I just found a link to the world’s best wedding toast. I discovered it on Mark Evanier’s site–which is rapidly becoming my favorite blog.
Just in case there’s any doubt, we’re back to stand-alone gags for now. Totally random. No plan. No grand scheme…
Or so it would appear.
My readers often surprise me. You find ideas and themes that I didn’t know were there. You folks are wildly creative. (And you’re much too smart and sophisticated to be taken in by mere flattery!) So, maybe you’ll find a way to connect all the comics in the coming weeks. Maybe they’ll make sense to you as part of a single storyline.
If so, let me–and probably a qualified therapist–know!
Click on image above to see larger view of today’s comic.
“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
Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.
“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
Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.
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
