentine’s Day, Forbes magazine’s Rob Salkowitz interviewed me about classic romance comics and included some mentions and art from Last Kiss.
—John Lustig
Cute, but not in my pants!
When I was attending the University of Washington decades (and decades) ago, there were a lot of squirrels on campus. I think people used to feed them because they certainly weren’t afraid of humans. I stopped to look at one years ago and the varmint suddenly ran up my pants–the outside of my pants, not inside them thank heavens!–and my shirt and sat on my shoulder. Totally freaked me out.
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I froze and stayed perfectly still until he got bored and scampered back down.
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I froze and stayed perfectly still until he got bored and scampered back down.
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My feelings about squirrels has never been the same since then.
John will be at SD Comic-Con in Booth #5560
Comic-Con Announcement
Yippee! I’m attending this week’s San Diego Comic-Con after all.
Plus my friend Spencer Brinkerhoff III has graciously offered me space at his Booth #5560. (It’s a corner booth right by the doors between F & G Hall on the first floor–near Artist Alley.)
I’m bringing some Last Kiss goodies as well as a few of the Last Kiss, Marvel & Disney comics I’ve written. But my main reason for being there is to meet readers and fans. So, please come by and say, “Howdy!”
(I’ll announce more details as I know them.)
Interview with LK’s John Lustig on Youtube
Recently I was interviewed by Ron Austin and Jon Thaler for Bellevue College’s Digital Learning & XR Lab. The early part of this Youtube interview is about me and my comics career. And then–since the XR Lab is about emerging technology–we talked about my occasional use of generative artificial intelligence in Last Kiss. And then we delved into the ethics, practicality and general oddness of using AI to create art.
By the way, interviewer Ron Austin is the co-director and co-creator of Bezango, WA—a great documentary about comic creators in the Pacific Northwest. And yeah–I appear briefly in that film too.
—John Lustig, Last Kiss creator
RIP the Amazing Trina Robbins: Comics Pioneer and Inspiration
Like much of the comic book community, I’m mourning the April 10 passing of the great Trina Robbins.Although she was 85 when she passed after a recent stroke, Trina was so full of life, so warm and energetic—both as a person and as a creator—that she seemed eternal. Whenever we met at a comic con, it instantly became one of my favorites con moments.
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When I started doing Last Kiss, I received so much encouragement and support from her. She was a one-woman cheer squad. And I know she did the same for many other creators—particularly for female creators, but also men.
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It’s hard to imagine anyone with such a unique career. In addition to working on various comic series, her accomplishments included being…
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—The first woman to draw Wonder Woman in a full issue of a Wonder Woman comic.
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—A seminal organizer, supporter and creator of female-created, underground comics in the early ‘70s.
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—(Quoting from her Wikipedia page) Trina was also “intimately involved in the 1960s rock scene, where she was close friends with Jim Morrison and The Byrds. She was the first of the three “Ladies of the Canyon” in Joni Mitchell’s classic song from the album of the same name. In the late 1960s, she ran a…clothing boutique and made clothes for Mama Cass, Donovan, David Crosby, and others.”
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—The designer of the Vampira costume for Warren Publishing’s Vampira. (And, if memory serves me right, Trina also sewed the first Vampira costume. And looked gorgeous in it.)
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—Was a prolific author, contributor and/or editor for a staggering number of books. At least four dozen, but I’m sure more.
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—Many of those books were about early female comics creators and their works. And most of those creators were little known or totally forgotten until Trina wrote about them.
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In her later years, she mostly focused on being a book author. Part of that was because she was writing about subjects she loved. But it was also—and this is based on my memory from one of our discussions—because she wasn’t getting enough work, recognition and opportunities in comics.
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She was always loved and valued by some of us. But by the time she died, she was loved and held in high esteem by a vastly wider audience—both in and out of comics. She earned that through hard work, talent, boundless enthusiasm, kindness and by forging a career that was truly unique and important. God bless her. She truly will be missed.
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More About Trina:
