Turf Log - Stan Lee is a Shmuck, Captain America Told Me So

Ted Dawson over at "Three Men in a Tub" reported yesterday that the preview trailer for the next big Marvel Comics movie "Captain America: The First Avenger" that was shown at last weekends San Diego Comic Con, featured this little tidbit in it's credits.


Hmmmmm. It's always been my understanding, that Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. At the time Stan Lee was at best, filling ink wells, fetching coffee and sandwiches and emptying trash cans for the writers and artists at Marvel...I mean Timely Comics.

It was the least he could do, I mean he was the 19 year old cousin of publisher Martin Goodman's wife...the little pimply-snot-nosed brat needed SOME kind of a job.

I can imagine though how the mix up in the credits happened though...


I guess it pays to be the last man standing. With Joe Simon and Jack Kirby both departed from this mortal coil, [IT HAS BEEN CALLED TO MY ATTENTION IN THE COMMENTS SECTION THAT JOE SIMON IS STILL ALIVE. MY APOLOGIES FOR NOT KNOWING THIS, AMMENDS TO BE MADE IN TOMORROWS BLOG!] Stan gets dibs on whatever he wants. He did after-all have a part in Captain America's revival in the 1960's...oh wait...Jack Kirby did a lot of that too.

What the hell. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Marvel's next big movie after Cap won't be coming out till next year sometime. With Stan fast approaching 90 years old, maybe he'll be dead by then, so I best get my name in the hat!


Dirty stinking Swedes. You gonna believe them and all that history junk or me???

Talk to you soon!

Music Monday - I Just Got Here A Little Too Late

I just don't dedicate enough time to singing or writing songs to suit me. And if this blog is here to give me the discipline to do so, so be it!

If I'm going to forge ahead and make up some new stuff (which is just good therapy for me) then I suppose I ought to empty the coffers of the old stuff.

This is maybe the first song I ever wrote without a partner waaaaaaaay back when I was young and dumb. It still has a lot of good rhymes in it, even if the sentiment is behind me.



Ya see...I was young and sensitive and fell for a woman, then I learned she was already married. The young adults tortured soul burns to be expressed and so I did.

Talk to you soon.

Sunday Funnies - Nemo #11 - Beautiful Pen Work from Our Past!

"Nemo: the Classic Comics Library" issue #11 from 1985 is a real eye-opener to some real geniuses of pen and ink. Forgotten masters, that shall not remain forgotten!

The kind of inspiring stuff you'd usually find at "The Pictorial Arts" , "Golden Age Comic Book Stories" or "Today's Inspiration", I'm proud to compare!




As usual, Richard Marschall offers us encouragement about preserving the past to make for a brighter future.



Nemo begins a new feature with this issue, reprinting selections of Jerry Dumas and Mort Walker's fun "insiders" comic "Sam's Strip". Lots of inside cartoonists jokes here with appearances by comic characters from other strips. Dumas has a welcoming pen that is easy on the eyes and his depictions of other artists styles is enviable.

The panel art of Clare Victor Dwiggins. Easily missed, but well worth finding treasure of a by-gone newspaper age.

James Montgomery Flagg: The begrudging cartoonist? Proof in the pudding that comic art is indeed art, and it cannot be denied when it is the right medium to express oneself.

His "Nervy Nat" has the feel of the German comics of the 1800's like Max and Moritz or the style of Hal Foster later, with the text co-existing along side the illustrations instead of being fully incorporated as in traditional comics. This just shows to me, that there are many different ways of presenting an idea in comics form. I have been enjoying doing my comics in blog form, because it allows for so much freedom of expression. Word balloons fit where they're needed and text can take over from a cartoon or step back and let the cartoon have it's impact alone. With the multi-media capabilities of sound and video, it opens up even more.

Ah, the evolving comic strip.

"Penmen from the Past" brings us the great hash-mark styled work of Charles Dana Gibson.

Just dig how expresive this line drawings are. This characters all have substance, and just from their body language and expressions you know the whole story. You know what they're thinking, saying...hell...I can even hear the timber of their voices!

His one line captions serve and a great punch to each one that brings it all home.

A complete history and samples of a long-running strip "Slim Jim". Great examples of a strip evolving over a few decades.

A few of these have difficult to read small type. Be sure to download these and enlarge in your image viewer.

No "comic attractions" blurb this time around, but I can assure you, there are loads more Nemo's coming and they're some REAL doozies. See y'all back here next week for another "Sunday Funnies"!

Talk to you soon.