Duane Ballenger:

Justin Gammon: 

Matt Kindt is the creator of the WWII-era graphic novels 2 Sisters, Super Spy, and the phenomenal 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man (I plan to write at length about this last one in a new column titled Books I Wish I’d Written, if I ever get around to launching it).  With his addition to my sketchbook, Matt transports me back to those bygone days:

Hiding coded messages in the diaper of a baby with a face such as mine does seem a rather ingenious way to keep the Axis away.

I wrote a little about Josh Cotter and his excellent graphic novel Skyscrapers of the Midwest in an earlier post, and he pops up on this website again as the fourth installment in my themed sketchbook:

Josh deserves credit for being the first artist to put my teeny forelimbs to comedic effect, filling each fist with a poor, unfortunate cow.  Where he got the idea to do that I don’t know, but it sure is funny.  Josh also employs a bit of artistic license in depicting how my legs might’ve looked, for in the source photo my lower half is swaddled beneath blankets.  He was kind enough to cover my naughty bits with a onesie, which brings to mind another true story about my birth.

By the time my mother was pregnant with me, our family was already rife with boys.  My mother had one sibling, a brother.  My mother’s firstborn was a boy—as were both of the children born to my father’s sister—so the family was ready for a change.  Alas it was not to be, but so much was the hope that I was brought home from the hospital in a pink jumper, it apparently being the only clothes anyone had on hand (this being the era when you weren’t given an option of learning the gender of a child before its birth).  I imagine the strangers my mother encountered on her way to the car, each of them seeing my infant face and believing it belonged to a baby girl.  Somehow that makes things worse, doesn’t it?

I don’t recall what my name would’ve been had things gone as planned.  Mom, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), please be so kind as to dispel the mystery.

(Addendum: Mom emailed to say, “Couldn’t remember at first, but as I perused your pink baby book it came back to me:  Susanne.  After Aunt Sue, of course.”  Mystery dispelled.  Thanks, Mom.)

I always expected there would be the inevitable “V for Venditti” comment somewhere, maybe as the headline to an interview with me, the press loving their catchy titles the way they do.  By substituting my baby picture for Guy Fawkes back in 2008, Jeff Lemire beat everyone to the punch line:

While we’re on the subject of name play, I’m reminded of my older brother’s classmate, Brent, who once pilfered my stickered lunchbox because it said ROB on it (me being an elementary schooler and Brent being a middle schooler, I was defenseless against such crimes).  To Juliet Capulet, who uttered her famous line, “What’s in a name?”: I answer a whole lot, if your name also happens to be verb.  Shakespeare might’ve known this, but maybe no one ever stole his sack lunch and told him to BILL them for it.  How many other verb-names are there, I wonder?  Chase.  Lance.  That makes four so far . . .

With this addition to my convention sketchbook, Alex Robinson (creator of Box Office Poison and Too Cool to Be Forgotten, among other fine graphic novels) illustrates what has been a common response to my baby picture over the years—that at the moment I was born, I resembled an old man:

Ah, the circle of life.  The pop culture reference du jour (yes, there have been others, but we’ll get to those in due time) made by people viewing my inaugural photo?  Benjamin Button.

I’d been working conventions with Top Shelf for years before I decided to start a sketchbook.  Not having read comics until I was well into my twenties, I don’t have a favorite Marvel or DC character that I swear allegiance to.  So I went with a theme of a different sort: Renderings based on my baby picture.

The Ugly Truth will be the second of four recurring Monday features on this site, wherein I post one of these renderings.  Lest you think the artists are being cruel, I should point out that you’ve never seen my baby picture.  Nor shall you, unless you find me at a convention and ask me for a peek.  After years of having people tell me that the photo couldn’t possibly be as bad as I make it sound (all babies are beautiful, right?), I now carry it in my wallet.

First up is Jeffrey Brown, who was kind enough to mail me a sketchbook from his own stash, complete with a blow-up of the photo for visual reference and a piece of cardstock to keep the ink from bleeding through to the subsequent pages.  An all-around good guy, that Jeffrey Brown:

Notice the positioning of my teeny forelimbs.  This is a key trait that has become a frequent theme throughout the sketchbook.  And for the record, what Jeffrey has depicted is a true story—Dad really did deny me when tested (somewhere, surely, a cock must’ve crowed).  Who could blame him?  When asked if I was a beautiful baby, even my maternal grandmother answered in the negative.  Ever the optimist, though, she also said that I would do great things.  Still waiting for her prediction to prove true . . .