An ad for Acme Supermarkets (where I guess Wile E. Coyote used to buy all his hunting gear) in the February 10, 1955 issue of the Washington, D.C. Evening Star hints that the ducks the company sells are treated like veal.

According to the ad, “swimming (as well as flying) develops stringy muscles, and Acme wants none of that.”

No wonder that bathing suit is hanging on a tree branch. The duck isn’t allowed to wear it.

I suddenly feel very sad for that duck.

I think I found my dream car in the July 15, 1950 New York Times Magazine.

After all, as the ad says—it IS Hydra-Matic!

But if I can’t have the car … I at least want that rocket.

While researching Jim Mooney’s career to see whether it lined up with the advertising art I mentioned earlier, I fell down the rabbit hole of Google, and eventually ended up staring at the photo below of three architects dressed up as famous buildings each had designed.

That’s William Van Alen, architect of the Chrysler Building, in the center; Ely Jacques Kahn, who designed the Squibb Building, to the left; and Ralph Walker, designer of One Wall Street, to the right.

That’s right. A Wall Street architect was literally occupying Wall Street.

The reason they were decked out like that back in 1931 was to attend the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects annual ball, which I hope took place in a room with tall doors and high ceilings.

(I spotted this photo on multiple sites, but I smurched this one from Elevator View.)

The following ad appeared in the July 16, 1950 issue of The New York Times Sunday Magazine. My wife, whose discerning eyes I’d trust more than anyone’s when it comes to the styles of DC artists of the ’50s and ’60s, swears both images are by Jim Mooney.

Mooney, for those not familiar with the name, was best known for drawing Supergirl from 1959-1968, though I also loved him on Dial H for Hero. On top of that, I was lucky enough to have him draw my fill-in issue of Omega the Unknown in 1977.

Give the Clorox ad below a look and let me know wherther your discerning eyes agree.

It’s that time again! Another month is over, and so it’s time to gather all of September’s dream tweets and see whether they create any interesting friction rubbing up against each other.

Last month, I dreamt of Katherine Hepburn, Steve Carell, and Richard Pryor, as well as Ellen Datlow, Gardner Dozois, and F. Paul Wilson … and perhaps you.

September 2011

I dreamt I was on a grand jury investigating suspicious activity and said, hey, if this guy deserves to be arrested, I should be arrested. 30 Sep

I dreamt I was on a losing softball team and when it came time to shake hands, I saw one of my opponents had been a Waltons-era Ralph Waite. 30 Sep

I dreamt I was mowing our lawn with a mower made out of a old Mercedes-Benz, a very fancy lawn mower indeed. 30 Sep

I dreamt I looked outside and saw that to surprise me Irene had spread a carpet of Little Caesars pizza boxes stretching as far I could see. 30 Sep

I woke from a nightmare in which I was missing and Irene and her best friend couldn’t find me even though I repeatedly shouted, “Over here!” 28 Sep

I dreamt I was in a classroom with Adam-Troy Castro, who stunned me with his art by drawing a huge anti-bullying mural on the blackboard. 28 Sep

I dreamt I hired a taxi to take me to a casino 100 miles away, but my ride turned out to be just a bicycle with an exposed chair up front. 28 Sep

I dreamt I shared an office with my sister-in-law and an appraiser visited from Heritage Auctions to value our comics art collections. 28 Sep

I dreamt a courier’s briefcase, filled with coins, split open as he was crossing the street, spilling everywhere. So I helped scoop them up. 27 Sep

I dreamt I was a horribly inept waiter serving a young Richard Pryor and continually spilling food all over him in a slapstick kind of way. 27 Sep (more…)

It’s October, which means this year’s World Fantasy Con is just around the corner. I don’t know about you, but I’ve already figured out where I’ll be eating while in San Diego. That’s because wherever Adam Richman of Man v. Food goes, I go. Which means this year you’ll spot me at the Broken Yolk Cafe for breakfast, and at Phil’s BBQ and the Lucha Libre Gourmet Taco Shop for lunches and dinners.

And if you plan to be at WFC, too, I’ll be trying to drag you along.

Check out the San Diego episode of Man v. Food and you’ll see why.

Will you be there?

Just in case you didn’t read my short story “What Will Come After” in my collection of the same name, you’ve got another chance, because it’s now the lead story in Best New Horror 22 from the perceptive editor Stephen Jones. And if the thought of reading me isn’t enough of an impetus to get you to pick up a copy, you’d also get to read my betters, writers like Ramsey Campbell, Joe Lansdale, and Robert Shearman.

This is my third appearance in one of Jones’ annual roundups, as I was also reprinted in Best New Horror 4 and Best New Horror 8.

The UK edition from Robinson (with cover art by Vincent Chong) is on the left, while the U.S. edition from Running Press (with cover art by Joe Roberts) is on the right.

I love both images equally, but I’ve got to admit that the freaky pumpkin is weirding me out …

According to this Associated Press article from the mid-’30s, it turns out that “fat persons are fat because they eat too much” and “gains in flesh always followed the taking of more energy than was expended in muscular work by the individual.”

Wow … who knew?

Ain’t science amazing?

Irene was going through some boxes in her closet and came across a couple of issues I wrote way back when of Welcome Back, Kotter, and since there’s no reason for her to hang on to comics she had nothing to do with, she passed them on to me. When I flipped through the extremely yellowed pages, what I found far more interesting than my own attempts at aping the voices of those Sweathogs was the following fractional ad.

Not sure how many comics readers in 1978 were interested in investing a quarter in finding out more about what was likely just some spurious land deal. I certainly wasn’t. The only ads I paid attention to were the in-house ads and the ones for back issues. Well … those and the Twinkie ads, too, of course.

How about you? Any idea what this was about? Googling any section of the text of the ad gets me nothing, so I’m counting on the group mind out there to tell me what was going on here. If you sent a sticky quarter to Collector Enterprises, please let me know what you got in return.

I only hope you’re not an oil baron now. I wouldn’t want to have to kick myself!

Dan Harmon, the creator of the TV series Community, has a theory about the shape of stories, one which was shared in a profile recently published in Wired. It’s different from any other story shape I’ve seen, in that it’s circular, rather than the usual X-Y graph reflecting highs and lows, whether of fortune, or tension, or some other plot element.

He says that when watching movies and TV, “I can’t not see that circle. It’s tattooed on my brain.”

Here’s how he lays it out.

It makes for an interesting theory, but it’s not one I’m comfortable with accepting as the skeleton of story, due partially to the circle and partially the fact that I don’t see many of these numerical concepts as being universal.

For example— (more…)