Thanks to site commenter Anonymous, we have known for a few months that the Jim Pesl referenced in Booster Gold Volume 2 was a high school friend of Norm Rapmund who now works in a restaurant in Northern California.

Thanks to Russ Burlingame's recent "Panel Discussions" podcast, we now know why Norm Rapmund puts Jim Pesl's name (pronounced "pē-zuhl") in his comics:

It was actually kind of funny that it took until Booster Gold for people to notice because [Rapmund]'s been doing this for years. He started slipping Pesl's name in back when he was doing X-Men [beginning in 2000] and he's put it in ... not every issue he's ever inked but pretty much every title he's inked in one way or another.

The pair of them have been friends for 20-odd years. Back in high school Jim was the only other person besides Norm who read comics. When Norm started working in comics and Jim was still reading, he threw the name in there. They live in the same general area, and [Norm found that] Pesl was very excited about having been referenced in X-Men. So Norm started tossing it in and occasionally bringing free comics to Pesl's restaurant. In exchange, Pesl gives Norm food. So there you have it.

Free food sounds like a pretty good reason to put someone's name in your comics, but maybe higher cosmic forces are at play. As fate would have it, the pair graduated from El Dorado High School. El Dorado is the name of the infamous South American City of Gold.

From El Dorado High School to Booster Gold. And now you know the rest of the story.

Comments (2) | Add a Comment | Tags: anonymous comicrelated.com jim pesl norm rapmund panel discussions russ burlingame