Friday, February 17, 2006

Starr Power

An outfit called Classic Comics Press has just announced that they'll be reprinting the full run of Leonard Starr's great newspaper strip, Mary Perkins On Stage. I think that's its official name. It's my understanding that some newspapers labelled it On Stage, some called it Mary Perkins and some used the double-barrelled moniker. By any handle, it's most deserving of collection.

The strip began on February 10, 1957 and ran until September 9, 1979. Some readers probably skipped it over, thinking it was just another soap opera. While it was occasionally that, Starr was quite determined to give himself something more exciting to draw than people kissing and crying. The storylines roamed the world, verging into taut adventure and intrigue, and those who followed one sequence usually got hooked and stuck with it forever — a modest but fiercely loyal readership. It also didn't hurt that Starr, along with his friend and occasional collaborator Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones) drew the best-looking women on the comic strip page. I'm looking forward to seeing them collected even though this could be another time I'm signing on to buy a series of books for many, many years.

• Posted at 10:07 PM · LINK

eBay Auctions In Which I Won't Be Bidding

Number one in a series.

• Posted at 7:14 PM · LINK

Barristers of the Bizarre

Folks write in now and then ask me what current comics I'd recommend. There are many but today's plug is for Supernatural Law, a clever strip by the best-dressed man in comics, Batton Lash. You can experience it two ways — on paper and online — and while I prefer it on paper, the online version is free and it'll at least give you a chance to sample the exploits of Wolff and Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

The second storyline for the webcomic, "The Life-Partner of Frankenstein," has recently been completed and can now be read in full at the Supernatural Law website. In the story, a descendant of the original Dr. Frankenstein carries on the life-creation work of his family...and we all know what trouble that always causes. In this case, the trouble is a monster named Henry, who craves a mate so Doc Frankenstein whips one up and she's named Freda but then...oh, just go read it. Don't let me spoil it for you. You'll enjoy it. Batton blends fantasy and law better than anyone this side of Justice Scalia.

• Posted at 3:48 PM · LINK

Friday Hospital Blogging

I don't intend to fill this site with medical news since mine is usually just as boring as yours. However, this story is too good not to share...

This morning, I was back in an embarrassing gown at Cedars-Sinai, having a procedure which is known as an Upper G.I. Endoscopy. Basically, they knock you out and stick a little camera down your throat to check and see if all is well in your stomach. This is not as unpleasant as it sounds, it's over in a jif, and all reports from within the Evanier tummy were good news.

So it's before they wheel me in to have it done. I'm lying on a rolling hospital bed/gurney with an I.V. in one arm and a machine that constantly takes my blood pressure strapped to the other. The nurse draws the curtain back and the man on the next gurney over can see me and I can see him. He is a rather well-known TV personality-actor, and someone I have met briefly on a few occasions. He recognizes me, I recognize him. We exchange greetings and he tells me he's there for the same thing I'm there for, except that in his case, they're going in the other end.

We speak for a few more minutes and then an orderly comes and starts wheeling him off to the appropriate room. As he departs, he yells back to me, "I DON'T WANT TO READ ON YOUR WEBLOG THAT I HAD A COLONOSCOPY THIS MORNING, EVANIER! DO YOU HEAR ME? I DON'T WANT TO READ THAT ON YOUR WEBLOG!"

• Posted at 12:38 PM · LINK