No image up top — it would give away too much.

It is a central tenet of this page that lots of things are webcomics; if you’re an independent artist, and have a website somewhere, you’re webcomics in my book¹. Keep that in mind, because this is going to wander a bit.

Dale DeGroff is a name some of you may recognize; he’s not the only reason we have high quality cocktails in this country after the disastrous post-Prohibition period, but he’s a big part of the movement, and taught or inspired a lot of people who helped make the revolution happen. His wife, Jill DeGroff, is a painter of no mean skill, one who has spent the past forever of her career portraying the cocktail bar world in her work.

A couple of years ago, I was lucky to purchase a portrait she did of Damon Boelte², purely because I looked at it and said, I know exactly that guy’s whole deal from the picture. It’s a fiction that just sprung into my head like a reverse Athena but it is absolutely true. My wife kinda hates it.

Yesterday, my bar had the DeGroffs back to celebrate (in no particular order) the end of capacity controls in New Jersey, Dale DeGroff’s latest experiments with bourbon, and Jill DeGroff’s latest paintings. And in the corner where I found the Damon Boelte two years ago was another painting that immediately spoke to me.

Because over the long period of quarantine, there was a person who didn’t make his name in cocktails, but who did short videos and shared them online, making favorite drinks for himself and his wife³, and Jill took it as inspiration.

Which is why I now have a portrait⁴ of Stanley Tucci in my home.

The Tooch and Damon The Cowboy Bartender now flank my bar, each looking over it at each other. I wanted to share it because maybe it will make some of you as happy as it made me. If you’re somebody I’ve shared a drink with and you find yourself in the middle part of New Jersey, drop a line. We can go visit my bartender, or we can stay in and experiment, and we can call it Webcomics.

Spam of the day:

FIND YOUR PERFECT PARTNER IN THE USA

Imagine my surprise when I found out this particular spam is not a hookup scam, but rather a “nutritional” supplements scam. Very confusion subject line game, spammer!

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¹ There is no book at present, at least not by me; Sean Kleefeld has a book titled Webcomics that is up for an Eisner this year, and I am carefully making my way through the PDF copy he kindly provided me. If I ever do a book about webcomics, it will likely be called I Have The Best Friends In Known Space.

² Who does not look in the painting like he does in any photo you’ll find of him. When he started in the high end cocktail game, he looked fresh from Sunday School, or like Kenneth the page from 30 Rock. Now he looks more like a guy that’s been hanging with ZZ Top for the past couple decades. For about two weeks, he had an in-between look and that’s when DeGroff met him and decided to immortalize him.

³ Also attracting controversy. A Negroni that that was shaken? Saying it’s okay to sub vodka for the gin? Look, people like what they like, but that should really have been dubbed a variation and okay! Fine! I’m over it, promise. The guy who made Big Night will not ever made me permanently angry.

⁴ Furthermore, Jill DeGroff has corrected the Negroni to be in its proper tumbler and okay I am done now, really this time.