I procured the entire run of a horror comic that Del Close co-authored with John Ostrander for DC in the late 80’s called Wasteland. I’m through with a couple of issues, and was surprised to find out just how much of it was cartoony vignettes from Del’s life (after having assumed for years that it was all horror). The David Lloyd stuff is fantastic, though– they clearly matched him with the darkest stories in each issue.

It’s funny that I remembered that series– for some reason, I’ve known for years that Del worked on the series, though that information would have been stuck in my brain from a time before I started doing improv. I can’t imagine how Del’s name lodged itself in there, when there were a hundred other comic books that I didn’t read by authors I didn’t know. When I first read “Truth in Comedy,” I thought it was an amazing coincedence that the guy who invented Harold had the same name as a guy who wrote comics I never read. When I started hanging out on IRC, that series was one of the first things I thought of, so I started hunting, and sure enough, it’s the Del Close.

Funny how the brain will keep information that it’s going to need someday.

I saw a record Del did, called How to Speak Hip behind the counter at a used book shop the other weekend, and asked if they would sell it to me. They took my name and number but never called. The guy working there thought I was a DJ, because apparently DJ’s love that record.