Off-White House Bulletin 5/28/2026

Hi, Everybody!

Well, it turns out this WASN'T an 82 Tour Book note update...

Problems viewing this video? Watch directly on YouTube...

But there was a WRITTEN '82 Tour Book note:

1982 TOUR BOOK II

28 May 26

Waverly's cover.

Birdsong's mock-up of Dave's cover

I suggested moving the photo over the tour dates since they're cut off anyway, to make a more aesthetically pleasing cover... so, Birdsong's mock-up of my version of Dave's cover.

Dave Sim:

As happens a lot lately, I finished last week's 1982 TOUR BOOK entry and wondered if I was over-reacting to the women’s photos thing. And the following Monday, Tammy Burns had an article in the TORONTO STAR (see attached) where I went, No, this is exactly what I’m talking about.  It should probably be a general societal rule and it will be the rule with the 1982 TOUR BOOK that you never print a picture of a woman anywhere unless she’s 100% happy with it.  

Or, at the very least, you are guaranteeing that anytime she sees the book anywhere it will give her as Burns puts it the ick.  There is no masculine equivalent of the ick so it needs to be deferred to. Do not intentionally give a woman the ick.  

So having assured myself that I’m not over-reacting, I started building mentally from there.  So, before I get to Louise Jones let’s go back to Maggie Thompson.  What photos are onside?  That’s her decision to make.  We aren’t going to spring for full hair and make-up and a multi-hour shoot with a professional photographer, but we are willing to defer to the woman in question.  Maggie’s section will be 2 or 3 pages (I need to separate her comments on Dave and Deni into 1) Dave and Deni, 2) Dave, and 3) Deni and put them in the right spots.  She was the first interviewer to ask the are there any female aardvarks floating around? So that fits, but I’m not sure where. Me trying to answer and not answer at the same time: the groundwork having been laid for the Cirin Big Reveal two years before that wasn’t going to be Revealed for another five years.  Poses a bit of a problem because Category 1 people will know and Category 2 and 3 people won’t. 

So it makes for a best 2-out-of-3 SPOILER ALERT.

Picturing her credentials page, that goes all the way back to NEWFANGLES, the mimeo zine she did with her husband Don.  John (COMIC ART NEWS & REVIEWS) Balge was a subscriber and had a small stack of them which I ended up buying from him and (false memory?) I started subscribing myself over the last two years or so (1971? 1972?).  

That was when I thought, if you’re going to Do Maggie Thompson, you really need to Do Don Thompson (may his memory be a blessing to us) or you’re misrepresenting who she is, even though she\'92s outlived him by decades at this point and, thus, has had a decades-long solo career. And that was when I thought, Wedding photo.  

Potential problems:  

1) I’m sure there are women who consider their wedding photos private property and don’t want one of them used in a book referencing their career. 

2) I’m sure there are a lot of wedding. photos that give women the ick for whatever personal reason (outfit and hair seemed like a good idea at the time. Now? not so much). Hopefully Maggie isn’t in either of those categories. 

Offsetting that? Wedding photos are a great Category 3 thing.  Women, particularly, like wedding photos. So, if they’re flipping through a book in a bookstore, that’s going to stop most of them or slow most of them down. 

Having been aware of Don and Maggie Thompson for over half a century now, it’s also a great Category 2 thing general comics market.  What do Don and Maggie look like on their wedding day? What day was that?  You don’t make a big deal about it, you just make it part of your presentation.  Approved photo of the subject; credentials; wedding photo. 

Is it a TMI bridge too far in Maggie’s case to add Til death us do part and add Don’s birth and death dates?  It isn’t if we say it isn’t.  If it was S.O.P. in publishing it would make most non-fiction books more interesting for women, I think.  The same as the formal structure for obituaries always concludes with survived by and probably tells you more about the person than the obituary does.  Were they married?  Were they married for life? How many kids did they have?  You can almost feel the exasperation in the New York Times Service when they hit the multiple marriage guy.  

Which brings us to Louise Jones Simonson and the attached scans from the WARREN COMPANION and page 46 prototype photo of her in her office in 1982. I picture it as a weird digression in between the Deni Section and the Dave Section. She bought my only Warren story, Shadow of the Axe in 1975, so this is 7 years later. 

 

Birdsong "cleaned" up the photo.

One of the big disappointments with my tour diary is how little I documented actual conversations. It’s understandable because at the end of a tour day you really just want to vedge and watch TV and then crash. There are these pictures of me with Denny O’Neil and Louise in her office. What did we talk about? Did I remind her that she bought my script?  It would have been better to jot down scraps of conversation with attribution and write The Tour Diary when we got home. One of the few scraps of conversation I do remember vividly was Howard Chaykin at dinner talking about AMERICAN FLAGG in its initial 12-issue run and distilling it to The future is the same as the present only later and more so.  The quote and one of the photos of me with Howard and a quote from me remarking on the fact that it’s the most vivid quotable quote from the Tour that has stuck with me for 44 years.  AMERICAN FLAGG if nothing else anticipated video streaming and the Internet long before either existed.

Anyway, Louise in her office was 7 years after Shadow of the Axe and 3 years before the NEW MUTANTS No.21  story Slumber Party drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz where she’s a character in the book.  It’s a brilliant two-page spread Bill signed to someone in 2013 so it still exists, but the reproduction is just grisly. Everything darkened down so you can see that Bill whited out Louise’s hair multiple times trying to capture her hairstyle and had a couple of tries at her teeth and lips before he nailed it.  Make that Nailed It. If it was reproduced properly in would be a jaw-dropper. Can it be found online in non-murky form? 

That’s Diana Schutz I believe in the background on page 3 next to the Michael Jackson poster. Which is a very good likeness for the size.  And another link to the 82 TOUR BOOK as a contributor.  

What was interesting was when I applied my new Wedding Photo Rule to Louise, my first response was that this was another til Death Us Do Part couple: Louise and Walt Simonson.  They’ve been together since 1974 so we have to assume that Til Death....applies.  Actually, I don’t know how long they’ve been married 

but it is part of the mythos that Louise started dating Simonson and working at Warren the same month that Nixon resigned.  

So the marriage anniversary is unknown by me but is, presumably, available online somewhere.  But that was Louise’s second marriage. Her first marriage had taken place in 1966 to Jeff Jones and was (like mine and Deni’s) the opposite of til Death Us Do Part, lasting only a few years. 

But, on the potential plus side x 2 of our Ven diagram a definite Category 2: two wedding photos each with a very high profile comics personality (Jeff Jones and Walt Simonson) in each, the first with an end date and the second a presumptive Til Death which (I would suggest) also gives Louise Jones Category 3 Cred. A woman browsing DENI & DAVE SIM in a bookstore, if they landed on the two wedding photos page would be intrigued.  Again, we’re not making a big deal about the wedding photo angle to the book, just presenting it as lived experience.  If you’re documenting a woman this is a visual fact which is of particular interest to women.  Was/is she married? Who did she marry? When did she marry? How long did the marriage last?

Re-reading Jon B. Cooke’s interview with Louise in the WARREN COMPANION I had completely forgotten the professional metaphorical High Drama traffic accident involving Jim Warren, Louise, Walt and Archie Goodwin and centering on Walt’s napkin sketch of the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND Mother Ship and how that ran afoul of Hollywood Non-Disclosure, causing Louise to temporarily quit Warren in protest.  Linking it to the Comics/Hollywood axis which I’m making my theme of the rebranded/restructured 1982 TOUR BOOK.  Although I’m picturing a pretty even balance of words and images for DENI & DAVE SIM, it’s worth seeing if Jon B. Cooke, Louise and Walt would be willing to sign off on us printing the entire transcript of Walt’s recounting of it on pages 170 to 172.  

Which I’m getting Rolly to scan and e-mail to AMOC for discussion purposes illustrated with original art scans of the relevant CE3K pages from Walt’s adaptation for Marvel Comics.  An example of my thesis Here There Be Monsters on the Comics/Hollywood map.   

Okay, that may be the last that you hear from me on the \'9282 TOUR BOOK until JULY depending on how this month\'92s PLEASE HOLD vs. \'9282 TOUR fundraiser turns out.

 Next Time: Cerebus.