>As many comics as I've read in my day, I'm actually quite
>ignorant to a lot of the 'behind the scenes' aspects of the
>biz. Of all those writers I just listed I could probably spot
>3 or 4 of them in a police line-up (and most of them look like
>they belong in one).

yup... same thing here.

>I don't really frequent too
>many comic news sites or creator blogs or anything

i'm just learning about that stuff myself... i'm STILL traumatized by the fact that letter columns don't exist anymore!

(also keep
>in mind I'm coming off of a decade long hiatus from reading
>comics), so yeah I guess I never caught wind of this Judd
>thing. Despite my rabid participation in these posts, you
>could most likely fill the grand canyon with stuff I don't
>know about comic books.

i never stopped reading comics altogether... i've consistently read Love & Rockets, Preacher and everything Alan Moore has written over the past decade, as well as a few other independents. but i became disillusioned with mainstream/superhero stuff in mid-1994.

thanks to comic book store subscriptions, i've remained largely isolated from most of the goings on in the industry for the past 10 years: i just went to the store, opened my folder, got my comics and left.

i've only been back in the mainstream world for what now? a couple of months? i think it was January or February that i really got back into comics again... so i've been doing a HELL of a lot of catching up! (with a lot of help from the library too!)

>Last I heard of Real World Judd he was working on a graphic
>novel about Pedro. Wonder if that ever saw print...

yep... it won a shitload of awards too
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805064036/103-1865874-6464664?v=glance