HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARLENE! I LOVE YOU, MOM!

Mother Aushenker turns another page today, embarking on a new chapter in her book, and she still looks so beautiful!

Happy birthday, Marlene! I love you!

 Below is a vintage shot of me, the cartoonist, age 6 or 7, with Mama Aushenker in front of his school, P.S. 276 in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Circa the Disco Age.

ENJOYED Sam Raimi's OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

Funny how patterns emerge in an artist's work, in this case director Sam Raimi. Just saw OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL and the Wicked Witch of the West was TOTAL Green Goblin. They even had a scene in which she flies in among the Munchkins that resembled the Goblin crashing the Unity Parade....

China Girl - don't make her cry! She's fragile!

Also the scenes in which Franco/Oscar helps the Munchkins gear up for war against the Witches/Flying Baboons totally echoed Ash in ARMY OF DARKNESS helping the Medieval folk gear up for war against the Army of Darkness.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. China Girl had me in stitches with her sobbing routine, that crack-up midget from BAD SANTA is in it as Nook/"Sour Puss," Bruce Campbell had a nice little cameo (as always) as the gatekeeper (running joke throughout all three Spider-Man movies) and James Franco was his usual charming self - he conveyed the right mix of boldness and insecurity behind his confident "wizard" facade.

The opening titles and the black/white circus scenes in Kansas were a lot of fun. Excellent finale! Blast the mixed reviews, this may not be Sam Raimi at his best, but it's a charming, broad family film. Sooo much better than horrible, tired pieces of shit like Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

ENJOYED Sam Raimi's OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

Funny how patterns emerge in an artist's work, in this case director Sam Raimi. Just saw OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL and the Wicked Witch of the West was TOTAL Green Goblin. They even had a scene in which she flies in among the Munchkins that resembled the Goblin crashing the Unity Parade....

Also the scenes in which Franco/Oscar helps the Munchkins gear up for war against the Witches/Flying Baboons totally echoed Ash in ARMY OF DARKNESS helping the Medieval folk gear up for war against the Army of Darkness.

Anyway, I very much enjoyed OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. China Girl had me in stitches with her sobbing routine, that crack-up midget from BAD SANTA is in it as Nook/"Sour Puss," Bruce Campbell had a nice little cameo (as always) as the gatekeeper (running joke throughout all three Spider-Man movies) and James Franco was his usual charming self - he conveyed the right mix of boldness and insecurity behind his confident "wizard" facade.

The opening titles and the black/white circus scenes in Kansas were a lot of fun. Excellent finale! Blast the mixed reviews, this may not be Sam Raimi at his best, but it's a charming, broad family film. Sooo much better than horrible, tired pieces of shit like Burton's ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

Happy 87th birthday, JERRY LEWIS, comedy superstar and filmmaker!

JERRY LEWIS not only perfected the man-child movie formula later aped by Steve Martin, Adam Sandler and virtually every other member of SNL who hit the big screen, he became an innovative filmmaker who changed the way Hollywood films were made, developing such techniques as the video assist (on the set of THE LADIES MAN, a fun film by the way). 

Plus: his best movies were made with the brilliant FRANK TASHLIN ~ ARTISTS AND MODELS! HOLLYWOOD OR BUST! CINDERFELLA! THE GEISHA BOY!

And he was brilliant in a dramatic role in Scorsese's KING OF COMEDY -- a movie he should've received an Oscar nomination for...

HAPPY 87TH, JERRY LEWIS, COMEDY SUPERSTAR AND INNOVATIVE FILMMAKER!

Hangin' with the Dice Man -- Joshua Dysart, scribe behind HARBINGER at Valiant!

Had a fun time hanging out with longtime acquaintance --comic book writer Joshua Dysart, at his Venice, Califonia digs-- always a fun conversation with this guy!

I just started reading his recent re-imagining of HARBINGER (from the recently re-launched VALIANT COMICS) yesterday and it is OUT OF CONTROL!

HARBINGER #10 drops Wednesday and Josh in the middle of working through an epic HARBINGER WARS intracompany crossover that just kicked off.

I'm totally digging HARBINGER, look for it at your local comics shop. Don't wait for the inevitable trade paperback....support the monthly and make it a hit!

It's not the typical umpteenth reiteration of shopworn superhero cliches that we're used to by now from the Big 2...Like a Mark Millar, Josh is on his own trip.

HARBINGER!! Highly recommended!

YUCK! #7 has arrived! Courtesy of MILK SHADOW BOOKS...

Here it is! Freshly arrived from Melbourne!

My contributor copies of YUCK! #7 - I've got four previously unpublished comics in this one, so order a copy if you can.

With this kind of big, fat, square-bound bounty, you won't regret going out of your way to order this Aussie anthology! Love that cover, the best YUCK! cover yet....

Thank you, editor James Andre and the crew at Milk Shadow Books! You run a classy slimeball book!

YUCK! Number Seven is OUT NOW! Four never-before-published cartoons!

Hey, Flophousers!

I've got four NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED comic strips in the spankin' new Australian anthology comics publication YUCK! #7 -- which U.S. peeps can order right here!

Please visit the MilkShadowBooks.com website and check out their other releases, including the complete YUCK! line. I also have stuff in earlier issues of YUCK! dating back to #2, including YUCK! #5, for which I did this cover:

I love what editor Sam Drane (a.k.a. James Andre) is doing with these anthologies and I think you will too if you're a fan of stuff like art spiegelman and Francois Mouly's RAW and the Drawn + Quarterly stuff. VIVA LA YUCK!

2 NEW ARTICLES: MALIBU TIMES MAGAZINE (MAR/APR) out now in PACIFIC PALISADES & MALIBU!

MALIBU & PALISADES PEEPS! 

Got TWO FEATURE ARTICLES in the new MALIBU TIMES MAGAZINE (March/April issue)  -

1) Malibu and the movies (incl. IRON MAN, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, PLANET OF THE APES, POINT BREAK, GIDGET, on and on).

2) Profile of local songstress Jacqui Hylton of Savory and Sage Room fame. Photos by the eggcellent Emily Scher Goodman ---

Available all over Malibu and Pacific Palisades.                      

My latest article: music icon MILT OKUN in the current Jewish Journal

This week's Jewish Journal contains my profile of 89-year-old music industry veteran MILT OKUN, who sang/produced/arranged/managed a slew of famous folk. He discovered John Denver and Placido Domingo, and even recorded with the Muppets and Captain Kangaroo's sidekick Mr. Greenjeans!

Here are some vintage shots of Okun, a Beverly Hills resident, with Peter, Paul and Mary (my fellow Cornellians!), and with John Denver and Denver's lawyer, famed music attorney Harry Braun (above).

Check out the hard copy, too, out all over Los Angeles now!

CHEAP PLUG TIME: WONDERCON ANAHEIM - MARCH 29-31 - Artists Alley205

It's on like WONDERCON! 

You can find me signing up BART SIMPSON COMICS, GUMBY'S GANG STARRING POKEY, the EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER series, SILLY GOOSE, UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES, GREENBLATT THE GREAT! and more... 

ARTISTS ALLEY

table AA-205 -- listed under CARTOONFLOPHOUSE.COM

--- at WONDERCON ---in the asylum Southern Californians call "Anaheim, CA" ---- March 29-31.