Turns out William Messner-Loebs, a fellow comic book creator, had fallen on hard times and was living in a Salvation Army shelter with his wife. So, Neal was rallying the comix community to pony up a superhero or supervillain sketch that he would auction off and print in a benefit book [to be published by TwoMorrows] so as to raise funds twice for the down and out Loebs'. I wrote Neal telling him I would surely help a fellow cartoonist in need and asked his advice as to what I should draw? Neal wrote back, "How 'bout a mysterious hero stripped to the waist battling a powerful alien. The hero's identifying shirt is lying near-crumpled on the ground. Or whatever you like."
Classic!
Time swathes by like a sickle on speed while I put THE QUITTER to bed and nail a bunch of freelance illustration gigs before hopping onto my current Pekar written ESCAPIST gig. A couple of days ago, I get an emergency email from Neal wondering where my sketch was? TwoMorrows had already solicited the book with my name attached and they needed the art work - pronto! Needless to admit, I'd promptly forgotten to do the do. Scrambling, I couldn't commit to a new drawing because I had two pages of art due to my editor at Dark Horse that day!
I rifled through my art studio and discovered "Moloch," a character sketch I had drawn for
If you hear about the auction or see the book, do Loebs a favor, and give a crippled crab a crutch. Thanks!
