Sticks and stones may break my bones, but…
–words will never hurt me. However, I’ll still sue for libel!
–oh, crap! The pain! Make it stop!
–I carry a gun! So back off, punk!
–my words are sharp and you’re a pincushion…waiting to get stuck!
–but a little, light bondage might be fun!
Click on image above to see spectacularly larger view of today’s comic.”
Well, there you have it. The end of the story and…possibly the end of Mitzi.
Looking back, I think it was a mistake to break the story into such small episodes. Showing just two-panels an episode — for most of the story — created some weird breaks in the action and dialog.
Of course, now that it’s all on the web, you can read the entire story from the start in a single, fun sitting!
Dick Giordano Tribute Wrap Up:
We’ve also reached the end of my memorials for “Widow” artist Dick Giordano.
In retrospect, was it absolutely nuts to stretch these tributes out over three weeks and 17 different episodes? Absolutely! By the end of the first week, I felt like I was running the world’s longest online wake.
In the future, nobody–no matter who they are–gets 17 tributes on this site. Heck, even when I die–I’m only giving myself 16!
On the other hand, if anyone deserves 17 tributes, it’s Dick Giordano. In the course of researching Dick’s life I found myself truly inspired by the graceful, balanced way he lived his life. He didn’t just accomplish great things. He had fun doing it.
I’m going to close with a few words from Dick’s former assistant, Michael Eury whose entertaining biography of Dick Giordano is well worth the space on your bookshelf:
“Dick Giordano is a mutant. He was born with the power of unbridled optimism. He’s always smiling, and…just about everyone in the comic business likes him. This has led to his ability–as an artist, an editor, a teacher, and an editorial administrator—to encourage the best from creators, guiding innovative series…
“Some comic folks are known as much for their self-promotion as for their published product, but rarely has Dick Giordano beaten his own drum. His career can, however, be best assessed by his relationships with his collaborators and coworkers, and with the characters to whom he’s helped breathe life. By those measures, Dick is one of the industry’s giants…”
–Michael Eury, April 2003
from Eury’s introduction to Dick Giordano: Changing Comics, One Day at a Time
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
So maybe he can afford to date her–for now. But what happens if things get serious? Even at half price, could he afford the honeymoon?
