I’ll be seeing my friend, cartoonist Stephen DeStefano for the first time in years, at this weekend’s Nancy Fest! event. And that got me doing a mental inventory of the handful of projects we’ve worked on together over the years.

With an exception or two, our collaborations consisted of Stephen on pencils and me on inks. I’ve scraped together samples of all of them here:

‘Mazing Man – 1986 – My good friend Karl Kesel was the original inker on this cult favorite series for DC Comics. Karl got a new assignment, and he and Stephen put in a good word for me so I got the nod to be the replacement inker. I did two issues of the regular comic, plus a couple of special editions. Bob Rozakis was the writer and co-creator of this series.

Elvira’s House of Mystery – 1987 – Stephen and I did the art for a spooky Christmas story in this one-shot for DC. Story by Barbara Kesel.

Bizarro Comics – 2001 – This was a fun collection of weird takes on DC’s heroes by an assortment of great cartoonists from outside the
standard comic book biz. Stephen drew a framing story to weave the whole thing together. The deadline was tight so he recruited a handful of inkers to finish pages. I was one of those, and inked a half-dozen pages. Script by Chris Duffy.

Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius – 2003 – I was the writer for a couple Jimmy Neutron stories for Nickelodeon Magazine, courtesy of editor Chris Duffy.  Stephen did the pencils and inks. I remember doing at least one Spongebob Squarepants story, but I don’t believe Stephen did the art for that one. I’ll have to dig that out of the archive and do an update.

Popeye’s  Voyage: The Quest for Pappy – 2004 – This was a CGI-type animated TV special produced and written by actor Paul Reiser reintroducing the Popeye gang. Stephen had become King Features Syndicate’s go-to artist for Popeye licensing art. A comic-style adaptation of the special was produced for promotional purposes. Stephen drew it and he brought me in to ink it. I’ve always loved Popeye, so this was definitely a bucket list item for me!

Alien Baby – 2007 – The Weekly World News tabloid added a comics section based on some of their more infamous recurring news stories. Stephen did some installments of Alien Baby, and then brought me in to script the ongoing narrative.  At some point Stephen left to take on another assignment, and I took over the art as well as the writing until the end.

Monitoring With Muscle – For a change, I got to bring Stephen in on a project. I’d gotten involved with an ad agency that needed a super-hero character design for their latest ad campaign. Stephen designed and drew this hero, and I inked it. I can’t remember if I did the coloring or not.

Me, by Stephen!

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