Paul Termann - A Name That Should Live In Infamy

On December 13th of 1981, on the yacht Apollonia sailing in the Caribbean, two week's of sullen resentment came to a murderous peak. Paul Termann decided to hijack the yacht at gunpoint and declared that Herbert Klein, the owner, had 10 minutes to live. Klein attempted to rescue the party aboard the Apollonia, but only managed to wound Termann, who shot and killed Klein's girlfriend, Gabriele Humpert, and wounded a man named Munsch working on the boat. 
Termann then hunted down Klein and finally murdered him.
He was caught, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1982, but released 20 years later. If you want to know more about what happened, try reading Off The Deep End: A History Of Madness At Sea by Nic Compton. 
 
Not so much a "Live In Infamy" kind of guy - more like a villain from a Travis McGee novel. Likely to be forgotten over time as just another crazy asshole with a gun.

However, that was just his origin story. The birth and source of his True Villainy.

You see, Paul Termann is ashamed to be a convicted double-murderer, so he decided to murder history to hide his crimes. The German high court has ruled that he, and others like him, can force their crimes to be scrubbed from news and historic records so they won't be reminded of their shame.

They call it the Right To Be Forgotten.


Let's call it what it is - the Right To Edit History For Personal Convenience.

No wonder the UK wants out of the EU. They can hear George Orwell's anguished screams echoing through the ground. What was once considered Orwellian Nightmare is now a Personal Right in the EU. Not just governments, but any criminal can now erase the past.

In more normal times if a law was passed allowing criminals to hide their crimes, we'd point out the horrible possibility of murderers using it to cover up their crimes and hide their past from the potential victims around them. And, perhaps even more disturbingly, erase all memory of their victims in the process.

But that's where we're starting from these days.

So, how soon can we expect it to be used to cover up war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity carried out by governments and corporations?

Remember - in our twisted laws, corporations - entities founded to escape personal responsibility - are considered human beings, entitled to the same rights and protections. But, as noted, without being bound by all the same responsibilities. They already routinely get away with murder, now they're being handed a tool to wipe it from the public memory.

It's hard to decide if this ruling is epicly stupid or actively evil.

Either way, it certainly leaves me wondering what those who made the ruling must want erased from their pasts?

Or was it simply a matter of being bought by those who want to use the law?

Sorry - no joke today.

Just the joke that Paul Termann played on Truth.

And The Universe Laughed...

The mind and i have been reuniting lately. As you may have noticed, we posted 3 out of the last 4 days. And work has been going well on getting back towards some painting. Finally sorted out all the problems with the 3D model and render software and actually prepped for a painting. Today was get the graphics tablet and painting software re-installed day so we could maybe do some real artwork again.

Regular readers know what comes next...

The Universe seems to actively hate it when i get any artwork done. And so the system died. Or rather, it seems that the video card fried out. A burst of snow to the screen, and nothing.

The graphics card is, of course, the newest and most expensive piece of gear in the system. It costs more than half of what a new system would run. It's a massive beast with two huge fans that looks like a drone ready to lift off.
And, like most of what's made these days, it's a piece of crap. But, that's how we do it in this great land. Computer components used to be manufactured with rigorous quality controls and be built to last. They had to be, because they were still trying to build the market.
But, once everyone is using them and needs them, that gets tossed out. Make it quick, and plan for it to die soon so they'll need another one - the American Way of business, responsible for so much of what you hate about the world around you.

Joy.

So, yeah. Who knows how long i'll be down. Or how long the system will be down, for that matter. I might have an old card around that will work and get it up and running again within a day. It might be weeks. I don't even know where to go to get one these days, and experience precludes use of internet to order things like computer parts. Thanks, no - I don't need the wrong part shipped from China to arrive at the wrong location and MAYBE eventually be returned for the right part - but one that was previously returned by someone else due to problems with it... try again. 

I tend to be a nexus for system errors, even when the system isn't rigged for abuse.

So, maybe there'll be new post tomorrow.
Maybe there'll be new post next month.
Maybe next year.
We've seen before how this can play out around here.

Meanwhile - i like at least one pic in every post, but the only thing on this system right now is Smoker Warning Label for cigarettes and such that we should try.

This one might actually work -

Cynical Susie And The New, Odd Little World

As mentioned yesterday, Cynical Susie veered into Damned Odd territory at the end of the run in Comics On Parade. And it all started, appropriately enough, when she met a Hermit...

Comics On Parade changed format with issue #30. They started focusing on a single strip or creator in each issue, and the variety strips were swept away - including Cynical Susie. Her newspaper comics stopped the same year, and she never came back home from that odd little world.

page art by Bernard Dibble(?) from Comics On Parade #s 24-29 (1940)

If Only A Fish Would Fly Down From Heaven With A Job In His Bill!

Today we've got a little dalliance with three ladies from the '30s - Becky(Helen), Laverne, and Susie. Becky Sharp wrote and Laverne Harding drew a Sunday comic about Cynical Susie. (There was a daily, too, but just barely. It was soon a Sunday Only strip.) The series debuted in 1933 and ran through the end of the decade, though both creators left before that point.

One of the especially noteworthy aspects of Cynical Susie is the artist; Laverne Harding became the first female animator in Hollywood. She was already working with Walter Lantz at Universal when Susie started publication, and was promoted to Animator in 1934.

We come in at the end of Laverne's run on the strip, with Bernard Dibble taking over the art in her absence. Some may recall another strip from Dibble that appeared here previously, Looy Dot Dope. These come to us from Comics On Parade - one of those early comic books that re-packaged newspaper strips. That included L'il Abner, who pushed Susie, and everyone else, out of the book a few years later. 

Let me just say right now - "I don't know."

I only have one or two issues before we're jumping in, and the $50,000 debt was already incurred. How this happened or what the debt is supposed to cover...? 

That's one of Life's Little Mysteries for me. Just acknowledge how very special Lily Whey must be to stand as collateral on that much cash in 1930s dollars.

Before too long, Susie managed to turn things around, though things seemed to fall apart first. The Director discovered that Susie was back on the lot...

Before the end of her time in Comics On Parade, things would get damned odd and outright weird...

page art by Laverne Harding and Bernard Dibble from Comics On Parade #s 7-10, 12, & 15-18 (1938, 1939)

Connie's Curious Cousin Ken?

As you may recall, one of the very first Fly Girls was Connie Kurridge, debuting way back in 1927.

Just over a dozen years later, another guy came along with a similar name. Perhaps, as was often the case, the same family name was given different spelling as they immigrated, and Kurridge became Kurage? Perhaps this is all a bit of damnfoolery?

Perhaps.

But, Joe Simon brought us Ken Kurage and the Solar Patrol in the second issue of Silver Streak Comics at the beginning of 1940 -

But, Ken didn't have Connie's staying power. In his second tale, Kurage became Keen as he downsized from Solar Patrol to Planet Patrol...

(Sorry - I don't have this one, and microfiche was the best i could find)

...and the following issue he lost both Joe Simon and the colours blue & yellow...

A couple issues later he faded into the aether, another hero lost in space...

page art by Joe Simon and ??? for Silver Streak Comics #s 2-4 (1940)

Return To Comics

You folks remember "Comics" McCormick, - "The World's No. 1 Comic Book Fan" - right?
If not, the link in his name above will take you to the previous posts on our reality warped hero from Ed Wheelan. 

Either way, while the mind is off wandering, i figured we could do with a bit of revisiting, so here's trio of tales from his short run in Terrific Comics -

That brings us to about half of his published adventures. I suspect we'll get to the other half eventually, eh?

page art by Ed McWheelan for Terrific Comics #s 3, 5, & 6 (1944)