boorishness at Bouchercon

In the top photo, Victor Gischler leers as Anthony Neil Smith prepares to cop a feel from Stacia Decker, who seconds later will beat the living piss right out of him; next, David Hale Smith and Duane Swierczinski decide they've taken about enough shit out of me; and finally, Dennis Tafoya and Theresa Schwegel mug for the camera. This last was meant to be sent to their mutual editor, but I forgot who that was.

More Pencils from Petersen

Still no title for this thing, but check out the throwing arm on old Belle, and the suave nonchalance of her middle-aged boy toy as he dodges that ashtray: "Lobby please, Dawson." These have since been inked and are being colored but I haven't seen them yet. Click to enlarge!

More Rathskeller!

Top: Agent to the Stars David Hale Smith, Dapper Dan O'Shea, and the lovely Theresa Schwegel; 2nd, the chipper Anthony Neil Smith, old sobersides Victor Gischler, and Kieran "I Like Scaring Little Old Ladies" Shea; 3rd, parts of D. O'Shea and the always classy T. Schwegel; and finally the imperturbable Jon McGoran (D.H. Dublin, to the public). A good sudsy time was had by all.

Roger Petersen, resident genius

Here's a xerox of a penciled page from my collaboration with Roger Petersen, inching its way toward pitchability. Click to enlarge and inhale its awesomeness. And if any good titles occur to you, pass them on...

Beauty and the Beasts

Left to right: uber-agent Stacia Decker, old-lady-frightening writer Kieran Shea, mega-agent David Hale Smith, up-and-coming sicko novelist John Rector, and King of Comics Duane Swierczinski, from DHS's Bouchercon party at Indianapolis's Rathskeller, a building designed by Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather. More pictures to come soon, along with some pencil pages from Roger Petersen for this comic we're soon going to have to come up with a title for.

RAT TRAP!

This is from 1985, an exterminator's window in les Halles in Paris. Les Halles was once the city's main food market, and was a real magnet for vermin. The rats in the window were caught and taxidermed...taxidermied...stuffed in the 1920s. I'm not sure whether the shop is there any more, but I've always liked the Atget-esque aspect of this picture. The scan is a pointed reminder to me that I need a better negative scanner, as I have any number of better prints of this same negative hidden away in dark corners of my abode.

The Midway, '80s style

Took these pictures at the Kansas State Fair with my brother, circa 1986. Some nice carny stuff, most of which still lies buried in the vault. The top attraction had a particularly memorable barker, and my brother and I stood around for quite a while listening to him say "Timple of Doooom. Tim-pull of Dooooom! Timple of Doooom!" before we finally paid up, went inside and found that it was a pretty uninspiring reptile show. The memory of the barker lingers, though.

Click, as always, to enlarge....

Manneken-Pis

These are two of a series of twenty slightly ribald postcards featuring the Manneken-Pis of Brussels, possibly the world's most disappointing tourist attraction. As the above cards show, it's a tiny statue of a little boy pissing into a fountain. No one really knows why it's there, though it's been suggested that it commemorates a kid putting out a fire in a similar manner. Anyway, since the early twentieth century these postcards have been on sale across the street. Mostly they feature older ladies--nuns, spinsters and unsatisfied wives--gazing longingly at the little bastard's junk.