There's something funny about these new comics

We're thrilled to unveil a special element in our newly designed Northwest Life section: our very own Sunday comics.

Each week, we'll run "Last Kiss," a twist on an old classic created by lifelong Seattle resident John Lustig.

Lustig, who wrote comic books for Disney, Marvel and Viz, got the idea for this series after seeing the entire archives of "First Kiss" comics, an old romance series published by Charlton Comics. He bought the rights when Charlton went out of business.

Most of the art you'll be seeing here comes from "First Kiss" — but the words are definitely not from the original.

"Basically, I take old comic art and write new, twisted dialogue to go with the scenes," Lustig says.

As Mark Rahner wrote in these pages last February, "When Lustig is finished manipulating panels and replacing words, the result is like 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' by way of Roy 'pop art' Lichtenstein."

We'll be running some comics from Lustig's existing collection, and others that he'll create for Northwest Life. We think you'll enjoy the humor and style as much as we do.

"Doing 'Last Kiss' for The Seattle Times lets me merge three of the things I love best: comics, humor and journalism," Lustig told us. "Best of all, I get to do it in my hometown newspaper. To me, that's pretty close to perfection."

— Seattle Times editors