I apologize for not posting sooner. This morning, a crew from the local power and cable companies came by to change out the pole outside my house. They’ve been working on changing out the poles in my neighborhood for the past week or so. The old poles were getting very frail and old looking– very grey and weathered, so they’ve been replacing them with new strong poles. I suppose it’s in anticipation of any hurricanes that might come through this season– and in the future. This morning it was my turn. They told me the power would be out for several hours– so I left to go run some errands. I just got back home, and the power’s back. So here’s today’s post… a bit behind schedule.

Today’s ‘blast from the past’ is a FLASH bookmark that I did for the WIZARD MAGAZINE folks years back. There was a time when they could call me at any point and tell me that they had some sort of contest going on in their magazine, and they’d ask if I’d draw something to donate as a prize for whatever contest they had me in mind for. I would always agree– and draw something for FREE for them to give away. I did many such pieces for them over the years– but that all ended when I solicited them to give my buddy Todd Dezago and I a bit of publicity for our TELLOS comic when we were planning on debuting it back in 1999. They declined. As it turns out, the WIZARD guys only want what they can get from the creative community to serve their OWN needs and aren’t interested in any kind of reciprocation. Unless, that is, that creative person is someone on the level of a Jim Lee, Frank Miller, J. Scott Campbell, Michael Turner or any of the ‘upper level superstars’ in the business. But that, too, is ultimately just to sell more copies for WIZARD. That was a bitter pill to swallow for someone who thought that give-and-take and reciprocal treatment is a good thing as I did. I learned my lesson, however– and I won’t do anything for WIZARD unless they pay for it anymore– and even then, rarely, since their rates for illustrations are rather pathetic compared to other magazines I’ve done work for.

Anyway— enough bile. It doesn’t feel good to rant about past ‘slights’– and that’s not what I intended today’s post to be about. Just trying to show off some stuff that might not have been seen before.

This is Entry 225.

Mike