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“The angry frothing of his mouth and the crazed look in his eyes” is reminiscent of Barry from The Tick (left, and lovingly stolen from the International Catalogue of Superheroes).

Sometimes in my dreams, Ben Edlund never stopped churning out issues at New England Comics.

Oh what glorious dreams they be. Sometimes Gerhard does the backgrounds. And sometimes he even does the backgrounds 23 years after the fact.

Page Four Notes:

• Superheroes with multiple personalities are straight out of the original Moon Knight by Doug Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz. Millionaire Steven Grant. Mercenary Marc Spector. Cabbie Jake Lockley. And, of course, Moon Knight. God, I loved that series. As an aside, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Alan Zelenetz for laying waste to the mystery of Moon Knight in the ’80s. An ankh, Alan? Seriously, a freakin’ ankh as your signature weapon? And don’t get me started on West Coast Avengers. Seriously. Don’t poke the bear.
• The first time I saw different captions for different “voices” was way back in Cerebus #20, the brilliant “Mind Game” issue wherein Dave Sim played a serious mind game with his readers. Check out the assembled pages if you don’t believe me.
• Credit where credit is due. Craig Ferguson was the first person I ever heard talk about zombie poo. I’ll wager, though, I was the first to talk about zombie rat poo.
• The Comics Code Authority seal was rather ubiquitous back in the day, a response to Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. If you don’t know the history, well, there’s always Wikipedia, guaranteed to be 95% right. As in, I’m not sure Fredric Wertham ever played the harp. Just sayin’.