All You Need Is Don!

As some of you know, I run a website called The Art of Don Newton. You can find a link to it to my immediate right. Don was a comic book artist, first as a fan in the 1960s and early 1970s and then as a professional from 1975 through 1985. Don died in 1984 and my site is a tribute to the man and his art.

It's hard to get people interested in Don these days, since he has been dead for over 20 years now, but those who do remember Don remember him more than fondly. Over the years of doing my site I have become the de facto Don Newton expert and when someone wants to do something on Don I usually get an email.

This happened about seven months ago. I got a call from Michael Eury, the editor of BACK ISSUE magazine. He wanted to do a Newton article and he wanted to know if I was interested. I got a paycheck, comp copies of the magazine and, more importantly, I got to spread the gospel of Don Newton to a whole new cast of comic fans.

The magazine came out this week. I'm pretty damn proud of the effort.

In his editorial Michael Eury says...

Those of you who have been reading this magazine for a while know that BACK ISSUE traditionally does not feature career-spanning retrospectives of writer or artists... I've rejected several proposals from writers who wanted to do a "Fill-in-the-Blank-Name-of-a-Famous-Artist Issue" of this magazine--that's simply not our purview.

But then there's Don Newton.

Don Newton's name has popped up in letters and emails from BI readers more so than any other creator's. Many of our readers fondly remember Newton's work, and have asked for it to be covered in these pages.

And then there is this...

From this week's Scoop e-newsletter:

Back Issue #19
Off the Presses, Scoop, Friday, November 17, 2006

TwoMorrows Publishing; $6.95

Probably the best issue of the publication to date, Back Issue #19 features an amazing and insightful cover story on the art and the life of the late Don Newton. In addition, Michael Eury gives readers the “Backstage Pass” to Geppi's Entertainment Museum in the form of a photo tour of the attraction. And if that was not enough, find out about the CBS Justice League-based pilot that never was in an Unlimited Powers feature and delve in the history of The Defenders and The Champions as Back Issue flashes back in time,

A lot of work, but well worth it to me if it makes even one new Don Newton fan. My only gripes are that they didn't mention my website and there are a couple of edits that read wrong. Oh, and a piece of art is mislabeled as being inked by Dan Adkins when it is clearly signed by Frank McLaughlin.

But hey, I got the cover, the background image on the Table-of-Contents, a four-page gallery, a sixteen-page article by me and a two-page "Memories of Don Newton" by Don's good friend Jay Willson. That's twenty-four pages of Don!

Not too shabby! Spread the word!