Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Betty Sinnott, R.I.P.

Our sympathies to the great comic book artist Joe Sinnott on the passing of his beloved spouse Betty this morning. They were married for 56 years — they had four kids, four grandkids and even a couple of great-grandchildren — and Betty was a charming example of the old "behind every great man..." saying. That principle is somewhat antiquated but in this case, it definitely applied. So sad to lose such a wonderful lady.

• Posted at 5:35 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's two minutes of Lewis Black speaking to truth about candy corn. He knows.

• Posted at 10:22 AM · LINK

Today's Political Comment

You may or may not be following this ginned-up "controversy" about some remarks by John Kerry. Yeah, he should have known better than to phrase his "joke" the way he did. Given the political climate, anyone in public life — Democrat, Republican, sane person — has to expect that his foes will twist statements into balloon animals to make them into something else, something they can use. In fact, one of the better arguments I've heard against John Kerry as President of These United States is that he lacks the p.r. skills necessary to get and do the job.

Then again, if Awkward Phrasing were a crime, George W. Bush would be getting the death sentence just before Election Day instead of Saddam. Almost every day, that man says something that he probably does not really mean or that could be spun as such...and sometimes, his opponents pounce on the opportunity. They shouldn't. We oughta cut all these guys a little more slack and try to deal with what they mean to say, not with what their enemies can turn it into.

Two things really bother me about the whole matter of Kerry's joke...three, if you count the fact that he seems to be growing a spine just when it won't do him or the country much good. One is the distraction of it all. At a time when we should be talking about what went wrong in Iraq and how to fix it, we're talking about what went wrong in John Kerry's mouth. And the other bothersome thing is seeing John McCain, the man who'll do anything for the Republican nomination in '08, stoop to piling on Kerry for insulting the troops when he knows darn well Kerry didn't insult the troops. This weblog post says it better than I can.

• Posted at 10:17 AM · LINK

Mark's Really Trivial Comic Book History

Here's a story I promised a few days ago. Fantastic Four #128 was an unusual comic book. It had the usual 32 pages plus cover but it also had a four-page "pin-up" section on glossy paper stapled into the center — the only comic Marvel ever published like that. Why would they do such a thing? Here's why...

This issue was published not long after Marvel had upped the price of their comics from 15 cents to 20. There was a wage-price freeze on in this country — this was 1972 — and you couldn't raise the price of a product unless you could show that you were giving more for the money. A fan wrote to the appropriate commission and complained that Marvel had upped the cost of comic books like Fantastic Four. This led to some government functionary writing to Marvel...and I guess the guy didn't understand that they'd increased the cost of all their comics, not just F.F. But his letter demanded that Marvel demonstrate that Fantastic Four had made some change to justify the increase. In response, the company quickly added the four page section to the next issue. Once it was off the press, they sent a copy to the government functionary along with a fifteen-cent issue that lacked the extra pages...and he was apparently satisfied, even though it was just one issue of one of their comics.

End of problem...and another great example of Your Tax Dollars At Work.

The four page section was pencilled by John Buscema and inked by John Verpoorten. It was done at the time when Buscema had managed, for good or ill, to turn his style into a reasonable facsimile of Jack Kirby. They weren't really Buscema but they were very nice drawings, and Marvel has used them many times since on merchandise.

The Sub-Mariner illustration is on one of the upcoming Marvel Postal Stamps, which may turn out to be very appropriate. The U.S. Postal Service is seeking a rate increase that would drive the price of a first class letter up to 42 cents in Spring of 2007, which would probably mean the Marvel stamps would carry it. So a drawing done to avoid a government ban on price increases would appear on a stamp with a government price increase...or something like that. Anyway, you can figure out why it would be appropriate. It just would be, that's all.

• Posted at 12:09 AM · LINK

November 2, 2006 • Current • October 31, 2006