Thanks, Mike!

I just want to take the opportunity to thank cartoonist/friend/raconteur, Mike Lynch, for his terrific blogs this week!

I’d suspected he had some great stuff in the wings, but, frankly, even I didn’t know how fascinating some of the stuff he would unleash would be!

My favorites entries would have to be “Death Draws the Line,” because I just love that sort of campy old stuff, “The Explaining Hand,” for shedding light on something that we all do, but almost never think about (until now, dammit!) and his “Sin City” post because we get a picture of Rosario Dawson in bondage lingerie without me having to defend/explain it to my wife. 🙂

Thanks too to everyone who stopped by and was kind enough to leave some comments. I think Mike felt very ‘at home’ in our little corner of the blogosphere.

Please stop by his website and check out his cartoons. Just amazing stuff.

I look forward to getting back to blogging next week, but the vacation has been good. As I told Mike earlier this week, I can actually feel my brain recharging.

I’ve got some vacation pics, some scintillating Sin City speak (how’s that for alliteration?!), and plenty more good old cartoon talk. Here’s one more thanks to Mike, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Good Bye


When awakened by Burckett with my morning cup, I was reminded that all good things come to an end.


I informed my third-world staff that we’d be getting back to cartoon business as usual. Mark: Accounts Receivable hasn’t gotten the blog payment you mentioned. Please have your people sort it out with my people.

And here I am, high above my compound. Let’s not say this is goodbye, let’s just agree to meet again one day, in the happy land of Andertoons!

My thanks to Mark for this very fun opportunity. I’m honored to have walked in your bloggin’ shoes, mate!

Andertoons Exclusive: Classic “Love Is …” Cartoon Panel to be Collected in New $300 Two-volume Slipcased Leatherbound Limited Edition


Kim Casali’s classic “Love Is …” cartoon panel, lovingly continued by her son Stefano, has been collected for the first time in its entirety in a hardcover, two-volume slipcased limited edition. This project, years in the making, will delight the millions of fans of this long-running panel. The limited edition, signed by the Stefano Casali and artist Bill Asprey, will arrive in select bookstores nationwide in May, with a regular hardcover edition following in August. You can preorder at Amazon.com.

April Fool!

What Are You “Reading?”

Let’s take a look at the pile of books and papers next to my bed. Here’s pile #1, on top of the bedside table:

* THE WORLD OF MR. MULLINER by Wodehouse
* BATMAN AND ROBIN, a British paperback with some 1940s adventures by inky Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson
* NEW YORKER
* The new BUD PLANT catalog which mocks my pitifully dismal disposal income
* THE BEST OF CLARENCE DAY — which is usually next to the bed or on the floor; somewhere nearby
* ANNE OF AVONLEA — wait — how did THIS book get on my side of the bed?!?!
* DEAR BESS, Harry Truman’s letters to his wife — there’s always a Truman book nearby
* TRY AND STOP ME by Bennett Cerf

And then there’s pile #2 on the floor, the one with some guilty pleasures:

* THE RAND MCNALLY 2003 ATLAS
* THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
* THE CARTOONIST’S AND GAG WRITER’S HANDBOOK by the one and only Jack Markow
* LITTLE LULU: LULU GOES SHOPPING, the new Dark Horse collection of early Lulu comics
* EPILEPTIC by David B., a new graphic novel worth checking out
* DUNC & LOO comic book from the 1960s by John Stanley, same guy who wrote a ton of the Little Lulu comics
* GREAT CARTOONS OF THE WORLD 5TH EDITION
* GIANT SUPERBOY ANNUAL (1964)

And which was the one I actually read most recently?

Oh yes! I had to read about Clark Kent’s first haircut. As we all know, Kryptonians’ hair is invulnerable to cutting! So a suspicious Smallville barber thinks Clark Kent is Superboy since the kid NEVER comes in for a haircut and Smallville is so danged small that this guy is, like, the only barber and seems to have a lot of pull with the locals. So, Superboy programs a robot (Yes, a ROBOT “from a magazine blueprint! Of course, mine will work on a super-scale.”) to go and get the haircut to prove that he’s a, uh, regular vulnerable-hair-growing-earth-kid.

This doesn’t work. The robot short circuits. Pride goes before the fall, Mr. Super-Scale-Kent! So, Superboy exiles the nosy barber to the Phantom Zone, never to be seen again. No, not really. Clark Kent puts on a skin-head wig and then a toupee. The barber cuts the toupee, realizes it’s a piece and Clark lies, telling him he (Clark) is bald. Barber: “You must’ve had one of those childhood diseases that made you lose your hair!”

Why Clark didn’t just say, “my mom cuts my hair” or I have a Ronco Suck-n-Cut home-styling machine, I don’t know! Regardless of the grand silliness of the plot, there’s some great art by long-time Superman/Superboy artist John Sikela.