From my ROAD BITS notebook, collecting dreams while on the road, in May 1994. I’d dreamed of Don Simpson, creator of BIZARRE HEROES, the night before the Capital City Trade Show, but took the opportunity of hanging out at the bar to sketch the great artist from life. And yes, he did go on to add some dreams of his own to ROAD BITS.

Had a great visit yesterday with old Kubert School classmate, Chris Kalnick. Steve Bissette made the trip down and we enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch under the cabana and laughed about the good old days. Chris brought this photo, which he took during one of his previous visits. That’s John Totleben, myself and Bissette making use of Steve’s supply of masks, false teeth and horror movie props to mug it up for Chris and his camera circa 1984.

In the heat of the Spirits Of Independence Tour in 1995, we self publishers would hit the bar after a show to jabber, drink and sketch (usually all at once). I’d be collecting dreams for my ROAD BITS feature in the back of RARE BIT FIENDS and doing spontaneous portraits, caricatures and gags along with everyone else. Here’s a drawing of me I found in one of my notebooks, done from life as I talked about Paul Pope. The art is unsigned and I don’t have a clue who did it, but they sure caught me.

Found this beaut in the bottom of a drawer. It’s a photo of me, age 3, in front of the Veitch family hacienda in Walpole New Hampshire, taken by older brother Tom Veitch on his trusty Brownie. Looks like I’m in my Sunday go-to-church outfit. The date on the back is October, 1954.

Man, I felt so old when I turned forty. Now that I’m 57, forty seems like the prime of youth! This portrait of me is by Ceil Walcott, an accomplished painter who had worked on a daily comic strip titled “Yak A Day”, in England before the Second World War. She was in her 80’s when she nailed me with these few simple lines.

Sorry it took so long to get to the punch line of Wednesday’s post! To recap: Ric Estrada’s first assignment to us Kubert School students back in ‘76 was to make two drawings. The first would depict how we saw ourselves at the time and the second what we envisioned ourselves becoming in the future.

After doing the self portrait posted below, I flipped the page in the sketchbook and, using a light box, imagined myself as an old man in the drawing you see above. My rationale when I showed the class was that the best one could hope for was to be alive into old age. Everyone, including Ric, got a big kick out of me being bald. (For the record, I’ve since cut my long locks and have at least a bit more left on top.)

Bulletin: I’ve just received word that NYMAG.com’s Culture Vulture blog is now running the complete 6 page NEIGHBORS story I drew from Harvey Pekar’s script!

I’ve recently been in touch with Ric Estrada, world class cartoonist and one of my favorite teachers back at Kubert School. Digging through my notebooks from that period I found what I think are notes from his very first “Business Of Art” class. Ric’s first assignment was to execute two drawings: one panel showing how we saw ourselves at the time and a second panel showing what we expected to be.

Here’s my first, a self portrait from life, standing in front of a mirror. Pencil in sketchbook, 1976.

Tomorrow: What 25 year old Rick expected to become!

Another giant of European comics I was lucky enough to meet when I visited Lucca in 1980 was Hugo Pratt, author of CORTO MALTESE. Here’s my watercolor and pencil portrait of Hugo for HEAVY METAL.

In 1980 I traveled to Lucca, Italy to attend the city’s annual Comics Festival; reporting back to HEAVY METAL in an article titled “The Tip of The Iceberg at Lucca 14″. I illustrated the piece with some color sketches of things I saw, hot political issues I heard about and people I met. Here’s Jean Giraud, who’s Moebius work was then revolutionizing American readers’ perception of what comics could be. Jean was about 42 at the time of this watercolor and pencil portrait.