The Songs of Johnny Go

I was going to give the full Comic Con rundown, but I am exhausted, cranky from being on the bus, and in desperate need of beer. But for right now, I've gotta talk about the original art I got this time around.

Even if you're not inclined to read my long-winded ramblings, I urge you to at least skim this one. For the artwork alone.

( And even at NYCC, things took a turn for the Hefnerian... )

So behold what utterly dork-tastic thing I've been up to today, will you?

Let me first explain... I have a large book of Jules Feiffer cartoons, bought in London back when I was on the cusp of doing an entire play/movie/interpretive dance based on the work of Feiffer. I even managed to track him down to get his permission, which he granted, but alas, college life took over and I lost interest. A part of me still thinks I should get back to it before the man, you know, dies... but that's another story.

For those who don't know who he is, Jules Feiffer is a great cartoonist who contributed to the Village Voice for decades. His work was as often about the dark side of everyday New Yorker neurosis as it was political. One of his most famous from his era came in 1968, when he did this cartoon about Robert F. Kennedy:

( These are the Bobby Twins... )

And so, reading Ellroy's AMERICAN TABLOID and several Rat Pack biographies, I started getting interested in RFK. Here was a man hailed even by a bitter cynic like James Ellroy as one of America's greatest crime-fighters, a good-hearted man haunted by demons and deep-seated moral complexity, and to this day remains a deeply controversial figure, divided by camps who remember "Good Bobby" and "Bad Bobby."

Perhaps you can already see where this might interest me.

Anyhoo.

Ever since I read that Gotham Times Newspaper website, I've started thinking about his depiction in the movie, and noticing how they've really been pushing the controversial-figure angle. And so I started to work that in my novel's revisions, having him read the paper and see all the criticism and slander against him, which only fuels his hatred and resentment against the people of Gotham, many of whom start believing the bad press.

And one of these things he reads... could be a political cartoon.

( These are the Harvey Boys... )

All hail King Dork.