Borth's Buttons Bonus

We continue with Frank Borth's solo tale of Buttons' UFO from yesterday. This time we've got chapters 3-5, with possibly a special bonus for the 5th installment.

We'll talk about that when we get there. Let's get started first -

Let's go to the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. for this next chapter. In their archives is a copy of Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v24#15 that is potentially Quite Special. There are penciled notations in the margins that appear to be from Frank Borth himself. Is that possible?

Well, yes.

Just about 15 years ago, Frank Borth did an extensive interview for them regarding his time working on TCoF&F. It is quite possible that Frank either bequeathed his personal copies to them, or allowed them to scan his personal collection.

I have an inquiry submitted to the Librarians. I'll let you know if i hear back with any concrete details. Meanwhile, be aware that a couple of the notations continue on the following page -
 

Wasn't Ashtabula the home of the Rasa family?

Yeah, it's late and sleep is still elusive. We'll be back with the three concluding chapters.

page art by Frank Borth from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v24 #s 13-15 (1969)

Back To Borth's Buttons

As i noted last week when we started Draw-Along With Frank Borth, i was actually going to run another serial when i remembered that dangling bit and went back to it instead.

My sleep has still been savagely fractured - when i lay down, i'm back up within 30-90 minutes. Ugh. Much ugh.
But, since i'm up again for a bit, i decided to go ahead and start prepping pages and run the first two chapters today instead of waiting until tomorrow to begin Buttons' U.F.O.! -

Buttons' UFO was something of a successor to The Enchanted Flivver. But this time, we've got a Bathtub instead of an old auto. (Yes, there is an in-story explanation for it)

Another significant difference is that this time Frank Borth is handling both Story and Art as a solo production. The series ran in 8 chapters. Let's get started this afternoon with the first two, and we'll continue tomorrow -

Oops.
We'll see how that plays out when we continue on the morrow...

page art by Frank Borth from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v24 #s 1 & 2 (1969)

My Favorite Booby Bear (Not Bare)

Before The Bear came to stay at Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact, there was Booby Bear hanging out with Perky Penguin. For extra Fun - the strip was drawn (and written?) by Jim Mooney. Mooney is one of those guys who seemed "fresh" enough to my friends and i back in the '60s & '70s that we never realized just how long he'd been around in comics. These come to us from 1946 and he'd already been drawing comics for a half dozen years by then.

Perky Penguin And Booby Bear was a short feature, only two pages per. It started running in the second year (the first full year) of TCoF&F, and had 9 episodes that year. (#6 is my fave) Here are the first year's worth of the strip -

As noted above, my fave for this year is watching Jim Mooney getting meta and having fun with 'reality' almost 75 years ago...

Over the next few years, Perky & Booby returned for another 9 or 10 strips (plus one more a decade later, but that was a reprint). Booby Bear may have been there before The Bear, but he wasn't there nearly as long. Perhaps because Mooney was doing a lot of work for DC and proto-Marvel at the time. He was drawing Captain America and Batman & Robin, among others - so he did get pretty busy. Or maybe they just found out what else Jim liked to draw, and figured he wasn't a good fit. (Probably not that last one)

Or maybe somebody realized that Perky Booby wasn't a great combo for a Catholic comic? (And Jim walked off laughing at how long he got away with it?)

The World may never know...

page art by Jim Mooney from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v2 #s 1-4, 6, 8, 16, 17, & 19 (1946, 1947)

Hermit Ramblings

Some of you may likely have noticed what i didn't when i headed out on my monthly supply run: 
It was Labor Day.

So i traveled down the hill, into the city, and found that Costco was closed. And grocery stores hadn't received deliveries leading to many items not available. In general, a terrible supply run.

Mercifully, i was able to make another run yesterday to actually gather supplies.
Horrifyingly, i was out in the world with human things everywhere two days in a row. My hermit brain skitters to the back of the cave to withdraw into shadows. Combine that with the terrible bit on Saturday, and i'm feeling rather incapable of safely communicating with people at the moment.

But, i don't want to let the Hermit pull back too far, so a quick non-post post to keep the flow.

I've been doing a lot of work on The Third Colony, but not a lot good to show. Either it's very 'back room' work, or it's very boring work. Insane amounts of boring work.

For example - you may recall the the main UI for the game has a character display window which didn't seem to do much of anything other than show what the PC was wearing...

As you can see in the screen above, in addition to Outfit and Hairstyle, it now shows that Kelly is annoyed in this scene. There are currently about a dozen Status Poses that show Emotional State or Status Effect. Here are half of the ones currently in service to show a bit of what they cover -

Now that might not seem like an insane amount of artwork at first glance, but take a single Status Pose and multiply it by just the Outfit and Hairstyle combos available to Kelly in the first four days of the game -
 

Um, No - she can't get pregnant in the first four days - certainly not visibly so. And the Containment Suit might not look like it needs 3 different versions, but it does in other poses. The Registry Trainee uniform on the right only has two hairstyles - Kelly needs to get her hair taken care of before the Uniform is issued, and she can't change back to the base style until after Training is completed. So i at least managed to chop 1/3 off the needs for that outfit.

And, again - that's just what's available in the first four days. And there's also no outfit, so another full set of everything. After Day Four, swim suits become available, and the week following she'll start playing with amateur superhero outfits, undercover disguises, etc.,. Throughout the game she's got a few dozen outfits.

And then there's Eileen and Ben and Gene. 
Bless that Gene - he's got a severely limited wardrobe in the early stages. But Eileen's a nightmare. If she's been dosed with Lactacid or encountered some other effects, she has six potential breast sizes. Good thing she can't change her hair unless she encouters the Scissor Ghost. Then we have to add a set for Bald and 3 Growth Stages.

Insane enough? 
If not, remember that i'm also rendering walk animations in four directions for all these combinations, too. Then add on time for processing the renders and putting them into the format the game needs.

It's a real good thing that i work on this to keep the brain working, not to meet any sort of deadline or anything, eh? I'd have to fire me for making all these crazy decisions that add insane amounts to the work load.

stuff by -3- (2020)