The founder of KISS comix

Last week the publisher of Spain's KISS Comix, Jose Maria Berenguer, died. It seems that lately most of my updates are about the deaths of people who were important to me and I feel it's necessary for me to write about it. But I seriously hope this is the last death entry for a very long time.

Last August I wrote about the end of KISS Comix with an interview with Sr. Berenguer where he mentioned a lot of the artists who have contributed to the magazine and failed to mention me. Now, I have to own up to the fact that I was a little peeved at that and I even thought about just deleting the post so I wouldn't seem petty about the oversight, but I decided to leave it. We're all slaves to our emotions sometimes, so I'm sure you all understand.

Like every artist/publisher relationship since the dawn of time, we had our differences. I mentioned at the top about people who were important to me and he was. He started the first Spanish erotic anthology magazine and invited me on board just as the first GIRL series was wrapping up. It's too bad that both of La Cupula's magazines, EL VIBORA and KISS Comix, had to end, but apparently Sr. Berenguer had been battling cancer and I guess he couldn't keep them going. But 20 years is a pretty good run for a magazine. The cover above was my first and it was the second issue.

Sr. Berenguer was a good man and we had some great times. Like I mentioned, we had our differences, but I never lost my respect for him.

Fins despres, cavaller!

The Return of Francesca

Yes, I am still working on the final installment of the series GIRL: The Second Coming. and one of the main plot points is Jaleira returning to Silo City and the FANG universe.

My first color series, the three issue FANG comics introduced Francesca, a young woman searching for her mother in a weird city populated by werewolves and vampires. She, as you might expect, has one hell of an adventure. In the third issue Jaleira makes a cameo appearance to help guide Fran. So I decided to have Francesca return the favor, but I wanted to make her a more integral part of the story.

For the first two issues of FANG I didn't even have a name for her. I didn't want to use a common name found in comic books then-not Jane or Donna or nothing too mainstream. After finishing the second issue, I went to Rome and met a gorgeous italian girl named Francesca. I didn't think of using that name for my character then, but a month after that trip, I was home and caught a late night television airing of "The Mad Monster Party" which is, in my opinion, probably the greatest stop motion animated film ever made with characters designed by the great Jack Davis. (If you've never seen it, find it.)

The "damsel in distress" in the film was named Francesca and that's when I thought about it. I had gotten into the third issue by then and tried to think of any existing comic book characters named Francesca and couldn't think of any. I haven't kept up with comics lately, so there may be some now, but at the time I was doing Fang, I couldn't find any. It's a great name, so I decided to use it as a name for a total amazonian bad ass.

And as you can see in the painting, you probably don't wanna piss her off.

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