...to make the words communicate just as well as the pictures do. If you want realistic dialogue that's rich and specific and ironic, go to Leonard Starr. But if you want stagy, wordy, chew-the-scenery dialogue, Caniff is a master.

...Charlie...their dialogue is distinctive and specific, and he's just as good with a world-weary monologue as he is with an excited expostulation as he is with a stirring call to battle. He's a cartoonist of words, too. He knows where to exaggerate, and where to put the light and the shadows...

I think his dialogue's not terribly realistic -- but it's rich in character. On the one hand, he's playful and versatile, which makes the comedy lines work well, but he's just as capable of being bittersweet or ironic or rueful. Everyone's got their own voice -- Connie, Terry, Pat, Burma, Hotshot...

Of course computer lettering was just about to make them superfluous antiques, but I fooled this upstart rival-to-be bwah ha ha! www.amazon.com/Staedtler-Le...

One of humanity’s best ideas ever was taking the darkest time of the year, as cold temperatures set in, and doing celebrations with lights, loved ones, generosity, and food. Various cultures independently came up with something along those lines, and others picked it up. Fantastic idea, people.

This morning

The Year in Photos - NY Times - [Gift Link] Read on a bigger screen if you can, a phone doesn't do the images justice. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

You give us William Shatner and Martin Short and we do this

A rare positive development: www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Artist-client dialogue not improving

An education

EX-MACHINA (from Christmas With The Superheroes #2) - written & pencilled by @paulchadwick.bsky.social, inks by John Nyberg - one of my all-time favourite Christmas comics, and an all-time favourite Superman story. Very low-key, intimate, and personal. pgs1-4

A political environment in which a decisive number of voters are mad all the time and think everything's awful, no matter current material conditions or personal experience, presages years of swinging back and forth, accomplishing nothing, satisfying no one but entrepreneurs of chaos and decline.

Insane that these antivax horrors, which bring avoidable suffering onto millions of people, including a lot of children, follow the biggest, fastest, most successful vaccine roll out in history. RFK Jr., Trump, the GOP Senate, and “MAHA” evidently think the problem with COVID was not enough death.

Dig the range of skin tones, the assymetries of eyes and brows, the perfectly rendered compressions of tissue and wrinkles of this detail of a Norman Rockwell painting. The champ.

Useful image courtesy of my friend Aaron.

“‘Death By Lightning’ Shows Why a Professional Civil Service Matters” My latest for @washingtonmonthly.com washingtonmonthly.com/2025/12/19/d...

I've thought about this since learning of it in one of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels, of all places, in the seventies. Considering India's population, could be the biggest human-made disaster in history. Plutonium-powered snooper device rusting in glacial ice. Great graphics btw.

It's Tower of Skulls, and illustrates a poem by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. And I wonder if it was in the mind of director Danny Boyle when designing the poignant late scene of the boy's tribute to his mother in 28 Years Later.

I've seen this with the title, "The Boy Who Never Shivered." Love the irrationality of the extra, disembodied eyes. Why? It works somehow.

Tanto McCay como Segrelles tocaban esas temáticas fantásticas de esa época. Cuando Segrelles se pone a imaginar, se acerca mucho a McCay!

La supèrbia, per Josep Segrelles Anuari del Foment de les Arts Decoratives: Any 6 (1924) UAB. Servei de Biblioteques

José Segrelles

Jinn — José Segrelles

I keep a file of "Mist and Liminal" pictures, and occasionally use them as wallpapers. Soothing and comforting.

Something magical is coming, at the end of the week (link in bio)

With the extensions in IL & PA, there are now TEN STATES where we STILL HAVEN'T REACHED the deadline to enroll for coverage starting January 1st: MASSACHUSETTS: You still have until December 23rd: www.mahealthconnector.org

CALIFORNIA: You still have until December 31st: www.coveredca.com

📣 We're past December 15th; now what? ALSO: Deadline extensions in IL & PA, and an important update in CT!) acasignups.net/25/12/16/wer...

Crazy Alien Woman of Mars #bookcover commission I did way back when. #Acrylic on canvas…. #illustration

James Cameron’s Avatar:Adapt or Die cover #5 from 2022 @darkhorsecomics.bsky.social . Written by Corinna Bechko, interior art by Beni R Lobel.

Tinsel lingers as long as AirSoft pellets. Awful stuff.

*choke*

So cool the way the polka dots curve around the form. Maxfield Parrish would approve.

Is this from "The Stand"? What's going on in this picture?

Albert Uderzo

Albert Uderzo

Tom is so great with the "colorful grays."

Alex got pretty risqué back in the thirties

Strong silhouette design first priority

It is monday morning, which means I have again done the thing which I am known to do www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

To those thinking Russia is winning in Ukraine: Imagine if when we invaded Iraq, we were almost four years into it, only occupied 20 percent, and lost a million men. Not a soul would call that “winning.”

'Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas being transported to Fossanova Abbey.' Photograph by Daniel Ibanez

Stoke-on-Trent Kurt Hutton, 1946

Ha ha ha

Cool painting (be sure you see the bottom section)