Five Years of Wedded Bliss!

You can call me a crummy Superman fan, but I have no idea whether in the current Superman comics Superman and Lois are married, with or without kids, or even if they are printing any Superman comics.

As far as I'm concerned, the 1986 reboot failed because of John Byrne's carved jaws, demolition-derby writing, and DC's decree that the "old" Supes was a liability.  

Still, I stayed on for a decade or more after that, buying and reading because I was (and still am) emotionally invested in Big Blue.  It's a sign of being an old fart that I'd rather read a comic from 1973 or 1965 or 1954 than anything in the last twenty years or so.

Anyway ... This here is from the Comics Buyer's Guide of October 12, 2001.

I got a big thrill from the wedding because me, myself, and I got a big thrill from OUR wedding.  Still do, 48+ years later!

I hope YOU too can find your heart's desire, fellow Valentines!

  

Record Your Own Official SUPERBOY Promos!

Here's more of the Promo Packet for Superboy's Season Two, courtesy of Mister Wonderful, aka Mark Barragar, aka KOKH-25's Ranger Roger.

The above folder is the size of a legal manila folder.

These pages are letter size.

You have plenty of time to read 'em all before rejoining the blog parade right here, on Monday!

  

You Can Hear It!

This here’s a fascinatin’ bit of musical history in my opinion!

First up is the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna,” released in March 1968.  In several places, McCartney has said things about the origins or inspiration for the song.  One factor is supposedly a picture from the January 1965 issue of National Geographic, below.

In a 1994 interview, McCartney recalled that he was trying to emulate Fats Domino with the song.

Exhibit Number Two, above, is “Benny the Bouncer,” from Emerson Lake & Palmer’s classic 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery.  This raucous song, really just a filler track, nevertheless contains plenty of ELP showmanship.

What do these songs share?  A common ancestor!

That’s right, listen to the 1956 track “Bad Penny Blues,” by Humphrey Lyttelton and His Band.  The piano was played by Johny Parker.

Impressed?  I am!

See you Thursday, fellow music mavens!
  

Come to the Quest!

Here's a preview of the Comico Jonny Quest comic-book series, which was pretty boss.

This is from the May 15, 1986 issue of Amazing Heroes.  

Now go forth ... your QUEST awaits!

  

Don't Do It Wrong!

Yes, it's another of my compilations about love going wrong ... or right ... or sideways ... you listen and then decide!

01. The Degenerates - Scungy Girl (2:02)

02. The Outcasts - Clinical Love (3:32)

03. Groovie Ghoulies - Graveyard Girlfriend (2:42)

04. Jimi LaLumia and the Psychotic Frogs - Mangle Me (4:44)

05. RU12 - Rubber Suzie (1:32)

06. Mike Kelly & the Legend - I Love the Little Girls with the Shirley Temple Curls (2:14)

07. The Freeze - One Way Conversations (live) (2:13)

08. Lynn Cornell - Demon Lover (2:58)

09. Radio Werewolf - 1960 Cadillac Hearse (3:32)

10. Judy Clay and William Bell - Left Over Love (2:52)

11. Lord Manuel - Computer Love (1:21)

12. The Hoodoo Gurus - Dig It Up (3:29)

13. Rat's Got the Rabies - Vinyl Darling (3:21)

14. Warren Smith - Miss Froggie (2:24)

15. Supernaut - Space Angel (4:17)

16. The Phenomenal Zits - Sick on You (1:55)

17. X - Adult Books (3:10)

18. The Lipstick Killers - Date with a Thing (2:09)

19. The Jets - Paper Girl (4:07)

20. The Wipers - Telepathic Love (1:32)

21. The Bobs - Trash (3:35)

22. Destroy All Monsters - I Love You But You're Dead (live) (2:45)

23. Ed Gein's Car - Brain Dead Baby (1:48)

24. Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures - Headless Hip Shakin' Honey (2:42)

25. The Soft Boys - Kingdom of Love (4:08)

26. Don Dixon - Praying Mantis (3:55)

Much better to hear about it than to live it, I say.  I found my true love already.

THIS LINK GOOD FOR SEVEN DAYS.

PERMANENT LINK.

See you on Thursday!

  

Did You Miss SUPERMAN V?

Well, I did too. And judging by this summary from the Nov-Dec 1987 issue of the National Lampoon, I didn't miss much.

Of course, the "Superman" of this story may act like a clown, but not Our Hero, in real life!  For that matter, even the doofus in this story could have bought a jogging suit or some long-handled pajamas and it would've been better than flying around as Bozo Junior!

Good thing ole Supes can take a joke!  Can you?

Think about it for a month.  We're taking January off on the Super Blog.

See you on Monday, February 2!

  

A Charlie Brown Book Review

On December 9, 1965,our family was one of many who watched the first Peanuts TV special.

A few weeks later, I received five bucks from one pair of grandparents for Christmas.  That was a LOT of money for a nine-year-old in 1965!  That's about $50 bucks today.

When we drove to Tulsa (fifty miles away) in the week between Christmas and New Year's, one of the places we stopped was Louis Meyer's Bookstore.

And using my Christmas money, I bought a copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas, seen here and below in pix taken yesterday with my phone.  That rip you see in the jacket is all the way up and down; the jacket is in two main pieces.

Above are the book flaps.  Note the papers tucked behind the rear flap.

This is written in the front endpaper. I think it's my dad's printing.

Here is Mom's handwriting.  The book is "from" Grandpa and Grandma Whitley," but as I said, I bought the book with money they gave me.

When I bought the book, I remember Mr Meyer bending down and saying to Mom and Dad, "What a polite young man."  Boy, he didn't know me very well (as Bugs Bunny might say)!

What an honor to buy a book from the man I'd seen on TV!

I was in the fourth grade in December 1965.  Below is the book report I found tucked into the endpapers when I took the other pix.

That cursive's pretty good for a fourth grader!  PS I understand why I only got an "OK" on this.  Most of its length is verbatim quotations from the book.  And the concluding paragraph is kind of impersonal.  Still, the actual structure is not bad at creating an in medias res for Charlie Brown's moral crisis.

By the way ... MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

  

See you Monday.

    

Sing It Again, Bilbo!

One of the important parts of being a teen and having your own room is decorating its walls with posters.  Of course, Mom or Dad might think your were defacing, not decorating.

One of the many posters I bought and hung up, with no parental conflict at all, was one containing "Bilbo's Last Song."

Here is the text:

Bilbo's Last Song
(At the Grey Havens)

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar
I'll find the havens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-Earth at last.
I see the Star above your mast!

You can read about it here, too.

Below is a Pauline Baynes poster of the poem.

Now, I do not have the poster any more.  But, the little sticker from the shrinkwrap?  THAT I have!

From this extreme enlargement of a sticker that's about three inches high, you can tell that the sylvan image is not the same as on the Baynes poster.

Here's an image of the same poster I had, for sale online.

I wonder why there were two posters of this very strictly copyrighted poem?

Au revoir until Thursday, Christmas!