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Fiddling With The Site

I used to make a habit of it back in the day—restless tinkering, never quite being satisfied. In the last decade, although this site has been through a number of changes, I’ve been less inclined and not even sure what purpose the site served. For a long time the Portfolio section attempted to be an all-encompassing summary of everything I supposedly do, for example, and it never quite worked. So this time out I have focused it just on my artwork.

LOL, look—some people think my artwork is crap! But I have as much right as anyone to improve. I believe my portrait work has improved significantly in the last six years. Overall my stuff has enjoyed a more modest improvement. No doubt I have weak areas. But it makes sense to me to focus the Website on something in particular. It gets messy otherwise.
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Paul Gravett’s Brum Visit

A very good day, today, as I caught up with old comics pal Paul Gravett for the first time in aeons.

After meeting up at New Street (sorry, Grand Central, the station’s been a New York Wannabe since 2015 now!!), we went to the new-ish Wetherspoons there for a long lunch. We had fish & chips, and I had two or three of those refillable coffees (Paul stuck with tea! Very English!).

This was a great opportunity to pose for an awkward selfie with me squinting at the camera screen…

Paul Gravett’s Brum Visit

Note my Darkseid badge! I brought Paul one too. After eating, I had a “commission” to do…
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Births & Deaths

So, as almost all horror fans know, today is the birthday of both Vincent Price and Christopher Lee… and just yesterday was Peter Cushing’s date of birth, by odd coincidence.

Lee, Price & Cushing, 1982
Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing—publicity shot from 1982, during the shoot for HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS.

Also, for me, a significant day for losses. On this day back in 2006, we not only lost the legendary cartoonist Alex Toth—my mother also passed away. Has it really been 18 years? Not to me. Time makes no sense these days.

A few pics of mom…
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Remembering the Two Freds

As hinted at in this post, March 14 would have been Fred (Jr)’s 20th birthday, if he was still here. He died in 2018.

Well, further to that, today would have been a big birthday for the “original” Fred, who was born on April 26 1994. Yup, the Big Three-Oh! Of course, no Westie in the long history of Westiedom ever lived to be 30, but it’s a bittersweet landmark that I wanted to note. I also plan to make a few more postings about both of the Freds in due course, 2024 being a big year for them. Below are a couple of pics of OG Fred in the meantime (I’m working on scanning many more)…

Fred July 1994
OG Fred as a pup, early July 1994.
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What Happened Since June…

For a while, we’d been letting Tikki go on ‘dates’ with other Westies. Finally, early in May this year she met a lad named Ollie and there was a successful pairing. We just wanted Tikki to have the experience of motherhood the one time, and intended to keep at least two of the litter so she’d have a couple of companions.

What Happened Since June…
Tikki & Ollie, May 2022.
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Gene Colan: Ten Years On

Perhaps this was more appropriately posted back in June (the month of his passing), but as September marks his 95th birthday, that’s fine.

It’s hard to believe the great Gene Colan has been gone for ten years. And what a different (but not in the least bit better) world it is today compared to even back then.

Gene Colan: Ten Years On
Late ’70s Colan cover to DAREDEVIL #154, nicely inked by Steve Leialoha.
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