In an earlier incarnation, Faithful Readers needed some art. And, in kind of a dream come true, I found that Rick Geary would be willing to do it.

Geary began working in comics in 1977 and for many years contributed to the “Funny Pages” of National Lampoon. His comic stories appeared in Heavy Metal, Dark Horse Comics and the Paradox Press Big Books. His early comic work was collected in Housebound with Rick Geary. His illustrations have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, MAD, Spy, Rolling Stone and The Los Angeles Times. He has written and illustrated children’s books, and his graphic novels include the Treasury of Victorian Murder series, the latest of which is The Mystery of Mary Rogers. You can find much of Rick’s work on Amazon.com and eBay, and I recommend it to you.

And Rick can do your portrait as well. Visit www.rickgeary.com and send Rick an e-mail for details.

I also gratefully acknowledge the contributions of others. The photo Rick worked from was taken by the divine and talented Susan Burch. Rick’s artwork was scanned for the Web by the Sultan of the Scanning Bed, Jon “Johnny Scantastic” Cammarata. Overalls by Carhardtt (with thanks to my indispensable sartorial advisor, Terry Johnson), purchased with pleasure at Roland’s in Skaneateles. Bow tie a treasured gift of Michael Lagerman, from his ex-wife’s father’s bequest collection.