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 Wednesday, October 10, 2007
A Golden Age Holiday Crossover
Posted by maggie
Speaking of the number of holidays to be found in Golden Age comics, how's this (from one of my favorite stories)? It appeared in Santa Claus Funnies (Dell Four Color #175, Dec 47) and is oddly up to date. Seems that the Easter Bunny was getting ready to deliver eggs because he thought it was spring, thanks to warm weather and no snow. (Art and script was by Walt Kelly.) 
10/10/2007 2:55:02 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00) 
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Storing Comics Stuff
Posted by maggie
In the course of clearing the way through bookshelves to the basement ashpit, I've found a bunch of odd items that are tricky to display. Have you found a good way to display things -- or have you, like me, just tossed them in a random box to deal with later? For example, I found one of those bas-relief Dark Knight Frank Miller "posters." It consists of a plastic-formed Batman figure, teeth clenched, glued to a card backing. Seeing as how it was produced in the mid-1980s, the glue to the backing has dried to virtual uselessness -- but the piece is, nevertheless, in pretty good shape. Is it highly collectible? Or just something to go back in a storage box? (In the meantime, I smile to recall that someone -- Peter David, maybe? -- customized it by putting a tiny toothbrush in Batman's hand, so Batman appeared to be posing nobly to brush his teeth.)
10/10/2007 10:52:42 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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More Holiday Comics
Posted by maggie
Brent gave me a hand with my home scanner yesterday, so I'm hoping it'll eventually mean more pictures on this text-heavy blog. I tried a scan with which I'm not satisfied (despite the fact that it was done on the same scanner that came up with the images below). More experimentation is due. Much more experimentation. In the meantime, though, here are two more holiday covers.  
10/10/2007 10:47:57 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Mulling Holiday Comics
Posted by maggie
I'm going to discuss holiday comics in the next print installment of Beautiful Balloons, so yesterday I began a casual search for such comics -- both in my own collection and in information sources. While I think the greatest number of Christmas releases probably (logically?) occurred in Western's March of Comics title, I think it's also interesting that Christmas comics in general have almost disappeared. Paul Dini's Jing notwithstanding, the vast majority of creators (and publishers) recently seem to have cut way back on Christmas, while increasing Halloween output.  And when was the last time an Easter comic book came out? 
10/9/2007 10:38:37 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, October 08, 2007
Barks eBay Auction Reveals Western Pay Deals
Posted by maggie
Man, we almost miss the news sometimes! A casual saunter through some eBay categories I check now and then just turned up an auction ending in less than eight hours: Jerry Weist is auctioning some original "Request for Payment" slips from Uncle Scrooge creator Carl Barks. They take us behind the scenes of Golden Age comics creation -- including the creation of Uncle Scrooge, since one of those vouchers is for the first story in which Scrooge appeared. Check it out!P.S. And it sold for $2,557!
10/8/2007 12:23:57 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Saturday, October 06, 2007
Nifty Noir
Posted by maggie
In the world of pop culture (albeit not comics), I thought I'd point you to two keen noir movies I've watched in the last couple of days.
The first is Obsession (also known as The Hidden Room, though it's in Amazon as Obsession), released in 1950. It stars Robert Newton, who plays a sophisticated doctor who, fed up with the many romantic flings his wife is having with other men, takes unusal action to bring an end to her behavior. Newton is the man responsible for the way people are talking on "Talk Like a Pirate Day." They're actually talking the way Robert Newton speaks in many of his roles (including Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island). However, here, he's the focus of the noir film -- and is, as noted, speaking as an intelligent sophisticate. And I can see a remake working beautifully today.
The second is The Woman in the Window (1944), starring Edward G. Robinson. A lecturer becomes fascinated by a painting in a store window -- a painting of a lovely woman -- when his wife and children are out of town. It's slightly flawed (after watching it, I checked some scenes to see whether clues were properly established, and they hadn't been), but it's still fun.
Huzzah for DVDs! I'd never heard of Obsession (3 stars from Leonard Maltin), and it had been years since I'd seen The Woman in the Window (3.5 stars from Maltin). Fun.
10/6/2007 12:42:25 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Have You Seen Trump #1?
Posted by maggie
I see there's a copy of Trump #1 (Jan 57) on sale at the Heritage Auction website. At the moment, it's at $3, which would be a bargain -- but I bet it goes for more. Bidding ends Oct. 7 at 11 p.m. ET, and I thought I'd point it out to folks who might not be aware of this delicious humor magazine.
After Harvey Kurtzman left Mad, Hugh Hefner offered him the job of creating a top-of-the-line satire magazine, and Trump was the result. It lasted for two issues, both of them comedy gems, and it's the sole example of what the unfettered genius of Kurtzman could provide with a great budget and high production values. Just sayin' ...
10/6/2007 12:15:16 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, October 05, 2007
No Mail Monday
Posted by maggie
In case it didn't occur to you already, there's no Postal Service Monday. Just sayin'.
10/5/2007 10:39:58 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Remember My Friend Irma?
Posted by maggie
It was a radio show that ran from 1947 to 1954 and starred Marie Wilson as the quintessential airhead. It was successful enough to get a theatrical feature (starring Wilson) that is remembered today mostly as the national debut of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who also appeared in the sequel, My Friend Irma Goes West. And, what you won't find in many of the small summaries of the show, it spun off a goofy comic-book series scripted by Stan Lee. It ran from 1950 to 1955 and featured Dan DeCarlo art with occasional back-issue prices driven up by Kurtzman and Frazetta filler pages. Anyway, it turns out that I'll be appearing in a Friends of Old Time Radio event: the performance of a "lost" episodes. (Some well-known old radio shows survive only in the survival of a script; there are no surviving recordings.) So I'll be in the bit part of Mrs. O'Reilly (the landlady). If I can only master an Irish accent, I'll be all set.
10/5/2007 9:16:03 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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We're Almost a Week into October
Posted by maggie
And it's coming home to me just how close to the end of the year we are. Today, I'll be working on the details of Mid-Ohio-Con, which I'd been putting off till a chance to talk with Carolyn Kelly again. We're networking (well, that's what hanging around together and talking about everything under the sun is called these days) concerning our shared desire to take a look at the comics collection at Ohio State University before Mid-Ohio-Con this year. With Thanksgiving lurking in the midst of all that, we're wondering about such basics as where we'll be able to grab food on The Day of the Big Meal. And that kicks off the realization that I'm not even sure where I'll be ending up over the end-of-year holidays. With son's family in Maryland? With daughter-in-law's family in Wisconsin? With daughter's family in New York? And, if I travel by plane, I can't take the packages wrapped. It's time to plan. Which reminds me it's time to start buying gifts -- and to reserve that hotel room for Mid-Ohio-Con. What are your plans for the Fourth Quarter? (Oh, dear, how long have I been thinking in business terms?)
10/5/2007 9:05:20 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, October 04, 2007
And I Turned up a Couple of British Comic Strips
Posted by maggie
I think these were stored away following using them 26 or 27 years ago in Fantasy Empire magazine. In case you didn't see them there, here's a look at a couple of delightful British fantasy comic-strip gems. First is the very first daily-strip episode of Four D. Jones, a series consisting of the adventures of a cowboy who traveled to many alternate worlds by jumping through a fourth-dimensional hole (which he carried with him for the purpose). It was by Peter Maddocks, who ended the strip in the mid-1960s (with his title character jumping into the hole, as I recall). Second is the start of one of my favorite episodes of the brilliant satire strip Flook by "Trog." It began in 1949 and ended in 1984. "Trog" was jazz musician Wally Fawkes, who drew it, and I think this episode was written by George Melly. I believe this story was also collected in a trade paperback several years ago. It'd be keen, if both those strips would be featured in the sort of reprint volumes Fantagraphics is producing these days. Sigh ...  
10/4/2007 5:46:29 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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There Are Advantages to Moving Things About
Posted by maggie
I've referred in the past (as in my Sept. 21 blog) to "Moving Things About." It's a wonderful full-page strip by Brian Bolland: the sort of strip one posts on the refrigerator. (Well, it's on my refrigerator, anyway.) But it's time to acknowledge that, when you Move Things About, you sometimes find cool things you'd forgotten about long ago. As I try to clear the way (with help from The Intrepid Meredith Miller) for a gas line to run from the area of my furnace to the area of the ashpit below my fireplace, some keen things have come to light. We found, for example, a copy (with dustjacket, no less) of Ho Hum: a remarkable book by E.B. White that I'd been sure I had had but had hunted for in vain. Until now. (Illustrated by Otto Soglow, by the way.) And there was a book titled Antique Comic Book Stories and Adventures with virtually no information. They're reproduced from copies of "the magnificently rendered French Imagerie d'Epinal Pellerin Prints." It's by the Merrimack Publishing Corporation with a New York City address late enough for a ZIP code. Included are such full-page, full-color strips as "The Discreet Child." And I found a Cheerios Mickey Mouse 3D comic: "Secret of the Ming Vase." Copyright 1954, it's drawn by Al Hubbard. Cool! (And easy to misplace.)   
10/4/2007 5:36:36 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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