Cory "The Vulture" Baxter

If you've been reading That's So Kraven! (and I sincerely hope you have) then you may have noticed we've added Raven's brother Cory from the show. When trying to decide how to present Cory, Trina and I had a sit-down with our globe-hopping friend Kim. The three of us decided that an excellent foil visually for Kraven would be a bony old man. So, we selected The Vulture as our muse for Cory Baxter, and the rest is recent history.

Here's a drawing I did of Cory before we added him to the strip. The old-man look is obviously an homage to Adrian Toomes, the original Vulture. The 'going to school' costume is a reference to Blackie Drago, the second Vulture, who actually teamed up with Kraven the Hunter for a couple of issues.

A friend of mine pointed out that he bears a strong resemblance to Mr. Magoo, but I was honestly much more influenced by both Barney Rubble and the Bruce Timm version of Mr. Mxyzptlk!

Blacksad

What a fun Halloween it was! You can read about my adventures at the That's So Kraven! blog by clicking here. We had a friend dress up as Kraven the Hunter, and I carved Kraven's face into a pumpkin. There's also a new That's So Kraven! strip up, concluding the 'Miss Donna' storyline.

My friends and I also dressed as The Beagle Boys this year (thanks for the idea, Tom Spurgeon!) and we were featured in the Comics Alliance costume roundup. The excellent Chris Sims said we were the best group costume he saw this year; thanks, Chris! We love the Comics Alliance around these parts.

My fantastic friend Nick had a birthday last week. I love to draw birthday cards for my friends, so for Nick I selected a mutual favorite; John Blacksad and his sidekick Weekly. John is the star of Blacksad (by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido), an absolutely fantastic French bande dessinee about a black cat who works as a private investigator in the forties. The anthropomorphic animals are a joy to read, with oily reptiles substituting gangsters and polar mammals standing in the for the Ku Klux Klan. I highly recommend Dark Horse's trade paperback of the first three Blacksad stories (available at Amazon); it's a respectful and beautifully-produced collection.