Blame Lonergan

He was the one what led me down this unfortunate life of crime, yer honor.

May 06, 2026

There’s a free comic by me below. But first …

I wanted to take a moment, before we get into comic matters, to say thank you to everyone who reacted or sent a comment or touched base and checked in after my last column where I detailed the down-then-up on my mum.

She died around 10:20 p.m. Thursday.

Looks like the rallying was a short blip in the downward slide of the past — what is it now? — three, four years? Listen, she had an all-around good life. The end was rough, yes, but it will be for all of us. Whatever the functional part of her ravaged hippocampus to which she retreated seemed to comprise the core memories of her girlhood, and she was, according to those on the outside, content.

Did I ever tell you how I ended up such a comics fan? My mum. She was the one who started buying me comics and enabled my habit because she knew they were helping me learn to read. That led me to a passion for art. And all that reading led me to become a journalist and a professional writer. Small acorns can grow into mighty oaks.

Her death was “peaceful,” according to the home duty manager. Whether or not that was a meaningless platitude, I choose to find comfort in it. I am deeply glad for the compassionate care she received from the home’s staff.

If it’s OK with you, I’d like to move on.

Union Jack, sort of but not quite but yeah, blame Lonergan

I’ve been noodling around this bootleg project for a while. Pushing out its five pages has seemed interminable; I overthought every step; shit happened (see the last column). I didn’t want it to take that long, honestly, but man plans and god laughs and here we are. But it’s finished.

I haven’t wrapped it up in covers and indicia and all that yet. I probably will so I can print off a few copies and force it into people’s hands at a convention like that guy in Family Guy showing off his kids’ pictures.

I’d like to shout out Jesse Lonergan here, the amazing artist behind Hedra, Drome, Panda Express Delivery Service and many other really excellent publications. His star is on the rise and I was lucky enough to completely coincidentally run into Lonergan at last year’s SPX. I gave him a copy of Tony Osmond II and he gave me his small zine-like ashcan, We Ride at Night1, a glorious, poetic take on Batman in a sort of 1950s fever dream. I wrote about it in this column after the event.)

Turns out that that simple gift was a doorway, a portal, a rabbit hole. “I could do something like this,” I thought, hubristically. No, no. I couldn’t do anything resembling Lonergan’s output. His innovatory approach is … it’s in another league entirely. But the spark was lit. Maybe, I argued to myself, I should take a character I love and give it the bootleg treatment.

I had the perfect candidate. My love for Union Jack has been long and abiding since John Byrne drew him in Captain America 253 and 254. And every appearance since then has been utterly shit (with the exception of a three-issue mini-series by Ben Raab and the impeccable, flawless art of John Cassaday). And, to be fair, he’s a shit character: He walks around in a Union Jack flag costume with a Webley revolver and a silver-coated dagger. He doesn’t have powers (sort of; it’s complicated). And yet … he holds a piece of my childhood’s heart, alongside 2000AD, Captain Britain, Night Raven and those wonderful short-lived attempts by Marvel to penetrate the U.K. market where I first saw him in glorious black and white Bryne art.

But he doesn’t have to be shit. No character needs be shit with good writing and good art. Neither of those are particularly evidenced by this bootleg. But this is a passion project, an itch I needed to scratch. I hope you will appreciate the enthusiasm and grade on a curve.

So, thank you, Jesse, for the inspiration. We Ride at Night helped tip me over the edge and put pen to paper.

Enjoy.