Still Not Dead

I'm not ignoring the blog - the Universe has resumed its campaign against continuing. This machine continues to perform just fine, but it's a little laptop with the smallest screen i've used in ages and it doesn't have my work or tools on it.
The desktop system continues to act in ways that defy four decades of computer experience.

The primary problem currently goes counter to the basics. Computers overheat and shut down, right? Mine needs to warm up. If it gets through the first 15-20 minutes, then it's fine for as long as you want to go. Days at a time, if needed. But, if it may shut down in the first ten minutes or so. Or it may suddenly stop outputting video. Or it may suddenly stop accepting input from the keyboard and mouse.
And once that happens, it will not turn back on for at least 15 minutes or so, shutting down during boot-up.

This sort of problem has remained despite replacing power supply, video card, and most every major component over the last year or so.

The new desktop system built to replace it runs great for a day or so at a time, and then the hard drive begins to eat itself. Any hard drive we've tried so far self corrupts and dies. Malware on the bios? I don't know. Next time we'll try with a different operating system and some new components, but i'm retired these days a far, far away from the old six figure income. With the holidays and all, it'll be a bit before new parts are an option.

So, we'll see what the whims of fate allow us. And try not to succumb to the gaping maw of depression that beckons laughingly.

Meanwhile - this was laying around just because i liked the last panel to Kazanda's first adventure...

At least there's a little something to look at, eh?
(Yes, in theory we'll actually get around to Kazanda and the rest some day)

art by and from... i don't know. It's on the other system.

Confirming The Unconfirmed

Yesterday i ended our bit on Howie Post's stick figure cat signature with a rather cryptic remark -
"And now that you know about Howie's cat, you can confirm the unconfirmed for Who's Who In American Comics."


You see, they list Howie Post as possibly having done work for Jason Comic Art Studios, but that this is unconfirmed. Not particularly surprising since all their work was delivered under the JCA signature. But Howie had his stick figure cat to mark his work, as seen here -

 As you can see from that first panel, Howie clearly did do work for the JCA studio. But perhaps this example is 'forgotten' today due to some of the rather uncomfortable World War II era character representations featured in the story. Better to remember the past than to bury, forget, and repeat it - that's my general thinking. So let's continue, but remember that Howie was a newbie working his way up in the studios and remember the cultural time frame.

A bit of a side note here - it was popular at the time to see any ethnic group as a basic source of comedy just by the fact that they were different. This led to a variety of Mexican/Latino, Eskimo, and Asian characters who leaned heavily into stereotypes as the source of comedy.
Oddly enough, a lot of them ran in the Funny Animal comics proliferating at the time. Make of that what you will.


This feels like an awfully short post, so let's jump ahead a couple years to look at a strip that Howie did for Funny Folks. The food pun named Chick 'n Gumbo followed a pair of
hmm... shall we call them peasants? It's hard to pin down just what sort of world they lived in - medieval, with giants and ... tigers? It's an Odd little world. The strip had only 5 appearances, and they got the obvious joke out of the way in the first episode -

Let's do one more to round out a trio of comics for this post. We'll follow along to the second tale so that my previous comment might make more sense -

Well, i don't know about Gumbo, but i'm heading off to sleep.

page art by Howie Post for Jamboree #1 and Funny Folks #s 16 & 17 (1946, 1948)

The Man With The Stick Figure Cat

Do you know the man with the stick figure cat?

No - we ain't talking about Pete. We're talking about that little mark down towards the bottom right...

That little stick-figure scrawl of a cat is a signature mark of Howie Post. We know him best in previous posts for his window into the life of Ellis Chambers and for his delightful tales of Jimminy And The Magic Book. (Not to mention his trippy Sooper Hippie)

We've seen his first printed comic story before - both versions of it. His second and third tales appeared together just a month later in Bee 29 The Bombardier. (Yes, that's just what it sounds like) First up was a slightly twisted take on the classic hare vs turtle race, including a self-referential bit of early meta-humour -

(Note that early on he liked to sign with cats of a non stick-figure nature)

For the second tale in the issue, Howie gets decidedly more Odd - right from the first panel with Frank Furter striking back at the Hot Dog Factory for apparently having sold his wiener dog family as food...

(See what i mean?)

It was only a few months later, in the summer of 1945, that Howie got his first big solo strip - Alex In Wonderland - the lead feature for Wonderland Comics that we saw last time. In addition to the lead feature, Howie was also creating some of the supporting strips. Here's two more from that first issue of Wonderland Comics. Note that both strips are signed with his name and with his cat -

Both M'sieu Macaw and Max The Magician were ongoing features appearing regularly alongside Alex in Wonderland.

And now that you know about Howie's cat, you can confirm the unconfirmed for Who's Who In American Comics.

page art by Howie Post for Bee 29 The Bombardier #1 and Wonderland Comics #1 (1945)

Posting Howie

Brain still off walkies, but we've already got some art prepped for a planned revisit with Howie Post. So while i'm trying to get some traction under my thoughts, here's the introductory episode of Alex In Wonderland -

Alex appeared in Wonderland Comics back in 1945 -

Okay - now i'm off to perform a bit of home trepanation and see if i can let some of the bad humours out. Hopefully more room for think next time.

page art by Howie Post from Wonderland Comics #1 (1945)