John Arthur Lustig was born on January 25, 1953 in Seattle and he has lived there most of his life. His father owned several grocery stores and John worked in some of them – for the first time at the age of 10.

In 1973, while attending the University of Washington (state), he married his high school sweetheart, Karen Marie Lavik. During college, John worked part time at several jobs – grocery salesman, guard in an amusement park and as a clerk in a department store.

In 1977 John Lustig graduated with Bachelor of Arts degrees in journalism and English literature. From 1977 through 1987 John worked as a reporter and columnist for several newspapers. During this time he wrote about everything, from mass murders to local politics, and interviewed VIPs.

In 1982, his wife (Karen) had a seizure while trying to give birth and died. His infant son, Logan, didn’t survive the birth.

In 1984 John Lustig married his wife Shelagh, a nurse. John and Shelagh have had two daughters, Caitlin and Laura. Unfortunately, Laura died on January 17, 2004 from a virus which caused a brain infection. She was 10.

Towards the end of his college days John sold his first comic book story. At first, John submitted some Donald and Scrooge plots to Gold Key Comics – the American Disney publisher at that time. However, Gold Key had other writers working on stories about the Disney ducks. The editor (Del Connell) suggested John try writing for some other Gold Key comics. So, John wrote and sold a Daffy Duck five-pager.

Shortly after that John graduated and started working as a reporter. The long hours at the newspaper did not leave John much time for freelance writing. About 10 years passed until John found his way back to writing comics.

In 1986 Lustig visited the San Diego Comic Book Convention (now called “Comic-Con International”) where he met the staff of the little American publisher Blackthorne. One of the comics published by Blackthorne was Bill Van Horn’s Nervous Rex. John was already a fan of the series and was happily surprised when the Blackthorne editor mentioned that Bill was looking for story ideas for Nervous Rex. So John wrote several plots for Nervous Rex and submitted them to Blackthorne. Bill liked some of these story ideas and decided to use them for Nervous Rex #10. Unfortunately this was the last issue of the series.

It is only a three hours’ drive from Seattle to North Vancouver, where Bill lives. One day, during a vacation, John visited Bill and they became good friends. So did their wives, who are both nurses.

About a year later Van Horn began drawing and writing Disney comics. Bill invited John to write some Disney scripts for him. So John wrote some one- and two-page stories and sent them to Van Horn. Bill made small changes, drew the stories and sent them to Gladstone, the American Disney publisher at the time. And so John suddenly was a Disney writer without ever talking with an editor. In the next months John began writing Disney stories that were 10 or more pages long. Together he and Bill created several Ducktales stories and a longer Donald script for “The Amazon Queen” (AR154).

When Gladstone’s Disney license was not renewed in 1990 and Disney started to produce comics of their own, Lustig began to submit stories directly to Disney. He and Bill were still teamed together and they would often discuss their stories. During their long-standing collaboration John learned from Bill to avoid long scenes where people just stand around and talk. So it was no surprise that John, just like Van Horn, received an offer from Byron Erickson to work directly for Egmont. In the course of time Lustig has written more than 30 stories for other artists, among them four Mickey stories for Bill’s son Noel.

In 1987 John acquired the publishing rights to some old romance comics for $400. Quite a bargain, considered that the 40 books included more than 900 pages of art. Lustig gave his new project the name “Last Kiss” and spiced the schmaltzy stories up with new, funny dialog. In addition to changing the texts, he often puts the panels in a different order and modifies the illustrations on his computer. Apart from comic books, Last Kiss images appear in greeting cards and refrigerator magnets. In 2007 The Seattle Times published “Last Kiss” as a weekly newspaper comic strip.

You can learn more about this series at www.lastkisscomics.com.

In recent years Last Kiss has taken up the majority of John’s professional time, but he still writes occasional Disney stories for Egmont. In late 2006, John wrote a new story, “A Double Dose of Triple Trouble” (D2006-302), for Bill Van Horn. This was the first new Lustig-Van Horn collaboration in about 10 years.