The A-To-Z Challenge 2016: Evan Dorkin

I'm going with a different tact, because today's post is a little personal. Also, I had a tooth extracted. I'm not in the best mood for writing, but I guess why this is considered a "Challenge."

I see Evan Dorkin a lot. Sometimes, he's at Comic Book Jones, either signing or just browsing. I tend to be tongue-tied around him, because his work is very good. Yes, I wrote about him in February, and what I said still stands. His writing kicks ass, and his artwork is okay, even as he kvetches about it. I see a lot of myself in Evan . . . he was born in Brooklyn, moved to Staten Island, and manages to deal with his neuroses well. I got the first two, and I struggle with the third.

I remember reading about Milk and Cheese in Wizard. During a sale at Jim Hanley's Universe, I got the trade paperback, which covered the first four issues he sporadically worked on. Between the ultraviolence and broad humor, I was hooked. And when I saw him at San Diego for Comic-Con International in 2000, I got my first sketch ever in a book from him.

Also, 2000 was the year World's Funnest was released from DC Comics. It was a one-shot featuring the imps that pestered Superman and Batman: Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite. The duo wound up destroying universe after universe, with Evan writing the whole thing and an all-star roster illustrating This included Frank Miller going back to The Dark Knight Returns years before that epic's sequels, and Alex Ross painting a sequence based on Kingdom Come. While Evan was a major contributor to two books featuring "alternative" talents (Bizarro Comics and Bizarro World), World's Funnest is the pure, uncut product. I met Evan again at The National (a lot closer to home), and I got Mr. Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite from him.

Over the years, I've gotten ten sketches from Evan. Several of them were based on his creator-owned characters . . .

 

 

 

 

 

. .  . while most of the others are from Marvel Comics. He also drew Death from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (before you ask . . . he went with a skeletal version in the Marvel series, as opposed to the one seen in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which was based off The Seventh Seal).

 

 

 

 

 

Like I said in February, you can find a lot of Evan's work collected, mostly through Dark Horse. Recently, DC Comics put out a trade paperback featuring World's Funnest. I can't recommend it enough. And you can check out Evan's Livejournal page for updates on what he's working on.

 

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Farel Dalrymple (three sketches, including Rorschach from Watchmen), Kim Deitch (three), Tania Del Rio (six, including the first Death drawing I ever got at the end of a sketchbook), Ryan Dunlavey (sixteen, including this sketch of Donald Trump as Darkseid that I got this past Saturday), Sarah Dyer (only one from Evan's longtime partner and wife: her creator-owned Action Girl).