Fats Waller and a Hand Full of Keys!

Born on May 21, 1904, Thomas "Fats" Waller would be 106 years old!

Today is the last of my current stint of the "real" world chewing up my time...in 12 short hours I shall be free and back to my life of semi-leisure! If only the day could move along like the rhythm of Fats' piano roll!

I'll talk more about the great Mr. Waller in the future...for now it's enough to lay back and pick up what he was puttin' down! Enjoy!









Thanks Fats! As much for today as 70 years ago when you were doing it! Thanks for making happy music...we need more of it!

Leon Schlesinger and the Looney Tunes He Let Happen!

Born May 20, 1884, cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger would be 126 years old today.

Intrigued by the advent of sound film in 1928, businessman Schlesinger began producing short soundies and selling them to Warner Brothers. With the success of Mickey Mouse looming large as a money maker, Leon signed to ex-Disney animators Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising to a contract to produce animation as well, and so were born the Looney Tunes with Harman & Ising's character of Bosko.

When the Harman/Ising team began to grumble for more money for the kind of experimentation Disney was doing, Schlesinger gave them the boot and started from scratch, keeping another ex-Disneyite Friz Freling (whom Leon put in charge of creating the Merrie Melodies series) and hiring young up and comers like Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones and the great Tex Avery, and moving the whole operation right on to a dilapidated and unused part of the Warner lot affectionately dubbed Termite Terrace...and the rest is history.

He even made a few appearances in Warner cartoons...here's a little Thursday cartoon break for ya!



Leon sold the franchise outright to Warner's in 1944.

Schlesinger is not really the kind of guy I usually spotlight in this blog. A pure businessman (which, agreed...is a necessary evil) Leon was not a creator. He had no sense of humor and no talent at storytelling, drawing, music,...any of the things that I deem worthwhile.

But he did a very important thing. He knew that he didn't know anything.

He gave the boys at Termite Terrace the reigns...gave them the directive that they make good cartoons that would make him a profit...then he got the hell out of the way.

In today's world of publicly held companies this isn't done. Need the approval of too many people to do nothing. When Aunt Gladys in Nebraska and the retard mook in Iowa with the 401K he wants to micro manage are the stock holders and in charge, you have too many people in the way.

Sherm Coen over at his great blog Cartoon Snap recently posted a video that shows how companies should be run and the way successful companies actually ARE run. Check it out here it's a must see.

When I saw this and realized Leon's birthday was coming up, I saw the connection immediately. When you have Clampett, Avery, Jones, Freleng, Frank Tashlin, Robert McKimson and Art Davis working for you, shouldn't you know to just shut your pie-hole and count your money?

Thanks Leon! For just stepping back and letting it happen!

Autobiographics and You

I realized the other day, that when I do my autobiographical comics as opposed to the ones with fictional characters, there are two different audiences of appreciation. There's the ones reading who are accepting the story, and those who actually know the people who I am including in my day to day life.

Here's a little inside shot for the folks on the outside...I hate to exclude anyone.

See below comparisons of some of the people who appear (willingly or not) in my blog from time to time, their caricatures and photos.

In the upper left is Mike Crowley, he plays the semi-detached/unflappable roommate in real life and sometimes in my cartoons too. Frank Terando Jr. in the upper right plays the part of "the Douche" in my strips and perfects it in real life. Mark Crowley in the bottom tier doing what he does best, telling me whatever I say is a "good idea" and then we go have a beer together.

Keep in mind that the photo studies were taken after the cartoons were drawn...life imitates cartoons and vice versa.

OH! And here's what we look like in our undercover guises when we battle evil Unobtanium Industrialists on Pandora...and then do a Beatles parody!

The album will be called "Meet the Ava-tards".

See y'all tomorrow!

Bill Everett and The Sub-Mariner

Born May 18, 1917, the late Bill Everett would have been 93 years old today!

Bill Everett kind of lives on the fringe of comic book legend. I don't believe he ever had a passion for the art or was ever a driving force in the field, but he was a major contributor none-the-less.

In the 1930's Bill had tried his hand at breaking into different newspapers and other illustrative jobs, and seems to have been fired from every one for being "too cocky"! While adrift and unemployed a friend suggested he try the newly forming comic book arena.

He went to work for Centaur and did his first page for the whopping sum of $2! That was all Everett needed to hear...a chance at steady pay. While at Centaur he created Aman, The Amazing Man and eventually rose up to the princely sum of $14 dollars a page. Not bad for the heat of the Depression.

While at Centaur, Everett contributed to an aborted project called "Motion Picture Funnies Weekly". This was to be a weekly published black and white comic book given free to movie goers as way of selling advertising as well as promoting other comics. He came up with a character who was to go down in history as one of the greats.

When the project was given up, Bill sold his story to Martin Goodman who was about to try his hand at comic book publishing. Fleshing the story out from 8 pages to 12, history was made and The Sub-Mariner made his debut appearance in the very first Marvel Comic in 1940, Marvel Comics #1!!

Here it is true-believers, enjoy!

Everett continued to work at Timely Comics (Marvel's precursor) through the 1940's in between a stint in World War II and even on some Atlas comics in the 1950's (doing both a tried revival of Sub-Mariner and horror comics) but through necessity also got jobs in the real world.

In the 1970's while in semi-retirement, he came back home to roost at Marvel, where he worked for a while doing some gorgeous work on his old pal Subby.

In 1973 Bill passed away, and in the pages of the book he had created, Marvel paged homage.

Thanks Bill! For creating one of the foundational characters in comic book history!

Stuff You May Have Missed...That I Hope You Didn't - Part Six

Happy Monday every one. The "real" world continues to eat time from me. My pocket book likes it, though my sleep habits are off a bit. I plan on getting back to new posts tomorrow, but here's one last couple of posts from last summer you may have missed...

"TURF LOG ISSUE 2: KINDEGARDEN, THE FINAL FRONTIER"

"Turf Log" issue #2. Written and Drawn in 1994, color slapped on it in 2009. It's a love story. As always, click the smaller thumbnails to view full size. Enjoy!

Some of the names of the innocent and the guilty have been changed.

The 5 comic book pages here are the original supplemental feature to Turf Log issue #2, "Kindegarten: The Final Frontier". Written and drawn by me back in 1994, with color splashed on them in 2009.

That story was a love story, so the song in the back was of course a love song...one that a 5 year old boy could get behind. This is a song you should all remember from childhood, but just in case your memory is foggy I've included this "Uncle Jeffy Pre-Approved Video" of me singing it to jog your memory.



Now that you've got the tune in your head, sing along with the comic!