by John | Jul 14, 2026 | Blog
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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by John | Oct 28, 2025 | Blog
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
by John | Jul 30, 2025 | Blog
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!
by John | Jul 17, 2025 | Blog
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
by John | Aug 28, 2024 | Blog
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.
.
I froze and stayed perfectly still until he got bored and scampered back down.
I froze and stayed perfectly still until he got bored and scampered back down.
My feelings about squirrels has never been the same since then.
