28. Nina's No Angelina !

27. Patty Has Moved In !

26. Zanto's New Roommate ?

Patty The Hun

25. When Henry Met Patty...

24. Patty's Navel Is Well Equipped

23. Introducing Patty The Hun

It just came to me for the first time that Patty the Hun works as a magazine photographer and Guy our webmaster works for a photography magazine, but really, there is no inside joke here.

Really.

22. Flying Through The Air

Zanto is longing for the good old days.

It's a scientific fact that when you're younger, you have a whole lot more elasticity.

21. Zara's Magic Roadshow Tour

I agree with artist Trina Robbins that you have to have started drawing when you were very young to become good at it later on. But in order to be really fluid, you have to practice a lot and I believe the key is to draw day in and day out.

It's like a batting average at baseball, by doing this you can bring your stats up. Instead of doing one nice drawing out of every five to ten you try if you just draw once in a while, you can bring it up to two nice drawings out of every three if you draw every day.

I have written a lot of jokes for the Zanto comic strip in advance, and I remember that I sort of wrote myself in a corner and had trouble drawing this particular strip because I had stopped drawing for a few weeks.

To get it done, I sat down and put on a silent movie of you-know-who in the DVD player and did a few sketches from that, something I never do. The last drawing I drew of Zara (in the last panel) was a bit off, but it reminded me of Italian artist Guido Crepax, so I intentionally modified the word ballon to look like something Guido Crepax would have done. Guido Crepax' creation Valentina in the 1970s was based on the same silent screen actress that inspired Zara, so it is an homage.

The many monsters I have drawn for monsteraday.com have helped improve my drawing a lot, if only to get me to draw more regularly

20. Henry sees through Zara's ways

When Guy and I used to work in a copy store many years ago, we regularly helped a customer who brought in strange books about inframagnetism and pyramids that give you energy, and crystals. I swore to myself that one day I would take the time and read up on these enlightening subjects.

Instead, I wasted a lot of time programming computers instead.

When I think of the road not taken...

19. Introducing Henry the Guitarist, Zanto's Roommate

Henry is a suave and wise character.
I picture him as rather pale.
I was just thinking that I had never met a really good guitarist who also had a nice, healthy looking tan.

18. Return of Zara the Astrologer

I was just thinking how astrology seems to be a more exact science than the weather web site I consult.
Just yesterday, the web site told me it would rain in the evening. My astrologer told me something bad would happen if I went out that night.
So I left the house, bringing along a heavy raincoat to see an outdoor concert by the Black Eyed Peas.
It didn't rain but a girl emptied her drink on my back.

17. Eternal For Men is Great!

Marketing will get you every time.
Golly, no doubt the strongest mouthwash you'll ever try, Zanto!

16. No Message From Nina

I think it's very rare when you have a crush on someone that they have a crush on you at the same time.
I still remember waiting for the phone to ring.
And when it finally did ring, it was either Mom calling or brother Andrew who needed to complain about his boss and his job.

15. Peter Is A Catch

Nowadays, when you say a guy is an eligible bachelor, women wonder what is wrong with him.
Unless he is a neurosurgeon, that is.

14. Peter the Neurosurgeon Is Smitten With Nina

It's nice when other people become interested in what you love to do.

13. Introducing Peter the Neurosurgeon

They say neurosurgeons earn a good salary.
And have a great personality too, of course.

12. Que Sera Sera

Just Nina's runaway imagination.

11. Barbara is in for a shock

Nina has strong faith that her computer service date with Zanto the Golden Skull will work out.
She's banking on it.

10. Losing Streak

Sometimes it just feels like you are on a losing streak that has no end in sight.
You might be convinced in such times that it would be preferable to just stay in bed.
Losing streaks feel like a punishment from the gods.
Payback for bad karma accumulated over time.
Zanto is about to come out of his when he finally meets Nina.

9. Horses

I don't like horses myself. I was thrown off the last two horses I rode on.

All I can say is, beware horses that are used to follow other horses!!!

The second last time, the head horse decided to roll in the sand and the two horses behind him decided to imitate him. All three of us riders were thrown off, but one was pinned down by the beast rolling over on top of her. Fortunately, no one was hurt that time.

Also, if the horse up front starts galloping, they all rush after him. This is what happened to me that final time, and as I struggled in vain to halt the stupid fleabag, my saddle got loose and started sliding to the side. I dived off the beast as it was in full racing mode, flat on my face, breaking my glasses. My ribs hurt for a couple of weeks. I got an eye infection and had to take antibiotics.

One day I hope to become rich so I can go back to find that animal, buy it, and shoot it dead myself.

Disco Fever 2

I remember shopping at a department store when I was a teenager in 1977, and they had a whole aisle of Tina Charles' "I Love to Love" LP record on sale for $4.99. The aisle was the size of a monster truck.

The lyrics to this immortal disco song can be found here

No one knew anything about Tina Charles back then. She just had this huge hit that was on the radio 50 times a day. Today of course, we have Wikipedia.

In retrospect, in the song "I Love to Love", Tina Charles had a pretty moronic relationship with her significant other. He lacks libido but has a lot of fancy dance moves to compensate for that shortcoming.

I try to picture the Tina Charles and her man of that song sitting on their porch today in 2010, over thirty years later, and as much as I strain my brain, I just can't imagine what they might be talking about.

"Ehhhh... You used to love to love."

"And you danced (cough cough)."

Pregnant silence.

Unpublished DC Comics Elvira cover

Hello!

Guy tells me I can email my blog posts so I am giving it a try today.

In 1985 I somehow got an appointment with Editor Sal Amendola at DC
Comics in New York City to try out for comic book inking assignments.
Tom and Mary Bierbaum swung that interview, thank you again folks, even
though we never met. Tom and Mary were writing a comic strip called
"Woofer and Tweeter" drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger for DC, it wasn't
inked at that point, and they knew I was trying to become a professional
inker and that I was a student of Kurt's art. Kurt was one of the
original Captain Marvel artists at Fawcett in the 1940s, but he was best
known as the "Lois Lane" artist for DC in the 1960s.

I showed up for the interview with a lampoon page of Lois Lane which Mr.
Amendola loved (Still have it, I'll show it here another time). Sal
Amendola was a professional artist himself, I remember complimenting him
on some Atlas comics he'd done (and for which apparently he was never
paid). Long story short, he gave me a bunch of photocopied 11 x 17 inch
pages to try my hand at inking, including a few Archie comics which I
did my best to ignore, and a few Woofer and Tweeter pages by Kurt
Schaffenberger.

I traced all the photocopies and redrew them, and also drew this cover
from scratch for a comic book called "Elvira's House of Mystery" which I
knew Sal Amendola was editing at the time. It was unsollicited of
course, I just wanted to get his attention.

Anyway, I sent my art by air mail only to find out a couple of weeks
later that Sal Amendola had left the company! He was replaced by Ed
Hannigan, who never bothered opening mail.

My friend Ken Gale who lives in New York City, who has always been a bit
of a rebel, stormed the offices of DC Comics to retrieve my artwork a
year later, and unbelievably, he left the offices with my mailing tube
unopened. He checked out my art and mailed everything back intact. A prince.

So here is an unpublished Elvira comic book cover by Bert Blood from 1985.

Cheers!

Bert

8. Nina consults Zara the Astrologer Again

Kids, don’t gamble on the online poker web sites.
Save your money, wait until you're older and wiser.
Then go ahead and gamble on the stock market.

Disco Fever

As Zanto likes to remind us, "Disco will never die!"
Full lyrics to this classic song by Boney M here.

7. Zanto sends a gift to Nina

I never figured out what gift to give to my significant other at X-Mas or her birthday.
That's why in my little imaginary world, Zanto hits it dead on the nose.

Nina on Facebook

6. Nina consults Zara the Astrologer

Any resemblance to a silent movie star I adore is purely coincidental.

Zanto Wins Big!

Although we do not condone gambling, even if it is organized by the
state, Zanto certainly would!
The thrill of winning has overcome him!
Too bad he didn't win enough to be able to buy another lottery ticket.

5. Zanto’s new part time job

This is a bit of an inside joke, as both persons responsible for this
web site, Bert and Guy, once worked in a copy store together.
In fact, Bert hired Guy there.
Now Guy bosses Bert around.
What goes around comes around.

Nina trying to look good for her upcoming date with Zanto

I don't know about you, but we don't think Nina needs to lose any weight.
She looks terrific already!
But she never listens to us!

Barbara does not think Nina should date Zanto

No, please Barbara, don't be shy.
Tell us how you really feel about it?

Barbara

Nina

Zanto the Golden Skull

4. Presenting Barbara, Nina’s best friend

Every stand up girl has to have a best friend to help guide her through life and support her important decisions.
Fortunately for Nina, she has Barbara!

3. Zanto gets the call he’s been waiting for !

Nina has decided to go on a date with Zanto!
Computer dating services really do work!
Er...
We think.
Well, let's just say they work wonders!

2. Zanto describes the perfect woman for himself

In this comic strip, Zanto chats with his wrestler colleague Stan about his quest for his soul mate.
Unfortunately, Zanto has been reading too many parapsychic self-help books and he is a bit confused on what makes a real-life relationship work.
Or perhaps he's ahead of all of us!

1. Nina is looking for L-O-V-E !

In this first comic strip, Nina "sort of" meets her soul mate...
Zanto the Golden Skull!
A manly masked wrestler with a tender and caring side.
A side which has, incidentally, a bit of blubber inside.