Let's jump straight to it, shall we?
Next time - Alex meets Ole King Cole and Macaw gets baked!
page art by Howie Post for Wonderland Comics #s 4 & 5 (1946)
02 January 2019
Alex Meets Mary And Mother Goose
As we continue to follow along with Howie Post's Alex In Wonderland comics, we find there are problems with Mary and her Little Lamb, and then meet Mother Goose herself.
Let's jump straight to it, shall we?
Next time - Alex meets Ole King Cole and Macaw gets baked!
Let's jump straight to it, shall we?
Next time - Alex meets Ole King Cole and Macaw gets baked!
Back To Wonderland
A few days ago we saw the first Alex In Wonderland strip as we started our current look at some of Howie Post's early work. There have been plenty of different types of Wonderland comics and stories over the years. What set the Alex tales apart, aside from boasting the work of Howie Post, was the notion that things were... not right, shall we say?
The old nursery rhymes have gone askew, and Alex is determined to set them right.
In his first trip to Wonderland, Alex was miffed that Humpty Dumpty was entirely too whole and hearty. Y'know... Destiny is cruel.
Let's pick up where we left off, and see what happened in the second (and third) tale(s) -
We'll be back later with two more tales of Alex's adventures in Wonderland. Meanwhile, over in The 1940s Funny Animalphabet, we're looking at Howie's run on Presto Pete, The Magic Bunny.
The old nursery rhymes have gone askew, and Alex is determined to set them right.
In his first trip to Wonderland, Alex was miffed that Humpty Dumpty was entirely too whole and hearty. Y'know... Destiny is cruel.
Let's pick up where we left off, and see what happened in the second (and third) tale(s) -
We'll be back later with two more tales of Alex's adventures in Wonderland. Meanwhile, over in The 1940s Funny Animalphabet, we're looking at Howie's run on Presto Pete, The Magic Bunny.
page art by Howie Post for Wonderland Comics #s 2 & 3 (1945, 1946)
01 January 2019
Blue Monday Calendar 2018 Week 53
Yes, i know that there are only 52 weeks in a year, but that doesn't mean they're contained to 52 weeks on a calendar. Terribly inconvenient of them, but what can you do?
(Well, okay - we could post before the year expired, but the computer wasn't cooperating. Obviously it did finally boot up yesterday - i left it on overnight to avoid the problem this morning)
Our final painting from the great Gil Elvgren is Riding High from 1958 -
(Well, okay - we could post before the year expired, but the computer wasn't cooperating. Obviously it did finally boot up yesterday - i left it on overnight to avoid the problem this morning)
Our final painting from the great Gil Elvgren is Riding High from 1958 -
art by Gil Elvgren (1958)
31 December 2018
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)
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.
29 December 2018
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.
"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)
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