22 Years in the Making!

Denro took this photo on September 4, 2004. That was when I first met comic book creator Colleen Doran. Among the items I bought was the beautifully rendered pencil page of art she was holding.

I asked Colleen if she could ink it for me. She agreed and we would work out the delivery arrangements later. It turned out to be very much later!

Both of us sort of lost track of it. The commission request was forgotten by 2012, when I bought the cover painting for the third collected volume of Colleen’s trademark series, ‘A Distant Soil’.

‘The Aria’, Book 3 of ‘A Distant Soil’, by Colleen Doran

Last year, at my first National Cartoonists Society event, Colleen told me she’d found the page and would make good on the commission. Which she did four weeks ago, at this year’s NCS event! We shared a laugh over the 22-year delay.

Colleen felt the paper wasn’t a good surface for inking, so she scanned the image and inked the copy. Now I have both the pencil original and the finished copy.

A Glorious Past

(Publisher) James Warren, Harvey Kurtzman, Gloria Steinem, (Production Manager) Harry Chester

One of my favorite true stories is about the humor magazine HELP! Published by James Warren and edited by MAD Magazine’s creator Harvey Kurtzman, Harvey’s first editorial assistant was Gloria Steinem.

Gloria moved on and Terry Gilliam stepped in. Terry met John Cleese and put him in an issue of HELP! Before Terry left to follow Cleese to England, he arranged for Robert Crumb to be his replacement. Crumb arrived, only to be told the magazine was folding.

Gloria, Terry, and Robert each went on to bigger and greater things. Gloria is now gone.

Spotted in the Wild

Something I’ve seen before in videos from movie sets, I saw again yesterday while watching Everyone is Lying to You for Money.

DogRat-approved Sony MDR-ZX110 headphones, often available for a measly ten bucks, seem to have become a new standard for audio monitoring in the field. You can buy ten or more pairs for what a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones costs.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NJ2M43M

Standard Disclaimer: This is not a paid endorsement.

Please Take My Money

Trump, Gotham* actor Ben McKenzie, and myself each have a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. Trump originally called Crytocurrency a scam.

Being a con man himself, once Trump got in on the scam he blessed Crypto. It finally made him the billionaire he had always, and falsely, claimed to be.

McKenzie had gotten burned in an investment. From that hard lesson, McKenzie made it his mission to study, then speak out against, the Crypto market. To that end he wrote the book Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. Now he has the documentary Everyone is Lying to You for Money.

I’m going to help McKenzie earn back some of his investment in the documentary by renting it for $20.

https://www.everyoneislying.com/


(Less than two hours later)

I’ve watched the documentary, and it deserves a ★★★★★ DogRat review rating. It’s entertaining and informative, especially for those who are not super familiar with what Crypto is all about. McKenzie’s interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, from before the fall of FTX, is exceptionally telling about the nature of the market.

It’s a fraud-driven market that hasn’t changed in any essential way since Bankman-Fried’s conviction, and now having the support of the president of the United States. In fact, Sam is hoping that Trump will grant him a pardon.

But I will confess that, having once had a brief moment of contact with McKenzie’s wife, Crypto wasn’t my only reason for renting the documentary.

Morena Baccarin

A Brief Close Encounter

* I know McKenzie only for starring in Gotham. Until becoming aware of him regarding Cryptocurrency, I’d never even heard of The O.C.

Midwestern Merriment

More photos from this year’s National Cartoonists Society gala in downtown Columbus, Ohio.

https://www.hoganmag.com/blog/2026/8/28/the-2026-ncs-reuben-awards-in-photos

Hilarie and Joe Staton at the Reuben Awards Dinner
There’s my shiny head at the awards dinner. The Statons were seated to my right.
Collen Doran at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Photos by Bruce Guthrie

Next year? San Diego!