Dave Johnson Drink and Draw Doodle

Great Style and Color and Wonderful use of Light!! Luv that Smile!!............Congrats!!!

Cool story with Kirkman!  You could have said that your wife didn't want it in the house either which is why you sent the figure to him.  As for Johnson's art, this is one of those great 50's styled ghoul and girly pieces and that coaster has a thirsty surface to absorb all that color. 

That is a smashing story well told – withholding the name of the benefactor until midway through the anecdote. Dave Johnson is a super talent and it is a pity we don't see much of his interiors. In fact, Red Son with Millar is the only one that comes to mind that I have read. I guess covers and commissions are more lucrative (and less stressful). Don't beat yourself up too much about lending your comics out and having them returned in less than pristine condition. Many of us have been there (albeit with comics not so valuable as the ones you cite). Someone once told me that the comic I had lent them had accompanied them to the john, which was definitely more information than someone with nascent borderline OCD needed to know. Harry Bliss once wrote that if you lend comics out then do it with the expectation of never getting them back and then everything else is a bonus. Alternatively, I had a tutor once who said categorically that he never lent his books out; I suppose he had been badly burned in the past. I had utmost respect for him saying that. But enough about me, me, me – that's a top-notch pickup and, as you say, worth the wait.

keep talking!  i love good stories.  its why i try to put in as much as i can remember when i post art.  and great call on the lending comics.  too true!  now, trades are a different story.

Dave did Chain Gang War for DC which was ok, but it was his Super Patriot that i think really showed off what he could really do.  Not sure how much of it was Keith Giffen and how much was him but it is incredible!  after that (and after posting this) i saw he did a page or a sequence in Invincible (i'll have to track it down) and i think he did something for a harley quinn book where a different artist did each page.  other than those and as you mentioned Red Son, i can't think of anything else.  my goal is to own a published page/cover from him one day.  
i do own a calendar page he did for Marvel early on in his career that is pretty cool.  it has spider-man fighting Rhino.  i'll post it one day.

Cheers for the heads up about Super Patriot. I have put my eBay order in – can you believe I can get all four new unread copies from 30 years ago for less than a tenner? – and even if the story sucks then at least I can be sure it will be really nice to look at (which I have to snootily say was my previous experience of early 90s Image books). Like you, but when I was young and had the energy, when I would "discover" an artist (eg Yeates, Sale, Quesada) I liked I tried to track down all their previous work (no mean feat before the internet) and scoop them up before the comics became economically unaffordable (!) Simpler times, eh. Probably sound like Grandpa Simpson to you. Will keep my eyes peeled for your Spidey/Rhino page when you upload it.

Flatulena!   It was a short he did.   Now I gotta find where it was published.   Posting a sketch I got of that one really soon.   See my horror themed book.  I think he also did the second super patriot miniseries as well.  

Well, that first SuperPatriot mini-series was a bit different from the comics I used to get in the 90s and I think even DJ would say that his art has become a bit more polished since then. But, hey, it's good that we don't all like the same things or, as the saying goes, think how long the queues/lines would be.