Author: gasp65

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 9

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« I love you more than anybody in the world… I love you for millions and millions of things, clocks and vampires and dirty nails and squiggly paintings and lovely hair and being dizzy and falling dreams. » — Dylan Thomas

We’ve just had quite a nocturnal downpour over here, and so it seemed entirely à propos to feature that finest of all rainy night ghostly tales, Dylan Thomas’ The Followers, a late-career short story written in 1952. I would have loved to direct you to the full text of it, but can’t seem to find anything of the sort online.

« It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. »

I’ve long been fascinated by English publisher J.M. Dent’s ‘series’ of Dylan Thomas illustrated booklets. First came the highly successful ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales‘, in 1959, which kick-started the storied career of Ellen Raskin: « A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas was the book that Raskin first printed herself to show as a sample to publishers in an effort to become a free-lance illustrator, a project that set her on her way to success in the field. Though the Christmas poem had been illustrated often, this was a memorable edition. »

A Child’s Christmas in Wales was followed — striking the iron while it was hot — by The Outing in 1971(!), then by Holiday Memory the following year. Then, finally, in 1976 came the final, and possibly finest, entry: The Followers. These last three were superbly illustrated by Meg Stevens.

Miss Stevens demonstrated her mastery of the scratchboard medium through her three Thomas adaptations.

« It was six o’clock on a winter’s evening. Thin, dingy rain spat and drizzled past the lighted street lamps. The pavements shone long and yellow. »
« A silent man and woman, dressed in black, carried the wreaths from the front of their flower shop into the scented deadly darkness behind the window lights. Then the lights went out. »
« We walked towards the Marlborough, dodging umbrella spokes, smacked by our windy macs, stained by steaming lamplight, seeing the sodden, blown scourings and street-wash of the town, papers, rags, dregs, rinds, fag-ends, balls of fur, flap, float, and cringe along the gutters, hearing the sneeze and rattle of the bony trams and a ship hoot like a fog-ditched owl in the bay… »
« We walked on heavily, with wilful feet, splashing the passers-by. »
« “I wonder what’s the point of following people”, Leslie said, “it’s kind of daft. It never gets you anywhere. All you do is follow them home and then try to look through the window and see what they’re doing and mostly there’s curtains anyway. I bet nobody else does things like that.” »
« “Doesn’t anything happen anywhere?” I said “in the whole wide world? I think the News of the World is all made up. Nobody murders no one. There isn’t any sin any more, or love, or death, or pearls or divorces and mink-coats or anything, or putting arsenic in the cocoa…” »
« “Good night, old man,” Leslie said. “Good night,” I said. And we went our different ways. »

Regrettably, in the absence of a full text of the story, I can’t convey to you the supernatural component of the story. But I assure you, it’s well worth the looking up, and I dare hope that the palpable mood of Mr. Thomas’ prose and Ms. Stevens’ sublime scratchboard renderings were sufficient to put you in the proper, receptive frame of mind.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 8

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« To me, freedom entitles you to do something, not to not do something. » — Shel Silverstein

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re likely to be aware of the warm place in our flinty hearts that we reserve for the wonderfully subversive and multi-talented Shel Silverstein! If not, check out Shel Silverstein: Without Borders or Take Ten With Shel Silverstein and you’ll get our drift.

This time, we turn our attention to Shel’s wildly successful illustrated poetry for kids (of all ages). Our first three selections hail from 1974’s Where the Sidewalk Ends.

ENTER THIS DESERTED HOUSE
But please walk softly as you do
Frogs dwell here and crickets too.

Ain’t no ceiling, only blue
Jays dwell here and sunbeams too.

Floors are flowers — take a few.
Ferns grow here and daisies too.

Whoosh, swoosh — too-whit, too-woo,
Bats dwell here and hoot owls too.

Ha-ha-ha, hee-hee, hoo-hoooo,
Gnomes dwell here and goblins too.

And my child, I thought you knew
I dwell here… and so do you.
THE WORST
When singing songs of scariness,
Of bloodiness and hairyness,
I feel obligated at this moment to remind you
Of the most ferocious beast of all:
Three thousand pounds and nine feet tall —
The Glurpy Slurpy Skagagrall —
Who’s standing right behind you.

The following trio come from 1981’s A Light in the Attic. A bit of controversy eventually ensued:
« Attempts have been made to ban the book from some libraries in the United States, parents claiming that the poem “How Not to Have to Dry the Dishes” encourages messiness and disobedience. The poem “Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony” resulted in criticism for describing the death of a little girl whose parents refuse to buy her a pony. This resulted in the book being banned by the Fruitland Park Elementary School in Lake County, Florida. The decision, however, was later reversed by an advisory committee of parents and teachers. » Ah, good old reliable Florida. [ source ]

Don’t miss the author’s performance of this piece!
It’s too early, and too sad, to think of November the 1st.

Here’s a couple from 1996’s Falling Up:

ROTTEN CONVENTION
They had a Rotten Convention
And everyone was there:
Hamburger Face and Gruesome Grace
And the Skull with the slimy hair.

There was Mr. Mud and the Creepin’ Crud
And the Drooler and Belchin’ Bob,
There was Three-Headed Ann — she was holdin’ hands
With the Whimperin’ Simperin’ Slob.

The Unpronounceable Name, he came,
And so did Saw-Nose Dan
And Poopin’ Pete and Smelly Feet
And the Half-Invisible Man.

There was Sudden Death and Sweat-Sock Breath,
Big Barf and the Deadly Bore,
And Killin’ Dillon and other villains
We’d never seen before.

And we all sat around and told bad tales
Of the rottenest people we knew,
And everybody there kept askin’…
Where were you?

HAUNTED
I dare you all to go into
The Haunted House on Howlin’ Hill
Where squiggly things with yellow eyes
Peek past the wormy window sill.
We’ll creep into the moonlit yard,
Where weeds reach out like fingers,
And through the rotted old front door
A-squeakin’ on its hinges,
Down the dark and whisperin’ hall,
Past the musty study,
Up the windin’ staircase —
Don’t step on the step that’s bloody —
Through the secret panel
To the bedroom where we’ll slide in
To the ragged cobweb dusty bed
Ten people must have died in.
And the bats will screech,
And the spirits will scream,
And the thunder will crash
Like a horrible dream,
And we’ll sing with the zombies
And dance with the dead,
And howl at the ghost
With the axe in his head,
And — come to think of it what do you say
We go get some ice cream instead?

And finally, this one’s from the posthumously published Every Thing On It (2011).

Thanks for everything, dear Mr. Silverstein! You’re an unceasing source of inspiration and wonder.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 7

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« Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. » — Laurence Fishburne

Spookiness is afoot in Riverdale! Here’s a lovely George Gladir (script) & Samm Schwartz (pencils, inks and letters) saga to suit the season. I love those longer tales, which in this case allows for a larger-than-usual cast and a more leisurely pace.

‘A Haunting We Will Go’ was originally published in Archie Giant Series Magazine no. 564 / The World of Jughead (Sept. 1986, Archie). Oh, and colours by Barry Grossman.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 6

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« There is never enough horsepower… just not enough traction. » — Carroll Shelby

While my co-admin ds has already touched upon the circumstances of Topps’ Weird Wheels in her Purple Tentacle Tuesday post, she was of course thematically constrained there… while I’m free to drill down deeper into the set’s considerable riches. I won’t recount the set’s history, as that haunted ground has long ago been exhaustively explored and trod upon by the mighty Kurt Kuersteiner, monster gum card historian and also owner, operator and distinguished curator of the Jack T. Chick Museum of Fine Art. Peruse at your peril his fine account of what went down when Weird Wheels came down.

No one can claim this didn’t constitute an attractive package!

And now, on to the cards… my favourites, anyway. From what’s known, the art duties were shared by Norman Saunders and Gary Hallgren.

Card no. 1. Note the belfry engine.
Card no. 4.
Card no. 9.

Card no. 17.
Card no. 18. Held together, of course, by surgical stitching.

Card no. 22.

Card no. 23. This one, without question, was painted by Gary Hallgren… note the licence plate.
Card no. 26.
Card no. 27.

Card no. 45. Here’s the ideal soundtrack for this scene.
Card no. 54. I love that this heap isn’t going anywhere: it’s on bricks.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 5

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« I lived on a houseboat in Amsterdam for a year. It was intense, and it’s possible that I even had a few blackouts. » — Wolfgang Beltracchi

Today’s featured tale is an old favourite illustrated by one of American comics’ perennial mal-aimés, the much-maligned Jack Sparling (1916-1997), a prolific, reliable, distinctive stylist who toiled for just about every publisher on the block. Of course, he’s persona non grata with the superhero set (a compliment in my book!) but his chief strengths lay just about everywhere else, in humour, horror, crime and adventure… you name it.

I love how cosy — that pervasive, foggy ambience! — yet harrowing this tale is. Nice to see one of those insufferable, know-it-all ‘ghost busters’ get his bitter requital. And who knew that some witches were so neat, so domestically inclined? Work that mop, boy!

The writer’s uncredited, and that’s a shame, because this is anything but formulaic — and DC’s mystery books were formulaic to a fault, especially under Joe Orlando‘s guidance. I suspect the author to be editor Murray Boltinoff — he often pitched in, under sundry bynames.
This is It’s Midnight… The Witching Hour! no. 21 (June-July 1972, DC), edited by Murray Boltinoff and with cover art by Nick Cardy.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 4

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« I don’t know that there are real ghosts and goblins, But there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids. » — Robert Breault

Here’s a page from The Western Publishing Company‘s 1970 Golden Memo Calendar, from the brush of skillful Canadian illustrator Mel Crawford (1925-2015).

What’s that? You’re not familiar with Mr. Crawford’s name? Well, perhaps his work will ring a bell. Take a look at some of his œuvre through this fine overview by historian Ivan Kocmarek.

In this case, Crawford was obviously instructed to hew closely to the style of Richard Scarry (my very first artistic hero!), who’d illustrated the earliest editions of the Golden Calendar.

For some sense of Crawford’s range, here’s an episode of Professor Harbinger, a speculative ‘science’ backup feature that regularly appeared in Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom. This, the inaugural vignette, saw print in the magazine’s second issue (Dec. 1962, Gold Key). It was scripted by the prolific Dick Wood; Crawford must have enjoyed the feature, as he stuck around to illustrate its first dozen or so instalments. He was succeeded by fellow Ontarian Win Mortimer.

It’s what’s happening, all right, but not for the stated reason.

-RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 3

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« With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. » — Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death

And now, a piece from — gasp — 2022! It’s at once most timely and a link to the dim past, with WOT? favourite Rick Geary drawing nimble parallels* to Mr. Poe’s famous tale of arrogant (and happy and dauntless and sagacious) Prince Prospero’s well-earned comeuppance. This other great plague, however, isn’t greeted with hubris by our everyman protagonists. While Poe provides the spirit and the starting point, Geary wends his own way, bless his soul.

Ahoy Comics‘ series of Poe-themed anthologies are of course uneven — such is their nature — but their peaks are joltingly, exceptionally good, and they make the whole enterprise quite worthwhile.

A Tale of The Great Plague appeared in Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Death no. 4 (Jan. 2022, Ahoy Comics).

-RG

*and also, you might say, to The Fall of the House of Usher and perhaps even The Tell-tale Heart. Clever chap, this Geary.

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 2

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« There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other. » ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Today’s entry is a most idiosyncratic interpretation of the Modern Prometheus myth. Its essence was collected by that multitalented gentleman, David Greenberger, and saw print in the pages of his eclectic anthology Duplex Planet Illustrated. I asked David to tell us a bit more about the narrator, and he kindly obliged:

« I always had a wonderful time talking with Abe Surgecoff, who was incredibly good natured and would talk about anything, much of it not technically accurate in the real world, but was vivid to him even if it was being created as he spoke it.

He was a resident at the Duplex Nursing Home in Boston and I met him in 1979 when I took a job there as activities director (something I did until 1983 – a job I didn’t continue with – this was mostly a portal for me to have access to and friendships with people who were a couple generations older than me, and an area I became interested in exploring as an artist – hence taking that job.) »

« Frankenstein » originally appeared in Duplex Planet Illustrated no. 13 (July 1995, Fantagraphics).

My thanks to Mr. Greenberger for digging back into the memory banks for this one!

– RG

Hallowe’en Countdown VI, Day 1

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« There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people… Religion, Politics, and The Great Pumpkin. » — Charles M. Schulz

And… we’re back, as promised, in time for our sacrosanct (or should that be ‘impious’?) annual Hallowe’en Countdown.

I’ll keep it brief, as we’re still in the middle of an arduous longish-distance move. Oof!

To kick off this edition, I thought I’d reach for a true classic of the season. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to claim that few (if any!) have done more to disperse the pumpkin seeds of Hallowe’en than Mr. Schulz has — but in his ubiquity, he’s easy to take for granted.

Here’s a handful of choice strips from my favourite Peanuts period, the mid-to-late 1960s, just before Snoopy more-or-less pulled the lead rôle from under good ol’ Charlie Brown’s feet, to the strip’s detriment… though its decline was an elegant and leisurely one.

October 30, 1966, virtually a Snoopy solo.
October 25, 1967.
October 26, 1967.
October 25, 1967.
A year later: October 29, 1968.
October 31, 1967.
November 1st, 1967.
The October 29, 1967 strip.

-RG

Paul Reubens at 70: ‘Fun’ Is Still the Secret Word

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« I know you are, but what am I? » — Pee Wee Herman

And they said it couldn’t happen!

Today, Paul Reubens (born Paul Rubenfeld on Aug. 27, 1952) celebrates (in the coolest style, to be sure) his seventieth birthday. What’s he got to do with comics? Well, he obviously reads them, and his alter-ego, Pee-wee Herman, once met legendary small-scale comics hero Bazooka Joe.

This momentous occasion took place on the back of card no. 18 (of 33) from Topps’ delirious Pee-wee’s Playhouse set (1988). Introductions were arranged by that dapper bon vivant, Mark Newgarden.

This is happily one of those rare occasions when the word ‘Fun’ is accurately evoked. While Mr. Reubens wasn’t directly involved with the conception and concoction of this splendid ‘Pak’, he signed off on every aspect of it — no generic licenced product, this.
While the front of the cards bore the standard, time-tested ‘photographs with captions’ images, the backs is where the anarchic action was. Here are a few samples. Note the unbleached cardboard, which adds a certain primitive je ne sais quoi.
“Remember — you are an ARTIST!”
The Puppetland Band, those adorable beatniks, were always favourites.
Cartoonists Mark Newgarden and Kazimieras ‘Kaz‘ Prapuolenis write in!
Sexual innuendo and hidden messages on a kids’ show? You don’t say!
Funny, I would have expected Françoise Mouly‘s french to be better than this. Perhaps that’s why she moved to NYC.
A sheet of stickers… featuring, front and centre, Roger from Monsterland (‘Look’ was the secret word that week).
Temporary (sorry) tattoos. It was just to difficult to pick just one sheet, so here are two.
The “Pee-wee Copter”, front and back.
If you think you recognized the distinctive stylings of messrs. Charles Burns on the front and those of J.D. King* on the back… kudos on your discerning eye, keen one.

At one time, during Pee-wee’s heyday, I dated for a few months this girl from a, to put it mildly, conservative family. Her little brother was expressly forbidden from watching Pee-wee’s Playhouse, for fear that ‘it might turn him gay’. Live and learn… do check out this smart list of The Best 25 Pee-wee’s Playhouse Moments.

Happy birthday Paul, and a great weekend to you, Pee-wee!

Bonus time: in a case of ‘biting the hand that feeds’, Topps issued this snarky entry as part of its 1991 Wacky Packages series. Concept, writing and layout by Mark Newgarden, painted art by John Pound.

– RG

*a grateful tip of the hat to Mark Newgarden for the inside dope!