One of the many terrific artists who worked for Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact whom we have yet to see here is Fran Matera. Unfortunately, Fran's most notable work, Chuck White (and his Friends), simply doesn't lend itself to to short form coverage like blog posts. It needs omnibus editions covering decades of evolving story.
We'll see Matera on some other series sometime, hopefully sometime soon, but while we're waiting we've got a little one-shot history comic written by D.H. Johnson. This feature is descended from earlier series like The What-If Fairy and The Story Of ________, at which we looked previously. Long after they dropped the formalized structure, they continued with strips that covered the story behind things in the world around their readers. In this strip, we look at the history that lead to Our Curious Calendar -
I realize that some may be confused by the assertation that this story covered civilizations more advanced than our own. That's likely a cognitive dissonance caused by confusing Technology and Civilization/Society.
When these societies encountered contradiction between their systems and objective reality, they labored to correct their systems to match reality.
In our society, we work to correct (or at least re-label) reality to match our system.
Obviously, their civilizations were more Advanced.
We'll see Matera on some other series sometime, hopefully sometime soon, but while we're waiting we've got a little one-shot history comic written by D.H. Johnson. This feature is descended from earlier series like The What-If Fairy and The Story Of ________, at which we looked previously. Long after they dropped the formalized structure, they continued with strips that covered the story behind things in the world around their readers. In this strip, we look at the history that lead to Our Curious Calendar -
I realize that some may be confused by the assertation that this story covered civilizations more advanced than our own. That's likely a cognitive dissonance caused by confusing Technology and Civilization/Society.
When these societies encountered contradiction between their systems and objective reality, they labored to correct their systems to match reality.
In our society, we work to correct (or at least re-label) reality to match our system.
Obviously, their civilizations were more Advanced.
page art by Fran Matera from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v18 #9 (1963)
I like the switching back & forth between the more cartoony style and the straighter style. The master of doing that would be R. Crumb... my favotite is 'Don't Tempt Fate' where he's shifting art styles all over the place. And, hey, he was raised Catholic, wasn't he?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I had been under the impression that the moon's cycle was every 28 1/2 days, but the internet says I'm wrong. Live & learn.
Thanks!!
DeleteI didn't even know there was a 3rd issue of Mystic Funnies published in this century. And he did a Superduck story, too? (And it Is the cock-eyed wonder! (a name meant for Crumb to use))
It's on the way, and i'm looking forward to it.
I think my brain wandered back home... sorry for the delay.
ReplyDeleteHmm... Brain may have wandered back, but still not talking much. I'm not placing "Don't Tempt Fate" offhand - i'll have to go digging after i send. I do enjoy that kind of mastery on display, so i need to know now.
You sound like you've been married. That leads a lot of guys to think a Lunar Cycle is just over 28 days.
But don't you love learning something new that you thought you already knew? Like the plural of beef is beeves, or that 'e' on the end of 'Forte' is silent unless you're talking about Music... those sort of brain tweaks where reality suddenly re-aligns itself.