Readers on the @webtoon app - a fine bunch who love their partners and always remember to floss - can read up to two weeks ahead via Fast Pass! This week, we catch up with a fan favorite character and learn a little more about our Season 2 Big Bad, The Black Note. It's great fun.

Today marks 5 years since the launch of @DynamiteComics' WILL EISNER'S THE SPIRIT, by Matt Wagner (W) Brennan Wagner (C) and me -- a 12 issue jog though The Spirit's canon / a 12 month boot camp in which Matt hammered me into a proper cartoonist. SO grateful to and for this book.

There were a TON of rounds of tryouts for this book. First, I did these spec pages -- you can see I was still using the super fine SAN HANNIBAL microns. Some good stuff here and there, but there's a pervasive stiffness. It was that last pinup that ended up pushing me forward.

Next round was a test page from a sample script Matt had written. A version of this was eventually run with the Hollywood Reporter announcement of the series. I love Matt's scripts -- brief, percussive, with highlight words to dictate the tone of the panel. Great to work from.

Lucky thing, too -- this Gil Elvgren painting became the basis for my Ellen Dolan, which apparently was one of the things that finally put me over the top. I had the gig! Now it was time to get to it, we needed the issue in a month. An appropriate start to a comics career.