This Treasure Gains in Value!

This here is a glorious PSA from DC Comics.

The interwebs tell me that the pencils and inks are by Win Mortimer.  Don't know who provided the text.

This is an important message for all.  Don't wait for Superman to take you to the library.  Go now!  Take your parents or children or friends.

Read! at least until Monday!

  

Keepin' It Honest

One of the great things about buying things at thrift stores is that you never know what you might find inside some of them.

I found this inside a book a few years ago.  The interwebs inform me that this honest insurance agent passed away in 2008.

I do not recall WHICH used book I found this in, but we assume it was donated by the same Mr George the note was addressed to.

See?  Honesty lives!  Until Thursday, fellow straight-shooters!

  

I Read It for the Ads!

Some may not go THAT far, but these ads from the 1960s ARE pretty fun.

Specifically, these are the pages I have not yet posted from Eerie #15, cover-dated June 1968.

You can see more about the Forgotten Prisoner of "Castlemare" in this 2009 Super Blog post!

Who on earth would want a live monkey?

You can find all of the other pages from this fine scary screed by simply entering "eerie 15" (including the quotation marks) in the handy-dandy blog search box just to the right of this post's title!

See you Monday.

  

Keep in Touch!

This interesting bit of pop-culture awareness is from the July 8, 2025 Tulsa World.

And what a legacy, huh?  You kiddies don't recall things like:

• rotary phones and party lines
• dialing a zero to talk to an operator for help or for them to tell you a phone number
• answering the phone to an operator asking you whether you would accept a collect call from someone else
• dialing zero plus the phone number and when your party answered, an operator would ask the other person if they would accept a collect call from YOU
• waiting for evening when the phone rates were cheaper before making long-distance calls
• LATER ON ... cell-phone carriers competing for how cheap EACH MINUTE was.  (I remember a boss telling me in the 1990s that anything more than ten cents a minute was excessive.)
• Pretending your flip-open phone was a STAR TREK communicator
• Checking your phone screen for bars (that is, coverage)
• Your cellphone not working inside a metal-roofed building .... 

Are YOU old enough to recall the cellphone revolution?  Talk amongst yourselves until you come back here Thursday!

  

The Super Paunch

For Thanksgiving, let's look at a column about Our Hero ... specifically, a portrayer who might not have been in trim super shape, but was just perfect for his 1950s-60s audience.

This is from the May 1990 issue of Amazing Heroes, #179.

I hope you are of the age to recognize that George Reeves's Superman was a classic.  See you Monday!

  

No Surgery Required

Emerson Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery came out at the end of 1973 and thanks to an upperclassman, I was clued in.

This is the LP front, with art by the creepy genius HR Giger.

In June of 1974, around my graduation from high school, I got out my rulers and felt-tip pens and made my own draft of the cover.

Above is a 600 dpi scan.

Fifty years later, I'm glad I put dates on things!  But check it out .... 

I also used BLACK LIGHT PAINTS.  Above is a phone photo of the thing.

And ABOVE is the thing under black light, baby!  Are you PSYCHED!  I'm PSYCHED!

See you Thursday.

  

A Super Gallery, Part 2

Here are the rest of the depictions of Our Hero from the February 29, 1988 issue of Amazing Heroes.

(That issue's date was Superman's 50th birthday, you will recall.)

Ya just can't beat Truth, Justice, and the American Way!  See you Monday.

  

A Super Gallery, Part 1

Part of the fun in celebrating Superman's 50th birthday was seeing other people's take on Big Blue.

This spread is from the February 29, 1988 Amazing Heroes.

I really really love this cover, don't you?

You DO remember that Superman's traditional birthday is celebrated on Leap Day, don't you?  

We'll see the rest of the images on Thursday.  TTFN!

 

Wore Them Suckers Out!

One of the greatest Christmas gifts my parents gave me (and there were about a zillion) was a stereo turntable (with a built-in amp) and two speakers, at Christmas 1968.

Robert and Susan (big brother and sis) had a stereo (of earlier vintage), and before this I had a kid's all-plastic kid's record player.  But this was the big leagues, baby!

It looked a lot like the above.  (I often wonder if Mom and Dad regretted the loud choice!)

I had somebody take me to Wards and in the record department I bought two LPs, soundtracks to that summer's big sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Above are the front and rear LP jacket.  Note the wear patterns!

But see the label wear around the hole in the record?  I played this sucker A LOT!

Likewise, this "music inspired by" album.

As you can see, THIS record didn't get as much wear as the first one.  But still, I know every note of these eclectic collections.  When I re-found the pieces online or on CD, my memory notices the LACK of surface noise or ticks in the originals.

You can buy a re-released version of the 2001 soundtrack all over the place,  My post on the Record Round-Up concerning the "music inspired by" is here.

Have YOU got any similar worn-down treasures?

  

Government Can Do Good, Really!

Being a proud American does not mean that I endorse everything done in our nation's past, nor especially a lot of things done recently.

It's just stupid to run around cutting research willy-nilly.  This article from the June 29, 2025 Tulsa World has an example of the good kind of things government can do!

See you Thursday.

  

You'll Be Gripped!

If that happens, tell those mean ole aliens to keep their hands to themselves.

Until then, check out this article:

These breathless whispers of freakiness are from the June 9, 1987 Globe.  And before you ask, I do not have the previous two parts of this world-shattering series.

The theories of the distinguished Rev Theodore Peters don't hold theological water, because his Lutheran faith (and Protestantism) maintains that God revealed himself through his son and the Bible, and that's all that's necessary to know what you need to know to learn God's ways.

You are free to make up your mind and/or heart about whether space beings (or other beings) are messengers of God.  You might even meet one on Sunday at church!  But don't hold your breath.

See you Monday!

  

Two-Faced Rorshach!

 

           Among his many astounding, amazing, stupefying, and wow-istic accomplishments, Dave Gibbons came up with approximately seventy zillion different mirror-image faces for Rorschach.

       

            In 1987 I encountered Rorschach at OKC’s Southside Comics.  I tried to catch up with him, but he departed over a nearby fence into the rough of the adjacent golf course.

            This in-the-flesh near run-in inspired me to scour the series in search of places in which the same Rorschach facial pattern appears on separate occasions.

            I’m NOT counting page 20 of Chapter 12.  This is a “dolly-in” shot that keeps the focus on Rorschach the whole time, and the pattern remains the same intentionally.  Still, I’ve made note of two Rorschach face-patterns which repeat.

RORSCHACH FACE DUPLICATES:

            Both of these are “reaction” shots.  The first is on page 8 of Chapter One, in Blake’s apartment, as Rorschach discovers Blake’s hidden costume closet.  The second is on page 24 of Chapter 5, Rorschach’s face as he realizes Jacobi is dead.

            It may not be coincidental that both of the above views take place in Happy Harry’s bar.  The first appears on page 15 of Chapter One, the second on page 14 of Chapter Ten.  In fact, each face is seen as Rorschach responds to something Happy Harry says.

            At a later date, I entered Southside Comics to find Rorschach checking out the new arrivals.  When I asked him about his face’s repeating patterns, he said, “Hurrm.”

 

            Make of these what you will.  Are there more duplicate Rorschach face-patterns in Watchmen?