RUTH BADER GINSBURG

 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the greatest Supreme Count justice of my lifetime. Many others have eulogized her far better and more eloquently than I could ever hope to do. But I did want to share a kind of sort of RBG story from a convention I attended five years ago this month.

I was a guest of the 2015 Indy Pop Con in Indianapolis. I had been told by many fans and professionals that this was a truly wonderful  convention. I didn’t doubt them. However, even with those glowing recommendations, I turned down the convention when I was first invited to it. Because it was held in Indiana.

Indiana, you see, had this bigot of a governor who was trying hard to discriminate against his state’s LGBTQ citizens. He looked like an evil Race Bannon cosplayer. I speak of Mike Pence, one of those faux-Christians who preaches hate with a bible in his hand. He was and remains a crap human being.

What changed my mind was the convention’s immediate and strong show of support for the LGBTQ community and diversity in general. I felt it was important to stand up for the rights of my fellow Americans by showing up where those rights were threatened. I wish I had the means, time and energy to do this all over the country and, indeed, the world. Because this fight is just starting.

It was Friday, June 26, 2015. While I was setting up my booth, I heard the welcome news that the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right. My immediate thought was how wonderful it was to be at this convention in this state when the announcement was made.

There was a palatable wave of positive energy and joy that washed over the hall as the news spread.  I was glad to be in Indiana that day. It felt good, real good.

On Saturday, a Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cosplayer walked through the convention. She looked the part, so much so that fans rushed up to her to thank her for the ruling. My delight at that was audible.

I have a Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure among my Social Justice League figures. Right now, it’s sitting on the mantle in our family room. I wanted her to be in a prominent place as we mourn the loss of such an outstanding American.

May her memory be a blessing to our country and the world.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

THE LAST OF NEW FUN #1

Previously in Tony Isabella’s Bloggy Thing...

New Fun #1 [February 1935], promoted as “The Big Comic Magazine,” was the first DC Comics publication. That 10" by 15" launch issue was 36 pages (including covers) and published by National Allied Publications, Inc. The president of the company was former career soldier and pulp magazine writer Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and the editor was Lloyd Jacquet. The official name of the company changed to National Periodical Publications, but DC Comics was the name most knew it by and that name would become official in the 1970s.

DC Comics recently published a handsome oversized hardback reprint edition of New Fun #1, which contains the entire first issue plus a selection of educational material. I have written three blogs on that edition. Going page-by-page, those three columns discussed the introductory material, the front cover, the inside front cover and pages 1-28 of the issue. You can read those earlier installments here and here and here.

We commence with “Fun Films” by Adolphe Barreaux. The idea behind this feature was to take the panels of the story and turn them into a movie. The directions:

Cut out stage and make slits on the screen. Then cut out films on dotted line. Paste end to end and run through screen.

Tad, a young boy who lives near the New York harbor, is playing on the docks. He sees and follows a couple of pirates to their pirate ship.  Something in the hold of the ship catches his interest, but, as he looks down into the hold, he falls in.

As I wrote in the first installment of this look at New Fun #1, Barreaux is arguably the first Black creator to have appeared in a comic book. He had a long and interesting career. He created “Sally the Sleuth,” who appeared in spicy pulp fiction magazines and had a habit of losing her clothes in the pursuit of criminals. Barreaux ran a comics art shop, contributed to many comics and pulp magazines and was an editor at Trojan Magazine and at a branch of Fawcett Publications.
                                                                               

                                           
“Bubby and Beevil” make their debut on page 30. Written and drawn by Dick Loederer, whose “Caveman Capers” I praised in my previous New Fun column, this strip has two very opposite lead characters. Bubby is a nice guy who loves to help people. Beevil is a sinister little creep who lives to mess up Bubby’s good deeds. They seem to be supernatural creatures of some sort.

In this first strip, Bubby gets up, does his exercise and looks for his next good deed. A nice young boy falls sleep while doing his homework. Bubby completes it for him. Beevil pours ink all over the  homework while a horrified Bubby watches from the window.

I like this strip. I could even see updating it for 2020. I had a bit of success when I did that with Everett True back in the day. Maybe I should give it a shot.

Note: Beevil also makes an appearance in a house ad that runs along the bottom of page 31. The gloomy gnome is being, well, gloomy when a stray wind blows a copy of New Fun into his hands. He reads the comic and laughs out loud.                                                                                                                                             
Page 31 introduces Pelion and Ossa by John Lindermayer. Pelion is a young penguin, Ossa is a young bear and they live in the Arctic. The kids are named after mountains in Greece. After a frigid mishap with a sled, they seek shelter and warmth in an cabin. The cabin is empty, but, in the final panel, they look through a window and see someone flying toward the cabin. “Who can it be?” asks the final caption. We’re still a few years away from the first appearance of Superman, so I’m gonna guess Santa Claus.  

Lindermayer drew the “Oswald the Rabbit” comic strips that ran at the bottom of several comic strips in the earlier pages of New Fun #1. He also worked for several comic-book shops.

[NOTE: I guessed wrong. I sneaked a look at the second Pelion and Ossa from issue #2. The house belong to a Mr. Walrus. However, the second strip doesn’t mention anything about him flying through the air. I wonder if there was a change of plans for the strip after the first issue was completed.]
                                                                                    

2023: Super-Police by Ken Fitch (writer) and Clem Gretter (artist) debuts on the last interior page of New Fun #1. Rex, obviously the hero of the series, and Professor Shanley take off in Shanley’s new invention, a stratoplane-submarine called the Hi-Lo. They’re going to the Galapagos Islands to investigate five missing U.S. ships. As they leave, they are boarded by two unwanted passengers: Shanley’s daughter Joan and the cab driver who brought her to the airfield. Despite its science fiction premise and decent writing and art by Fitch and Gretter - they would be all over the Golden Age of Comic Books - this strip is dull. Hopefully, it got more interesting in subsequent installments.

The inside back cover is a full-page advertisement for the Ideal Aeroplane and Model Company, sellers of model airplane and ships. The prices range from 50 cents to six dollars. In 2020, allowing for inflation, that range would be from $9.49 to $113.83. I doubt many kids of 1935 had that kind of disposable income.
                                                                               

The back cover ad is a comic-strip advertisement starring “Tom Mix and His Ralston Straight Shooters” by an unknown writer and artist. One of the straight shooters saves the day by using a “Zyp Gun” to send a message to Mix. That’s followed by the cowboy hero telling readers how Ralston wheat cereal keeps his young friends strong and healthy. The back cover also contains a coupon. If a reader sent in a Ralston box top, they would get a Zyp Gun “exactly like the one Jimmy used to save your life.” Such a deal.

This “Famous 1st Edition” has additional material after the New Fun #1 reprint. “The Major Who Made Comics” is a wonderful short bio of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, his granddaughter. The writers and artists of the material in the first issue get mini-bios in another text piece. To conclude this great presentation, editor Benjamin Le Clear has a short piece about the preparation of this volume and the other “Famous First Edition” tabloid books of the 1970s. Le Clear is also the manager of the DC Comics Library Archives. I visited the DC offices a few years back and the company’s library is amazing.

That’s a wrap on our four-part discussion of this important first for DC Comics. I hope you enjoyed it.

I’ll be back with more bloggy fun as soon as possible. Until then, stay safe, stay sane and be kind to one another.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

ONE MORE GARAGE SALE FOR 2020

My final Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sale of 2020 will take place tomorrow, Saturday, September 19, at Casa Isabella, 840 Damon Drive in Medina, Ohio. The hours are 9 am to noon, though I’ll keep the garage door open and the sale going as long as there are still customers waiting to shop.

This has not been a great summer for my garage sales. The pandemic has kept many of my regulars from coming to them, even when offered  by appointment shopping.

This week started out the same as all the other sale weeks. I had three appointments, but the sales weren’t as good as with previous weeks. I think I know why that happened.

I only have so much room in my garage. In order to add new items to the sales, I have to sell items already in the garage. Therefore, even though there was and is an enormous amount of terrific stuff at insanely low prices, it was stuff these regulars, for the most part, had already seen. But...

Today’s garage sale earnings were excellent. Indeed, when you add them to the sales from earlier in the week, I’m currently standing at 40% of my pre-pandemic goal for a weekend. I’m extremely happy about this.

I’m even happier that I had some first-time customers today. Some hope to return on Saturday. Others snapped pictures of what I was selling and sent them to their friends who haven’t been to my sales before. I’m guardedly optimistic that tomorrow’s final sale could get me closer to my usual weekend goal than I’ve been this entire garage sale season.

If you check out Wednesday’s blog, you’ll get a good idea of what I have for sale and the precautions I take to keep my customers and myself safe. In addition to what’s in that blog, I’m offering one more incentive.

For every $50 you spend at the garage sale, you can get $10 worth of great posters for free! Black Lightning, Hawkman, Misty Knight and Tigra, Daredevil, Luke Cage and the rare, double-sided Superman poster created for the 1988 International Superman Exposition that was held in Cleveland! That last one is normally $20, but, if you spend $50, you can get it for $10. If you spend $100, you can get it for free.

That’s all for this quick update. I’ll be back on Sunday with the conclusion of my four-blog series on New Fun #1, the very first DC Comics comic book. See you then.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

MY LAST GARAGE SALES OF 2020

This has not been a successful summer for my Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sales. However, you will have two last chances to shop them and pick up some great comics and other items at prices that my regular customers tell me are insanely low.

My last garage sales of the year will be held on Friday, September 18, and Saturday, September 19, at 840 Damon Drive in Medina, Ohio. That’s the corner of Damon Drive and Bradley Court. The hours are 9-noon each day. However, if there are customers still waiting to shop at noon, I’ll extend the hours of the sale.

What can you expect to find at the garage sale? Let’s take a trip around my garage. There are boxes of dollar comics. Including many very recent issues. There is a box of magazines and magazine-size trade paperbacks, priced to sell. There are hardcovers and trades, generally priced at 30% of their original prices. There will be a few boxes of comic books priced at a quarter each. There will be a small number of $10 mystery boxes, filled with much more than $10 worth of stuff. That more than $10 worth of stuff is more than $10 worth of stuff at my ridiculously low prices.

There’s a spinner rack of small trade paperbacks, again priced at 30% of original price or less. There’s a table filled with manga at a buck a book. There are Comic-Con tote bags, which you don’t see often around these parts, at just $10 each. There will be two free items on the table and a box lid filled with free Japanese candy and other snacks.

I have several boxes of bargain-priced hardcovers and trade books. I have a couple boxes of older comics priced to sell. I also have two bookcases of DVDs, Blu-rays, VHS tapes (including some Godzilla movies from overseas) and CDs at a buck each.

Looking for Tony Isabella books and comics? I have all the recent Black Lightning trades, a few copies of 1000 Comic Books You Must Read, my July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella, a box of older Isabella-written comic and the exclusive-to-me, limited edition, signed and numbered reprinting of the first appearance of Misty Knight. There’s also a comics rack with other Isabella-written items.

[Any Isabella items you buy from me will be signed for free. That also holds true for any Isabella items that you didn’t buy from me. Because I’m that nice a guy.]

Finally...there is a table of Isabella-related posters featuring Black Lightning, Misty Knight, Tigra, Hawkman, Daredevil and Luke Cage. Also for sale...the rare 1987 two-sided Superman poster that I conceived for the 1988 International Superman Exposition that was held in Cleveland. Whew!

Common safety sense means I will only allow two shoppers into the sale at any given time. I’ll have socially distanced chairs set up in my driveway so you can wait until the current shoppers are done and you can enter the garage. Don’t worry about getting in. I will keep the sales going each day until every customer who arrived by noon has had a chance to shop.

There are some important rules for my customers:

YOU MUST WEAR A MASK.  If you absurdly find this to be some sort of infringement on your freedom, don’t come to my garage sale. I will not make an exception for you.

MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCING AT ALL TIMES. Try to keep six feet away from any other customer. Most of my tables are six feet long, which will give you a good idea of what that distance is.

USE THE HAND SANITIZER OR WIPES. I’ll have hand sanitizer and wipes as you walk into the garage sale. I’ll have also have a few extra masks in case you forgot yours at home.

CASH ONLY. At some point in the distant future, when the world is a little safer and conventions are again possible, I will be able to take credit cards. Not this year.

NO WEAPONS. Unless you are an on-duty police officer or member of the armed service, you will not be allowed to bring any gun, rifle, bazooka, sword, bow and arrows, etc. onto my property. Don’t try to “outfox” me trying to bring something not included on this list as I have a wide range of what I consider “etc.”

NO RACIST GEAR. No Confederate paraphernalia, no white supremacist paraphernalia, no Trump or MAGA related stuff. It’s a garage sale, not a platform for your political, religious or social bullshit. My property, my rules. Don’t test me on this. You’ll fail.

[I’ll be removing my political lawn signs during these sales. So I’m not asking anyone to do what I’m not already doing for these garage sales.]

After this weekend, there will be no more garage sales until 2021. Assuming we’re all still alive.

Honestly, as much as I’d love to see lots of stuff to comics fans and others, I’m not expecting much from these final sales. I have terrific stuff for sale, but it don’t get sold if the customers are not there. But I wanted to give you all one last chance to get in on these bargains.

That’s all for now. Stay safe. Stay sane. Be good to one another. I’ll be back as soon as possible with more bloggy fun.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

COMMANDO CORNER

Previously in Tony Isabella’s Bloggy Thing...

Commando is a black-and-white UK war comics digest that publishes four issues every two weeks. Two of those issues feature reprints, two feature new stories. It launched in July 1963 and, as of this writing, the most recent issues I’ve received up are issues #5359-5362. Though I am about eighteen months behind in my reading of my subscription copies, it remains one of my favorite comics anywhere in the world.   

My last “Commando Corner” was well received, so let’s take another look at some issues I’ve read recently. First up is Commando #5214, which is dated March 23, 2019. I told you I was behind in reading these action-packed and character-driven stories.

Ian Kennedy is the cover artist for “Hunt That Gun!” The story, which was first published in 1993, was written by Alan Hemus with art by Gordon C. Livingstone. Second Lieutenant Jed Dodds has his own “white whale” in a Wehrmacht’s K5 railway gun that can fire a shell almost forty miles. At the start of the story, it kills one of Jed’s fellow American officers from across the English channel. Dodds is determined to get that gun and the arrogant German captain who commands it.

Dodds’ quest takes him all across Europe. Hemus keeps Jed’s several close (but not close enough) encounters with Hauptmann Franz Jost and the railway gun exciting and believable. I’d rank this story as one of my favorite Commando tales.

Hemus (1925-2009) was a prolific writer of both comics and prose. He wrote over 80 issues of Commando and continued writing up until his death. You can read more about him here.

Livingstone (August 17, 1934 - June 19, 2017) was Commando’s most prolific artist. He drew over 360 issues of the title. He was also one of the artists for the publisher’s educational center spread  “The Falklands File” (1982-1983). Appearing in DC Thomson's weekly war comic Warlord, the feature covered the 1982 Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina.
                                                                                 

Commando #5215 [4-6-2019] has a striking cover by Keith Burns, his second for the title. An award winning aviation artist and commercial illustrator, Burns has drawn comics for the past decade. He was the artist on the Titan Comics revival of Johnny Red from the Battle Picture Weekly Star and has worked on The Boys.

 

“A Matter of Honour” is a World War I “Air War” tale of two pilots - Pierre Lafitte and Gustav Von Brunner - who are evenly matched in skill, dexterity and cunning. Lian McLaughlin, who we discussed in our previous “Commando Corner,” is the writer. It’s a well-crafted story, albeit a familiar one. It’s the “honor among airmen” trope that has worn thin for me. As you expect, honor is almost never an absolute for the enemy, but I did get a kick out of the final duel between Lafitte and Von Brunner.

Artist Khato does a nice job on the visuals. The name is familiar to me, but I can’t recall where I’ve seen his work before. My usual online searches haven’t been very productive. I keep thinking he’s been a contributor to 2000 AD, but, if he is, those credits aren’t showing up on the Grand Comics Database.
                                                                                    

Commando #5217 [4-6-19] presents “Lady Death” by Andrew Knighton and artist Manuel Benet. The cover painting is also by Benet. The title character is Private Svetlana Ivanovna, sniper extraordinaire and the deadliest shot in the Russian army. The tale reveals the tragedies that led Ivanovna to take up arms during World War II and the further tragedies she experiences during the war. Her goal is vengeance against the Germans and, in particular, a German sniper who may be her equal. It’s a terrific story, one of many Commando adventures showcasing women warriors.

Knighton is a writer of stuff: speculative and historical fiction, including comics, novels and short stories. He’s done over a dozen issues of Commando and has also been published by Top Cow.

Benet was born in Spain in 1946. Here’s what Lambiek Comiclopedia has to say about him:

Manuel Benet Blanes was born in Valencia. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, he studied at the Escuela de Bellas Artes in San Carlos, the Escuela de Maestría Industrial and at the Academia de Pintura Vicente Barreira. As a comic artist he has drawn for several foreign publishers, including DC Thomson (Scotland), Fleetway (England), Bastei (Germany), Anaya (Spain), Semic Press (Sweden) and Universo (Italy), as well as the British daily The Sun. Mainly a fine artist, he has been exposing his work in galleries since 1976.
                                                                                 

Commando #5219 [4-20-19] features “To Wear the Uniform,” a desert war story by Lian McLaughlin with a cover painting by Ian Kennedy and interior art by Klacik. When I searched for information about the artist, I came up empty. I found another artist with that last name, but it doesn’t seem to be the same person. I did like the art in this issue, especially the distinctive faces and the emotions he drew into those faces.

The hero of this story is German Jew Jakob Rosenbaum. While he and his family escaped from Germany, Jakob wants revenge for the loss of their homeland. He joins the British army where he does not meet with universal acceptance. Not unexpectedly for a Commando story, the young man proves himself and then some.
                                                                                   

Commando #5222 [4-20-19] reprints “The Last Nazis” from 1994. The story was written by Anthony Knowles, another creator I have little information on. He wrote at least a half-dozen issues of Commando and some children’s books. The cover painting and interior art are by Gordon C. Livingston.

This thriller is set near the end of World War II. Germany has been defeated, but some die-hard Nazis are trying to make their way to safety with military secrets, plans for weapons and vast wealth. Working with the Japanese, they care nothing for their own German seaman and less for the prisoners of war at a Japanese camp where they stop. This suspense story is filled with surprises and has a very satisfying ending.

Going forward...

While I’m writing my next book, I won’t be attempting to post new bloggy things every day. I’m writing a number of columns a piece at a time. When one is finished, I’ll post it.

Stay safe, my friends. Stay sane. If you are an American citizen, vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Our country can’t take four more years of the criminal Trump and his Republican gangsters. If you’re not an American citizen, please send us your good thoughts. A lot of us trying to once again place our nation on the right side of history.

I’ll be back as soon as possible with more stuff.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

EVEN MORE NEW FUN #1

New Fun #1 [February 1935], promoted as “The Big Comic Magazine,” was the first DC Comics publication. That 10" by 15" launch issue was 36 pages (including covers) and published by National Allied Publications, Inc. The president of the company was former career soldier and pulp magazine writer Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and the editor was Lloyd Jacquet. The official name of the company changed to National Periodical Publications, but DC Comics was the name most knew it by and that name would become official in the 1970s.

In July, I wrote two blogs discussing the issue on a literal page-by-page basis. I got through the first 21 pages of the comic book before I was side-tracked by other work and the various miseries of our pandemic lives. If you want to read those earlier installments, you’ll find them here and here.

We return to this discussion with “Cap’n Erik” by Robert Weinstein. The Captain and his crew are leaving for Kilitook Island and hope to get underway without sinister competitor Butch Ramsey learning of their plans. Mention is made of seals, presumably the killing of seals, so I’m not rooting for either of these guys. Ramsey sends one of his men to wreck Erik’s ship and the sabotage is successful. Nevertheless, Cap’n Erik vows to get to the island before Ramsey.

Cap’n Erik would only appear in one more issue of New Fun. In the second issue, he has repaired his ship and discovered a stowaway. The lad has no family, so the Captain gives him a chance to earn a position on the crew. The youngster discovers Ramsey’s man trying to weakening the ship’s hull, but is knocked unconscious before he can report the looming disaster. For closure’s sake, I’m going to assume the following:

Cap’n Erik went down with his ship. The saboteur, realizing he was going to go down with the ship as well, soiled himself. Meanwhile, one of Erik’s men sabotaged Ramsey’s ship and the vessel also went down. The seals were not clubbed to death and lived long and happy lives. Don’t you love a satisfying ending?

Next is “Buckskin Jim” by unknown hands. Lambiek Comiclopedia says Tom Cooper drew the feature, but that information can not be found at the Grand Comics Database. The GCD has this synopsis:

Jim Kenyon, en route to California, arrives in New Orleans. Trying to catch up on foot with the departed wagon train, he hears cries for help and rescues a trapper from quicksand. Riding on the trapper's horse after the wagon train they are waylaid by Indians.

The young frontiersman had good fighting skills and was armed with a knife and a handgun. He appeared in New Fun #1-6 and the re-named More Fun #7-18. I thought this initial strip was well done for the era, but, like most popular entertainments of the era, its handling of the indiginous people was racist.

Pages 24-26 is filled with text articles and paid advertisements. The “Popular Science” column discusses streamline trains,and, in a rather odd add-on, magic tricks. “Stamps and Coins” offers some helpful information for new collectors. “Young Homemakers,” which indicates to me that New Fun was looking to attract female readers as well as males, discusses setting up a kitchen so that everything  necessary to making a meal is near at hand.

The first ad in this section is for correspondence courses in the “big pay fields” of “electricity” and “radio, television, talking pictures.” The second page announces the advertiser will pay cash for old coins, bills and stamps, and offers an Illustrated Coin and Stamps Folder for four cents. That would be 76 cents in 2020 money. There’s also a small ad offering the chance to make $40 to $50 per week selling soap. You could get seven big bars for a quarter.

The final advertisement is from the Wilson Chem Co. They’d send you 12 beautiful art pictures with 12 boxes of White Cloverine Salve. The idea was to sell the boxes for a quarter each while giving an art picture with each purchase. Among the items offered if someone sold enough salve were Iver Johnson safety rifles, electric radios, guitars, banjos and a streamline wagon.

[NOTE: I would love to read article about people who took part in these sales programs, especially if they were successful doing so. I’ll share the stories in a future bloggy thing.]

The “After School” comic, featuring a pair of rough-and-tumble kids and the toddler “uncle” of one of them, was written and drawn by Tom McNamara. The strip would appear in a 1940s issue of Action Comics as well.

“After School” looks more professional than many of the strips in New Fun #1, which isn’t surprising when you look at McNamara’s long and varied career. He was a vaudevillian for a number of years. His “Us Boys” strip was syndicated from 1910 to 1928. He wrote scripts for and directed “Our Gang” shorts.

He did quite a bit of work for other comic books. He wrote and drew short (generally one to five pages) humor strips for DC’s All Funny Comics, Batman, Boy Commandoes, Buzzy, Detective Comics, Leading Comics, Superman and World’s Finest. At Fawcett, his work appeared in America’s Greatest Comics, Bulletman, Captain Marvel Jr. Captain Midnight, Don Winslow of the Navy, Master Comics, Minute Man, Nutty Comics, Spy Smasher and Whiz Comics. From other comics publishers, his work appeared in Champ Comics, The Comics Magazine, Detective Picture Stories, Funny Picture Stories and Western Picture Stories.

There’s more to McNamara’s life and career, but, for that further information, I direct you to his 2011 “Ink-Slinger Profile” at the Stripper’s Guide.

[NOTE: I have a sort of personal connection to McNamara. He was a “bosom companion of Damon Runyon.” During my time working on staff at Marvel Comics in the 1970s, I lived in a hotel “penthouse” where Runyon had lived. It was across the street from the Brill Building, which, as per Wikipedia, was famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American songs were written. It was considered to have been the center of the American music industry that dominated the pop charts in the early 1960s. Though the hotel was far from the trendy address it had been, it was cool living in an apartment where Runyon had resided. According to the desk clerk, one of the writers of the musical Hair had also lived in my apartment, which came with a working player piano. No one could tell me which former tenant had left it there.]
                                                                                  

We’ll do one more page today. Written and drawn by Dick Loederer, “Caveman Capers” is equal parts adventure, pre-history and humor. A family of cave people are huddled together in a dark cave. They are worried about Ur, a young man, who hasn’t yet returned to the cave. Fearful of encountering a dinosaur, the lad is almost struck by lightning. When he realizes a burning branch is providing heat and light, he runs back to the cave with it. As the family rejoices in these new sensations, the dinosaur pops his head in their cave.

Loederer did another strip and several illustrations in this first issue of New Fun, but “Caveman Capers” is my favorite comic strip in this debut outing with terrific art and writing. Though he also served as an editor and art director for the title, Loederer seems to have left the comics industry by the time the name of the comics was changed to More Fun. That’s too bad.

One more installment will wrap up my look at New Fun #1. Look for it sometime next week.

© 2020 Tony Isabella

TONY TALK

About once a week, I’ll be updating my beloved bloggy readers on things going on in my life. It’s the most efficient way of getting news out. I thank you for your indulgence.

GARAGE SALES. I’ve learned that a pandemic isn’t the best time to hold my Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sales. While some of my regular customers have bought a lot of cool stuff at great prices, I’m not getting the traffic I need to sustain the sales any longer. Here’s what the finale of my 2020 sales will look like.

I will not be scheduling individual garage sale appointments until  Monday, September 14. I’ll schedule appointments that week through Saturday, September 19. Appointments will be scheduled from 9 am to 7 pm on those days, with the exception of 9-noon on that Friday and Saturday. To make an appointment, e-mail me.

My final open-to-the-public sales will be on Friday, September 18, and Saturday, September 19, from 9 am to noon. Masks are required. Only two shoppers at a time will be allowed. However, if anyone is still waiting to shop at noon, I’ll extend the sales beyond noon.

My final by appointment garage sales will be scheduled from Monday, September 21 through Friday, September 25, from 9 am to 7 pm. After that, I’ll be packing the garage sales away until April or May of 2021. Depending on the weather and the state of the nation.

If you’ve been holding off expecting some enormous blow-out sale at the end of my garage sale season, don’t do that. While I have done that in past years, I’m not doing it this year. Right now, there is so much terrific stuff at ridiculously low prices in my garage and almost no one has seen it. I’ll take my chances that next year will be a better year for my sales.

As it is, I am confident that anyone who comes to my garage sales this year will be able to get a lot of comics, books and more for their money. Though I can’t spend hours each day adding new stuff to the sale, I will be doing some restocking every day until these sales have ended for the year.

Now let’s get to the more interesting stuff...

TONY WANTS TO HELP COMIC-BOOK SHOPS. Comic-book shops are our first responders and still the backbone of the comics industry. They’ve supported us even when publishers have not acted in their own best interests. Unfortunately, my own limited resources have prevented me from taking part in things like the original art sale organized by Gail Simone. I can’t donate what I don’t have and haven’t been able to afford for many years now. Almost all the original art that I had was sold the last time I went years without any comic-book writing assignments.

When I sign at conventions or by mail, I charge a modest $5 for my signature. At conventions, if you bring a witness from one of the fine grading companies, I charge $15 per signature because, let’s be honest, you’re looking to increase the value of that comic book or other item.

From now until the end of the year, if you’re a comic shop owner or manager, I will sign comic books for your customers for free. I will sign Isabella-written comics that you have in stock for free. Here’s how that will work.

You send the comics to me at 840 Damon Drive, Medina, Ohio 44256. They must come with detailed instructions as to where they are to be signed and with return postage-paid packaging for their return. I’ll sign these comics and get them back to you as fast as humanly possible.

I know this isn’t as impressive as selling original art, but it’s what I can do at this moment. It’s also not all I’m going to do to help support comic-book shops. I plan to roll out two other things in late September or early October. Keep watching the bloggy thing for information on those.

WRITER FOR HIRE. I’m currently preparing a book collecting some of my countless shark movie reviews while adding additional material on those movies and writing several new reviews that will appear in this book for the first time in print or online. This project will keep me busy until early October. It's the first of a series of books collection my horror/monster movie reviews; each book will have a different theme.

Around mid-October, I’ll be available for new paying assignments. Comic book scripts, comic panel and strip writing and pretty much anything else that interests me. I’m not looking for projects that have to be crowd-funded before I get paid. I’m not looking for any back-end deals. I won’t say never because maybe someone will come along who I really want to work with or with characters/concepts I really love. But, honestly, I have literally hundreds of things of my own that I want to write. If you’re not guaranteeing me a good paycheck, you’re gonna have to sell me on working with you.

Among the things I'll certainly avoid going forward are signing a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) without any real knowledge of a project and then having the  publisher refuse to put their brilliant ideas on paper. No, they wanted to talk about them. Which could lead to confusion about who created what. No thanks. On the time-tested theory of “hope for the best, expect the worst,” I want a solid paper trail. And, yes, this happened to me a few months back. Fortunately, I refused to agree to this demand. The NDA I signed is worthless because I was never shown anything I could disclose.

If you have a project that’s challenging and fun, I could get into that. If you have a tight deadline, I’m not into that. When I was a young and foolish writer, I often took on jobs that bailed out an editor or publisher...and ended up compromising my own schedule of commitments. I’ll be 69 in December. I’m not going without proper rest because you’re in a schedule bind.

Yeah, I know I sound like a grumpy old writer here. I’m all three of those things. But I’m also a guy who will do great work for you, who will promote the great work for you and who will never lie to you about my ability to meet your deadline or my interest in doing your project at all.

I do prefer to conduct most of our business via e-mail. While it’s sometimes pleasant to spend two hours on the phone being told your life story, that’s two hours of my life and your life that we will never get back. Let’s save it for the work.

There are things I can’t do anymore. For example, unless an editor gives me a copy of Mutants for Dummies, I doubt I could write the X-Men as they exist in the current Marvel Universe. I’ll never tell you I can ride a horse when I can’t.

I work best and most successfully without a lot of editorial input. I want to write my stories, not yours. If you want your stories, I encourage you to write them yourself. Conversely, if you want me to write something in a vast and convoluted universe, I would want your help in crafting stories that please both of us.

Don’t be shy about contacting me. I’ll be friendly and honest as we discuss whatever project for me you have in mind. I won’t hold it against you if it’s wrong for me or I’m wrong for it.

I do ask you make at least the initial contact by e-mail. In these unnerving times, I’m just a day or so away from unplugging the Casa Isabella land lines. I’m very easy to reach via e-mail, Facebook and Twitter. I look forward to hearing from you.

Begging your indulgence, there are other bits of Tony business that I couldn’t squeeze into today’s bloggy. Come back tomorrow for Tony Talk II. In the meantime, stay safe, stay sane and try to be good to one another.

© 2020 Tony Isabella