LAST DAY

Last Day

What if this was your last day?  How would you live it?

I’ve been thinking about this, because today, 2020 May 10, marks the 50^th anniversary of my Daddy’s death.  So yesterday would’ve marked his last full day on earth, 1970 May 09.  He was 31, married, and had three children: a 6-year old boy, a 4.5-year old girl, and another son in the womb soon to be born (me).  I know some details about that last day, which I recounted in my poem from Mother’s Day 10 years ago: http://comicsand.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-to-remember.html. And I asked Mama to write up a character portrait of Daddy, which is just wonderful and will be shared sometime today, if it hasn’t already. But while, thinking about Daddy’s final day of life is the inspiration of this message, it not really about him as you’ll see.

Last Day

What if this was your last day?  Would you accept it?

Just thinking about those two words automatically invokes images from one of my favorite movies, Logan’s Run from 1976.  In that film, in order to keep the population under control living in the sealed domed city, the citizens voluntarily went to Carousel on their 30^th birthday.  There they would don hockey/skull masks and white-body suits decorated with red flames, stand in a circle, and raise their blinking red life clocks (crystal palm flowers) to “Identify”.  Then they would float up into the chamber until they exploded in a fiery display while their fellow citizen onlookers shouted, “Renew, Renew!”  Why would anyone do this?  Well, they were taught to believe they would be reborn and just get to live another 30 years of fun and pleasure.  Those that didn’t believe the messaged lie realized that the people were actually going to their deaths.  So in order to live longer than 30, they attempted to flee the city seals, becoming Runners.  The City could not tolerate that sort of independent thinking, which would upset their control and delicate balance, so they enlisted Sandmen to terminate the runners. Logan was a Sandman, but later became a runner.  Anyway, it’s a great movie from story to music to costumes, but again not the real subject.

10 YEARS AFTER

Well, this is a surprise. 

You may be thinking, "Yeah, you haven't done a blog post in over a year."  Or at least, that's what you were supposed to be thinking. Instead, you're probably saying, "Umm, you posted already today.  What gives?"  You see, the first post sort of just happened. 

Oh, I wrote it, and scheduled it for some distant day, but I totally forgot about it.  I was planning on writing this post for today, which marks the 10th anniversary of my debut appearance as a blogger on Comics And...Other Imaginary Tales. 

Even though the blog has sort of morphed into a private Facebook Group these days, it's still pretty important to me and I routinely go back to the well and resurrect links to old posts I remember writing.  It was a big part of my comic (book-centric) life for a number of years and I enjoyed the creative expression.  Although, I can't imagine how I ever had time to write every week for so long, was ready to take a break, was ready to try again, and now just glad it still exists out there like an old friend. 

Anyway, I loaded up the site this morning, ready to compose something new, and the Ant-Man Marvel Masterworks review was up...brand new today! Foiled by time-travel! Past-me is awfully tricksey.

With today celebrating such a momentous occasion, I wanted to ruminate on the current state of my comic-book reading, collecting, etc.  The hope is that by self-examining my own behaviors and habits, I may arrive at some new conclusions on what to continue doing and what to do next.  After all, I'll be hitting 50 this coming May and I want to be "redeeming the time" well.  While I'm not given to New Years Resolutions, I have been slowly retooling my pull list lately, moving toward some changes. [more after the break -- sorry no photos, but plenty of links]

Marvel Masterworks Ant-Man/Giant-Man Volume 3 -- A Review

As much as I love Marvel Omnibuses, I have to admit that Marvel Masterworks (MMW) is my preferred hardcover of choice these days (a change from 4 years ago), especially now that they're delving into Bronze-Age goodness, both familiar and unfamiliar.  I seem to be getting almost every new edition and when I do skip one, I end up regretting it when it goes out of print (OOP) [Like Luke Cage vol 1 - "sob"].  I also tend to be a completest, which means I'm loathe to begin collecting something that's already started.  Although, sometimes that is unavoidable.  A recent acquisition was MMW Ant-Man/Giant-Man Vol 3, which came out just about 2 months ago.  The fact that I finished it in just about a month (including a week away from it while on vacation) is a testimony to how much I enjoyed it.

It is thought that this is the last of the three volumes in the series.  The first two focused on Hank Pym's adventures from Tales to Astonish (ToA).  I wish I had these now (both are getting pricey) and the Essentials' (phonebook) versions I do have are almost unreadable with the blurry printing and lack of color.  The biggest draw for me was the short-lived Ant-Man solo series presented in Marvel Feature circa 1972-1973.   To my recollection, I had never heard of these stories before (much less read them), thinking that they were old ToA reprints similar to the Human Torch series of the early 70s.  And I was especially ecstatic to learn that the first few stories were drawn by the late, great Herb Trimpe! [more after the break]

Uncanny X-Men Annual #1 (2019) -- A Review

Sometimes, you've just got to strike while the iron's hot.  I have several posts in the works from just the idea/desire to a stack of books (already assembled) to be used for reference, but I may never get around to them.  However, I did just read Uncanny X-Men Annual #1 (2019 version) and really enjoyed it.  So, while the enthusiasm is running high, I'll see if I can cobble this together in record time.

First, a confession.  Cyclops is my favorite member of the X-Men.  From the time I acquired those Claremont/Byrne-era back issues, Uncanny X-Men #109 thru 126 (minus #111), from a trade of some sorts [Is that where my Daredevil #3 and #4 went?] with a neighbor, I always liked him best.  Maybe it was because he grew up without a father or because he was having trouble getting the girl he was interested in reciprocate; and I could certainly relate to both.  Besides his costume and powers were cool too!

Although, he was also like the Charlie Brown of the mutant-set.  Dark Phoenix is your girlfriend?!  You finally are connected to the love of your life and you have to lose her right after! Then you find new love, but that's all destroyed when she turns out to be a clone-whatever.  And the dead girl didn't really die like you thought, so you end up ditching your clone-wife! I may not have all the details straight, but things only got worse from there.  He loses his leadership with the X-Men, establishes X-Factor, his son is kidnapped (I think), etc. etc.  And all those soap-operatic events happened in the glorious Copper Age.  Flash-forward to about 6 years ago or so, and he kills Professor X?!  Later he dies himself?!  Everyone hates his guts?!  He dies again! Is it any wonder that I've had trouble consistently reading X-Men since the big relaunch, way back in 1991?

But soon after in late 2012, there was some hope.  All-New X-Men #1 premiered and the original X-Men were brought back from the past to the present to fix all the royally screwed-up stuff going on or at least that was the premise.  I followed the series for a good bit, before dropping off again for some reason.  Hmm, character retcon, perhaps?  Well, recently Marvel decided to send those kids back in time where they belonged in the really entertaining 5-part limited series, Extermination.  Being able to come relatively cold to the current X-Men story line with their way-too-many side characters and totally dig the series was no small feat.  Isn't it ironic how they always talk about how there are so few mutants, but there are actually too many to keep track of and follow? 

The first issue really blew me away. BAM!  Cable is killed...by a younger version of himself.  He actually refers to it as "retiring".  Wow, and best of all was the ending -- Cyclops is BACK -- ALIVE -- and wearing the visor again in a beautiful silver finish.  I definitely had my local comic shop, the stellar Cosmic Comix,  put this Annual in my box since it was a direct continuation... (more after the break [SPOILERS]).

Dark Shadows Beginnings -- A Review

I'm way behind in my new comic reading.  And I'm making slow progress thru some of my more recent hard cover acquisitions.  The reason?  Too much TV (as always).  How can that be when all the CW comic-related shows (including the excellent Riverdale) are on winter hiatus and the Marvel Netflix shows are all but done (sob)?  Amazon Prime.  Or rather, the free streaming shows available on that service.  It all started around Halloween when looking for something spooky to watch, I viewed the Dan Curtis Production of Frankenstein (1973).  It reminded me of Dark Shadows.  I then caught the film-quality version of Dan Curtis' Bram Stoker's Dracula (also 1973) with Jack Palance, who if you believe the internet was the inspiration for Gene Colan's depiction of the character in the Marvel Comic.

After a few more Dan Curtis classics(?) such as a werewolf in LA and a zuni doll from Trilogy of Terror (filled with plenty of jump-scares), I decided to delve back into watching Dark Shadows.  I became a fan of the show over a quarter of a century ago around the time I got married.  It was on the Sci-Fi (now SyFy) Channel (back when it contained good material) where they aired at least two episodes back-to-back, I think around 10:00 am (after the Six Million Dollar Man or Incredible Hulk).  I had seen odd episodes here and there, but this was the first time I recall making a concerted effort to watch the series regularly.  I remember seeing much of the late 1860's story line, where Barnabas' consciousness enters his entombed body during that time and meets the "real" life Quentin (I think to deal with the music-appearing spook version from 1968 [then present day]).

I even got a few books on the series back then celebrating its 25th anniversary, so I read synopses of most of the episodes.  After all, how could anyone watch them all?  Back when MPI was issuing video tape versions, each one was about $30 each and contained a week's worth of shows, meaning only five 22 minute episodes.  That's quite an expense when you understand that there were 1225 episodes!  Enter Amazon Prime.  A search will show you that they have divided the series into 26 "collections" of around 40 episodes each.  As a daily [Gothic-horror] soap-opera (did I forget to mention that?) there were no yearly seasons as we understand them, which means they just broke them up into roughly even chunks that stop whenever, not necessarily at the end of a major story arc.

Picking up roughly where I had left off in the mid-1990's (and possibly later as my older kids remember watching some of the show with me at times - maybe from the library?), I began watching Collection 17, episode 27 (#884 or sequentially #873), which originally aired on 1969 November 13.  This means I was viewing it almost exactly 49 years later!  (The episode numbers don't always add up due to interruptions and them always wanting the Friday episode with the bigger cliff-hanger to be a multiple of 5.)  It was a show that I could watch by myself, when others are watching This is Us or Call the Midwife.  But a funny thing happened.  My 10-year old son, "Manny" (Matthew Jr.) started watching it with me.  He enjoyed it enough that he got upset if I watched it without him (shades of Netflix show viewing with my beloved wife)!  So, I waited, and waited.  Our progress became too slow for my purposes.  I kept watching with him  -- we're currently thru Collection 20, episode 15 (#996 or sequentially #981), which originally aired on 1970 April 20 (nearly a month before my birth!).  We've seen the entire Leviathan story-line and have entered into 1970 Parallel Time.

I didn't like having nothing to watch when he wasn't available (or willing), so I went back to the beginning.  Specifically as it is listed on Amazon -- Dark Shadows Beginnings.  It's a six-part collection that includes the first 206 episodes (thru #209), spanning from 1966 June 27 to 1967 April 14.  All of these precede the first appearance of Barnabas Collins (at least in person).  You may question the need to view the episodes before things "got interesting".  Well, I'm here to tell you (after an extremely long-preamble/warm-up exercise), that there are plenty worth watching.  It's OUTSTANDING!!!

But where to begin...How 'bout the way each episode does:

"My name is Victoria Winters..." 

[more after the break]

The Reason

December 25, 2018

Yes, I grew this beard for a reason.

You ask, “In honor of the season?”

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Not So!

(Though my belly has begun to shake,

I’m afraid that’s from too much cake.)

It’s my brother’s fault you see…

He was only honest with me.

Now, instead of having the clean shaven chin

Of Burke Devlin or Popeye the Sailor

My skin is more akin

To the incarcerated face of George Taylor!

Remember him?  The famous film-guy,

Who confronted with destroyed Liberty

Knelt in the sand, wet from foaming seas,

And CURSED the human race!

“GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”

Strange Contrast

Remember Him?  The sinless God-Man,

Who surrendered His will to gain our freedom

Knelt in a garden, sweat as bloody drops,

And BLESSED us by choosing to take our place!

And he said, “Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me; however not my will, but yours be done.”

(Yeah, that’s all true

And Jesus can certainly SAVE you)

But if you’ve got to know why,

On the day we sing of the babe that slept with cows.

I’ve just got to say,

I was only covering up my jowls!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Lou Scheimer: Creating the FILMATION Generation -- A Review

I picked this up during TwoMorrows' nearly month-long Black Friday Sale last November at a substantial discount and have been reading it off and on since it arrived, finishing it on Friday, 2018 Feb 23.  The bulk of the reading took place before basketball games and during half-times with me then finishing up certain chapters before bed.  Sometimes this turned out to be a real distraction, since I didn't want to stop reading even when the games started, especially when the subject covered a show that I was particularly fond of from childhood.  However, it wasn't just the shows that I was interested in by that point, I wanted to spend more time with Lou and hear what happened next in his life!  Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate and personal autobiography.

The book is primarily black and white with a small color section.  However, it came with a FREE digital version download that was in full color.  It would have been nice to have the print version be full color, but I can understand the need to keep costs down, and honestly, I prefer the regular matte paper versus the glossy color magazine style.  I think it is another testament to the compelling story that I wasn't deterred from reading a book about color cartoons in black and white.  Since I only read digital media on a PC (no hand held devices yet), it wouldn't have been the same reading experience for me on the screen.  Opening a physical book just connects you more with the material, I think.

Lou was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Russian and German Jews, which had immigrated to the US in the early to mid 1920s.  The first chapter is entitled, "Wherein My Father Punched Out Adolf Hitler Years Before Captain America Did (1928-1946)".  His experience of growing up Jewish in Pittsburgh is very engaging and was a great way to start the book, because it not only established important background, but it helped you get to know him more as a person, rather than just what he later did. That personal thread is throughout the whole book.  He talks about his time in post-WWII Japan and his courtship with Jay, who would become his beloved wife.  She was thought of as a shiksa by some in his family.  Choosing to marry a non-Jew, illustrates early-on his attitude of accepting people based on their character, regardless of their diversity label.

I believe the book was primarily constructed from interviews, since it has such a narrative style to it.  You really do feel that Lou is conversing with you the whole time. You learn of his passion for quality children's entertainment to mean something and have pro-social messages.  The trials and travails of the animation industry are recounted as well, along with his mostly successful (for FILMATION) but ultimately doomed efforts (for the industry) to keep the work stateside. But he doesn't gloss over his mistakes and regrets either.  He cusses at times and drinks too much on occasion, which caused him to forget to credit his friend Hal Sutherland during his Emmy acceptance for a Star Trek episode.  And when he mentions a person that was troublesome or a jerk, well he doesn't mince words even when he's trying to restrain himself from saying too much negative about them.

Andy Mangles' role in fact-checking (with help) Lou's tale and his reconstruction of the interviews is essential to making this book flow so well.  Many of the chapters, generally focusing on specific periods or years, foreshadow to future events later in the book, making this reader salivate for the next juicy morsel.  By the time it got to shows that I wasn't particularly familiar with or interested in, I was hooked because I still wanted to listen to Lou.  There is also an exhaustive amount of FILMATION facts and details. I think one could skim some portions that were more strictly business related without taking too much away, but it's also so entwined with his story that I'm only talking about isolated paragraphs here there, where numerous names are listed (kinda of what some people do when reading Numbers).

Lou's reflections on his life are bittersweet.  Just when FILMATION is doing its best year, things quickly change, which leads them to abandon the Saturday Morning networks, which had largely abandoned them already, to produce He-Man and She-Ra in syndication, certainly their most successful shows ever. However, their pioneer work on the weekday cartoon series phenomenon is quickly crowded out by a glut of such shows on the market. Then thanks to a vicious buyout by a company that only wanted their back catalog and not their studio, it's all over very abruptly not long after their 25th anniversary.  Lou's efforts to get back to work over the next 15 years isn't very fruitful at all.  His final thoughts on his legacy and life are Solomon-esque in their wisdom of ups and downs and what really matters at the end of it all.

My copy of the book is a second edition, published in 2015.  I didn't realize this, so I was shocked to learn (the day I finished the book) that Lou had already died in 2013, less than a year past the first edition (late 2012).  And here I was thinking of how nice it would be to meet with him at a convention someday.   I had seen the Lou Scheimer gallery at Pittsburgh's Toonseum on 2015 Jul 31 before attending an ApologetiX concert in Wexford, PA.  It was relatively small, but I immediately recognized the film cells from the cartoons.  Regrettably, the Toonseum closed its downtown doors just yesterday (as of this writing) on 2018 Feb 24.  It was a neat place.  I hope it comes back someday and that Lou's gallery becomes even more prominent.

I am certainly one of the FILMATION generation.  I grew up on these shows before I even started getting comics (and that may be a subject of a future post: TV's role in comics).  My favorite FILMATION shows (in no particular order) were/are STAR TREK: The Animated Series*, TARZAN of the APES**, FLASH GORDON*, BLACKSTAR, Lone Ranger, and the live-action SHAZAM*, ISIS*, and ARK II*.  I also remember watching Fat Albert and the Archies* on occasion.  The * represents DVD box sets that I'm very happy to have in my collection, since some of them are way too expensive these days.  The ** represents a recent purchase from a Canadian online site called RETROTVMEMORIES, so that I could get the remaining episodes of Tarzan.  (The one readily available only covers the first season's 16 episodes, missing 24 others.)  RetroTV is a good source of out-of-print material, but the quality is variable -- still better than watching bits and pieces on YouTube.  I can also recall the anticipation of wanting to watch Journey Back to Oz on the SFM Holiday Network, which I always seemed to miss.  After reading this book, I even have a strong desire to delve into He-Man and She-Ra someday.

Some of my Filmation boxsets (forgot to include Tarzan).

I've been blessed to be able to share some of these shows with my children. The music is incredible, the live-action acting is very authentic with great "after school special" style morals, and most of the stories are really great.

If you're a FILMATION fan of any of their material, this is a MUST READ.  And if you just want to get to know a guy who tried to do his best all his life, but didn't always succeed.  A creative person who struggled at the end, living past his "prime" years, but was eventually rewarded by the fans who appreciated his shows that shaped their lives, then this is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  It really makes me think of all our favorite comic creators that had super hot streaks, but eventually fell out of favor for various reasons.  We don't always get to know them personally or their stories, Lou's story is a good representation for ALL of them.

BONUS -- Here is the ISIS commission I got from Jerry Ordway this year at the Baltimore Comic-Con (according to him his first drawing of the TV version).