Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 7, 2025 | 4 comments

The greats go by one name: Cher… Madonna… Beyoncé… Franco.

By FRANCO

Who is Franco?  

That’s probably a question you’re asking yourself. It’s OK, it’s a question I ask myself all the time.

Some of you may know me from comics. I’m a writer/artist who’s worked on different titles for major publishers over the years, often with my frequent collaborator Art Baltazar: Tiny Titans, Superman Family Adventures, Itty Bitty Hellboy, maybe the more recent Teen Titans Go!, Flash Gordon Adventures, and many others. Some of my own comics creations such as Fae and the Moon, The Ghost, The Owl. Maybe you have seen announcements for coming books Chase Speedington and Ninja Kaiju. You may have even met me at a convention in one of your cities.

Full name: Franco Aureliani. But you can call me Franco. Everyone else does.

Or you may know me as one of the owners of the Aw Yeah Comics stores (in Harrison, N.Y.; Skokie, Illinois; and Muncie, Indiana). You may have seen me online, have actually come into one of my stores and picked up your monthly books and/or attended one of our events and we chatted.

Or you may have known me from the classroom. I was a high-school art teacher for close to 24 years. You may have even been one of my students (by my calculations it’s a good bet I’ve had well over 2,500 students in my classroom over the years) and they all had to deal with my antics.

A commission drawn by me and painted by Jaime Carrillo

I’m also a Family Guy, no, not the TV one. But my wife probably thinks I’m sillier than that guy. And my son rolls his eyes when I try to give him some wacky, fatherly growing up advice even though he’s now a man in his 20s.

So we covered the Franco part, but what the heck is a FREE FOR ALL FRIDAY?

Well, that evolved in my teaching days… and quite honestly, from my own desire of wanting to explore as many things as possible (if you couldn’t tell from the resume above).

On a random Friday in my classroom, every few months or so, to take a break from the project we would be working on, I would grab different art materials, some of which students may have never seen or used before, and I would spread them out all over the classroom. The kids would come in, I would declare it was Free For All Friday, and they would have to create something with any of the items in the class.

Another commission

I would get things like:

Student: “But I never used watercolors before.”

To which my answer would be: “Well, today is the day!”

Student: “You’re allowed to use more than one art supply thing to create artwork?”

Me: “That’s what you call mixed media! Let’s see what happens!”

And

Student: “Why are we doing this?”

To which my answer was always: “Why not?

Those were fun days. And the ones kids looked forward to the most. So, I figured since I’m not teaching full time anymore… I kind of miss my Free For All Fridays. So when Dan asked me if I would want to do something at 13th Dimension — on Fridays, no less — I asked if I could do a kind of Free for All Friday.

It will be a bit different from my classroom days though. More of a “this is me now” and I want to talk about things from creating comics, to my perspective on retail, something from my teaching days or just some random piece of artwork I decided to make with some material I may not have used before. It will be fun, for me at least, and I hope for you if you come along for the ride.

Every now and then, we all deserve a Free for all Friday.

Happy Friday!

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Want more of FRANCO’s FREE FOR ALL FRIDAYS? Come back next week!

Want a commission? Send an email to blindwolf2@aol.com. You can also click here to find other work. 

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MORE

— Introducing… SUNDAY FUNNIES With KERRY CALLEN. Click here.

— Introducing… MORRISON MONDAYS! Click here.

— Introducing… DESPOP TUESDAYS! Click here.

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Franco and his forehead have traveled the world and he writes and draws stuff. Franco is the creator, artist and writer of Patrick the Wolf Boy and Aw Yeah Comics! Franco has worked on books/comics, including Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures. Franco was also a high-school teacher and is one of the principal owners of Aw Yeah Comics retail stores. Dan made Franco add that he has won three Eisners.