Almost a decade ago, I got an email from someone in England who was interested in contributing a monthly cartoon. A pre-requisite for becoming part of the Star-Revue team is asking. The next is to keep showing up. And so for every single month since then, except for once when my email was acting up and I didn’t receive a cartoon, he’s been in every single issue.
I’m a big fan of cartooning, I still have my high school looseleaf book which is full of my doodlings of Spiderman and Captain America. I even created a character which I called the Crimson Cockroach.
When I first began the paper I was lucky enough to have two cartoonists. I became friends with Harold Shapiro when he was already an octegenarian. Starting in the 1930’s he was a pro cartoonist for a myriad of national magazines. He was very supportive of my idea to start a paper. Long retired from the craft, he doodle a cartoon on a napkin, which I published. Afterwards I reprinted a bunch of his older one.
Of course, someone that will always be extra special in my heart is Vincent Musacchia. I knew Vinny back in the 1970’s, when I used to come to 395 Atlantic Avenue once a week on press nights at the old Brooklyn Phoenix. He was part of the production staff and when necessary would whip together illustrations for ads and articles, as well as laying out the paper, which in those days was done by hand.
He left the Phoenix for a successful career drawing for Disney and Warner Brothers out on the West Coast. We met again completely by accident as he showed up with friends at my jam space on Union Street that I started along with the paper, back in 2010. Like many great artists, he was a musician as well.
Tragically, Vincent died young from cancer, still a bitter loss for many.
But we are again back at two, as Sophie Furman joined Marc last year.
Jackson was in NY on a short visit, and I met him as he was leading a drawing class for kids at the Greenpoint Library. Together with a comics publisher, and Mrs. Jackson, we all went to have pizza nearby, topping off a great visit.
Author
George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.
