Post Pending

Morning, all -- the internet connection is wonky this AM, so I'll be trying to post a little later today. Here's hoping it's cooperative, cuz it sure ain't this AM. I had art to post, and it just -- isn't -- posting.

I'm once again shipping vast boxes of my collection to Henderson State U's HUIE Library and my friends there, led by Special Collections honcho Lea Ann Alexander. Yesterday went some art goodies, a Constantine statue, binders and business cards from yore, and much more. More to go tomorrow. I may yet be able to walk from one end of my basement studio/viewing room to another!

In the meantime, then, this, forwarded to me by HomeyM from Jamica, VT, from I'm-not-sure-what-source... hell, if these corporate fuckers start messing with how slow or fast things load to serve their mercantile ends, I may bail out of the internet altogether. As it is, those of us in non-high-speed-access-non-access pockets of the US are being left waaaaaaaaaaay behind, sans options (satellite does not do it, and in fact the loading of home pages is slowed via satellite), which is a nonreality and nonfactor to those of you/"them" taking high-speed access so for granted.

Anyhoot, read on, and hope to see you here later, if the internet-access-powers-that-be so deign...
___

What is Net Neutrality?

Right now, your Internet company doesn't get to choose which websites open quickly on your computer. They can't decide that Google will open more quickly than Yahoo, or that the website of a company they own will open more quickly than a competitor. That's because of Net Neutrality -- the rule that's been in place since the Internet was created that says Internet service providers can't discriminate between websites.

Telephone and cable companies (like AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, Comcast, and Time Warner) want to eliminate Net Neutrality so they can put tollbooths on the Internet and speed up sites that pay them the most. They've been quite blatant about it -- here's what one top executive told the Washington Post:

"William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc." (Washington Post, December 1, 2005)

[Links were provided, but I can't make 'em link this morning! How -- uh, ironic!]

Screening the Past: Notes on Home Movie Daze, August 12th, 2006: Part the Third

(See parts one & two -- unless you’ve read those already -- before reading on...)
___________

Judith Kushner, along with Paula and Malissa & Bruce, had been active all morning thus far with the help of John [Tariot], Bruce [Posner] and the crew tending to her own box of treasures: a bounty of 8mm home movies dating from the 1950s and ‘60s. Some of the news Bruce had for Judith was unhappy: reels smelling of vinegar, indicating advanced chemical decomposition that was, essentially, contagious: “You’ll have to dispose of this immediately,” Bruce said, taking precautionary measures in his own handling of the unopened reel, “and do you know if it has been near any of the other reels? Let’s check those.”

Thus, a sensory organ other than our eyes -- Bruce’s nose -- came front and center. Though there was an undeniable (and commented upon) absurdity to Bruce’s sniffing of various unopened cans and reels, the search was in earnest: any reels smelling even slightly of vinegar were toxic, to be isolated immediately from the rest of Judith’s home movies and disposed of properly.

Another enemy of aging film, mold, plagued other reels in Judith’s collection. “You have every possible scenario happening to you here,” Bruce says. The inspection of her film intensified as the initial discovery of mold on two reels prompted discussion of her options: those reels not too badly ravaged by mold might be salvagable if cleaned, a process the workshop wasn’t prepared to offer, though Bruce very carefully explains the necessary tools and cleaning procedures and Judith’s options. Though the tainted reels weren’t as “contagious” as the vinegared reels, the moldy reels would still have to be identified, kept apart from the untainted reels so as not to spread spores to vulnerable uncontaminated reels, and dealt with -- soon. “There one other smell you might smell -- a camphor smell -- and that’s OK,” Bruce adds.

Judith asks why old film does this, and Bruce explains what all in their team (and most cineastes) know: that film is an organic medium. It is not only metaphoric that film is “alive”; despite its apparent plasticity (which most folks associate with literal plastic: a non-living substance boasting illusory permanence, inherently stable and impervious), film is in fact composed of “animal parts melted onto gel,” and thus susceptable to age, decay and damage, including the chemical decompositions and ravages of mold devouring some of Judith’s precious footage.

With all this bad news, there was thankfully some good news: a number of Judith’s family treasures looked fine, and once checked on the editing stations were cued up on the 8mm projectors on the foremost projection table and ready to screen. As Judith soon explained, these were compilation reels someone (most likely her father) had spliced together onto single reels (not edited but spliced, reel-head to reel-toe, simply to consolidate multiple individual reels onto larger reels). The two reels John, John & Bruce screened for Judith and the gathered were incredibly full, barely containing the abundance of 8mm material threatening to spill over the reel ridges. Though this required some caution in handling the reels en route to the projector, it presented no problems otherwise to the Home Movie Day team, vet projectionists all.

The first of these silent color 8mm beauties splashed upon the screen, offering a fascinating contrast to Paula’s first 16mm record of her family’s Belgian bon voyage: Judith’s family ocean voyage was aboard a military transport ship bound from Japan to the US in the early 1950s. Her father had served in the U.S. Army, and the footage offered candid views of the family during a four-to-five day trip across the Pacific from Japan to Los Angeles. The images were crisp and vivid, the color lending patinas of blue, green and splashes of color (faces, flesh, eyes, hair, clothes) amid the slate-gray metal geometries of the ship’s deck and walkways as Judith, her brother, sister, father, and obviously not-feeling-well mother savored (or endured) the oceanic jaunt. Judith’s Grandmother and Step-Grandfather also made onscreen appearances, as the footage abruptly lept to a new destination:

Richland, Washington -- “The Atomic City” -- was the next 8mm stop, still in nice color and sharp focus, evidence of Judith’s family’s life in that peculiar and strangely iconic 1950s slice of Americana. “In some ways, it was not fun for us to live in ‘The Atomic City’,” Judith commented without sarcasm as we drank in the disorienting spectacle of the family’s domestic life -- primarily backyard vistas, shots of Judith’s brother and sister playing in the spray of a yard sprinkler -- giving way to imposing shots of active artillary fire on a nearby Army firing range. The only ones actively demonstrating any sense of antic fun throughout this footage were Judith’s brother (a self-evident camera-hambone from his first appearance aboard the transport ship) and the family dog, spicing the shots of the military housing development in Richmond as summer/fall views gave way to winter snowfall and the dog prancing on the snow-laced lawn.

Another abrupt cut, reel-toe to reel head, and we’re transported to the first titled home movie footage of the day: “Dance Court with Waltz,” a carefully-lettered title card proclaims, held aloft for the camera in the same Richland back yard. So begins a reel of preteen girls (Judith and her older sister) in costume dancing ballet in the suburban housing backyard. The costumes aren’t 1950s store-bought confections, but clearly labors of love. “Mother made the costumes,” Judith noted as the first round of dancing concluded and two boys appeared holding a new title card: “River Seine.”

One sister dances in the foreground, intent upon her choreography. But something is moving in the background: little brother creeps into the distance, poised until his uncanny grasp of the image area fixes upon what is in his mind (and is in fact) center screen, and begins his own clownish dance. The Home Movie Day gathering erupts with laughter at the lad’s half-century-past anarchy, a blessed agent of chaos who must be checked. Judith’s irate mother, painfully conscious she is being filmed and determined this frenetic sibling won’t forever blemish this precious record of her daughters dancing, labors to pull the little madman out of camera range -- but he will not be deterred, eliciting more helpless laughter. This spark of antic life infesting the manicured military housing lawns, slinking across the shaded distance only to explode into manic spasms to disrupt the carefully-planned domestic pageantry of the lovingly-sewn costumes and clearly rehearsed dance, steals our hearts in seconds. Dance! Dance, dance Atomic City to its radioactive foundations! Judith’s here-and-now, still-embarrassed sisterly acknowledgement “uh, that’s my brother again” intensifies our instantaneous bond with this unrehearsed mischief subverting of mother’s best-made plans. Home Movie Day has its first breakthrough star.

Alas, a cut, a brief further dance, and another leap in time between joined reels:

Detroit, “years later,” Judith tells us, and far, far from Atomic City, as shots of her mother’s Volkswagon give way to pastoral views. “We were visiting Auntie Ruby in Crystal Falls,” she explains as we drink in the exquisite vistas of foggy pastures on a summer morning. A dog (“That’s Skipper!”) wanders amid woodlands; pastures, cattle, flowers follow, leading to shots of Crystal Falls itself, gleaming in the sunlight. Judith’s sparse commentary becomes unnecessarily apologetic in tenor, as if the ongoing shots of a remote rural house (“it was for sale at the time”) and its grounds, the views of birds eagerly savoring a variety of bird feeders, “our backyard in Detroit” were a hindrance, a tedium; this is the essence of much home movie footage, and it carries its own poetry. No apologies necessary, Judith, especially to his group.

As if to rescue 21st Century Judith, a title card breaks the procession of birds and bird feeders. It’s 20th Century Judith coming to the rescue of her future self. 21st Century Judith sighs with evident relief.

“How Two Went Out Into the Wide World” the title reads, promising narrative drive (however ethereal), thrusting us into the 1960s and providing us instantly with two protagonists: two girls, young Judith and her then-best-friend Alicia. Astride their bicycles, Judith & Alicia wander the fringes of downtown Detroit circa 1964 (judging from the glimpse of a newspaper headline sporting Lee Harvey Oswald). They bicycle through a business district, past barbershops and cutting across various street scenes, making their way to the waterfront. Views of the docks and the Detroit River succumb to industrial complexes, active and abandoned. “We’re near a steel plant here,” Judith tells us, “we weren’t supposed to be in this part of the city, I don’t think.” Their crimes of trespass, preserved for the ages on 8mm. Curious shots of the girls, apparently role playing: Judith acting the derelict, leaning against a blighted fence (“That’s me, thinking I was playing a drunk”). “I think this was all in Ohio, here,” Judith comments as their ramshackle narrative alights in and around an ominous abandoned brick factory. An unexpected atmosphere of dread asserts itself amid the debris of industrial gothic, complete with cathedral-like domed kiln cielings and crumbling stone walls and protrusions. Alicia climbs into one of these kiln superstructures, looking up and into the shadowy recessed of the domed roofing -- and the reel ends.

It’s now a little after 12 noon, and time for a break. John T announces a lunchbreak, promising to resume shortly with the next of Paula’s 16mm reels. Despite the flurry of activity -- lunches delivered, bathroom breaks, the rustling of sandwich wrap and potato chip bags, the splinters of conversation -- nobody leaves.

I hear the snap of -- what? An old 8mm plastic reel popped open? I catch a whiff of vinegar from behind me.

Another soured film reel?

No, it's potato chips -- vinegar and onion --

The belly-god must be fed, but there’s much left to see.

[To be continued...]

DINO POP!

Hey, that ain't no pterodactyl!

Time is tight this morn, but thanks to an email from Jeffrey Meyer (thanks, Jeff!) and his link to

this splendid site, ”Lost Jazz/Prog Treasures,”

I can share this zany jewel of Dino Pop with you! Art by

Hans Arnold,

evocative of both Hannes Bok (among my fave of all the classic sf and fantasy pulp illustrators) and Texan cartoonist/painter/philosopher/teacher Kenneth Smith, by my eye.
__

I just finished the final polish on my introduction for Rob Walton's upcoming 350-page graphic novel Ragmop, hands down my fave comic of both 1996 and 2006 -- and boy, are my arms tired.

What to know more?

Here's an excerpt:

"I can’t help it.

I cannot read the title of this book without hearing a certain sea-sick sea-serpent twisting his mouth around the syllables of one of the songs I associate with my wayward TV-viewing youth:

“R --
I say ‘R’, ‘A’ --
‘R’, ‘A’, ‘G’ --
‘R’, ‘A’, ‘G’ ‘G’ --
Rag!
‘R’, ‘A’, ‘G’, ‘G’, ‘M’, ‘O’, ‘P’, ‘P’ -- !”

Once I get around that, I begin reading. I’m barraged with more associative links with my -- our -- Rob Walton’s and mine, yours and my -- childhood baggage: dinosaurs, Bob Clampett cartoons, Dr. Seuss, Ray Harryhausen’s First Men “In” The Moon (the first movie I ever saw in a theater that I had picked for the family to see!), the Pope, the Kennedy Assassination, Jack Kirby comics, Harvey, Archie, The Music Man, Hanna-Barbera cartoons, The Wizard of Oz and They Saved Hitler’s Brain and God and the Piltdown Man and conspiracy theories and Roswell and (moving into my high school and college years) John Lennon and the Illuminati and The Sting and -- it’s all here. But it doesn’t impede my reading, it fuels it.

Here’s the whole 20th Century shooting match, ripping into our 21st Century miasma of religious fervor, xenophobic paranoia and power-hungry zealots, all high-speed blendered into some demented frothy concoction that leaves me high and giddy and sticky and hungry for more, like some new permutation of masturbation or interspecies intercourse.

And we all have Rob Walton to thank for it.

Rob refers himself with some modesty as “Writer, Director, Actor, Cartoonist, Publisher, Storyboard Artist, Movie Extra.” He’s indeed that and a whole lot more. He’s also a great cartoonist and a grand fellow, though he’s loathe to cop to either claim, modest and self-immolating tortured theologian-at-heart that he is.

Since he won’t accept such compliments face-to-face, I’m reduced to writing them to you, dear reader, so you can pass them on to Rob in a sanctioned literary form he might accept -- the (ahem) “introduction.” This leaves us both in the position of students passing notes in class and sniggering over them until Rob hears us and exacts some form of corporal punishment, including (but not restricted to) forcing me to stand in the corner in a crucifixion-like position, with both arms outstretched, hands open and palms up, with multiple copies of the King James Bible placed in each palm, until -- oh, no, wait. That’s what Sister Rasputin (name changed to protect the Catholic Church) made me do back in catechism when I asked about evolution and Neanderthals and the Garden of Eden. Sorry, it keeps coming back. Rob didn’t make me do that. (But he might make you do that. So just pay attention, will you? God!)

Rob malingers in and about East Toronto and knows his theology inside and out (and his brother Brad knows economics, so watch your mouth -- better yet, go wash your mouth). Religious studies beckoned; Rob chose the inky path instead, which is where he and I eventually crossed paths, shaking ink-stained fingers and commiserating over the upheavals in the direct sales market just as we finally got our shit together enough to self-publish our respective pet projects. Little did we know how my leading he and his family through a pitch-black Vermont night over 30 miles on some of the curviest, most hazardous roads in the whole of the Northeastern US would prove to be a perfect real-life metaphor for what lay ahead for both of us in the comics direct-sales market -- but that’s another story."

(Cover for the collected Ragmop)

You want more? Quit fucking about and pre-order

Rob Walton’s incredible Ragmop complete edition (with intro by yours truly and, via Paneltopanel, an exclusive signed full-color bookplate)

and be quick about it.

(And yes, Steve & Tom, I'm finally wrapping up that Time Spirits book intro, too.)

More later, if and as time permits --

-- with Part the Third of the ongoing Home Movie Day diary posting tomorrow AM, promise!

Screening the Past: Notes on Home Movie Daze, August 12th, 2006: Part the Second

(See part one -- last post -- before reading on...)

The first of Paula Kent’s movies screened was 18 minutes in length, beginning with her family’s 1955 “Belgian Holiday” (Paula’s verbal title via her impromptu shared narration, not an onscreen title -- there were no titles on Paula’s footage). The most immediately striking thing, as noted, was the incredibly striking color and the quality of both the print and the photography: the 51-year-old reel was in perfect condition, and Paula’s father had been quite the photographer. “Belgian Holiday” was an ideal first act for the day’s proceedings.

For American viewers like myself, there was the delicious exoticism of location and time to savor: the departure from England, the voyage, the destination, the people and fashions and body language. For Paula, though, it was a window to her past, enchantingly vivid. “Oh, that’s my mother,” she cooed as the matriarch’s warm face graced the screen, tentatively making eye contact with the lens/viewer. Paula in her youth wearing a lime green shirt, sitting on a boat, riding on a bus, walking alongside her mother.

Though the content was (for one who had lived it) conventional -- the family boarding the ship (the Prince Charles), various views of the activity on the dock from the ship and on-deck activities, the family in deck chairs, a brief vista of the White Cliffs of Dover, bus jaunts in Belgium, pastoral pans of their travels, the dislocating leap/relocation to Oostende (Belgium's largest passenger and ferry port) in the final minutes -- everything was in sharp focus, the camera moves consistently smooth and controlled, the antithesis of the common misconception of amateur cinematography. At one point, Bruce (Posner, not the Bruce I refer to with Malissa, below) commented, “these are living postcards,” which emphasized the relative dirth of images of people, either Paula’s family or bystanders: indeed, though Paula and mother (and, at one point, her father, evidencing that her mother was as capable a cameraman as he) appeared from time to time, the bulk of the 18 minutes was spent drinking in the scenic elements of their travel. This further distinguished Paula’s shared family footage from most of what followed, punctuated as it typically was by awkwardly smiling, waving, performing family members in various tonalities, times, climes and poses.

Still, I don’t want to give the false impression that Paula’s films were somehow lacking in human touch, intimacy or warmth: these were, after all, home movies, however professional her father’s eye or steady his hand. “Ah, that’s my father,” Paula quietly whispered, her poise and dignity amplified by the mic picking up her comment, lending unexpected grace to the image of the portly, well-dressed man smiling on the screen, walking on an Oostende sidewalk toward us. Thus, we all felt privileged: that was the essence of the day, in all its facets. We handful of viewers & participants were privileged.

From Merry Ol’ England to New England: Meanwhile, John Karol had wrapped up prep on Bruce & Malissa’s 8mm reels, and quietly set up the first of their reels on the 8mm projector mounted on the central table. Mere moments after Paula’s first 16mm reel ran its course, John began the day’s first 8mm screening. The projected image was of course a bit smaller, the grain and texture of the color film naturally not as fine or lush as the 16mm -- nature of the beast -- though this footage, too, was in surprisingly good condition. The older vintage (1941-42) of this footage also marked everything about the imagery, from the clothes and scenery to its intrinsic flavor. Malissa was also equipped with a mic at this point, though her attention was divided between the film onscreen and the 8mm reel she was still working with on the editing station; still, she was a conscientious narrator.

The initial footage, Malissa told us, was apparently “shot by my Great Uncle Leonard Crabtree” in and about their Bridgeport, CT family stomping grounds and various other New England locales (though there was still a British connection: Malissa’s great-grandfather had been born in the UK, she mentioned at one point). This was more familiar amateur movie turf, nonetheless. Foliage, deer, a cottage (“the Anne Hathaway cottage,” Malissa said), a garden, ocean shots, family members standing, walking, waving; Bridgeport landmarks, including the statue of P.T. Barnum (“my great-grandfather had worked with Barnum,” Malissa recalled). Seasonal shifts assert: the fall foliage becomes more colorful, a stout well-dressed man stands on a porch entryway alongside two huge turkeys, strung up by their feet, their dead wings spread apart by gravity.

This memorable harvest tableau magically opens another portal into more intimate family portraits, and the dead inverted gobblers are instantly offset by a closeup of a very-much-alive large green parrot. He won’t be steaming on a table anytime soon.

A woman in the doorway: “That’s my mom,” Malissa exclaims, noting the doorway belongs to the house she grew up in. She no sooner says this than we are collectively whisked into sharing Christmas 65 years ago: winter shots, snow on the suburban ground, gives way to interior shots of the living room and dining room, family members sitting in chairs, chatting stiffly in conscious response to the camera being on. Christmas rituals take center stage -- the decorating of the tree, various household scenes tied to the season’s preparations -- as daily rituals are also acknowledged (the winding of a glorious old standing grandfather clock by an elder man; Malissa’s quiet “I wonder what happened to him?” prompts the materialistic retort from someone in the room, “Heck, what happened to that wonderful clock?”).

Domesticity abruptly gives way to City. Shots of downtown Manhattan, neon signs by night, the General Electric Building, Loew’s Majestic Theater, and what appears to be a then-high-tech fair (the World’s Fair?) just as suddenly cuts back to interiors of a chess game being played and then -- a stream in the woods. These mercurial changes aren’t the result of editing per se, but of the camera being put down, forgotten, and picked up again later to be used; the final shift from city to chessboard to babbling brook most likely a “let’s use up this reel and get it developed” whim, but it still strikes uncanny, inconsequential sparks: the disposable alchemy of amateur filmmaking. End of reel.

At 11:20 AM, the second of Malissa & Bruce’s reels unspools, and we are again back in 1941-42: a senior prom, a young couple in shaky focus, a snapshot of their vibrancy/awkwardness/nervousness/excitement come and gone in seconds. “I don’t know any of these people,” Malissa meekly admits, and now there’s more strangers dressed to the nines stiffly sitting in front of a fireplace, drinking, self-conscious (with each other? the camera?), and then we’re en route to an unknown destination. Ah, no, here we are, at a train station -- “the Bridgeport station,” someone sitting in the darkness asserts, noting key landmarks still recognizable, over half-a-century later -- and we drink in the various views of the station, the train approaching, and then we’re collectively jaunting from locale to locale, apparently still in-and-around Bridgeport, until the final shot rests on “Briarwood Farms,” a broad, flat building symetrically tagged with two outsized ice cream cones on either end, giant ‘V’ shapes positioned like eyes but looking like inverted discolored candy corns framing/dwarfing the tiny doorway at dead center.

End of reel.

[Intermission. To be continued...]
______________

For some reason, posting on the blog over the weekend was impossible, due to our internet access. Apologies for the delay of Part 2’s posting.

Tomorrow is our new-semester-prep faculty meeting at the Center for Cartoon Studies, which I’m eager to engage with (the meeting and the new semester, natch). I’ll be spending tomorrow night screening flicks with the students who have arrived, along with those I’ve kept working with and seen of-and-on over the summer; as Rick Veitch says to me now and again when September approaches, “I can taste the change in the air” as we approach the fall which, for Rick and I, meant our first year at The Kubert School and the major life change (for the better) that marked. I’m already feeling it, now wed to my here-and-now life with CCS: how intoxicating it is!

Speaking of the work done with CCS creators over the summer, Alex Afterman of Heretic Films surprised me last week with a mailing of advance copies of The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma DVDs: the real McCoys, not screeners. Both films look and sound incredible on the home theater, and I’m happy to report that Alex and Heretic have done right by the movies, the filmmakers, and all the Jersey Devil mini-comic CCSers -- Elizabeth Chasalow, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Jacob Jarvela, Sean Morgan (congrats on the impending marriage, Sean!), Lauren O’Connell, Caitlin Plovnick, Adam Staffaroni, Josie Whitmore, and guest-stars Rich Tommaso, Sarah Stewart Taylor and Peter Money. Most of the CCSers -- or, as we dubbed ourselves while working on the mini, JD’s JDs -- and a couple of their classmates who weren’t part of that early-summer effort are even as I write this hard at work on a new DVD mini-comic that’s still top-secret, but I’ll post news and images here ASAP once the veil of secrecy and high-tech security is lifted.

Excited as I am about our CCS Jersey Devil mini-comic in The Last Broadcast package (and my full-color painting, presented as the inside-cover print sans text), it’s Head Trauma and the work I did with son Daniel on the comic that figures so strongly in the movie itself. I immediately called Dan when the package arrived, and we got together over the weekend. I’ll note here for y’all that Dan and I pop up on the extras on the Head Trauma disc, talking about our work on the faux-Christian-comics-tract that figures prominently in the flick, and it means the world to me that filmmaker and amigoLance Weiler so conscientiously included Dan in this with me. (What a difference from the usual treatment afforded cartoonists in connection with films their work appears in -- much kinder and more rewarding by far than my own past experiences (on “bigger” films), too. So, kudos to Lance, on all fronts.)

I’ll be posting mucho material -- written and visual -- on both films and my part in the comics relevent to both later in September, closer to the street date of both DVDs. Keep an eye out here!

Finally, I should mention my latest review posted over at PaneltoPanel.net accompanying

the release of Rick Veitch’s seminal first (and never before collected) graphic novel Abrasax & The Earthman from Rick’s own King Hell Press, exclusively available with a full-color signed bookplate from PaneltoPanel that was inked by the legendary Al Williamson,

so what are you waiting for? Rick showed me the cover proofs and some interior page proofs a couple of weeks ago over lunch at my favorite Wilmington VT diner Dot’s, and the book looks stunning. Don’t miss this one!

And speaking of previously uncollected and complete seminal graphic novels I dearly love, check out (and pre-order)

Rob Walton’s incredible Ragmop complete edition (with intro by yours truly and, via Paneltopanel, an exclusive signed full-color bookplate)

and be quick about it. Ragmop is a balm for our troubled times, sure to push your buttons, get you laughing, and further balancing the lunacy Fox News should be jailed for spouting.

If you’re allergic to anything vaguely political, though, how about

the Gene Colan delineated crossovers twixt Dracula & Dr. Strange in one kick-ass volume with an exclusive Gene Colan signature plate,

which is a necessary companion to the complete Tomb of Dracula reprint volumes. These Dr. Strange crossovers were the Jim Shooter-era Marvel stake-through-the-heart and kiss-off to all vampires (I kid you not), and absolutely essential reading if you’re at all interested in horror comics of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I wonder if they’ll include a reprint of the official “Death Certificate” that appeared with the final chapter of the crossover, in which Shooter swore this was the end of all vampirism in the entire Marvel universe? Too bad he forgot to include Ron Perlman and then-current Marvel management on that, eh? Well, times have changed, and now this slice of Marvel history is immortalized forever. BTW, John adds, “Did you realize Gene just announced his retirement from comics? “ No, I hadn’t. More on this later...

But finally, I also have to note

the new Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first collected volume with exclusive signed bookplate, an all-new piece of art by TMNT co-creator Peter Laird hisself

and -- oh, hell, a lot more. Check it out, shop with PaneltoPanel.net, and tell John I sent ya!

OK, I’m outta here...
________

Screening the Past: Notes on Home Movie Daze, August 12th, 2006: Part the Second

(See part one -- last post -- before reading on...)

The first of Paula Kent’s movies screened was 18 minutes in length, beginning with her family’s 1955 “Belgian Holiday” (Paula’s verbal title via her impromptu shared narration, not an onscreen title -- there were no titles on Paula’s footage). The most immediately striking thing, as noted, was the incredibly striking color and the quality of both the print and the photography: the 51-year-old reel was in perfect condition, and Paula’s father had been quite the photographer. “Belgian Holiday” was an ideal first act for the day’s proceedings.

For American viewers like myself, there was the delicious exoticism of location and time to savor: the departure from England, the voyage, the destination, the people and fashions and body language. For Paula, though, it was a window to her past, enchantingly vivid. “Oh, that’s my mother,” she cooed as the matriarch’s warm face graced the screen, tentatively making eye contact with the lens/viewer. Paula in her youth wearing a lime green shirt, sitting on a boat, riding on a bus, walking alongside her mother.

Though the content was (for one who had lived it) conventional -- the family boarding the ship (the Prince Charles), various views of the activity on the dock from the ship and on-deck activities, the family in deck chairs, a brief vista of the White Cliffs of Dover, bus jaunts in Belgium, pastoral pans of their travels, the dislocating leap/relocation to Oostende (Belgium's largest passenger and ferry port) in the final minutes -- everything was in sharp focus, the camera moves consistently smooth and controlled, the antithesis of the common misconception of amateur cinematography. At one point, Bruce (Posner, not the Bruce I refer to with Malissa, below) commented, “these are living postcards,” which emphasized the relative dirth of images of people, either Paula’s family or bystanders: indeed, though Paula and mother (and, at one point, her father, evidencing that her mother was as capable a cameraman as he) appeared from time to time, the bulk of the 18 minutes was spent drinking in the scenic elements of their travel. This further distinguished Paula’s shared family footage from most of what followed, punctuated as it typically was by awkwardly smiling, waving, performing family members in various tonalities, times, climes and poses.

Still, I don’t want to give the false impression that Paula’s films were somehow lacking in human touch, intimacy or warmth: these were, after all, home movies, however professional her father’s eye or steady his hand. “Ah, that’s my father,” Paula quietly whispered, her poise and dignity amplified by the mic picking up her comment, lending unexpected grace to the image of the portly, well-dressed man smiling on the screen, walking on an Oostende sidewalk toward us. Thus, we all felt privileged: that was the essence of the day, in all its facets. We handful of viewers & participants were privileged.

From Merry Ol’ England to New England: Meanwhile, John Karol had wrapped up prep on Bruce & Malissa’s 8mm reels, and quietly set up the first of their reels on the 8mm projector mounted on the central table. Mere moments after Paula’s first 16mm reel ran its course, John began the day’s first 8mm screening. The projected image was of course a bit smaller, the grain and texture of the color film naturally not as fine or lush as the 16mm -- nature of the beast -- though this footage, too, was in surprisingly good condition. The older vintage (1941-42) of this footage also marked everything about the imagery, from the clothes and scenery to its intrinsic flavor. Malissa was also equipped with a mic at this point, though her attention was divided between the film onscreen and the 8mm reel she was still working with on the editing station; still, she was a conscientious narrator.

The initial footage, Malissa told us, was apparently “shot by my Great Uncle Leonard Crabtree” in and about their Bridgeport, CT family stomping grounds and various other New England locales (though there was still a British connection: Malissa’s great-grandfather had been born in the UK, she mentioned at one point). This was more familiar amateur movie turf, nonetheless. Foliage, deer, a cottage (“the Anne Hathaway cottage,” Malissa said), a garden, ocean shots, family members standing, walking, waving; Bridgeport landmarks, including the statue of P.T. Barnum (“my great-grandfather had worked with Barnum,” Malissa recalled). Seasonal shifts assert: the fall foliage becomes more colorful, a stout well-dressed man stands on a porch entryway alongside two huge turkeys, strung up by their feet, their dead wings spread apart by gravity.

This memorable harvest tableau magically opens another portal into more intimate family portraits, and the dead inverted gobblers are instantly offset by a closeup of a very-much-alive large green parrot. He won’t be steaming on a table anytime soon.

A woman in the doorway: “That’s my mom,” Malissa exclaims, noting the doorway belongs to the house she grew up in. She no sooner says this than we are collectively whisked into sharing Christmas 65 years ago: winter shots, snow on the suburban ground, gives way to interior shots of the living room and dining room, family members sitting in chairs, chatting stiffly in conscious response to the camera being on. Christmas rituals take center stage -- the decorating of the tree, various household scenes tied to the season’s preparations -- as daily rituals are also acknowledged (the winding of a glorious old standing grandfather clock by an elder man; Malissa’s quiet “I wonder what happened to him?” prompts the materialistic retort from someone in the room, “Heck, what happened to that wonderful clock?”).

Domesticity abruptly gives way to City. Shots of downtown Manhattan, neon signs by night, the General Electric Building, Loew’s Majestic Theater, and what appears to be a then-high-tech fair (the World’s Fair?) just as suddenly cuts back to interiors of a chess game being played and then -- a stream in the woods. These mercurial changes aren’t the result of editing per se, but of the camera being put down, forgotten, and picked up again later to be used; the final shift from city to chessboard to babbling brook most likely a “let’s use up this reel and get it developed” whim, but it still strikes uncanny, inconsequential sparks: the disposable alchemy of amateur filmmaking. End of reel.

At 11:20 AM, the second of Malissa & Bruce’s reels unspools, and we are again back in 1941-42: a senior prom, a young couple in shaky focus, a snapshot of their vibrancy/awkwardness/nervousness/excitement come and gone in seconds. “I don’t know any of these people,” Malissa meekly admits, and now there’s more strangers dressed to the nines stiffly sitting in front of a fireplace, drinking, self-conscious (with each other? the camera?), and then we’re en route to an unknown destination. Ah, no, here we are, at a train station -- “the Bridgeport station,” someone sitting in the darkness asserts, noting key landmarks still recognizable, over half-a-century later -- and we drink in the various views of the station, the train approaching, and then we’re collectively jaunting from locale to locale, apparently still in-and-around Bridgeport, until the final shot rests on “Briarwood Farms,” a broad, flat building symetrically tagged with two outsized ice cream cones on either end, giant ‘V’ shapes positioned like eyes but looking like inverted discolored candy corns framing/dwarfing the tiny doorway at dead center.

End of reel.

[Intermission. To be continued...]
______________

For some reason, posting on the blog over the weekend was impossible, due to our internet access. Apologies for the delay of Part 2’s posting.
___

Tomorrow is our new-semester-prep faculty meeting at the Center for Cartoon Studies, which I’m eager to engage with (the meeting and the new semester, natch). I’ll be spending tomorrow night screening flicks with the students who have arrived, along with those I’ve kept working with and seen of-and-on over the summer; as Rick Veitch says to me now and again when September approaches, “I can taste the change in the air” as we approach the fall which, for Rick and I, meant our first year at The Kubert School and the major life change (for the better) that marked. I’m already feeling it, now wed to my here-and-now life with CCS: how intoxicating it is!
___

Speaking of the work done with CCS creators over the summer, Alex Afterman of Heretic Films surprised me last week with a mailing of advance copies of The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma DVDs: the real McCoys, not screeners. Both films look and sound incredible on the home theater, and I’m happy to report that Alex and Heretic have done right by the movies, the filmmakers, and all the Jersey Devil mini-comic CCSers -- Elizabeth Chasalow, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Jacob Jarvela, Sean Morgan (congrats on the impending marriage, Sean!), Lauren O’Connell, Caitlin Plovnick, Adam Staffaroni, Josie Whitmore, and guest-stars Rich Tommaso, Sarah Stewart Taylor and Peter Money. Most of the CCSers -- or, as we dubbed ourselves while working on the mini, JD’s JDs -- and a couple of their classmates who weren’t part of that early-summer effort are even as I write this hard at work on a new DVD mini-comic that’s still top-secret, but I’ll post news and images here ASAP once the veil of secrecy and high-tech security is lifted.

Excited as I am about our CCS Jersey Devil mini-comic in The Last Broadcast package (and my full-color painting, presented as the inside-cover print sans text), it’s hard not to be more jazzed about Head Trauma and the work I did with son Daniel on the comic that figures so strongly in the movie itself. I immediately called Dan when the package arrived, and we got together over the weekend. I’ll note here for y’all that Dan and I pop up on the extras on the Head Trauma disc, talking about our work on the faux-Christian-comics-tract that figures prominently in the flick, and it means the world to me that filmmaker and amigo Lance Weiler so conscientiously included Dan in this with me. (What a difference from the usual treatment afforded cartoonists in connection with films their work appears in -- much kinder and more rewarding by far than my own past experiences -- and on so-called “bigger” films. Give me the indys every time, bunky. So, kudos to Lance, on all fronts.)

I’ll be posting mucho material -- written and visual -- on both films and my part in the comics relevent to both later in September, closer to the street date of both DVDs. Keep an eye out here!
___

Finally, I should mention my latest review posted over at PaneltoPanel.net accompanying

the release of Rick Veitch’s seminal first (and never before collected) graphic novel Abrasax & The Earthman from Rick’s own King Hell Press, exclusively available with a full-color signed bookplate from PaneltoPanel that was inked by the legendary Al Williamson,

so what are you waiting for? Rick showed me the cover proofs and some interior page proofs a couple of weeks ago over lunch at my favorite Wilmington VT diner Dot’s, and the book looks stunning. Don’t miss this one!

And speaking of previously uncollected and complete seminal graphic novels I dearly love, check out (and pre-order)

Rob Walton’s incredible Ragmop complete edition (with intro by yours truly and, via Paneltopanel, an exclusive signed full-color bookplate)

and be quick about it. Ragmop is a balm for our troubled times, sure to push your buttons, get you laughing, and further balancing the lunacy Fox News should be jailed for spouting.

If you’re allergic to anything vaguely political, though, how about

the Gene Colan delineated crossovers twixt Dracula & Dr. Strange in one kick-ass volume with an exclusive Gene Colan signature plate,

which is a necessary companion to the complete Tomb of Dracula reprint volumes. These Dr. Strange crossovers were the Jim Shooter-era Marvel stake-through-the-heart and kiss-off to all vampires (I kid you not), and absolutely essential reading if you’re at all interested in horror comics of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I wonder if they’ll include a reprint of the official “Death Certificate” that appeared with the final chapter of the crossover, in which Shooter swore this was the end of all vampirism in the entire Marvel universe? Too bad he forgot to include Ron Perlman and then-current Marvel management on that, eh? Well, times have changed, and now this slice of Marvel history is immortalized forever. BTW, John adds, “Did you realize Gene just announced his retirement from comics? “ No, I hadn’t. More on this later...

But finally, I also have to note

the new Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first collected volume with exclusive signed bookplate, an all-new piece of art by TMNT co-creator Peter Laird hisself

and -- oh, hell, a lot more. Check it out, shop with PaneltoPanel.net, and tell John I sent ya!

[PS to Heath: I reviewed

the marvelous book Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays! way back here, and hell yes, I recommend -- and recommended -- it to everyone!

That review was predated by

my writing about the book on this very blog back in October of last year (on October 1st, at the end of that Saturday column),

including an interview with

Peter Marusco right here

-- which I'm sure you read then, though you don't seem to recall it now. Ah, well, lots of water under many bridges...)

OK, I’m outta here...
________

Screening the Past: Notes on Home Movie Daze, August 12th, 2006: Part the First

After exchanging emails with the organizers a month or so earlier, taking unnecessary precautions to ensure my seat was secure, I made the 75 minute drive up to Hanover, NH Saturday morning and found my way to the Howe Library, arriving a bit early. No matter -- after killing some time downtown (browsing and buying some used DVDs, natch), I arrived about the time the Howe Library doors were opened to the public, and lo and behold, the festivities were already underway, though I hadn't missed a thing.

The Home Movie Day moguls -- John Tariot of Film Video Digital and Bruce Posner of Unseen Cinema fame -- were hard at work, finishing the set-up of the room and equipment. They were working in synch with a devoted crew: Sukdith Punjasthitkul, John Karol, Ellen Lynch and someone I recognized from a recent visit to Rutland VT's Edgewood Studios, Nate Weinstein. Everyone was busy with various tasks, from ensuring the doorway wasn't leaking too much light into the room (ah, black plastic bags have so many uses) to checking the sound system to making sure the procession of projectors (8mm, Super 8 and 16mm) were in place, stationed for optimum screening and all working properly. There were already a couple of folks in the room, too, participants in the process. Each had carried in cardboard boxes brimming with home movie reels of various gages and sizes, and John, Bruce, John and Sukdith were attending to the first fruits of the day's harvest, setting up reels on the various bench editing stations at the back of the room to see if the films were in good enough shape to risk projection: the ultimate goal, for both those bringing their movies into the workshop and those organizing and working the floor.

Everyone -- myself included! -- was really there to see movies. Movies that had most likely not been screened for decades; movies never seen by most of us in the room.

It was magic.

I had seen Bruce in action once before, hosting a special Dartmouth College evening of selections from Bruce's marvelous DVD compilation Unseen Cinema, which I've written about here months ago (but will write more about this weekend). He's one of those fellows radiating a quiet but contagious enthusiasm and energy, and his love for cinema -- from its seductive onscreen alchemy to the organic stuff of it, evident in his every interaction with each visitor and their family treasures at Home Movie Day -- was absolutely infectious. Not that I needed to catch the bug: as an addict of all things cinematic, I felt an immediate affinity for Bruce throughout the entire Unseen Cinema sampler evening. No surprise, then, that he was the first to greet me as I quietly stepped into the Howe Library basement screening room.

Having nothing in hand, I was a bit of an aberration at first, but not to Bruce: he understood the appetite, the hunger, the need to see that had propelled me the 160-mile-round trip for the day's great unknown.

What would we see? What could we see? The when and where of every film was part of the draw, the mystery, the feast, but it was the images -- the lovely, moving images -- that comprised the entirity of the banquet.

Having made my own 8mm and Super 8 films -- working with my friends in junior high and high school (Bill Hunter, Alan Finn, Jay 'Snake' Harvey and others), editing my own efforts with the old Kodak editing kits and splicing tape, and supervised 16mm film showings and student film societies throughout junior high, high school and college -- I found the sights, sounds, smells and bustle of the work station and projection tables were a high in and of themselves. Delicious!

It had been almost 30 years since I'd savored this: my last projection (of an 8mm film, to my classmates at the Joe Kubert School) was back in 1977 or '78, after which I left both my film collection and projector with the school (sadly, only to find all gone a year or two later when I visited the old grounds; hope some Kubie somewhere has 'em or made good use of them, it was quite a collection of rare Blackhawk films, from a complete set of Georges Melies shorts to silent era features like Nosferatu, She and much more). It all rushed back as I glanced in the door, and by the time I picked my way to an open seat in the far corner (with sterling visibility of the work stations and the screen), I was nigh on intoxicated by the rush.

I was immediately asked if I'd brought anything; alas, I hadn't. I was there to watch.

My student films are long gone -- left with my friend Bill Hunter after high school graduation, and when Bill was found dead a mere two years later, I lost track of all that. It was part of all I left behind when I aggressively pursued my path as a cartoonist, spurred as much by Bill's demise as my obsessive need to draw and tell stories of my own. My -- our -- films were part of the baggage I abandoned in the heat of the trailblazing. Bill's mother Mary wrote me out of the blue in the mid-1990s, asking how I was and if I'd like Bill's old projector and our films. I meant to write immediately, but her letter arrived amid my marriage collapsing and Tyrant launching and Maia & Danny and I living in cramped quarters in a tiny Wilmington apartment, and I misplaced/lost the letter before the week was out. It's never turned up since, and I fear that opportunity is forever past.

So, no movies in hand -- just my appetite to see whatever unknowable and unseen amateur and home films might be shared that day. I should have expected the sensations that greeted me before anything kissed the screen, the familiarity of those sensory stimuli, but I hadn't even thought of it -- the 'contact high' of the sound, sight, smell, touch, taste of celluloid, film, and its gleaming entourage of machines and equipment.

This is something alien and unknown to many (most) of you, obliterated by the post-1978 beta/vhs/laserdisc/DVD generation, and thus hard to communicate: there was a tactile excitement in hearing tiny plastic 8mm film reels being popped out of their characteristic blue sheaths, the soft swish of the film moving reel-to-reel, a gravity and grace to the handling of metal 16mm film cans and reels and the more assertive sounds of the wider gauge film going through its paces. I itched to touch and handle it all, but that wasn't my place; I resisted all but the urge to occasionally stand behind the editing stations as Sukdith, John, John and Bruce helped the home movie owners screen their treasures on the tiny screens. It was otherwise enough to see and hear the film reels being tenderly lifted from their shells, spy upon the loving initial inspection by eye and hand, the holding of a strip of film up to the light, the officious snaps and clicks of reels and takeup reels being popped into place for a run through the editing machines, culminating in all but a few sad cases (films turning to vinegar, moldy, or too shrunken to project) in the rousing bustle around the appropriate projector to share the harvest with one and all in attendance.

"You are so accomodating," the older woman of the two who seemed to have the largest caches of old films said to Nate and John K as they worked with her. Her name was Paula Kent, I later found out; a librarian by profession, living in Newbury VT but originally from England (and retaining enough of her accent to notice), attending this event in hopes of screening an abundance of 16mm home movies her parents had shot in the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s and into the '50s.

She -- and we -- were amply rewarded.

There was also a couple from Norwich, Bruce and Malissa (I hope I'm spelling her name correctly), who also had reels of 8mm home movies from the 1940s, shot in and about Cape Cod. Sukdith was working closely with Malissa, quickly assessing at a glance the preservation issues -- thankfully, no torn sprocket holes, no tears, and no evident shrinkage, he said -- before skillfully adding lengths of fresh leader to the beginning of each reel before he helped Malissa set it up for editing-screen viewing. At one point Malissa sighed, "lots of foliage," with evident impatience.

"Every 8 or Super 8 collection has at least one reel with fall foliage," Suki said. John T added, "Foliage has its place... having shot some home movies myself, I'm guilty of the same thing -- shooting things instead of people."

No such reservations were being expressed at the 16mm editing station. Paula was tickled to hear John K tell here, "This looks like it's in splendid shape," which was all Bruce needed to hear.

In short order Bruce had the first reel of Paula's 16mm reels threaded onto the 16mm projector at the back of the room, as John checked the next reel -- it all seemed to be in perfect condition, and Paula was clearly enchanted by what she was seeing unspool on the editing workstation John help her manage. "Oh, there's my mother..."

At 10:41 AM -- a mere 40 minutes after the morning's activities had begun in earnest -- the first reel of film was screened. Bruce set it up and dashed to a center seat, sitting back with evident satisfaction. Nate was helping Paula clip a small neck microphone to her shirt collar as the screen was suddenly splashed with color -- rich, saturated color, circa 1955, the year I was born, looking as splendid as it had the day it was filmed...

[To be continued...]
____

Breaking news update:

This just in, from UVM:
"As many of you know, there was a serious shooting incident at Essex Elementary school this afternoon. UVM students were present at the school at the time. All our students have been accounted for and are physically unharmed. We are engaged in extensive inter agency cooperation to provide counseling and support to our students and faculty and to the other people affected by this tragic event." This comes from A. John Bramley, Acting UVM President; more on this tomorrow, once I know more myself...

Some Links...

Posting later today, but a warmup:

Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye the Sailor Man, Gulliver's Travels, Mr. Bug Goes to Town and oh so much more. Into animation and the Fleischer Brothers legacy? Hey, jump to it -- click on over to

the amazing G. Michael Dobbs site dedicated to The Fleischer Brothers animation, ”Made of Pen & Ink”

If you're into more personal media, check out one of my fave Canadian cartoonists via

the amply illustrated cartooning blog of Max Douglas aka Salgood Sam.

And this from my old Kubert School compatriot Chris Kalnick:

Follow the instructions below to see just how accurate Google is.
Do it soon before Google finds this and changes it.

Subject: ............... Was this a mistake on Google's part?

1- Go to www.Google.com
2- Type in the word: Failure
3- Look at it the first listing
4- Tell other people before the people at Google fix it

OK, more later -- Home Movie Day, Part One!

Gregor's Biography/Retrospective Rules!

Just moments ago finished reading Patrick Rosenkranz's top-notch You Call This Art? A Greg Irons Retrospective (Fantagraphics Books, 2006), which places into perspective the life and work of the man whose work had a profound influence on yours truly. Irons was one of the unsung geniuses of the comix art movement (which I maintain framed the 20th Century art scene, with the Surrealists and Dadaists in Europe in the first half of the century, and the comix explosion marking a similarly potent eruption in the latter part) -- unsung in part because Irons embraced genre as a vehicle (particularly in his collaborations with Tom Veitch), a stigma in the eyes of many critics & participants of the scene from Bill Griffith to Gary Groth (I'm citing Gary's dismissal of genre, particularly horror, over the years, noting of course he's now elevating Irons as co-publisher of this very book). Greg's early and late comix work was sui generis -- the seminal transformative Light (1971), which so influenced my own collaboration with Alan Moore and John Totleben on The Saga of the Swamp Thing #34's "Rites of Spring"; Greg's post-'77 Slow Death sociological & historical screeds and sardonic autobiographical Gregor the PurpleAss Baboon stories, reprinted in this book in their entirity -- but he was most identified with his taboo-busting G.I./T.V. collaborations, which indeed marked many of us for life and still impact the international pop culture to this day. As Rosenkranz makes clear, Greg was the fire behind both Skull and Slow Death, the two comix titles that dragged the genres of horror and sf kicking and writhing into the '70s in their medium as surely as George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Michael Reeves's The Witchfinder General/The Conqueror Worm did the same for cinematic horror; I'd long suspected Greg had spearheaded those efforts, and its gratifying to know those instincts (as a reader) were correct.

Still, that genre association quickly became a pejorative, a stigma, which Irons never escaped. Though Bill Griffith's scathing attack upon such incarnations of the comix scene isn't cited here, one sees it again and again pop up throughout the biography, particularly in Bellerophon Books publisher Herb Knill's assessment of Greg's work, despite the fact that Irons remains the best artist to have graced that line of coloring books. Knill's abhorrence of Irons's "black-goo-gore-&-dung art" speaks volumes, as does his final reference to Greg never becoming "a very good top of the line illustrator" because he couldn't leave "the adolescent art behind" (forgive my identifying with these passages on a personal level, as I still hear the same about my own work, in different arenas; Knill's letters to Irons -- see pp. 169-177, pg. 281 -- echo almost verbatim letters I've received from peers and pros in the field, from cat yronwode to those who should know better). Like well-intentioned editors and publishers I've worked with, the belief that severing Greg from the gut-level impulses that so relentlessly fueled his art by polishing and sterilizing the finished product only hastened the termination of that phase of Greg's career. As Rosenkranz properly emphasizes/contextualizes this friction, one sees in Greg's richer pirate portraits for Slow Death #7 all that Knill actively suppressed/refuted in (I'm sure his word would be "refined" from) Irons art, a patriarchal and generational mentorship (Knill was clearly a father figure, in Irons's own words "an ex-Marine captain who is also an ex-history professor") doomed to failure. As Greg's eventual return to the waning comix venues left in '77-'80 and his subsequent tattoo career demonstrated, Irons art was 150% high-octane injected by his demons, and any attempt to cut the artist off from his demons would inevitably drain the vein and send the man in search of fresh venues.

As one who celebrates and has himself embraced genre as a viable path, it's worth mentioning again that it was the profound primal impact of Tom & Greg's Skull #6 "A Gothic Tale: Part One" (beautifully reprinted in Rosenkranz's book, sans Veitch & Corben's second chapter, for obvious reasons) that propelled my own lasting decision to work in comics, specifically my desire to build upon all that Greg and Tom had accomplished as a team. It's too bad Rosenkranz himself so little understands or cares about the broader tapestry of the genre itself (a characteristic of Fantagraphics as a whole, reflecting the prejudices and blinders of its founding and sustaining publishers Groth and Kim Thompson): though I've no idea what played a part in the decision to feature nary a mention or panel from G.I./T.V.'s seminal gross-out epic "Clean-Up Crew", the fact that this still-bracing horror comix classic inspired another subsequent underground (the 8mm cinematic breed) via Jörg Buttgereit's utterly perverse masterpiece Nekromantik (1987) -- essentially, an adaptation of the G.I./T.V. tale with a few extrapolations and different culmination/climax, sans the supernatural component -- is a connection long overdue, and Rosenkranz's book was the place to state it for the record. Alas, the connection isn't made, the impact of Irons legacy inadvertantly diminished.

In comics alone, I have to cite Greg's impact upon Alan, John, Rick & my own Swamp Thing efforts, still in print around the world and directly mainlining Irons quite overtly, from the previously-mentioned "Rites of Spring" to our own modest memorial to Greg's tragic death in November of 1984: one of my final ST efforts, SOTST #39's "Fish Story" (published the summer of '85) concludes with a dedication from Alan, John & I to Greg's memory, tagged with the most Irons-like skull (which I myself inked, with John and editor Karen Berger's blessing) I could muster, tellingly lying at the foot of a bus stop sign in the muddy wasteland remnants of Rosewood. Mark Bode is the most prominent contemporary cartoonist to consciously emulate Greg's career arc from comix to tattooing: Mark began his exploration of that path shortly before his move to Northampton, MA (or while in Northampton -- Mark, care to comment?) in 1990 or '91, and has matured into a top-notch tattoo artist, recently returning to his roots in the Bay area to continue and expand operations.

For whatever reason -- perhaps Rosenkranz decided to focus solely upon Greg's personal arena, and quote only those who directly knew him, which is laudable -- You Call This Art? choses not to trace Greg's wider legacy. Too bad. There are other lapses and/or editorial/authorial decisions I could bemoan -- though again, there may well be ample (legal) easons for the exclusion of key works in Greg's canon, including the two issues of Grunt by G.I./T.V., which remains some of their best, most exuberant and playful collaborative work -- but I'm too gorged with all that's right about Patrick's excellent book to split hairs.

This is a long overdue, expansive, honorable and altogether marvelous overview of Irons, the man and the artist, a rich 300 pages brimming with stellar repros of Greg's fantastic work. Kudos to Rosenkranz and to Fantagraphics for delivering this book, which is an essential addition to every comix-devotees library -- and must reading for anyone who is a fan of my own efforts in the medium. You want to know where I'm coming from, you've gotta tap into Greg's work, and pronto.

An aside I must touch upon, maybe Rick Veitch cares to elaborate: per the official record, Rosenkranz chalks up Greg's death to his being hit by a bus on a busy Bangkok, Thailand street on November 13, 1984 at 10:15 PM. That's the U.S. Department of State's report to Greg's family and loved ones, though none of them ever saw so much as a photo of Greg's remains. According to Greg's brother Mark, "...The cause of his death was blunt force trauma to the rear of the skull..." (see pp. 267-268); Greg was cremated in Thailand, his ashes shipped home. Still, I wonder -- the very week that Rick Veitch called me with the news of Greg's tragic death, both he and I heard on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" news program a report on gangland warfare on the streets of Bangkok, noting that caucasian and specifically American tourists were considered fair targets. The report eerily stated at one point (I am paraphrasing from memory), "...so if you hear of someone reportedly struck by a car, train or bus [emphasis mine], don't necessarily believe it..." Rick and I talked about this chilling coincidence that very day, and I must say elements of Rosenkranz's final chapters only increase my unease about this suspicion.

Rosenkranz and Greg's circle of friends, family and even his girlfriend Lynn Seriguchi are surprisingly candid about Greg's appetite for prostitutes and the more sordid aspects of the backstreets he worked on as a tattoist and wandered in his nightlife and travels. Ann Moen is quoted saying, "He was just happiest when he was in a horrible tattoo place in the middle of all these strip joints on Columbus Avenue..." (pg. 265). This aspect of Irons latter days is amply reflected in the Gregor strips, too (including a painfully funny account of the bike-and-car accident that scarred Greg in '81); brother Mark refers to "...'the cute girls' near the Fortuna hotel in Bangkok, where he was staying...", only after noting the Bangkok visit was a detour from the tattoo/art aspects of Greg's Asian trip: "...he made a stop in Thailand in pursuit of some famous Bangkok pussy..." (pp. 267-268). I state this here not to emphasize disproportionately this element of his life, but to assert the possibility of Greg's proximity to crime gangs while in Bangkok, and the weight this lends to that NPR news item and its disturbing assertion that the State Deparment reports of cause-of-death for American tourists might be less than reliable. The facts Rosenkranz presents -- Greg's reason for being in Thailand, the cause of death, the fact no photos survived (of Greg's body, or from his camera, which was found with his body), the fact that all the family received were his ashes -- certainly does nothing to put such suspicions to rest. Sounds very likely to me Greg could/would have run into the wrong people at the wrong time in the wrong part of the city. Pure speculation: did Greg inadvertantly make himself a target by snapping a photo of something gang members didn't want on film? Enough. I don't wish to fan flames of such speculation, just call into question, as Rick and I found ourselves doing in November 1984, what might have been the real cause of Greg's tragic death.

Again, my highest recommendation for

You Call This Art?, available at the click of a mouse via PaneltoPanel.net.

Don't hesitate!


Tomorrow, I'll start my detailed posting on the delightful Saturday I had a little over a week ago at Home Movie Day in Hanover, NH and White River Jct., VT.

Thanks to the amazing dedication, vision and efforts of Bruce Posner and John Tariot, ably assisted by Sukdith Punjasthitkul and others, this event provided an invaluable service to the folks who wandered in with ancient home movie footage, and it was a hoot to see how Bruce, John, Sukdith and their team dealt with the people and their films -- with warmth, genuine affection and enthusiasm, loving care, and unfailing professionalism and courtesy. The fruits of these exchanges were shared with all in attendance, as each home movie that passed the initial scrutiny at various editing stations was eventually threaded into one of the projectors on the front (and back) tables -- 16mm, 8mm, and Super 8, all in perfect working condition -- and projected for all to enjoy. Those participants who were willing allowed a microphone to be attached to their collars, allowing them to narrate the films -- about the when, where, and who onscreen -- which enriched the viewing experience considerably.

Sounds tedious? Well, remember, I'm an "opportunivore" (to quote my stepson Mike's best friend Chad) about all things cinematic, and there's a world of experience to be savored and shared in these old home movies. Bruce and Sukdith sweetened the pot with some of their own 'home movies,' and -- well, more about this tomorrow. See ya here!

More failed photo load attempts. Damn this dial-up only access!

In my broadband committee work (not only with Marlboro, VT, but working in conjunction with three other southern VT communities), we're finding this is now a realtor issue: one of our four-town committee members is a selectman, and he's getting occasional calls from local realtors, checking if such-and-such a property has broadband access or not. Now that it's affecting home/property sales, this is sure to become an overt political issue in an already-loaded election season.

Cramming --

First chance I've had to get online today, and betwixt family stuff (suddenly intensifying anew), CCS prep, and juggling various gigs, I'm unlikely to be blogging before the morning.

Among the CCS prep for the new semester has been scouring available books for use in the comics history class, and a quick heads up for Daniel Herman's excellent Silver Age: The Second Generation of Comic Book Artists, which prompts me to divert my next paycheck toward picking up copies of Herman's two books on Gil Kane. Great book, great resource --

OK, outta here. More later, or in the AM!

I Dream of Irons

Last dream of the night/morning:

I’m in a vast hospital/hotel (it changes, from time to time) lobby where friends and family of the late Greg Irons have gathered to commemorate his life and work. I’ve been privileged with an invite, and sit cross-legged behind Greg’s brother Mark [who, in real life, I’ve never met or had word one with]. Something is odd, though, in that I don’t see Tom Veitch at the gathering, and odder still, Mark seems to be only 21 or 22 years old, his long blonde hair tied back into a ponytail. Odder yet, the event seems to be videotaped by an invisible camera crew, and is focused on a large plasma-screen monitor projecting non-existent clips from some fictionalized version of Greg’s life: his cameo in a Katherine Hepburn movie, with voiceover comments by Hepburn, for instance, which simply makes no sense to me. Still, Greg’s family seems to be OK with this, so I button my lip and keep watching/waiting for whatever comes next. For some reason, the arrangements in which we sit keeps being changed, but nothing -- including emergency room entry of accident victims, or a skirmish of some kind in the hotel lobby -- seems to deter the steady stream of filmclips being shown, all of which seem increasingly suspect to me: surely, Greg was never filmed dining with Bogart?

Why dream about Greg after all these years?

The last dreams I had involving Irons -- who was and is, BTW, one of the “big four” of my artistic heroes whose work prompted my own career/life path -- were in 1990. Those were prompted by Tom Veitch offering the possibility of publishing his last collaboration with Greg, ”Flenk’s Last Tattoo,” in Taboo if I could possibly complete the inks from Greg’s pencils/roughs. Though I wrestled with the pages (via vellum overlays, working from oversized photocopies Tom had loaned me), I wasn’t up to the awesome proposition, and was in fact visited in a series of disturbing dreams by Greg -- whom I had never met in life -- which added to my nervousness about even touching something Greg had created. Greg was a benevolent presence in those dreams, but I was and remain in awe of all he had accomplished. I froze as surely as I would have asked to complete a Ray Harryhausen model, or ink a page pencilled by Sam Glanzman or Joe Kubert (there, now you’ve got all four heroes named); in the end, I called Tom and gracefully declined.

Though Greg and I never met, we did correspond, briefly, and brothers Tom and Rick had driven me to Greg’s cabin somewhere near Stimson Beach in November of 1978 in hopes of my meeting him. Alas, Greg wasn’t home -- so I left a note, and a humble sketch, and a few weeks later Greg reciprocated with a color skull sketch and a kind letter in response. This near-meeting was a highlight (along with our visit to Gary Arlington’s legendary comic shop) of a marvelous but strange trip to San Francisco during which I almost smashed my skull like an eggshell leaping onto a cable car with portfolio in one hand; a trip strangely framed one the one hand by the breaking front-page news of Rev. Jim Jones’s Guyana mass suicide/massacre on our first day in the city, and on the other as Tom was driving us to the airport by news of a “high-speed car chase” in downtown San Fran -- which, it turned out, was the police’s pursuit of Dan White after his assassination of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, “The Mayor of Castro Street.” Ah, the ‘70s.

But why am I dreaming of Greg and his family this morning, after all these years?

It’s all thanks to my purchase this week of

You Call This Art? via PaneltoPanel.net,

I’m devouring the first-ever English-language bio/retrospective of Greg Irons seminal underground comix creations and career, from childhood to rock posters, from comix to coloring books, from Medicine Ball Caravan movie cameo to tattoo artist extraordinaire. Though the cover is an embarrassment (fusing one of Greg’s autobiographical Gregor the Purple-ass Baboon portraits with framing elements from Legion of Charlies imagery), the book is fantastic and incredibly comprehensive, and highly recommended. I’ll be writing more about this here this week, but don’t wait on me -- order your copy pronto!
__

More good news on The Bissette Collection at HUIE Library on the splendid Henderson State University campus, with more updates (and pix, soon!) to follow.

As noted many times here, Lea Ann Alexander is the goddess-like supervisor/head honcho/”She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed” of this project, working closely over the past two years with Hope Warner to make sense of the vast array of scripts, manuscripts, books, art, toys, doodads and dollops of weirdness that comprise my papers. They’re getting some help this coming semester:

Lea Ann writes, “We are adding a Special Collections work-study student this fall. His name is Rhys Mounger, a wonderful young man from Plano, Texas who worked with Hope on the collection on a volunteer basis all last spring. We are elated to be able to pay him for it this semester. Rhys is a member of the campus Comics Club. (Actually, our first assignment for him will be to organize, preserve, and file the magazines donated by Jean-Marc [Lofficier])...”

Good news, that! Welcome aboard, Rhys, and I hope to meet you someday face to face -- maybe over cards at Lea Ann’s or Randy’s digs. Continuing:

“We have achieved online access to the first little box inventory. It took a couple of days for the Google spider to index it, but it works like a dream. Hope just completed her Ektron training, so additional completed box inventories should start popping up soon.

Next up on the website: listings of staff and a how-to guide for searching.... Lots of smiles around here with this shiny permission to use university webspace for the inventories...now you can see progress rather than merely hear about it. Soon we'll have enough on the webpage to start being of use to researchers. It's all good!”

Indeed, it is, and I’ll announce the online access to the collection once it’s up and running. In the meantime, feel free to click on over to

the Bissette Collection site

if you haven’t already (the link is forever in the menu of links at right), and see you tomorrow...

Meet our new flat mates...

That's Lizzie (short for Miss Eliza) and Tuco basking in the vast comfort of their expansive new home.

It's their world now; Marge and I just get to live here!

Morning, all --

Pix to post, but the blog doesn't seem to be accepting them this morning. I'll keep trying --

Protecting National Security, My Ass

While Joe Lieberman, Fox News and the GOP make hay from this week's British terror suspects hubbub, and Cheney et al thump the dumdum, all accusing Democrats of being pantywaists on terror, an AP story in our local paper ("Bush Tried to Divert Detection $$", The Brattleboro Reformer, Saturday-Sunday, August 12-13, 2006, pg. 20) notes how "the Bush Administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology," even as the UK terror suspects were busily prepping their schemes.

As if Katrina wasn't enough to rip the blinders from those still stupid enough to believe Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and team give a flying fuck about national security and our collective well-being, these kinds of shenanigans continue to put paid to the lies this Administration campaigned so fervently over back in '04. The AP story quotes a June 29th bipartisan report from the Appropriations Committee concerning the Homeland Security Department's Sciences & Technology Directorate research division as being "a rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course... The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department..." Republican and Democratic senators are joining forces to block the administration's ongoing attempts to divert funds.

The yawning chasm between Bush's bankrupt "stay the course" dogma and the ongoing evidence of the complete incompetency and utter, abject failure of Bush and his dog pack to do anything but cover their asses while protecting no one and only further entrenching our entire country and culture in the Iraq War tarbaby is an obscenity. These dogs have had their day, and we as a country, culture, and people are paying too dearly for their madness.

Thankfully, more and more of the populace seems to be waking up to the reality those in power are so intent upon denying.

More later, on other things...

Monday Memories of Massacre

Sorry I missed posting yesterday; we have week-long houseguests who are finally departing today, and though I love ‘em, I am so ready for our house to be our house again! As of last Tuesday, it’s been strewn with grandchildren debris and I’ve been pretty much displaced; as of Friday, I didn't feel like I lived here any more. Time for bye-bye, indeed, but not for me.

And yes, Marge got her kitties this weekend, too. More on that (with pix!) in days to come.

Catching up on emails will prompt most of my posts this week:

First, this from HomeyM of Jamaica, VT, who has been sending me excerpts from a recent book he refers to herein:

“Native American professor publishes new book on American Indian movement

STANFORD -- He was only 9 years old at the time of the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee by the Oglala Sioux, but Robert Warrior will never forget the prime-time event that brought international attention to the concerns of American Indians.

"The thing I remember most clearly was Marlon Brando refusing the Academy Award," says the assistant professor of English. "In his place Sacheen Littlefeather tried to make a speech -- and got booed off the stage."

HomeyM comments, “Then again, as regards "Sacheen Littlefeather":

Brando turned down the Academy Award, the second actor to refuse an Oscar (the first being George C. Scott for Patton). Brando boycotted the award ceremony, sending little-known actress

Sacheen Littlefeather

to state his reasons, which were based on his objections to the depiction of Native Americans by Hollywood and television. There was later much controversy when it emerged Littlefeather was not a Native American Indian at all, but a Mexican actress named Maria Cruz. Hmmm.”

I recall seeing this, too, on TV, during one of the precious few Academy Award show I ever watched.

Funny thing: the only film I remember from Sacheen’s filmography in which she really registered was a 1975 exploitation film based on the 1960s Native American reservation crisis, Johnny Firecloud. It was knockoff of Billy Jack with heavier doses of rape (Sacheen is gangbanged to death by rednecks), lynchings and gore (some quite explicit) than the Tom Laughlin films (note Sacheen was in the 1974 The Trial of Billy Jack). It was produced (for 20th Century Fox!) by indy adult and exploitation film mogul David Friedman, the man behind such down-and-dirty classics as Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, The Defilers, She-Freak, Thar She Blows, Trader Hornee and countless others, including the immortal Nazi concentration camp sex-and-gore epic Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS (a film so nasty Friedman produced it under a pseudoname!).

Almost as lurid as Ilsa, Johnny Firecloud probably cut closer to the reality of reservations vs. renegade redneck authorities than any other film of the '70s, though only drive-in and urban grindhouse audiences ever saw it, and critics of course totally ignored it.

Part of my love of such exploitation films is that more of the 'truth' leaked into the pop culture via such reprehensible vehicles than mainstream news or media would ever permit. Johnny Firecloud also had a curious (for the time) anti-homophobia narrative thread, ending with Johnny and the closeted gay sheriff (!) shaking hands instead of the bloodbath the narrative seemed to be building to: understanding and tolerance unexpectedly win the day, if only for the fadeout. Interesting film, though clearly not for all tastes.

Johnny Firecloud was actually a remake of sorts of an obscure and essentially ‘lost’ Warner Bros social outrage opus, the 1934 Massacre. Ralph Block & Sheridan Gibney’s screenplay created the blueprint for the whole “revenge of the reservation” cinema genre, up to and beyond Billy Jack, and director Alan Crosland unpretentiously played up the script’s most agonizing elements, building to a boil-over point the film just can’t contain.

Vet D.W. Griffith lead Richard Barthelmess starred, playing Joe Thunderhorse, a Native American reservation hero as put-upon and fed up as Johnny Firecloud, facing a clutch of whiteskin villains who are as vicious as any in Friedman’s 1975 gorefest. Though Barthelmess is, like most of the cast playing "indians," not even momentarily believable as a Native American, he gives a taut performance that maintains audience sympathy for the character and his vendetta. That alone makes this an unusual against-the-grain portrait of the contemporary Native American situation, gracing the screen amid the greatest popularity of by-the-numbers B-westerns which reveled in the stereotype of "redman savage" villainy. In Massacre, the villains are all caucasian authority figures and redneck brutes; corruption and complicity is pervasive and insurmountable, the Native Americans the downtrodden and abused disenfranchised relegated to an intolerable life of poverty, subjugation and exploitation on the res. Joe lashes out against this, and violence is indeed the last resort when all else fails; but once Joe's hand is forced, he proves as ruthless as his foes.

Among the motherfuckers Joe ultimately cuts down (for torturing and raping his sister!) are blackhearts played by none other than Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless himself!) and Sidney Toler. The pre-Charlie Chan role Toler played here was the most sadistic of the onscreen predators in Massacre, supervising and savoring the torture of Joe’s sister in a jarring shot clearly patterned on the most lipsmacking of the pulp era covers: she is stripped nude and bound, her back to the camera (almost identical to the image later used to promote Ralph Nelson’s 1970 Native American atrocity gorefest Soldier Blue), as Toler and his cronies brand her with an outsized white-hot iron -- the shot is filtered to convey suffocating heat and claustrophobic horror, and it is as horrific today as it was 70 years ago.

Joe eventually ropes Toler and drags him mercilessly to his death behind a jeep, culminating in a closeup of the road-ravaged Toler rolling over into camera view, spilling blood from his mouth and quite dead. For the time, this was as brutal a film as any outside of the goona goona cycle. Like all other films in its genre, the fadeout finds Joe alive but a fugitive from justice, no doubt facing execution once he turns himself in or is captured -- even in fiction, there could be no happy ending.

I caught a pristine print of Massacre at Cinefest a number of years ago -- the March silent-and-early-sound film fest Marge and I attend every year in Syracuse, NY, thanks to my dear friend Mike Dobbs turning me on to this over a dozen years ago -- and am glad I saw it when I did, as it had never before (and has never since) been available to see. The hard edge and savage pragmatism of this film was typical of Warner Bros films of the pre-Code Depression era, including another Richard Barthelmess gem, Heroes for Sale (aka Breadline, 1933), which did come out on vhs and has a place of honor in my video library.

Let me know if any of you ever stumbles on copies of Massacre available from any venue, please and thanks. Here's hoping Robert Warrior includes it in his new book, though I'm not holding my breath; this is the kind of film that has remained invisible to Native American and film scholars for decades, and will most likely remain so.

Update on the Bissette Collection at HUIE/Henderson State U; Game Over, Joe; Mealy-Mouthed Martha; RIP Candice

* Just got an email update from one of my fave people on Planet Earth, Lea Ann Alexander, who is honcho of Henderson State University’s HUIE Library special collections, home for two year now (and many more to come, outliving yours truly) of the Stephen R. Bissette Special Collection. My collection has already attracted at least two others -- including my father Richard Bissette’s extensive military collection, and my dear friend and professional compadre Jean-Marc Lofficier’s expansive French and Belgian graphic novel collection, and more -- and it’s great to hear from Lea Ann after a stretch of time we’ve both been mucho preoccupied.

Lea Ann writes, “We have processed approximately 25% of the materials you have sent so far, with an emphasis on documents. Whenever you want to start shooting boxes at us again, we’re ready!

We moved all completed boxes into their new (nicer) home in Bob’s old office on second floor. Looks good.

This morning, I finally got permis