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D.F. Rogers, Con Man

Last weekend, D.F. Rogers was at the NY Comic Con. The big surprise was seeing Gene Colan there. Last May and June, Gene was at death’s door, but Gene is still with his family who love him and his fans who admire him, and for that we are all grateful. Dennis sent some photos from the show, with captions.

Gene Colan with Captain American #117 page

Gene Colan checking out something I acquired at the convention — a page of original art from Captain America #117, penciled by Gene forty years ago. This is the issue that made me a Marvelite and True Believer!

Joe Sinnott with Captain America #117 page

Joe Sinnott holding the page from Captain America #117. Joe didn’t ink Gene Colan often enough, but this was one of their best (and earliest) collaborations. Joe said that he loved to ink Gene’s pencils because he could do a lot of brushwork on those patented Gene Colan shadows. Two of my all-time favorite artists — and people! I never fully realized until recently that they, along with the immortal Stan Lee, produced the issue that hooked me on Marvel Comics!

D.F. Rogers with Gene Colan

Gene Colan and D.F. Rogers at the 2009 New York Comic Con. It was a dream come true to see Gene back at the Convention after a one year absence due to health issues. He had a steady line of admirers who stopped by to say hello and get their art or comic books signed by Genial Gene.

D.F. Rogers with Joe Staton

Joe Staton and D.F. Rogers with two pages of art that I purchased from Joe. Archie published a four part “modernization” of Jughead last summer – with art by Joe Staton and Al Milgrom. This is the first page splash and the last page splash — fun stuff! It just came out a few weeks ago in a trade paperback and the art is reproduced much better there than in the original “digest” sized issues.

Thanks, Den! That reminds me. I have a couple of pictures of my own to show, from the NY convention back in November. Here I am holding the original Iron Man art to the cover of the Marvel Comic Tales of Suspense #93, drawn by Gene Colan. It could be mine — for only $42,000! I’d be tempted, but Eric starts college the fall of 2010.

DOuG pRATt holding TOS #93 cover

I’ve always had a particular fondness for that comic book. Here’s a cropped, high-resolution panel scan from a page of the TOS #93 interior original art. Ya gotta click to enlarge it, y’know…

Original art from Tales of Suspense #93

… and this is artist David Lloyd, who illustrated Alan Moore’s famous political thriller “V for Vendetta,” which was later made into what I think is pretty darn good movie.

David Lloyd with \

Dumber Runner

Why am I doing this?

Congratulations! We’re honored that you will be one of the competitors in the 113th running of the Boston Marathon. Registration for this year’s Boston Marathon sold out in record time, and we look forward to delivering you a memorable experience.

Oh, it’ll be a memorable experience, all right. When I’ve collapsed on Heartbreak Hill and they’re putting me in an ambulance. Every year I say I’m not in shape to run it, but this year I really mean it!

Man does not live by blog alone…

Daniel Lyons, the professional writer and editor who, for a time, was the blogging Fake Steve Jobs, has a column in Newsweek for everybody who ever thought they could make a living by blogging.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183666

DogRat is a hobby. I’m not selling anything, there’s no advertising, and I have absolutely no expectation of the blog being anything more than an expense and time waster. For that matter, I don’t focus on any one thing, like the popular weblogs devoted to mining every minute bit of detail about a single subject. For me, DogRat is purely a vanity outlet.

Besides the single-subject blogs, I think the single-author blogs that work the best are the ones used to promote whatever it is the author really does for a living — cartoonists Jimmy Johnson and Scott Adams, and writers Mark Evanier and Brian Sibley, for example. Beyond those, the really big blogs, as Lyons says, “aren’t really blogs — they’re media companies that happen to feature, among other things, the work of some bloggers.”

Obama’s first press conference

Yes, Obama’s answers go on for too long, and he repeats himself a lot, but he’ll get the hang of it. I think he’s got the right temperament for the job, which I first noticed when he handled the Jeremiah Wright controversy.

Obama plays both the good cop and bad cop roles. If his first gesture of forgiveness is ignored (as with Wright), or his willingness to compromise (as with Republican senators fighting the economic package) is refused, then Obama gets tough. Yet he doesn’t cop the blatant “my way or the highway” style of Bush and Cheney.

Cheney should shut up about Obama not being up to handling terrorist threats. He’s lucky he isn’t having his ass hauled into the World Court in Holland for war crimes. Cheney once infamously told Senator Patrick Leahy to “go f–k yourself,” and now Leahy is calling for an investigation of how we were led into invading a country that didn’t attack us, nor posed any threat to us.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-truth10-2009feb10,0,4555508.story

Leahy said, “I don’t want to embarrass anybody. I don’t want to punish anybody. I just want the truth to come out so this never happens again.” He may not want to embarrass or punish anybody, but I sure as Hell hope that happens.

Hey, here’s something that’s good for a laugh. The Libertarians at the Cato Institute put this ad, signed by about 200 college professors (don’t know if they’re all really economists), in some newspapers on Monday, including The Boston Globe.

Cato Ad

How can these guys be so smart, yet be so stupid? Easy. Because they’re viewing things from an extreme ideology. Hoover didn’t spend anything to halt the slide into Depression. Where did they come up with that? He didn’t do anything and things got very bad. That’s the point! Obama doesn’t want to wait, he wants to get moving now, while the money can do some good.

FDR got in office and he spent money and created jobs, but it wasn’t enough. Not until World War II came along. So it was, in the end, massive government spending that got America out of the Depression. But keep in mind, Cato kooks, that we’ve already been in a war, and that’s a big part of the reason why we’re in so much trouble. The coffers were drained before the brokers, the bankers, and the auto makers came begging.

The Bush/Cheney administration is the closest the Cato Institute will ever have to a Presidency in tune with their view of how government should be run. If they don’t like the way Bush handled things, then they’re looking for the same thing Communists want — a system that can never exist according the doctrine they hold so dearly.