He was, and still is, one of the best black and white artists Australia has ever seen.  Even today, decades after his passing, people hold his work up as being the standard to aspire to, both in execution and sheer artistic ability.  Stan Cross was totally unique and his humour was unsurpassed.  I'll be blogging a lot more about Stan over the coming year, but, for now, here's a teaser of what's to come, an unpublished sketch showing how Stan viewed the critics.  God love you Stan Cross!

I'm throwing this out for those in the know.  Feel free to pass it on to anyone who you think could be interested. I'm working on a book about Leonard Lawson.  Other than Len himself and Bob Wood, does anyone know of any other comic book artist, writer or publisher who has been found guilty of a major crime, such as murder or rape?  I'm not limiting myself to Australia and the USA - anywhere in the world.  If you know, then details please! I've done some deep, and serious, research for this project.  In doing so I hope to reveal that what is accepted as the truth about Lawson isn't really truth.  I've found some facts that haven't been revealed, and this book will put a lie to many, many accounts. Naturally I'm nowhere near finished, so feel free to contact me if you want to start a dialogue.  I have a lot of previously unreported information on Lawson, but, as always, the more the better.  And thanks to those who have already sent down in

About ten years ago, give or take a few months, I spoke to John Romita (senior, for those keeping score) about a number of topics.  One of the topics we chatted about was when Marvel  Comics seriously thought about buying out DC Comics in the early 1980s.  DC were going broke and the idea was that Marvel would purchase the line, strip mine the big heroes such as Batman, Superman and the like, integrate them into the Marvel Universe and all would be well with the world.  But, i nstead of me paraphrasing  what was said, I'll let John tell it in his own words.   " There was a time when DC was in very bad straits," recalled John.  "There was a time when Marvel had a chance to buy every character except Batman and Superman from them. It was almost going to be like a merger. There’s no telling what would happened. It was a fleeting opportunity and suddenly Warner Brothers whipped them into shape and they stayed alive. But I remember distinctly, somewhere in the late