Believe it or not, but the title of this blog entry is the official reason given as to why Dave Simons does not have an entry on the Wikipedia web-site. Allow me to explain.

This morning I decided to give in and prepare an entry for Dave on the Wikipedia site. I took an existing article that I wrote, began to edit it and got the formatting in place. I did everything that the Wikipedia people ask for, gave reference and a rich history. Here's what I wrote (as far as I got), with the Wikipedia formatting removed for this blog:

Dave Simons is an American comic book writer and artist. Simons has worked in comics since the 1970s and is well known for his work on Conan, Ghost Rider, Howard the Duck, Dracula, Forgotten Realms and more recently Courage the Cowardly Dog. He has worked with some of the giants in the field such as John Buscema, Bob Budiansky and Gene Colan.

==Early Years==

Dave Simons grew up in New York and always wanted to be a comic book artist. "I always wanted to d…

"On that first morning David was kitted out in his blonde wig and a kilt with a great tartan sash and a sporran and a claymore and a dirk and his three-cornered hat and he said, "Jack, just tell me one thing, do I look like an utter prick?" and Jack thought about that for a moment and then said, "Yes," and they were friends ever afterwards." --Doreen Hawkins, widow of Jack Hawkins, taken from the book, The other Side Of The Moon by Sheridan Morley, 1985

The less said about this movie the better, and frankly I was amazed beyond words to discover this movie programme at my favourite little junk market this morning. Who'd have thought that they'd even bother releasing such an item and that it'd survive in such pristine condition down the years.

Now you tell me, how would you have answered Niven's question?

That is, if I were American, which I think I'm not. I'm happy to be an Australian. But after the blanket coverage that the inauguration got yesterday on our televisions - and I mean saturation coverage, there's not been such coverage of such an event with such little impact upon this nation before that I can recall, indeed even our own PM didn't gain this much coverage when he was sworn in, makes me wonder if we're not already the 51st state of the USA.

Still, after seeing this photo of Obama enjoying a dart out the front of a hut in Kenya, well that's a lot more appealing to me to me than seeing some old and frankly not very attractive rednecked skank with a fully automatic rifle posing in a bikini beside her pool while claiming she can see Russia from her front windows. Her politics went out with the likes of the foot shooter himself, Alexander Haig. It remains to be seen if Obama can now walk the walk, he can certainly talk the talk though, but after eigh…

One of the best things about plunging into an official biography is the sheer volume of material that you tend to collect. Most of that research material generally goes into the vaults or the bin depending on the quality and relevance to the project at hand. And it matters not how much research you do, eventually something is going to pop up that'll take your breath away and cause one of those special moments of amazement, which is exactly what happened here.

In mid 2008 I was offered a pile of material relating to Norm Breyfogle, who I was still the official biography for, after being commissioned by A First Salvo. Sadly the bio is now in search of another publisher, but that can wait until it's fully completed. In amongst the material were documents, scripts and pages of original art, preliminaries, sketches and much more. It was one of those finds that you always hear someone else grabbing, in this case it was me.

Amongst the cache was an envelope with the original scrip…