2020 Vision

As many of you know, 2019 was an epic failure for calendars around here. I've got an eye towards the new year coming up and i'm making plans (and actual pages) to carry on in the tradition of the 2018 Gil Elvgren calendar. And a bit more, too.

That means a weekly calendar format, but i'll be offering a few choices. How many options is still uncertain. At least 3, possibly more. Currently planned are two classic pin-up art calendars - one "Good Girl" and one "Bad Girl." By that, i mean that there will be one nice calendar here, and another in the 'back room' where the girls take their clothes off.

Obviously, it would be cruel to make any single artist follow after Gil Elvgren, so the 2020 calendars will all feature several artists for a variety of works.

The third option currently in the works uses old magazine covers with paintings from a lot of great old artists.

And now that we're speaking of those artists, let's take a look at some of those that we'll be featuring. Don't worry - we won't be using any of the artwork that's scheduled for the calendars.

With 52 weeks and at least 3 - perhaps as many as 6 - calendars, that's going to be a fair number of artists. So we'll just look at 9 of them today to get things started.


Rolf Armstrong

Earle Bergey

Enoch Bolles

Mabel Rollins Harris

Harry Lemon Parkhurst (among other HLs)

Konstantin Razumov

Edward Runci

Arthur Sarnoff

Hugh Joseph Ward

I'll run another batch fairly soon. More than just to give a peek a whose work we'll be seeing, this also provides the opportunity for you to influence how prominently some artists are featured. You may also suggest other artists while i'm still in the gathering and compiling stage. You might even suggest artists already in the pile. That's okay, it just means i'm choosing well.

art by the folks listed above

Spawn Of Super Dog?

We've seen Ellis Chambers' one-shot Super Dog previously. What happened to him after his single appearance is unknown - but we can make a guess. Eight years later, Super Pup arrived on the scene -

Yes, it says #4, but, you know - Comics! That's actually his first issue. He only had two, but i've never seen #5. We don't know who created, wrote, or drew Super Pup. We only know that Frank Carin drew his first cover, and perhaps the second as well.

Super Pup had only three stories total. Two of those were in his first issue, so we've got both of them here today. I believe i've mentioned that Mole Men are a favorite topic for government fear campaigns in many of my worlds. I may have run a couple Mole Men awareness posters.

Super Pup was already on the job 65 years ago -

Okay.
Maybe they were perhaps more likely referencing the George Reeves movie. So let's move right along.

Super Pup gets around in that first issue. From fighting underground menaces we leap into space to chase Uranium Smugglers -
 

See? Cosmo Cat wasn't the only Funny Animal superhero killing off his villains.

Oddly enough, we came to Super Pup looking for the other side of the Cat. 
In theory, we'll get there soon...

page art from Super Pup #4 (1954)

Party Online Was So Different Then

Let's jump back to a time that most young folks today could scarcely conceive. A time before phones were portable and omnipresent.

Once upon a time, we didn't even have exclusive phones. You shared a "Party Line" with your neighbors. But, you may wonder, how did you know if the phone was ringing for your house or another? You each had a different ring pattern. 

Of course, this means that you couldn't use the phone if your neighbor was on the line. On the other hand, if you were bored it was easy to listen in on private conversations. In later decades, Party Lines became separate numbers that multiple parties could connect to simultaneously, allowing teen telephone parties. I think those are long gone now, too.

Today, let's jump back to 1946 to learn more via an Un-Comic from the Bell Telephone System teaching about the party lines -

I know it's a short one, but that's all for today. The system is up and running, and proper software is installed; now i need to pull the drive from the old system so i can transfer data. In theory, we're back on track. 

Stay tuned to see how theory and practical application collide...

page art from Bobby Gets Hep (1946)

E.C. With E.C. & C.C.

Making good progress with getting set up to work again. Everything looks good and ready to go - with one slight snag.
I have no clue what my son's password is to access the system, and he's off on long haul trucking runs. No telling when messages will catch up to him. And so we wait...

But, while we wait, let's get an early start. 

Xmas is coming, only ten days away. And only a week until the first night of Hanukkah this year. Maybe it's still a bit early to start doing holiday comics, but these guys got started in July!

Further fuel to the legend that Pat Adams was Ellis Chambers.

I'm gimping the prep work on this little laptop with the tiny screen - so that's all for now. 
My eyes hurt.

page art by Ellis Chambers(?) from Wotalife #11 (1947)

The Future Knows

The sparsity of new posts has been due more to internal shutdown than anything else. The all-too-usual system death killed forward momentum on things and i seem to have been cruising to a stop. Lately doing little more than zoning out to a mental dial tone (do they still have those?) when not watching old episodes of WKRP In Cincinnati or Futurama.

And then Matt hits me with this one -

Well, damn.

Guess i should be trying to get things working again...

screen from Futurama S03E03, of course (ca. 3000)