I love Bloom County, but there was only one installment of the strip that ever moved me to cut it out of my Sunday paper and stash it away. Looking at it now, it seems even more relevant today than it did when it ran on February 26, 1989.

As you’ll see, Berke Breathed knew all about the 99% long before the term was invented.

I sure wish Breathed was back doing comics. We could use his voice again.

I’ve already told you how the only reason I got my job at Marvel Comics in the ’70s was because of a serendipitous encounter with the late Duffy Vohland. But in a way, I almost lost that job because of Duffy, too. Or at least … I thought I was going to.

Before Duffy pulled me into comics as a professional, he pulled me into his corner of comics fandom. Oh, I’d already been going to cons, buying fanzines, and getting involved in lots of other fanac, but he hooked me up with a bunch of guys who published and/or wrote and/or drew for a fanzine titled CPL—that is, Contemporary Pictorial Literature. If you know anything about comics, you’ve heard of some of those guys, because Bob Layton, Roger Stern, John Byrne, and Roger Slifer all went on to professional comics careers of their own.

Duffy wrote a column known as “Duffy’s Tavern” for that (and other) fanzines, and asked me to fill in for an issue, which I did, writing an essay that appeared in the CPL #8, which featured this spiffy cover penciled by John and inked by Duffy.

My essay, titled “Comic Art: Fact or Fiction?” was written when I was still a fan, and took a very jaundiced view of the creative state of the field. I wrote, among other things, that “There are very few comic books which even come close to what a comic should be.” I sent the piece off, and forgot all about it, until it was published … by which time I was working on staff at Marvel. And upon rereading it, I thought—What have I done? Once Roy Thomas reads this, he’s going to can me for sure!

I trembled for several weeks waiting for the axe to fall, or at the very least for the two us to have an extremely uncomfortable conversation due to my having written an essay which basically maligned most of Marvel’s output. As far as I recall, though, nothing was ever said, either because Roy never read it or had read it but just thought it was too silly to even comment on.

Rereading it now, it occurs to me that though It doesn’t quite express my feelings today, it does basically explain why I don’t like those recently announced Watchmen prequels and why I have no plans to read them. So some feelings never change.

But enough about me. Whatever you think of my essay, I’m sure you’ll find it far more entertaining to look at some of the great art from that issue, including a naked Ben Grimm.

That’s right. A named Ben Grimm.

By none other than the legendary Joe Sinnott! (more…)

China Miéville’s excellent essay on whether racially problematic literature of the past needs to be put in context and how asking for that to be done isn’t the same as calling for censorship makes me recall when I encountered the Australian children’s classic The Magic Pudding … and how it caused me to wince.

Irene and I visited Australia for the first time in 2003, and while wandering Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, we came across this whimsical statue.

We had no idea who any of these characters were, nor why they were deserving of such celebration. We struck up a conversation with another couple nearby, and soon learned that the quartet was from the Norman Lindsay book The Magic Pudding: Being The Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff, which Australians consider a work on par with Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz. So I of course had to track down a copy before we left the country.

Not that there was much “tracking” involved, because it was indeed such an important book in Australia that copies were in every bookshop and department store. So that afternoon, I saw the illustration which had inspired the statue.

I saved the book to read on our flight home, and it was wonderful, all about a koala named Bunyip Bluegum, a sailor named Bill Barnacle, a penguin named Sam Sawnoff, and a grumpy magic pudding named Albert—magic because no matter how much you’d eat him, he’d always still be there, whole, apparently infinite, walking around with extruded arms and legs and a pot on his head.

Anyway, the adventures the four have are marvelous and magical, and I was smiling and chuckling away on my flight—until I got to the part where my chuckling stopped. (more…)

February is dead and buried, so it’s time to gather up that month’s dreams and see whether anything useful comes out of letting them rub up against each other.

My dreamworld visitors included Ray Bradbury, Katee Sackhoff, Chip Delany, Orson Welles, and many other names you might recognize.

And for those who’ve asked, as they’ve seen these dreams flit by over on Twitter, whether I really dream this much … yes, yes I do. I always have, and I hope I always will.

FEBRUARY 2012

I dreamt I arrived at my Jeep with a platter of pastries for Marie Severin to find two guys attempting to break in. So I chased them off. 29 Feb

I dreamt David Kyle handed over to me film canisters given to him by Fred Pohl, which turned out to be experimental movies by Chip Delany. 28 Feb

I dreamt I clumsily navigated crowded dealers room aisles while lugging half a dozen stuffed shopping bags in each hand. It wasn’t pretty. 28 Feb

I dreamt that to escape an island on which I’d shipwrecked, I crawled through caverns in total darkness for days to retrieve a special moss. 28 Feb

I dreamt Irene drove up to the house in a brand new silver Cadillac, causing me to think — Wow, she went ahead and bought a car without me? 25 Feb

I dreamt I was Stephen Colbert running alongside a dwarf in an Uncle Sam suit. My subconscious apologizes to little people everywhere. 25 Feb

I dreamt that, having received an email from Walter Cronkite in the morning and Ray Bradbury in the afternoon, I was feeling VERY pleased. 25 Feb

I dreamt I was The Mentalist‘s Patrick Jane, hosting a seance to reveal a killer. As part of my ploy, the room suddenly filled with flames. 25 Feb

I dreamt my ukulele teacher was also a marriage counselor, and because he double booked, my lesson took place while a couple complained. 24 Feb

I dreamt I hung out with Brooklyn pals, touring the interiors of those beautiful old timey movie palaces which no longer exist in real life. 23 Feb (more…)

I’ve lost count of how many daffodils Irene and I have planted since we moved to West Virginia in 2004. At one point, it was around 6,000, but I’m no longer sure. And each year, the first daffodil of Spring has predictably popped sometime between March 13 and March 17.

But not this year. After an amazingly mild Winter, the first daffodil (and the second, and the third, and several more) bloomed today, about 2-1/2 weeks earlier than ever before.

Behold!

It’s wonderful to see some yellow in March, but what this portends for our annual Thank God It’s Spring Daffodil party we hold each April remains to be seen.

I bought a ukulele exactly three months ago today, and now that I’ve been noodling around with it for a bit, I thought I’d let you see how far I’ve gotten. (Though if you watch the video below, perhaps you’ll instead think of it as how far I haven’t gotten.)

I’ve been tempted by the uke for awhile now, and boingboing has been goosing me along, first with its write-up of Sophie Madeleine’s project to record 30 uke songs in 30 days, and then with its review of the extremely tempting Firefly banjolele. But what finally pushed me over the edge and made decide that yes, I must have one, was Amanda Palmer’s performance of “The Ukulele Anthem” at Occupy Boston. And so, when those Black Friday sales rolled around, I jumped, and bought a Mitchell MU-70 concert ukulele.

Surprisingly, when I asked the sales guy which books I should pick up to teach myself the ukulele, he shook his head and simply said, “YouTube.” And amazingly, there do seem to be tens of thousands of videos online from which you can learn almost any song you wish. And so that’s what I did, tracking down songs that spoke to me and clumsily following along with those YouTube teachers to learn some basic chords. But I soon realized I needed a kick in the pants in the form of someone who could critique my progress, and so I found a local teacher from whom I’ve taken four lessons so far.

Since he has to suffer, and my wife has to suffer, I figure it’s time you did some suffering, too. So here’s a sample of how I’ve been entertaining myself these days.

And so, with great trepidation, welcome to the “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

Be gentle.

And lo, there shall be an ending!

Over the past two weeks, I’ve shared scans from a folder of Marvel Comics character write-ups I found in 1975 wedged between drawers in a Bullpen file cabinet. They all included suggestions for which celebrities you should think of when reading the word balloons belonging to your favorite superheroes. One set (the X-Men) I published in an issue of FOOM, the others (Captain America, Thor, the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Iron Man) went unseen until I posted them on this blog.

Now here comes the final such write-up, on the Fantastic Four.

But before you click through to check it out, pause for a moment and try to imagine—who did Marvel think Reed Richards was supposed to sound like? And how about Ben Grimm and the rest? Got a name? OK, then go for it!

Did you come close? Whether you did or not, I’m sure you’re wondering—who wrote these? And why?

Because of the clues contained in these sheets, I was fairly certain they could not have been written any later than 1965, and therefore there were few possible culprits. I suspected Stan Lee, though my Bullpen peers offered up a few other names, such as Stan’s brother, Larry Leiber, or Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, who worked briefly for Marvel in the early days.

But why merely speculate, you might ask? Why not reach out to Stan himself?

And that’s exactly what I did. (more…)

It had never occurred to me that comic book sound effects would be different in other languages—I guess because I’ve always foolishly assumed sounds were sounds, right?—until I went to blow my nose the other day.

See, Irene had bought a box of Puff tissues, one with a superhero-themed design she knew would entertain me, and I’d been using it for months, only noticing the sides which had BOOM! and Zap! written on it.

But then I noticed that the remaining two sides, rather than BOOM! and Zap!, were emblazoned with the sound effects BOUM! and Vlan!, which would allow the box to also be sold in France. (more…)

Yesterday, I promised I’d share with you the Iron Man character write-up I found stuffed in the back of Marvel Comics file cabinet when I worked there in the ’70s, and even though you have much better things to do today than read this post and are off celebrating Presidents’ Day by buying a car or a mattress or a huge flat-screen TV, I’m a man of my word.

And so …

But wait!

Before you click on the scan below, first picture the characters of Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan, and try to imagine which celebrity voices you’re meant to hear in your head whenever you read their word balloons.

Got a few names? OK, then now you can click away!

Well? Did you get close on any of them?

Whether you did or not, I imagine the main thing you’re thinking is … Korea?

Tomorrow, you’ll get to see the final character sheets I found—two pages on the Fantastic Four.

Plus a few words from none other than Stan Lee himself!

Over the past week or so, I’ve shared scans of pages I found in a Marvel Bullpen file cabinet during the mid-’70s—so far, you’ve seen the X-Men, Captain America, Thor, the Sub-Mariner, Doctor Strange, and the Hulk—and along the way I mentioned I had a feeling based on the content that these were written no later than the mid-’60s.

Today’s sheet will give you more of an idea of why I think this. Take a look at Spider-Man and his supporting cast and tell me what you see.

Or rather … what you don’t see.

Well? Did you not see what I thought you might not see? (more…)