§ As you may have read, artist Eduardo Barreto has been struck by meningitis and his recuperation will take months — forcing him to leave the art duties on the comic strip Judge Parker. Michael Cavna reports that Mike Manley has been named as the new Judge Parker artist and updates Barreto’s condition:

As for Barreto, Wilson says he recently spoke to the Uruguay resident “and there was no chance he was coming back.” The artist is going to spend the South American summer convalescing, the writer says.

“I know Eduardo has received hundreds of e-mails from people wishing him well,” Wilson says. “I’ve been in this business a very long time, and it’s rare you see this kind of outpouring and affection for a comic-strip artist. It takes you back to the old days. People really respect the work and the effort and the details.

“It really is neat for me to be able to say that I worked with Eduardo Barreto. He’s the best in our business … and I expect by late in the year, he’ll be back [drawing in some capacity]. He just has to get well again.”


We also send our best wishes to Barreto and our congratulations to Manley, whose blog we link to frequently. Manley comments on his new gig there:

Doing the “straight” stuff or soap opera strip is a lot harder than super heroes, there are less was you can cheat or get away with a splash page or some jazzy layouts. But as an artist I am always up for a challenge. Comic strips are the hardest and most disciplined form of comics outside of the gag strip. Three little frames that have to tell an interesting story and capture drama on a pretty small stage these days. Drawing people in suits and locations and all of that really takes time and is hard work. The great artists like Alex Raymond, Stand Drake and Leonard Starr made it look easy, deceptively easy, and that easy is hard. Doing it 365 days a year is also hard and requires a depth of passion and work ethic that many artists are just not up to.
I’m thankful for the help of long time writer Woody Wilson and Brendan Burford in my first few weeks on the strip.

§ Sasha Watson interviews Dylan Horrocks for PWCW upon the return of his much loved graphic novel HICKSVILLE:

DH: Well, Hicksville was a big deal for me in a number of ways. It took me six years to write and draw, it was my ‘breakthrough’ work, and it received a response from readers way beyond anything I’d imagined while working on it. But it was ten years ago-and since then comics have gone from a passion to a career for me, which has meant some good things and some not so good.


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§ J. Caleb Mozzocco on A couple of very violent Teen Titans trades.

1 COMMENT

  1. “Hicksville” is an incredible work, telling a great story which can only be told in comics. I was lucky enough to have been travelling through New Zealand when it was published in Pickle, discovering an incredible story.

    Some nights, I dream of Kupe’s Lighthouse…

  2. Sad to hear about Barreto. I’m reading Union Station right now and had been meaning to look him up and see what else he has done.

  3. Aw, man, sad to hear about Barreto. Judge Parker was seriously one of the best drawn comic strips in the paper. I’d like to think that Barreto’s style gave that stodgy old strip a little “oomph” over the last few years.

  4. Heya! Kudos for publishing such an unusual article. Basically you could quite possibly have pointed out those subjects vice versa. But you brought it a great private spin. Looking foward to looking in on your site on a regular basis.