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I’ll Take “Holiday Potpourri” for $500, Alex January 4, 2002 I’ve just returned from Florida, in the midst of worrying about my dad’s heart operation and trying to enjoy the first holiday I’ve had in about eight een months, where I was able to finally see the International Cartoon Art Museum. When I was last in Boca Raton, six years ago, they were just put ting the finishing touches on the building and hadn’t opened the installa tions yet. This past week, Mimi and I were visiting her grandmother, and I was able to see the whole thing, just before it closed up shop in its pres ent location in the last week of 2001. From birth to death, as it were. I really hope that they are able to quickly find a new space for some of these pieces, because it was really very inspiring to see comics pages so tastefully displayed. Apparently, the collection is over 100,000 pages; and only a few, of course, can be shown at a single time. Here were some of my favorites:

Dave Sim’s cover to Cerebus #88 Gene Colan’s Captain America #122, p. 3 Neal Adams’ Green Lantern #76, p. 5 Jack Kirby’s FF #31, p. 11 Howard Chaykin’s cover to the Time Squared graphic novel

Joe Kubert’s two page spread from Tor #1 Steve Bissette’s Swamp Thing #35, p. 21-22 John Romita’s Spider-man #65, p. 7

Of course there were many other really very nice pieces: A Gil Kane GL page, the cover to Heartburst by Rick Veitch, and so on. But my favorite has to be pages 22-24 of Heroes for Hope #1, written by Harlan Ellison, and drawn by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz, because I think the plan ets don’t align like that very often. Three big heavy-hitters at the top of their games, in a museum devoted to comic book art, for all the world to see. It’s just fine stuff, and I hope they find new digs soon, because this collection really should never be moth-balled. My favorite time-waster so far this week has to be Pedestrian Killer , a Flash animation game which allows you to use your mouse to drive a car over fleeing pedestians. I don’t know if it’s the ease of use I dig so much, the technological infrastructure behind it, the fact that the pedestrians scream "Hier kommen Sie!" right before they sprint across the highway, or the funky Bullitt -era jazz soundtrack to which you can run over these guys, but

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