tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-193873472024-03-28T09:30:31.066-04:00Kleefeld on ComicsVerbum et imago sicut unum.
Word and picture as one.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.comBlogger5310125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-36609200060267136942024-03-28T09:30:00.025-04:002024-03-28T09:30:00.138-04:00 You've Come A Long Way, Super-Baby Apparently, in 1971, smoking was the equivalent of being a superhero...<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHra__YcRJRXxYg7xjSD_9_blnaijiKK56xGURN1oAHWLDozGKtOAaqro_TbzjeyIxBj7Qt0TOc4zPpkC-1aF3pSRq12MMEkIsSjkW_YLXlt5flCcWPXlnxv1U0Rowkkn9QVEG6g/s1600/il_fullxfull.366607338_3i8r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHra__YcRJRXxYg7xjSD_9_blnaijiKK56xGURN1oAHWLDozGKtOAaqro_TbzjeyIxBj7Qt0TOc4zPpkC-1aF3pSRq12MMEkIsSjkW_YLXlt5flCcWPXlnxv1U0Rowkkn9QVEG6g/s400/il_fullxfull.366607338_3i8r.jpg" /></a></div>
It's not exactly comics but in 1971, superheroes were very much pretty exclusively <i>from</i> comic books. There were the occasional superhero made specifically for television, largely starting in the late '60s following the Batman craze, but like the Adam West show that prompted them, they were generally played for camp. So to put a superhero in a seemingly serious print ad like this would've been drawing more on feminist icon of the times, Wonder Woman who appeared on the cover<i> Ms. Magazine</i> #1 that same year, than anything else. The superhero model here, by the way, is Veronica Hamel, who appeared in many Virginia Slims ads of the time.
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However, like many things from the 1970s, I don't think this aged well.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-87098708424493298372024-03-27T09:30:00.002-04:002024-03-27T11:43:05.415-04:00Here Comes Charlie Brown Review<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0BfzNm5pMXXP0LRThsI717o2JtT4-wJyPiqBaw6FPW09jOz4dGCczDG3M100HgREn5D29BV0GC6K7ui4Q1hxWS82CUPjAokaghVL0y2g9gnU6Osqy3Ac2r8HTzHEyRMrXkJLsETWL7l5LntKc_N_8emx5QU5Tutd72X2wHaQACpmm0DF8T4I/s1000/713ZcwpU5yL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="666" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0BfzNm5pMXXP0LRThsI717o2JtT4-wJyPiqBaw6FPW09jOz4dGCczDG3M100HgREn5D29BV0GC6K7ui4Q1hxWS82CUPjAokaghVL0y2g9gnU6Osqy3Ac2r8HTzHEyRMrXkJLsETWL7l5LntKc_N_8emx5QU5Tutd72X2wHaQACpmm0DF8T4I/s320/713ZcwpU5yL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg"/></a></div><i>Peanuts</i> is possibly one of the most studied comics in the English language. In part because it ran continuously for a full half-century and in part because it was consistently just so damn good. Every strip wasn't laugh-out-loud funny, but it was rarely meant to be that in the first place. Sure, there were jokes and gags but the indelible charm of the strip came from the poigancy of the characters. That's why the strip continues to run in syndication decades after Schulz drew the last one; that's why it still appears in roughly 2,000 papers a day only down bout 30% from its height when Schulz was still drawing new ones every day. With so many people who've seen and studied the strip, then, what more is there to say about it?
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You'd be surprised.
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<i>Here Comes Chrlie Brown! A Peanuts Pop-Up</i> came out yesterday. It reprints the very first <i>Peanuts</i> strip, engineered as a pop-up, and... that's pretty much it. It's twelve pages and it's only that long because each panel of the original strip is a double-page spread.
Sounds like a bit of a "so what?", doesn't it? I mean, it's only one strip and it's possibly one of the single most well-known four panel sequence Schulz ever did. (Despite the huge array of iconongraphy he developed in the strip over time, readers saw the same ideas but not necessarily the same specific panels.) Why would you want a book reprinting something you've already seen plenty of times?
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The beauty of Schulz's work is in its elegant simplicity. Charlie Brown's head is barely more than a simple smiley face, but there's a subtlty and nuance to the specific way Schulz renders it that makes the character stand out. And that's what paper engineer Gene Kannenberg has done here. Unlike previous <i>Peanuts</i> pop-up books that do some elaborate paper-folding to make Snoopy's dog house rise up from the middle of the page or Schroeder's piano somehow unflattens into a standing instrument as improbable as the music that comes from it in the animated cartoons, Kannenberg instead works directly with Schulz's art to layer meaning into what Schulz had already drawn on the page. He notes in the Afterword how placing Charlie Brown in a higher plane for the second panel not only emphasizes the character's forward movement through the strip, but also places him ahead of Shermy in a way to indicate Shermy is talking literally behind his back. And when you start looking at the sequence in that way, with the understanding that that is part of Kannenberg's intention, you start seeing other things you may never have noticed in the strip before.
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How the steps Shermy and Patty sit on seem to widen, placing more space between them as Shermy switches to denigrating Charlie Brown. How the position of the viewer pulls back ever so slightly in the same manner. While seemingly depicting a static scene focused on two children sitting on a step, that subtlety and nuance in Schulz's linework can also be seen in his layouts and with the sense of space he generates. Maybe it's just me, but the lines that I always glossed over in the first strip in order to focus on the dialogue and characters get highlighted here in a way I had not really thought about and considered before.
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Now it's certainly possible -- dare I say, even likely -- that there has been some academic papers written on precisely this aspect of not only Schulz's work in general but this strip in particular. But for however long and tediously expository those are as academic papers, what Kannenerg has done has distilled it down in such a way that you don't even need any addiional materials. The presentment of the work alone, albeit in a slightly different way than you're used to, is a more subtle and nuanced approach that strikes me as more accessible and more elegant.
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I'm led to believe that Abrams Comic Arts is hoping to produce more of these books, although I don't know how many or which strips they might focus on. But I'm certainly down for any more like this; it's a much more effective and entertaining way to read what would otherwise be presented as a dry, academic paper. <i>Here Comes Chrlie Brown! A Peanuts Pop-Up</i> is out now, as I said, and retails for $16.99 US. Sure, you could ready a copy in the store inside a few minutes just to put it back on the shelf, but I strongly suspect you'll want to get a copy so you can revisit it much more frequently. Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-10805886504536505512024-03-26T09:30:00.133-04:002024-03-26T09:30:00.138-04:00How Comics Were Made<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtbxkoCvshtCsozNQx1XmJHqsQofPW8_OhalzAwjby5DZRwA9O2CehsCA-Sw_ykjFfop_laHJcn3e6LjHKbFscosNh7ydi6yZR6cE2zZYBuKagkeFH5ERBecUxhKlLKGkE9RlP9vkPT2EexcvwwAu4NEt1fhNoKxh_2VyXzxWvqhUCTXd0tNkS/s1024/3aa2bcb992668ffb111dbab4036396d3_original.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtbxkoCvshtCsozNQx1XmJHqsQofPW8_OhalzAwjby5DZRwA9O2CehsCA-Sw_ykjFfop_laHJcn3e6LjHKbFscosNh7ydi6yZR6cE2zZYBuKagkeFH5ERBecUxhKlLKGkE9RlP9vkPT2EexcvwwAu4NEt1fhNoKxh_2VyXzxWvqhUCTXd0tNkS/s320/3aa2bcb992668ffb111dbab4036396d3_original.jpg"/></a></div>There are <b>plenty</b> of books out there about comics. I've got an entire wall of space just behind where I'm sitting devoted to books about comics. Overviews, analyses, biographies, histories, how-to guides, art studies... Some are better than others, some are more in-depth than others. Some are for casual readers, some are for devoted academics. I know I only have a small fraction of the books that have been published on the subject, but I'm sure even that is hundreds more than I think most people would guess exist. I have five more titles in my Amazon shopping cart that I'd kind of like to get at some point, but I'm so far behind on my reading already that I've let them sit in my cart for, in at least one case, years now.
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So when I heard that
Glenn Fleishman was working on a book about comics, I initially didn't think much of it. However good it might be, why would I expect it to cover anything I don't already have a couple books on? But then I thought about his topic for a moment: how comics were/are made. Not how comics are generated -- the craft of writing and drawing -- but how comics are <i>made</i>, the physical production of them. Color separations and printing plates and all that. Some of the how-to books I have touch on this, but usually only in passing. I don't think I have any that spend even as much a single chapter on it.
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See, I've actually got a formal background in graphic design. And when I went through school for that in the 1990s, it was right at the start of that 5-10 year transition from all traditional production techniques to all digital ones. So my education still included learning how to make photostats and cut rubylith and work in a darkroom. I've been able to apply that knowledge to my interest in comics so when I hear about something like <A HRef="http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2021/06/the-original-fantastic-four-variant.html"><I>Fantastic Four</I> #110 originally being shipped out with the characters having green skin and pink costumes</A>, it was obvious to me what had happend even though most comics fans wound up scratching their heads trying to understand how a colorist could screw up so badly. (Hint: it wasn't the colorist that screwed up!) My understanding of comics production comes NOT from anything I know about comics, but from what I learned about printing processes in general totally separate from comics.
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<iframe src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/glennf/how-comics-were-made/widget/card.html?v=2" width="220" height="420" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" align="right" padding="4px" spacing="4px"></iframe>
And that's what Fleishman intends to correct with the book he's Kickstartering: <i>How Comics Were Made.</i> He's done a ton of research, talked to a lot of industry folks, and has some fascinating artifacts from the world of comics production and he's putting that all into a single book. He's really digging deep into an aspect of comics that I've never really seen dug into before. At least in any capacity that would reach beyond the people actually doing the production themselves.
As of this writing, the project has a little over two days left in the campaign and is close to -- but not quite yet at -- its goal. If you'd like to see a book like this get made, I highly suggest you pledge what you can. To my knowledge, there's nothing like this out there and I think there's a great deal that a lot of people can learn from this!Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-58518121702916032352024-03-25T09:30:00.001-04:002024-03-25T09:30:00.137-04:00How Reprints Have Changed Retailing <div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixj9f11Fhhbh9nIfEaSiUvCVHl6fvTCsHJfw0PCq0JDaBN3xHl33t9EKuU0SMqmu451gfHo3Vc88Q_4i1-3RKFe_WiVLL9StPXcHnKJqsv2MVE8aySxJAEwTajx8sCoa9XZVrM/s1600/marveltripleaction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixj9f11Fhhbh9nIfEaSiUvCVHl6fvTCsHJfw0PCq0JDaBN3xHl33t9EKuU0SMqmu451gfHo3Vc88Q_4i1-3RKFe_WiVLL9StPXcHnKJqsv2MVE8aySxJAEwTajx8sCoa9XZVrM/s320/marveltripleaction.jpg" /></a></div>About 20 years ago, I was spending a lot of my comics reading trying to become better versed in the Marvel Universe. Particularly the early 1960s material. I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the early days of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Avengers, and the X-Men, so I turned my attention to Dr. Strange. The previous ones weren't too bad because, while I couldn't afford the originals in many cases, they were all popular enough to warrant a variety of reprints, most notably the <i>Marvel Masterworks.</i><br />
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Dr. Strange wasn't as popular, though. He had only one of the last of the original Masterworks volumes devoted to him, and it quickly proved difficult to find even a few short years after its publication, with available copies fetching fairly high prices. I ended up spending a lot of time tracking down a weird mish-mash of titles (<i>Doctor Strange Classics</i>, <i>Marvel Tales</i>, <i>Giant-Size Marvel Triple Action</i>, later issues of <i>Strange Tales</i>...) trying to complete his story. <br />
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Now, of course, it's much easier. The Masterworks line was revived in both hardcover and paperback, with a total of six Dr. Strange volumes. There've been four volumes of <i>The Essential Doctor Strange. </i>Not to mention that many are available digitally. And that's Dr. Strange, who's never been a particularly big seller for Marvel. (Though his standin certainly has improved since his movie debut.)<br />
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Much has been written already about how this cornucopia of reprint material has made it much more difficult to sell individual back issues. The market for them is pretty much just collectors looking for the original artifacts now, as opposed to readers who want the stories. (Which the publishers, by the way, don't care about. They make absolutely nothing off back issues sales, whereas issuing a new reprint of the same material will bring revenue back to them.) What I'm wondering about, though, is the after-market sales of these reprints.<br />
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Like I said earlier, that Dr. Strange Masterworks book was hard to find and pricey when I did find it. But I can go to Amazon right now, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0785191372/4freedomsplazaA/">order a 2015-printed copy</a> for less than $30. The <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0785133070/4freedomsplazaA/">2008-printing of <i>Essential Doctor Strange</i></a> is less than $25. I can still track down older copies, but unless I was a collector on the hunt for that particular edition, why would I?<br />
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The implication of that is that comic shops, the ones who have largely dropped their back issue stock in favor of selling trade paperbacks and hardcovers, are even less like used book stores than they used to be and more like a niche contemporary bookstore. By that I mean that customers aren't going to browse their stock of books hoping to find an old Masterworks that has never been re-priced; they're going to browse a curated selection of contemporary books published within the past couple of years at most.<br />
<br />A while back,
I <a href="http://icv2.com/articles/columns/view/33058/view-game-store-one-week-comic-cycle">read a piece</a> where a retailer noted that any pamphlet book that doesn't sell in ten days is like spoiled milk and effectively unsellable. I'm suggesting that the TPB and HC aspects of their ordering isn't much different, perhaps having a shelf life a little longer than ten days but probably not more than a month. With some exceptions like <I>Understanding Comics</I> and <I>Watchmen</I> that are perennial sellers, a reprint collection isn't worth much after its initial publication because another edition will likely be coming around soon anyway. <br />
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Comic shops used to be operated not unlike a library, with the goal being one of maintaining a deep selection of material. I wonder now if they're more akin to a simple mailstop -- just central location for people to pick up what's passing through. There have always been huge challenges in running a comic shop, but as I'm reflecting on it, I think they've shifted even more radically than I had been thinking before. <br />
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I've been making the argument for several years now that a shop almost needs to become a destination in and of itself in order to stay solvent. It can't be just a place to pick up comics or discover new ones; it has to be a place to <I>be</I>, where you hang out and become part of a community. In light of my thinking above, I think that notion of a comic shop needing to be the primary reason someone goes there (with picking up comics being a secondary consideration) is more imperative than ever.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-62301489882674592822024-03-24T10:18:00.001-04:002024-03-24T10:18:31.222-04:00Weekly Recap<img src="http://seankleefeld.com/kleefeldicon1.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" />Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...<br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: When Did Shuster Meet Kirby?<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/ZyeA6Ev">https://ift.tt/ZyeA6Ev</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: A Bit Off Topic<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/2bF1pcV">https://ift.tt/2bF1pcV</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Random Request<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/JaXWU1o">https://ift.tt/JaXWU1o</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Through Fences Review<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/LXr97m5">https://ift.tt/LXr97m5</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Curiosity Estate Sale<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/D7JNAZU">https://ift.tt/D7JNAZU</a><br />
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Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-75335869914919391282024-03-22T09:30:00.001-04:002024-03-22T09:30:00.144-04:00Curiosity Estate Sale<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFxCBo53UtRyo37fyOPOLnOTdEHHknQUWoRMMaPf9NjGjFFTu3p7EZ8_mYKnf83rWd7Tjkxc5DHNAZtXZMxdhu938ZhsLP06xIJhCEegxdkRcZaznCCcKdLi7pGhuDPXXs8I3JMBN1goKyb-yyqlkhtQkjh82rfVYvpccnJio0Goy-qNb-Sct/s1199/3662cd37-0f10-4748-91cc-5946ee9b61b8.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="799" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZFxCBo53UtRyo37fyOPOLnOTdEHHknQUWoRMMaPf9NjGjFFTu3p7EZ8_mYKnf83rWd7Tjkxc5DHNAZtXZMxdhu938ZhsLP06xIJhCEegxdkRcZaznCCcKdLi7pGhuDPXXs8I3JMBN1goKyb-yyqlkhtQkjh82rfVYvpccnJio0Goy-qNb-Sct/s320/3662cd37-0f10-4748-91cc-5946ee9b61b8.jpg"/></a></div>Mark Thomas, founder and owner of counter culture landmark <A HRef="https://www.thealleychicago.com/">The Alley</A>, is holding an estate sale this weekend. The store is doing fine; I gather that he's downsizing his living space and is just trying to get rid of a bunch of stuff that's piled up over the years. And that's why I thought to bring it up here.
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While The Alley itself is mostly known for clothes and accessories, Thomas' collection of effemera basically looks like a personal version of The Oddities & Curiosities Expo. Everything from taxidermied bats to Bettie Page posters to skull-shaped incense holders to original signed prints from photography Peter Amft to tribal masks from Africa. But of particular interest here today is that he also has some comics related material available as well. He has several pages of original art from Mark Frierson's "Stranger Than Fiction" strip, one from Doug Storer's "Amazing but True" comic, a collection of Lady Death action figures (MIB), what looks like a still-unassembled Dr. Doom vinyl model kit, and a large framed poster of the cover <i>Creepy</i> #39. There's probably some other stuff as well, but that's what popped out as I was scrolling through some of the photos.
<br><br>If you're in the Chicago area today or this weekend, it might be worthwhile to swing by and see what's available.
(A href="https://www.estatesales.net/IL/Chicago/60618/3994092">Link to the estate sale listing</A> with the location and hours.)
Even if you don't pick up anything, there certainly seems to be <b>plenty</b> of interesting things to look at!Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-7738274719694329072024-03-21T09:30:00.171-04:002024-03-21T09:30:00.141-04:00Through Fences Review<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha62NEGLMBb_GXhh5Vjd7UPjABK6jx47iRy7twJn01s0MByxxnk3Il6QpXN_c9G-AMl0E_7mx_cEm23udqbvVL0xpOCYPL23_0jMrWSiNmzX4X7wQ4o9PeIvV6aPngyKWVr4XacNoy5pzApUuAlOgk6Z2lJwCv4gAavIIwYkoTMndk5zfmnPVz/s1000/910W-oKtwqL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="668" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha62NEGLMBb_GXhh5Vjd7UPjABK6jx47iRy7twJn01s0MByxxnk3Il6QpXN_c9G-AMl0E_7mx_cEm23udqbvVL0xpOCYPL23_0jMrWSiNmzX4X7wQ4o9PeIvV6aPngyKWVr4XacNoy5pzApUuAlOgk6Z2lJwCv4gAavIIwYkoTMndk5zfmnPVz/s320/910W-oKtwqL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg"/></a></div>It wasn't until I went off to college that I started to get a real sense of how many people lived very different types of lives than me. Intellectually, I certainly learned that years earlier but I had never really been in a position where I could actually <i>see</i> how people lived.
It was, in fact, part of why I chose to go to a large, urban university instead of something smaller and/or more local. I knew there was much more out there than I was seeing in the town where I grew up; where I was was far too limited and limiting, I felt. So I moved from a town with a population of around 7,000 to a school that had an undergraduate population of 35,000 in a city of 360,000.
And while that was certainly very eye-opening at the time, I can look back on that and see how incredibly insular that still was. After all, the percentage of Americans with college degrees was only about 21% at the time; which meant that a whopping 79% of the country's population did not. I was still very much seeing a relatively niche segment of people.
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Much of my adult life has been about expanding my horizons, both intellectually as well as empathetically. I've tried to gain a better understanding and appreciation of how other people live, regardless of where they're from or what their background is. Some of that comes naturally with age; just by living longer, you meet more people and statistically the more people you meet the more likely it is you'll run into someone with a different background than your own. But I don't find that to be nearly sufficient. In part because I wouldn't even know where to begin in many places.
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So when a book like <i>Though Fences</i> by Frederick Luis Aldam and Oscar Garza comes along, I try to snatch it up quickly. The book actually contains a series of short stories -- barely more than vignettes, really -- of seven Latino kids and young people that live along the US/Mexico border. None of them live especially unusual lives; like everybody else, they do what they can to get through the day, and try to take advantage of opportunities when they come up. Some of those opportunities pan out, some don't. Same as the rest of us. Most try to exercise some control over their lives, but for a variety of reasons, they're not always able. Same as the rest of us.
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The stories touch on the lives of these people and, while they aren't exactly shown to be living lives of luxury, there's no gratuitious attempt to pull on the reader's heart strings. These stories are presented pretty matter-of-factly, I think with the deliberate intention to show how matter-of-fact these types of stories are for many people. Of the seven stories, there are only two that explicitly show the protagonists' situation as the same as a large group, but it's not at all hard to extrapolate how common all of these stories are. One kid talks about how he always wanted to be on TV and wound up being on a reality police show; <i>Cops</i> has been running for 35 seasons with over 30 episodes in most seasons -- it's kind of amazing everybody hasn't been on the show at some point! But yeah, it's easy to see that while some of the details of each story might be unique, the general circumstances very much are not.
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I've read Aldama's work before and I expected the stories themselves to be solid. They very much are, taking a first person perspective with the speech patterns and idiosyncrasies of language unique to each protagonist. There are a few bits of Spanish dropped in in places, and some lolspeak in one story, but nothing I don't think is critical to getting the story across. Admittedly, though, I do recall enough high school Spanish that I was able to get the gist of the handful of instances where it's used in the story. The only thing I felt compelled to look up actually was a three-letter combination of lolspeak that I didn't recognize. So, like I said, no surprise that Aldama turned into some solid storytelling and characterizations.
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I have to admit to being surprised by Garza's art. I was not familiar with his work prior to this, so I had no expectations going in, but he really did a fantastic job throughout the book. He actually drew each story in a slightly different style that's appropriate for that particular story and/or protagonist. The first story, for example, is told by a fairly young girl and none of the other characters portrayed have their heads shown; everything gets cropped off around the shoulders and neck... because that's the physical perspective such a young girl would have! The last story is about a sixteen-year-old who claims to be TikTok famous, so her story is largely told through the camera lens on her phone. Other approaches are more subtle, but if I mention them here, it might prove to be something of a spoiler in several cases. I wouldn't have expected the levels of nuance that Garza brings to the table, based on some of the cartoony art I saw in the previews, but he really brought his A-game to the table on this.
<br><br>
I have to say that I was really impressed with <i>Though Fences</i> and it did an even better job connecting me with those stories where I wouldn't otherwise know where to begin finding. I'd easily recommend this to folks looking to expand their perspecives on what things can be like along the border. The book came out in January from Mad Creek Books, and retails for $17.95 US.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-69879158231800690332024-03-20T09:30:00.009-04:002024-03-22T15:17:08.128-04:00Random RequestApparently, I'm mostly doing tangetial-to-comics topics this week. Today, I'm talking about action figures.
Nothing complicated, though; just a list of comics related action figures that I would like to see made in a 6-inch scale that could pair with Marvel Legends and Mattel's DC figures and the like.
I know some of these have been prototyped or made in different sizes, but as far as I can tell, none of these characters have actually been produced in that scale. Probably because most of them are financially practical. But
in no particular order...
<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP41GbXGav8g50ss86HoigzRyX_aNlo403DO8FQEevc4h6ug26NEOcwubPk2E4o0TOOcsOP3YzsQN04mePxx5L4BJDbhrZfJEKYZxTV4G0B58VXMY8U6uI3rhle53RvnWi1QnhaDY4z-_wmHtld30kxTs_vvKOu66IHXmQPKLiln07ef7orxNH/s640/SHocker.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP41GbXGav8g50ss86HoigzRyX_aNlo403DO8FQEevc4h6ug26NEOcwubPk2E4o0TOOcsOP3YzsQN04mePxx5L4BJDbhrZfJEKYZxTV4G0B58VXMY8U6uI3rhle53RvnWi1QnhaDY4z-_wmHtld30kxTs_vvKOu66IHXmQPKLiln07ef7orxNH/s320/SHocker.jpg"/></a></div>
<Ul>
<LI>The Phantom</LI>
<LI>Flash Gordon</li>
<lI>Golden Age Daredevil </LI>
<LI>The Claw</LI>
<LI>The Heap</LI>
<LI>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</LI>
<LI>The Sandman and Sandy (I know Wesley Dodds has been done as the gasmask-wearing Sandman; I'm talking about the purple/yellow costume specifically here.)</LI>
<lI>The Green Turtle</LI>
<LI>Nelvana</LI>
<LI>Golden Age Red Tornado (Ma Hunkle)</LI>
<LI>Atomic Robo</LI>
<LI>Girl Genius</LI>
<LI>Captain Klutz</LI>
<LI>The Mole Man's monster from <I>Fantastic Four</I> #1</LI>
<LI>Rama-Tut</LI>
</UL>
Also, as a minor rant... the seven inch scale is just dumb. A six inch scale makes sense; it's easy math: one inch equal one foot. Any accessories or vehicles or playsets can be rescaled quickly. Easy peasy. Seven inch scale, though? One foot scales down to 1.2 inches. Yeah, it's 1/10 the size but that only make sense if you're on a metric system; imperial units don't scale well that way. Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-62554994536270696922024-03-19T09:30:00.064-04:002024-03-19T09:30:00.127-04:00A Bit Off TopicContent warning: discussion of suicides
<br><br>Here in Illinois today, voting is underway for the Democratic and Republican primaries. It's basically an election just within a given political party to see who formally will represent the party later in November. And I find myself thinking about the people I've known who committed suicide. (There is a connection there that I'll make in a bit.) Officially, World Suicide Prevention Day isn't until September 10 but suicides can happen at any time, so I'm going to about it now as it's top of mind for me.
<br><br>
My first "encounter" with suicide was when I was sixteen. The brother of my good friend, Jim, his life. He was several years older than us and I had only met him very briefly twice. Consequently, I don't know what he may have been going through or dealing with. I really only knew the impact it had on my friend. He never talked about it much, but I got the impression that it came from some issues that his brother had been wrestling with for most, if not his entire, adolesence. But given the town and the era, I expect most people's response to his pain was, "Be a man and suck it up!" Which clearly didn't help. Jim seemed to manage our remaining time in high school reasonably well; I think he knew and at least internally acknowledged that his brother was unwell, so he was able to process that it wasn't anyone's "fault" per se. I've never been able to keep up with him, though, to see how he fared beyond high school -- he has a fairly common name so it's almost impossible to look him up. There are at least a half dozen people with the same name about the right age living in the same region as where we grew up, and he never struck me as the type to even consider signing up for any social network platform, even just to see what the fuss was about! Jim, if by some chance, you happen to read this, let me know how you're doing.
<br><br>
The way my college degree program was set up, pretty much everything after freshman year has us pretty isolated into our cohort. There were about 25 of us that took all of the same courses in the same order at the same time. I think we each got an elective during senior year, but otherwise all 25 of us were in literally every class together for four years. Obviously, some people got along better than others, but I think we were all pretty friendly with one another. There was one guy who seemed initially pretty fun-loving and care-free; Paul always had a smile on his face and was often making jokes. I did get to know him a little better during our the program, and later came to realize he was more of a manic-depressive type. He was able to turn on the jovial attitude for larger groups, but he could get a bit more somber when you were with him by yourself. A couple years after we graduated, I learned that Paul had moved out to California and one day just walked into the ocean. I didn't know him well enough to know what exactly he was going through, but I did know him well enough to not be overly surprised. Paul carried a darkness with him that you could only glimpse occassionally, and only after spending a fair amount of time with him. When I knew him, though, I was young and inexperienced enough to recognize that for what it was.
<br><br><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2awpHAWx-Rdy0sg-HnNWfUr5yVlt5gzX_WLWvhan_AUlaRhNBc597SJ5ymSUF-gwsvF6Fcc-psG_5mnrZXTfqXquTQhvlqqT_MQj469SsaoAIIWYuQozSQ8Xu8MUxAAXyWOdx/s1600-h/GB13310976.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010980219603710370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2awpHAWx-Rdy0sg-HnNWfUr5yVlt5gzX_WLWvhan_AUlaRhNBc597SJ5ymSUF-gwsvF6Fcc-psG_5mnrZXTfqXquTQhvlqqT_MQj469SsaoAIIWYuQozSQ8Xu8MUxAAXyWOdx/s320/GB13310976.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"></a>
I only ever knew Gregg electronically; we never met in person. Initially, he helped me on my old FFPlaza website, writing issue reviews and such, but over time, we got to know each other better talking about work and relationship problems and forty-year-old TV shows and whatever else. He would occassionally disappear offline for a while, only to pop back up months later. Eventually, he confided in me that he suffered from depression and those times that he went silent were when things got bad for him. He repeatedly tried getting treatment but kept running into beaurocratic roadblocks that would sometimes prevent him from being able to go to therapy and/or refill his prescriptions. On one occassion, he tried committing suicide but was found in time and rushed to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. But a year later, I found out from Gregg's brother that a second attempt was his final one. Gregg probably had the most "classical" form of depression-leading-to-suicide that's what most people would recognize, and I regret that we lived far enough apart that I wasn't able to see and act on that more directly.
<br><br>
Derek's passing was similar in that I was also physically removed from day-to-day life with him, but he ran into a different set of issues. He was a recovering alcholic, but I did not know that when I first met him. In fact, it wasn't something he ever mentioned to me one way or another. Like so many friendships, we originally met to talk about comics but little bits of our own lives would trickle in to the conversations and we got to know each other over time. However, when his father started showing signs of dementia, he moved away from his family to take care of him. Despite several other relatives living much closer already, none were willing/able to help at all and Derek felt responsible enough that he wound up taking on much of that burden himself. While this would be challenging for most people in the best of circumstances, his father's condition also meant that he got increasingly emotionally and verbally abusive. Without his normal support network -- his wife was still working at her job over 1000 miles away -- Derek returned to drinking and one day, after several months of this, effectively drank himself to death. His death was accidental, but again, with no nearby support network, he had no one able to check up on him.
<br><br>
Most recently, and why the primary elections have me thinking about suicides, is my friend Matt, who passed away in 2022. Of the five people I've noted here, I easily knew Matt the longest. We had more than a little in common and our discussions ranged all over the map. One thing I always found particularly interesting about them is how we would come at an issue with significantly different approaches, but arrive at similar, if not identical, conclusions. I might look at something with an economic outlook backed by my MBA and he might come at it from the perspective of political history, which was something of great interest to him. And with each of us looking at the same issue independently, we came up with different -- but decidedly complimentary -- reasons to come to the same answer. In the past decade or so of his life, Matt became decidedly more political. I suspect this had to do with his moving to Ohio and seeing how the politics were surprisingly different than his home state of Iowa. He was a very active participant in a variety of campaigns, helping local mayors and state representatives get elected that he felt could make things better for Ohioans. But after several years of that, and seeing first-hand how the political machinery actually operated, he found himself asking, quite literally, "What can<b> <i>I</i></b> do?" <br><br>
He asked that to me directly in a very non-rhetorical sense. He had spent years directly and actively helping to get the "right" people elected and helping to get "better" legislation passed, and came to the conclusion that what he did hadn't ultimately mattered. Not that he didn't help sway votes, not that his preferred candidates didn't try to do what they said they were going to do, not that anyone said he wasn't doing enough... but rather, he looked at the political machinery directly and eventually realized that it was so much bigger and more fundamentally broken than any elected official -- from the US President to the most insignificant alderman -- could do to make a meaningful difference. The political system was an almost sentient gaping void of corrupt power in and of itself; Matt stared into that abyss, and it looked into him. He wrestled for several years with how to come to terms with that and, ultimately, decided that it was meaningless. It would only end when it collapsed in on itself, and he didn't want to live in the inevitable chaos that would follow that. That typifies our biggest difference of outlook: he was more of a nihilist whereas I'm more of an existentialist. (Although both labels are a bit reductionist in this context.)
<br><br>
The reason why I'm listing these all out is that, from my decidedly third-party perspective, they all looked very different and only one of them -- at most -- looked anything like what I think most people would consider a "typical" suicide.
After Gregg's death, I started trying to be decidedly more conscious and aware of potential warning signs people might be exhibiting, but because each one of these looked different, I have 100% failed in that capacity.
I think that in many cases, particularly those where there's some level of significant physical separation, it's virtually impossible to pick up on potential concerns. It's easy to write off someone's depression as simple tiredness or temporary fatigue if you only see it in small doses, and many people indeed do try to pass it off like that. Or perhaps they acknowledge the mood, but dismiss it as being depressed (a temporary state) versus having depression (a mental disorder). Again, the two might be indistinguishable to an outsider with minimal exposure. <br><br>
Everybody has bad days from time to time, and I'm not suggesting you start dragging someone to a therapist the moment they're not visibly happy. But please be aware that not everybody who's contemplating suicide look and acts the way you might expect, and it doesn't hurt to check in on any of your friends or relatives.<br><br>
If you yourself are in need of help, please please <i>please</i> contact the <A HRef="https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/">National Suicide Prevention Lifeline</A>
at 800-273-8255. If you have recently lost someone to suicide, here are some resources that my friend Matt himself had posted right after his passing.
<center><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Resources in case of need:<a href="https://t.co/k0JhFOOjCP">https://t.co/k0JhFOOjCP</a><a href="https://t.co/15lWvgzNM4">https://t.co/15lWvgzNM4</a><a href="https://t.co/jfWjNZLSDl">https://t.co/jfWjNZLSDl</a></p>— Matt Kuhns (@mjkuhns) <a href="https://twitter.com/mjkuhns/status/1538645045754023937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></center>Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-34900594097465668222024-03-18T09:30:00.038-04:002024-03-18T09:30:00.132-04:00When Did Shuster Meet Kirby?Here's a relatively well-known picture of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...<Center>
<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAr9kDhHAWH9APvhFc1nbBFcbKzQStNAdmLULl4eT8GFRqpC8-d7AfyfMYbWieeTzI1scmQ5tB_t0V7Npp9qvGnrJMRZx4zppJVIqAi3sQP0hgbU66J03Ds4PY3L9wmYdNeDaW3OkEgCXmBV3UmRx1bqTckNGK6iReSP0yu82544BSeoWgtcg/s1176/Screen+Shot+2020-03-09+at+10.57.25+AM.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="600" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="1176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnAr9kDhHAWH9APvhFc1nbBFcbKzQStNAdmLULl4eT8GFRqpC8-d7AfyfMYbWieeTzI1scmQ5tB_t0V7Npp9qvGnrJMRZx4zppJVIqAi3sQP0hgbU66J03Ds4PY3L9wmYdNeDaW3OkEgCXmBV3UmRx1bqTckNGK6iReSP0yu82544BSeoWgtcg/s600/Screen+Shot+2020-03-09+at+10.57.25+AM.png"/></a></div>
</center>
The piece of art on the drawing table -- the splash page debuting the Boy Commandos from <i>Detective Comics</i> #64 -- suggests this photo was taken in 1942. Both men went into the service in 1943.
<br><br>
But I bring this photo up today not to try to date it. Check out the back wall, just above Kirby's head. That's clearly a drawing of Superman. Although it's a little too out of focus to really see any details, the basic pose is very reminiscent of how Shuster drew the character posing, and the "S" emblem on his chest is in a simple triangle, not the more familiar shield shape that became close-to-standard about a year before this photo was taken. This image looks like a mirror image of the cover from <i>Superman</i> #6.
<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOQWmmxz2XZ_xWuY_rkPlS1MuzHobCrYnv3R8D3fvPXcLB1mIYQhUNOQPXhNWnj6sHExF0IdB5VJsqb0bGW2rKmb-HYmkn2XbDriy-X90zXyBbVw2TOc-umbPXS5YofWaw0BvK8I4vjV1-_njoYDh2CDqLvBHARfWCOCryFu-pq1omPfSPdE0/s553/15328.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOQWmmxz2XZ_xWuY_rkPlS1MuzHobCrYnv3R8D3fvPXcLB1mIYQhUNOQPXhNWnj6sHExF0IdB5VJsqb0bGW2rKmb-HYmkn2XbDriy-X90zXyBbVw2TOc-umbPXS5YofWaw0BvK8I4vjV1-_njoYDh2CDqLvBHARfWCOCryFu-pq1omPfSPdE0/s200/15328.jpg"/></a></div>
<br><br>
So was this a sketch of Superman that Shuster himself did a year or two prior to this photo? Was this done by either Simon or Kirby to see how close they could come to replicating the style of the insanely popular comic?
It seems to me, too, that the drawing is done directly on the wall -- I don't see any edges of a piece of paper. Did Shuster visit the Simon & Kirby studio at some point and doodle that on the wall? Or maybe one of the other Superman artists -- Paul Cassidy or Fred Ray perhaps? Although that seems unlikely since they were all-but-ghosting for Shuster at that point -- that doesn't strike me as something they'd "celebrate" by drawing someone else's character in someone else's style on someone else's wall. It was actually Ray who changed the "S" trinagle to a shield shape, and he mostly only did Superman covers anyway. And Cassidy was working remotely out of Milwaukee.
But there was still a number of artists who professionally worked on Superman at that point, including several on the newspaper strip alone.
<br><br>
I'd be curious if anyone has done any more investigating about that particular Superman drawing. Was it actually drawn by Shuster? If so, what was he doing in the Simon & Kirby studio? Comic artists were a relatively insular community, but I don't recall ever reading about Shuster actually meeting with any other artists in the 1940s that didn't wind up drawing Superman with/for him. And if it was Simon or Kirby, why draw someone else's character while they were trying to bust their butts to invent new ones? And why put someone else's character on directly on their studio wall? I have lots of questions here that I've looked for answers to off and on for a few years without coming up with anything. Do any of you have any ideas?Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-89334669253893205542024-03-17T10:13:00.001-04:002024-03-17T10:13:25.426-04:00Weekly Recap<img src="http://seankleefeld.com/kleefeldicon1.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" />Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...<br />
<br />
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Stamped from the Beginning Review<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/1bE5hVk">https://ift.tt/1bE5hVk</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Giant-Size FF #1 Review<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/qSDUKJf">https://ift.tt/qSDUKJf</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: The Flash Gordon Solution?<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/n6PUor4">https://ift.tt/n6PUor4</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Whither Jungle Action?<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/rdMX3cu">https://ift.tt/rdMX3cu</a><br />
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<div><br /></div>
Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-88302350272251857022024-03-14T09:30:00.007-04:002024-03-14T09:30:00.143-04:00Whither Jungle Action?<div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JodOE3apOAR0E8TFpvFUl2l3sgR5XBX1XqZCGsxe9M_886w28PVwnCbAul-Vx8ppFkaKQsEU48YTyd-DTnvFmqS3cx6qwG2KY5E3RX7K0gSvforbZxnjrDt8bHpPlnTcoNFw/s1600/51980_20060717081120_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7JodOE3apOAR0E8TFpvFUl2l3sgR5XBX1XqZCGsxe9M_886w28PVwnCbAul-Vx8ppFkaKQsEU48YTyd-DTnvFmqS3cx6qwG2KY5E3RX7K0gSvforbZxnjrDt8bHpPlnTcoNFw/s320/51980_20060717081120_large.jpg" width="209" height="320" data-original-width="455" data-original-height="695" /></a></div>Years ago, I was collecting and collating historical information on the first 100-ish issues of the Fantastic Four. Creator interviews talking about that period, letters pages, scans of original art... whatever I could get my hands on. My idea was to write a book about the FF's creation, using as many as-close-to-first-hand sources as possible. I never got around to writing it -- I had trouble believing there was an audience for it -- but Mark Alexander eventually put together <a href="http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=95_97&products_id=986">more or less the same thing</a>. <br />
<br />
Anyway, I've still got the binder of materials I put together, and it includes some print-outs of a Yahoo Group discussion from 2002 (not surprisingly given its age, now removed) about the Black Panther. One question that piqued my interested was why Don McGregor's <i>Jungle Action </i>got abruptly canceled in late 1976, only to be replaced by Jack Kirby's <i>Black Panther</i> two months later? Jim Kosmicki had a fascinating history/analysis of that period, and I thought I might re-present it here... <Blockquote>70's Marvel appears to have been ripe with inter-personal politics. When Kirby came back, he only wanted to be left alone. He took his characters and pulled them away from the Marvel Universe. He wasn't interested in continuity. Remember that Kirby was the originator of T'Challa (there's evidence of a character named Coal Tiger in his files that shows that he had wanted to do this character for a while before it showed up in FF). When he came back to Marvel after going to DC in the early 70's, he didn't want to work on other people's characters. There was a deliberate attempt to keep these stories separate from what had been done before with the characters -- to go back to the original concepts of the characters as envisioned by Jack. He wanted Captain America back, as his claim to that character dated pre-Marvel, and the only other character he'd co-created who was considered available was the Black Panther. <br />
<br />
Now, your question is WHY was Black Panther considered available? Remember that we are remembering Jungle Action from the benefit of hindsight. JA was popular with a certain level of reader, but was never a popular hit. The vast majority of comic buyers at this point in time were still young boys, not older fans of the medium. JA never rose above bi-monthly status, which indicates that its sales were solid enough to avoid cancellation, but not enough to raise it to monthly status. This is true of most of the more "adult" Marvel books of the 70's: Warlock, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, Killraven, etc.<br />
<br />
Kirby was pure action and perfect for that target audience. There should be circulation figures in issues of JA and BP that would allow one to compare the relative popularity of the two runs. I would guess that the Kirby version probably sold a little better, but to an entirely different audience than JA. (unfortunately neither audience was big enough -- maybe if they could have been combined somehow).<br />
<br />
As I recall, and I'm sure people on this list, including Don, can attest, Don's books, even though most were bimonthly, were often late on deadlines. Marvel was very sensitive about this issue, to the point that when Jim Shooter took over, he instituted several policies guaranteeing "fill-in" issues be ready at a moment's notice. If JA was one of those chronically late books, taking it away and giving it to Jack, who never missed a deadline, could be seen as a good business decision. Not an artistic decision, but a business decision.<br />
<br />
In addition, comic distributors were always very cautious about offending people in the rural midwest and South. There are anecdotes galore about how publishers wouldn't even allow black characters or heroes because it would offend major distributors. In a newstand distribution model, if you don't get distributed, you don't even have a chance to sell your product. The story against the Klan could very well have been creating some of these negative reactions. Newstand distributors in the 70's were an odd bunch. Again, there are many different stories, but if they decided to kill a book, they could. They could simply refuse to put the book out, and automatically claim a return against the "unsold" copies. There's some strong anecdotal evidence that many "hot" books of the 70's like Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Kirby's Fourth World books were being sold in case lots out the back door and then those copies claimed as unsold because they were never counted as having been distributed through "normal" channels. The Klan story could very well have given these distributors a reason to stop pushing a marginal title, whether there was any actual public outcry or not.<br />
<br />
And that is important, I think. JA was a marginal book. It's artistic impact may have been strong, and as you indicate in your email it's impact in the black community was disproportionate, but overall, the Panther was not a mainline character. He was published to a small but loyal audience. The publisher made a business decision to try a new approach to try to reach a larger, more profitable audience. I don't think that there was any conspiracy or even any racial overtones to the decision.<br />
<br />
After all, Marvel has consistently tried to revive the Panther, so there's clearly some appeal to the character in the editorial offices. They finally concluded the Klan storyline in Marvel Premiere late in the 70's, the Panther was a long-running part of their bi-weekly Marvel Comics Presents title, there was the 4 part bookshelf series, and the revived series written by Christopher Priest. <br />
<br />
There probably was a personality conflict that caused JA to be cancelled and given to Kirby, but it was also justifiable as a business decision. Ironically, Kirby's treatment in his second tenure at Marvel was a horror show, partially because people resented books like JA being cancelled and the Panther given to him.</blockquote>Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-47294349070544723482024-03-13T09:30:00.168-04:002024-03-13T09:30:00.151-04:00The Flash Gordon Solution?<center><div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJaQE4dXWl0CgFJ2IJkPdbdG6sODEOuexZ2QsDi6V6ltJDAud7Hqhn4tZQGKfv5WjH_Wx-v8QHp1PUbWgLB_zIXOaUHdERxv4yyWKv2GtTkwSASq35GAYT4uHIh2TzsR2eBOoJlEgVvJITkUJ-jxZ3VlKoUQC3yn6ZthQlW9hs5p0CufMyynWt/s1700/1%207%2024++Flash+Gordon+sunday+-+90th+anniversary.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="1700" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJaQE4dXWl0CgFJ2IJkPdbdG6sODEOuexZ2QsDi6V6ltJDAud7Hqhn4tZQGKfv5WjH_Wx-v8QHp1PUbWgLB_zIXOaUHdERxv4yyWKv2GtTkwSASq35GAYT4uHIh2TzsR2eBOoJlEgVvJITkUJ-jxZ3VlKoUQC3yn6ZthQlW9hs5p0CufMyynWt/w640-h149/1%207%2024++Flash+Gordon+sunday+-+90th+anniversary.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></center>
Dan Schkade debuted as the new writer/artist for King Features' <i>Flash Gordon </i>comic strip back in October. Before that, the strip had been in reruns since 2003. Like many adventure strips, it had been suffering from a seemingly perpetual dwindling readership for decades, in large part because of the newspapers' decisions to shrink their comics sections. When Alex Raymond created the strip in 1934, newspapers afforded comics a sizeable chunk of of their space to comics. Adventure strips like<i> Flash Gordon</i> and <i>Prince Valiant </i>would get an entire half page or more; this allowed artists to do wonderfully detailed drawings and spend a great deal of time advancing the story. However after seeing successes like <i>Peanuts</i> and <i>Beetle Bailey </i> which used exceptionally simplified drawings (i.e. cartoons), newspaper editors realized they could shrink them down significantly while they still remained legible, meaning they could put more on a page. They increasingly demanded all strips be shrunk down, to the point where jokes about each panel being no larger than a postage stamp date back to the mid-1990s. With such a tiny physical space, artists could not include many details and adventure strips with their ongoing storylines in particular suffered pretty heavily.
<br /><br />
Part of the problem with adventure strips being forced into that format isn't so much that the art itself had to suffer. You could, after all, draw an ongoing adventure story with no more detail than Charles Schulz put into any given Snoopy drawing. The more significant issue is that a creator effectively now has only three -- maybe four -- panels to recap yesterday's strip as well as advance the new one. That's challenging for even the most talented creators out there, and the only one I've seen really do it successfully on a consistent basis was Jack Kirby in his short-lived <i>Sky Masters</i> strip. His primry technique was to have at the start of each new strip a character respond to the previous day's installment. Despite Kirby having a reputation for having a tin ear when it comes to dialogue, it usually flowed very smoothly and sounded incredibly natural. (Probably in no small part to co-creator Dave Wood.)
<br><br>
Schkade has taken a different approach, and one that's probably the second-most effective one I've seen after Kirby. What Schkade does is that he switches the story perspective frequently. By changing the storytelling point of view from Flash to Dale to Aura to Barin to... he can present some of the same story information he's already shown but without the story feeling repetitive because it's also relaying the feelings and impressions of that new/different character. Is Flash escaping a relief (to Dale) or an opportunity (to Hans) or a threat (to Ming)?
<br><br>
The idea of switching a story's focus from character to character is hardly new, of course, but I believe this is the first time I've seen it expressly used to overcome the limitation inherent in the excessively short installments. Coupled with Schkade's generally simplisitic style of illustration, I think he's turned out to be about the best choice King could've made when it comes to re-starting <i>Flash Gordon.</i> But
is it sufficient enough to win over new readers and give Flash Gordon a boost? I don't know. I do think he's doing a bang-up job, all things considered, but I also don't think it's his best work because of those same considerations. I think the phsyical format newspapers have forced strips into has made the adventure strip largely untenable for most audiences. Schkade's doing some creative work within those limitations, but I think that's almost more of an academic consideration than a practical one.
<br><br>
I think comics syndicates have been indeed slooooooooowly testing out some approaches to their older, legacy comics that are smart. Allowing strips like <i>Nancy</i> and <i>Popeye</i> and <i>Flash Goron</i> to do/be something very different than they've been historically is, I think, 100% necessary to even consider their longevity. Whether or not any one of these attempts is successful is a matter of debate, but trying to run those legacy strips the way they were run a century ago has been proven not to work, so good on them for not trying to continue fighting that losing battle. I think they're moving way too slowly to be effective with it all in the long run, but they're at least moving. Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-22649362166615828242024-03-12T09:30:00.099-04:002024-03-12T09:30:00.124-04:00Giant-Size FF #1 Review<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihUWwioNzmMw929inuCOrTJ01BjslCWzoGMj3gQfuxkeghj8UCXlVXcbbqKhH_t6bCfZBRLZIEKqcv-vfLs695TaYeqAXPF2_RXzignzi3YI0G17tt9KpPzYo4Q0kTQeJFBFXusDQ2iB0URux9v0zs_PEZhgxerROMf6LxUKVr_a6TMao4hSE/s971/GSFF2024001_Preview-jpeg.webp" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="971" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihUWwioNzmMw929inuCOrTJ01BjslCWzoGMj3gQfuxkeghj8UCXlVXcbbqKhH_t6bCfZBRLZIEKqcv-vfLs695TaYeqAXPF2_RXzignzi3YI0G17tt9KpPzYo4Q0kTQeJFBFXusDQ2iB0URux9v0zs_PEZhgxerROMf6LxUKVr_a6TMao4hSE/s320/GSFF2024001_Preview-jpeg.webp"/></a></div>Let me start this review by prefacing things with slight disclaimer: I am several months behind in my reading of the regular <I>Fantastic Four</I> title. I've still been getting it regularly, but the last issue I read was #11 which came out six months ago. Everything that's come out since then has basically just been getting stacked in a "to read" pile. See, despite being a huge fan of the characters, I've found Ryan North's work on the book extremely underwhelming. Not actually bad per se, but not very good either. I don't find myself particularly eager to dive into those books; literally every issue of the new series that I've read has felt like a fill-in issue. Maybe that's changed in the past few months, but from the couple issues I quickly skimmed through, I don't think so.
So with that said...
<br><br><I>
Giant-Size Fantastic Four</I> #1 is the best new FF story I've read since maybe the 60th anniversary issue back in 2021. I'll admit that seeing Stingray on page 1 was initially a bit concerning (he's a decent enough character, but he's basically only brought in when you've got an ocean story and Namor is unavailable for some reason, so he always has this also-ran feel about him) but the main story gets going quickly, so he doesn't become distractingly out of place or anything. And the story is interesting in that it basically just gives an origina for Namor's catchphrase, "Imperious Rex!" Which doesn't sound like much of a story, but there's definitely a lot more there than you might first suspect and with some interesting turns that you probably won't see coming even after you start getting the gist of where things are headed. There is some action in the story, but not any unnecessarily long fight scenes or anything. It's a staunch reminder that the Fantastic Four are <b>NOT</b> superheroes, but super-powered explorers. Their stories should not focusing on giant battles and winning through strength and raw power. Mr. Fantastic indeed solves the conflict verbally and the antagonist, too, doesn't just fight the team because that's what 'villains' do. The story ends not exactly amicably but peaceably enough, and it makes for some interesting potential character coflicts to come. Whether Marvel acts on or realizes them well is another matter, of course, but it's an excellent setup.
<br><br>
The story was written by Fabian Nicieza. I've liked his work since at least the late 1990s. He's an excellent storyteller to begin with, and has a good understanding and appreciation of continuity when he's working on Marvel properties. He has similar storytelling sensibilities as Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, and Dan Slott, and I can't say I've ever come across a Nicieza-written story that wasn't at least good if not great. He's quite quite the body of work and <I>
Giant-Size Fantastic Four</I> #1 falls well in line with his ouvre.
<br><br>
I was not previously familiar with artist
Creees Lee but he turns in some solid work here as well. Pretty smooth storytelling throughout and nice linework. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of his work. Although I'm not a fan of the Human Torch's handlebar mustache (which is not Lee's design) I did think he did a good job rendering the character in his various half-aflame states.
<br><br>
The issue also reprints the Jack Kirby/Stan Lee story from <I>Fantastic Four</I> #33. Thematically, I know why they chose that one but it's not a particular favorite of mine from that era. Honestly, mostly because I don't care for Chic Stone's inking of Kirby. But it is a story that doesn't get reprinted often, I don't think, so it is cool that it's offered here to add some historical context.
<br><br>
Like I said, <I>
Giant-Size Fantastic Four</I> #1 is the best new FF story I've read in a few years, and I'd love to see Nicieza and Crees continue to do more FF stories. I'm sure the current creative team on the main book have plenty of their own fans, but I found this to be a far superior story just from a technical standpoint and is much more in line with the characters I've known as the Fantastic Four.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-92088728753594226972024-03-11T09:30:00.185-04:002024-03-11T09:30:00.129-04:00Stamped from the Beginning Review<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVkdSgdi3WGXa9Lfr-7tM2RYp-IkHtM5agB9FkVxFRVgRDI1fxr_lh7VSZJ-YpR_kagO2QHDs5A_7wceMSyO0JiGyfNVGVeu2WR7VcGLGmPrtkS_a103l4ZG25Q3_quNeauxMu57XLYVStFXY1oaQXJrwk5cqbUEHE92KX6k3HGBglBmMGaFg/s1000/911J8slGfQL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqVkdSgdi3WGXa9Lfr-7tM2RYp-IkHtM5agB9FkVxFRVgRDI1fxr_lh7VSZJ-YpR_kagO2QHDs5A_7wceMSyO0JiGyfNVGVeu2WR7VcGLGmPrtkS_a103l4ZG25Q3_quNeauxMu57XLYVStFXY1oaQXJrwk5cqbUEHE92KX6k3HGBglBmMGaFg/s320/911J8slGfQL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg"/></a></div>There is a subset of Americans who think racism was solved in America when the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. That seems kind of absurd on the face of it, but not nearly as absurd as that subset of people who think racism was solved in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the the Emancipation Proclamation. Or as absurd as the people who think slavery was a good thing actually. I would like to think all of those people are in a minority, and that most people do indeed recognize that racism is still around. I think a lot of people don't know how to recognize it if it's not presented as a hood-wearing Klansman, but they at least know it's not something that got solved with a couple of laws.
<br><br>
What I think a huge number of people don't realize, though, is just how baked in to the very foundation of the United States racism really is. Beyond just that slavery was a thing and George Washington himself kept over one hundred enslaved people at his Mount Vernon home. Yes, the land had plenty of natural resources that early settlers were able to exploit and help to kickstart the US as a rich nation, but that opportunity was magnified a hundred-fold because of the labor of those who were enslaved. Could the country have done as well as it had -- could it have harvested enough raw materials to sell huge volumes to other countries -- if slavery were not a thing? Could the railroads have been built fast enough to allow for pretty rapid urban expansion across the entire continent if not for slavery? Could the cities and industrial centers even been built without getting enslaved people to do much of the work? Absolutely not.
<br><br>
The thing is, though, they don't teach that in social studies. Like, at all. Discussion of slavery pretty much starts and stops with people picking cotton. There's more talk about Eli Whitney inventing the cotton gin than all the people who fed all the cotton gins across the entire country. According to social studies textbooks, at worst, slavery was a weird blip in history and racism isn't even mentioned as being absolutely central to the idea. And, if you got a 'standard' public education like I did, you heard something vague about Jim Crow laws -- which were never explained well; I was an "A" student and I didn't understand them at all until well after college -- and then all of sudden, racism seems to be a big thing when Rosa Parks was apparently too old and tired to get up from her seat on the bus. (I was gobsmacked when I learned, literally decades later, that she was only 42 at the time and had been a civil rights activist for over a decade by then. The way it had always been told to me, she was in her 70s and could barely stand on the best of days, and kept her seat more out of exhaustion than anything else.) I learned more and better, though, because I kept reading and kept trying to find out more about everything; but my understanding is that is fairly uncommon. Most people get their degree and are done trying to learn. They spent so long being brow-beaten with the idea that learning equals rote memorization that they actively dislike the very idea of learning and spend much of the rest of their life avoiding it. So they don't adopt a model like me, where I've actively spent the past 25-30 years trying to unlearn all the gross mischaracterizations and outright lies I was taught growing up.
<br><br>
All of which brings me to last year's <I>
Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
</I> by Joel Christian Gill, adapted from the 2016 book by Ibram X. Kendi,
<I>
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.</I> I have to admit that I have not read Kendi's original to make direct comparisons, but this certainly falls well within Gill's known ouvre. Many of his works that I've read were biographies of Black men and women from US history, and while not strictly just a biography per se, this has many biographical elements to it, focusing on five individuals whose influence on the country was not only great, but helped define how the country deals with race and racism. While you may be familiar with some of the names in the book, you're most likely not familiar with their ideas on race, except perhaps the most superficial notions of good or bad. I've persoanally learned quite a bit from the book, and the level of detail and nuance that's gone into is insightful to say the least.
<br><br>
I'll add, too, that Gill's skill as a storyteller is excellent. I've pointed this out before in some of my reviews of his previous work, but he continues to improve and utilizes here some fascinating techniques that I haven't seen used precisely in this way before, particularly when it comes to the lettering. I also detected a subtle change in his illustration style as well; his figures are more distinct and stand out from one another much more than I'd seen in his earlier works. Which is particularly interesting because the structure of the book is such that he could probably get away with even less distinction if he wanted to without appreciably impacting the narrative. I do enjoy seeing creators improve their craft over time!
<br><br>
As I said, I haven't read Kendi's original, so I can't make direct comparisons. I don't know what Gill may have left out or added in, and I don't know if this graphic version is necessarily an easier or harder read that the prose version. But I can say that Gill's adaptation reads very smoothly and very well and, while the subject matter prevented it from being a light read, it wasn't nearly as weighted down or dreary as the title might suggest. (Probably also helped by Gill's cartoony illustration style.) I highly recommend everyone checking this out; there are very people who I think wouldn't benefit from reading it. I can virtually guarantee you will learn some things out of it and, depending on your childhood, perhaps even enough to get you pissed at every one of your social studies teachers from back in the day.
<I>
Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
</I>
was published by Ten Speed Graphic last year and should be available through any retail bookstore. The paperback sells for $24.99 US and the hardcover for $29.99 US. Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-67509805636770267192024-03-10T10:04:00.001-04:002024-03-10T10:04:22.122-04:00Weekly Recap<img src="http://seankleefeld.com/kleefeldicon1.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" />Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...<br />
<br />
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: King's New Strategy - Quick and Cheap<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/I0bRirU">https://ift.tt/I0bRirU</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: From Trees to Tribunes<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/4lSvMB5">https://ift.tt/4lSvMB5</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Li'l Abner, The TV Show<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/Mq8AyRI">https://ift.tt/Mq8AyRI</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Krazy Kat Rag<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/vO0gir7">https://ift.tt/vO0gir7</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div><br /></div>
Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-22854293336996722632024-03-07T09:30:00.001-05:002024-03-07T09:30:00.144-05:00Krazy Kat Rag <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcFKjWCwEVpfLzjy-PubsKWzP-yH624ZPsQ19m-uCbc30kUIEUTXaR-CXkPNPjHzhGqh0S7fAm3fUmLnoyWmQK3CDHFCctuz9jGmJu3oH-T3pQOgbvm55XJhcJHZTu2dl0kRg/s1600/54623616.KrazyKatRagcover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZcFKjWCwEVpfLzjy-PubsKWzP-yH624ZPsQ19m-uCbc30kUIEUTXaR-CXkPNPjHzhGqh0S7fAm3fUmLnoyWmQK3CDHFCctuz9jGmJu3oH-T3pQOgbvm55XJhcJHZTu2dl0kRg/s1600/54623616.KrazyKatRagcover.jpg" data-original-width="618" data-original-height="800" /></a></div>Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGiyJUFDU0k">"Krazy Kat Rag"</a> written by Ben Ritchie in 1911.<br />
<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JGiyJUFDU0k" width="560"></iframe></center>Obviously, this is a modern recording. This was sold as sheet music back in the day with a George Herriman drawn illustration on the cover! Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-13023625235340261962024-03-06T09:30:00.004-05:002024-03-06T09:30:00.143-05:00Li'l Abner, The TV Show <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTdKEj3mSV-f0qVz1O7QNigsMa6JYIWldWvTqPxsV6QQMVlw_7U_yRGLdkI2ao6sUtEdA_f64veAnMZFdAhjYuRH3922rC0SUoCQUcwfIXe1gGJAtPNRqwLH2PUEf3yWzekCu/s1600/lilabnertv.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGTdKEj3mSV-f0qVz1O7QNigsMa6JYIWldWvTqPxsV6QQMVlw_7U_yRGLdkI2ao6sUtEdA_f64veAnMZFdAhjYuRH3922rC0SUoCQUcwfIXe1gGJAtPNRqwLH2PUEf3yWzekCu/s1600/lilabnertv.png" data-original-width="950" data-original-height="717" /></a></div>Al Capp's <i>Li'l Abner</I> was, as you probably know, very popular back in the day. Enough to spawn a movie in 1940 (which <a href="http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2007/01/lil-abner-movie.html">I wrote about here</a>) and and a more widely known color version in 1959. There was even a 1952 TV show based on the <i>Fearless Fosdick </i>comic that appeared within the <i>Li'l Abner </i>comic itself. (<a href="http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2016/06/on-strips-fearless-fosdick-on-tv.html">I wrote about that here.</a>) <br />
<br />
What I more recently discovered, though, was that <i>Li'l Abner</I> continued to be popular enough that a TV show pilot was made in 1966. It was never picked up by any of the networks, but the pilot did evidently air once on NBC in 1967. To fill some otherwise dead air, I gather. It's phenomenally bad, even by 1960s' sitcom standards. What I liked about the 1940 version was that the costumes and makeup were done well enough that all of the characters were immediately recognizable, even if you only had a passing familiarity with the comic. This version, by contrast, takes more of a half-assed approach and only Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae seem to bear any resemblance to their comic strip counterparts.<br />
<br />
In any event, here's about fifteen minutes (three 5-ish minute clips tied together) of painfully bad writing. The only real saving graces are being able to look at Jeannine Riley and/or a pre-<i>Brady Bunch </i>Robert Reed, depending on your preferences.<br /><br>
<center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLA_R9mLRp39JjQXQYjtfCxLicxRXbX_U2" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
</center>Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-40618208094998131032024-03-05T09:30:00.002-05:002024-03-05T09:30:00.132-05:00From Trees to Tribunes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6xF1q44CbeZpv88iyAGVIZ7Efhk1KZy7Iz463VHmKU1FQcmBw-hHlJBLqX0dXKtzmyNd4mRqnhaIk2_wylzjjZHSf5zLTFlIxHNGgbOWTtvYYOVLCsAoWwqNGok2sDNqfWcyX/s1600/mqdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6xF1q44CbeZpv88iyAGVIZ7Efhk1KZy7Iz463VHmKU1FQcmBw-hHlJBLqX0dXKtzmyNd4mRqnhaIk2_wylzjjZHSf5zLTFlIxHNGgbOWTtvYYOVLCsAoWwqNGok2sDNqfWcyX/s1600/mqdefault.jpg" data-original-width="320" data-original-height="180" /></a></div><i>The Chicago Tribune</i> was one of the behemoth newspapers back in the day. It's still known and respected, now, but it (along with newspapers more generally) carried a lot more clout in the days before television. Of course, it also had several local rivals -- there were eight local daily papers in 1910 -- so they actually had to do a bit of advertising to get buyers' attention. <br />
<br />
One of the things the <i>Tribune </i>did was hire their own cartoonists. <i>Little Orphan Annie</i>, <i>The Gumps</i>, <i>Gasoline Alley</i>, and others started there. But then, of course, they had to TELL people that as well! <br />
<br />
Which leads me to <I>From Trees to Tribunes.</I> It was a 1931 silent "documentary," about a half-hour long, that relayed how a newspaper is made. I use quotes because, really, it's just a long ad. They did this a few times -- there's another version with the same name from 1937. But, notably, they spend a decent amount of time showcasing their cartoonists. I found someone who had edited down the footage to just the cartoonists' part and added a period soundtrack over it, so I thought <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu1X3N7smJk">I'd share the video here</a>.<br />
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The featured cartoonists include: John T. McCutcheon, Gaar Williams, Carey Orr, Sidney Smith, Frank King, Frank Willard, Carl Ed, Martin Branner, Walter Berndt, and Harold Gray. Judging by the strips that are shown, this appears to have been filmed in February 1931. Also worth noting is that, while most of the cartoonists simply sit and draw, Frank Willard gives us a bit of a neat sight gag. <Center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fu1X3N7smJk" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-20950221578927852072024-03-04T09:30:00.234-05:002024-03-04T09:30:00.244-05:00King's New Strategy - Quick and CheapYou likely haven't noticed but King Features gave their <a href="https://comicskingdom.com/">Comics Kingdom</a> website an overhaul last week. Not just some new visuals, but the entire structure and seemingly the back-end systems have been renovated from the ground up. And it sucks.<br /><br />
I know it's common for people to claim the new version of anything sucks because it's not the old version that they're used to, but that's not the case here. Let's start by taking a quick look at the home page. Here's the old home page (from the Internet Archive) on the left and the new one on the right...
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<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqFmTuiX008_pW9iNxGXxhYQBLavJkkM9DHHy6s1miAQ2l_ea9zJUA5fBqn7ovNFSjdfmVj1qpotCi7Kuhmi15cICn58GAuL4BC7Y-DaaLGPuH_j3ezM7v-pqjM5FV6v684Gs5OHthTwFh7nxcLDGrszTMOGViNaBatJbTDZuAzQ6dymeIkLC/s1920/Picture1.png" style=" padding: 1em 0px;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXqFmTuiX008_pW9iNxGXxhYQBLavJkkM9DHHy6s1miAQ2l_ea9zJUA5fBqn7ovNFSjdfmVj1qpotCi7Kuhmi15cICn58GAuL4BC7Y-DaaLGPuH_j3ezM7v-pqjM5FV6v684Gs5OHthTwFh7nxcLDGrszTMOGViNaBatJbTDZuAzQ6dymeIkLC/s320/Picture1.png" width="320" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWp-smBeboiGT_I1Cj4kZrPFIin9k4l1qIm3MJq98RmCFw2AubKkEZVrbVLbqjRGFa9ChMYBPyC-7N-roPio2pW0XM2g6PPoJMsime2pRchukTKVLJqSk1L_X2iEHNnUVN3rb5I_VRJOQ6OXEuyZoeD6H5AqeJEdBQXXqDyfUcfMmchxNoFnQE/s1920/Picture2.png" style="padding: 1em 0px; "><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1920" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWp-smBeboiGT_I1Cj4kZrPFIin9k4l1qIm3MJq98RmCFw2AubKkEZVrbVLbqjRGFa9ChMYBPyC-7N-roPio2pW0XM2g6PPoJMsime2pRchukTKVLJqSk1L_X2iEHNnUVN3rb5I_VRJOQ6OXEuyZoeD6H5AqeJEdBQXXqDyfUcfMmchxNoFnQE/s320/Picture2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Notice anything? Setting aside the visuals that show absolutely zero comic art on the new version (technically, that large black field does have some comic artwork embedded in it, but that barely registers on many screens; I couldn't see it at all on the first screen I looked at it on) how about the fact that you can't actually get directly to any comics from the initial page load? Oh, you can scroll down and get similar links but the old version allowed readers to immediately see and click to some of the offerings. That is bad user interface design.
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It continues once you do click on a comic. In the old version, you'd click on the comic you're interested in and you'd be presented with the latest installment. From there, you could either navigate backwards one strip or call up a calendar to select a specific date you wanted to look at. The new version drops you on an "Overview" page and you have to click again to see the latest comic. You're also presented with the nine previous installments before that as well. If you want to check out a specific date, you have to go back to the Overview page and then... wait for it... scroll through a list of every date listed out individually. Oh, you can switch the order to go from newest to oldest or oldest to newest, but with a title like, say, <i>Hagar the Horrible</i> -- in which they have posted 10,618 different strips -- good luck finding anything besides the earliest or latest ones. If you want something from the late 1990s, you've got zero option but a hell of a lot of clicking through page after page after page.
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My thought in looking at the redesign was that maybe this was set up by some programmers who maybe knew how to operate Photoshop but didn't have any training in user interface design. But on closer inspection, I don't think that's the case.
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One thing that King was very keen on with their previous site was ensuring that it was as difficult as possible to scrub their live site for comic images. You could dig your way through a page's code to find that day's image, but the file names were all encoded, so they never followed an identifiable pattern. Therefore, you couldn't set your site up to embed the latest strip by just increasing the sequence. The new site does away with that and presents every image in the same, easily predictable format: Comic-Title.LANGUAGE ABBREVIATION.year-month-day.jpeg<br />
In fact, it's so predictable that it would be easier to re-code a page with a specific date than click through all those pages manually to get to some late-1990s <i>Hagar</i> strip!
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Here's another thing that caught my eye in checking out the site: all of the images are placed in a directory called "comicskingdom-redesign-uploads-production." I've been working on websites professionally since 1996 and do you know who names directories like that? No one. At least no one working in a professional capacity. The "comicskingdom" part is redundant since the files are already on the "comicskingdom.com" domain; "redesign" is too tied to the specific redesign project and won't be applicable in six months; and if you need to delineate your development versus production environments by actually calling the directory "production" you must be using some really questionable practices for migrating files from one to the other.
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I've also heard from others that folks who had subscribed to daily emails of their favorites have been unsubscribed without notice. Further, their favorites list isn't even available when the site is viewed on mobile devices. And even though the favorites do appear on desktop browsers, any more than two and they'll display too wide to fit in your window. Plus it only shows three at a time before you need to click a "Read More" button... which only presents the next three.
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Look, I know firsthand that redesigning websites is, even under the best circumstances, a bit of a nightmare.
But everything about this site tells me that it was created by someone with little to no professional web experience of any kind. And I do mean some<b>one</b>. Everything about this strikes me as the work of a single individual who had almost no additional input. It was designed to look and work okay on their particular setup and no one else's. None of this was run through a QA process of any sort. Any professional programmer would've caught the file and directory name issues. Any graphic designer could've pointed out any of the dozens of design issues. There's so much of this that could've been addressed if even one other person -- not even someone with web experience -- said, "Hey, this doesn't look right on my machine."
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Maybe it was some kind of package deal. King paid some company that had a plug-and-play software setup, and they uploaded some graphics and just let it run automatically. Fill out a few blanks on a form and you've got a website in thirty minutes. Kind of a <i>Mad Libs </i>approach.
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Either way, this was done on the cheap. Every aspect of this site that I can see screams of shortcuts and a lack of oversight, and that it went live like this shows King was okay with that. Their lack of concern is blindingly obvious. I don't say that to disparage the people in charge of the site or even worked on it (for someone who <i>clearly</i> isn't a professional, it's actually not terrible) -- it could easily be the case that someone at their parent company, Hearst, demanded a redesign and allowed them precisely zero budget. So that lack of concern might well be dictated from the top. But if you need a professional example of "you get what you pay for" this definitely qualifies as a prime example!Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-60342909785883263122024-03-03T10:33:00.001-05:002024-03-03T10:33:55.727-05:00Weekly Recap<img src="http://seankleefeld.com/kleefeldicon1.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" />Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...<br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: BHM Kickstarters<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/Lu87Skp">https://ift.tt/Lu87Skp</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: 21st Century Freelancing, Same as 20th Century Freelancing<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/deJoRiF">https://ift.tt/deJoRiF</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Remember Those Old Comics?<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/SlLGUnR">https://ift.tt/SlLGUnR</a><br />
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<div>Kleefeld on Comics: Leap Year Comics<br />
<a href="https://ift.tt/JpBrmzU">https://ift.tt/JpBrmzU</a><br />
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Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-22297725374836800502024-02-29T09:30:00.003-05:002024-02-29T09:30:20.094-05:00Leap Year ComicsAs it's the unusual February 29, I've gone around and collected a smattering of Leap Year themed comics from today...
<center> <div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVkNtKlTxtivP7nCG4pnyxstDDIY-xSdNKQCcmGkK-n-D-shen3hA2c7hKuJDa8p9F0EHZZAvdiSZGHXxqTl4nDA_po-ArkvpvwuRLFqP01Wez-EJxXE5l4hhhS6QPafUb0BS2_qGlw0cFiGG0aH8Xzhiv_Vng3oSG0hXsa2kXP2qYH8RV0qH/s900/tc240229.jpg" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="200" data-original-height="381" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIVkNtKlTxtivP7nCG4pnyxstDDIY-xSdNKQCcmGkK-n-D-shen3hA2c7hKuJDa8p9F0EHZZAvdiSZGHXxqTl4nDA_po-ArkvpvwuRLFqP01Wez-EJxXE5l4hhhS6QPafUb0BS2_qGlw0cFiGG0aH8Xzhiv_Vng3oSG0hXsa2kXP2qYH8RV0qH/s200/tc240229.jpg"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop50wCvCAA3lN6Lpqau-4fVLv-SB-gym2HX3p9-UcL-HFprjlr9VrVYouvZghkCy_fB-ayuTlnZCcqBKar6HPm0eg6tMNqaMvF1VVyz93NzvYWFqb41P_-9dhzlS3nHpnHxaoaOEx68PB8s1eDWom7JLQ1AImZ48EJKxid1-WfBoYBAKnnoQZ/s900/ufo240229.jpg" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="200" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjop50wCvCAA3lN6Lpqau-4fVLv-SB-gym2HX3p9-UcL-HFprjlr9VrVYouvZghkCy_fB-ayuTlnZCcqBKar6HPm0eg6tMNqaMvF1VVyz93NzvYWFqb41P_-9dhzlS3nHpnHxaoaOEx68PB8s1eDWom7JLQ1AImZ48EJKxid1-WfBoYBAKnnoQZ/s200/ufo240229.jpg"/></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyOqe3lrVqpQsyJoYpZtoUrQCpJ8_OS2_-go-R6JcCEcYaKa3Lprbzr1vj1J-tkg6_NdHcfV83v4rlEfRooIbJ_7sDL_Tr5X3p5bpxoualshuYwI6A_augntSeMDxeVI9oLWKy9MOC_sOv7y9XCqI46hay32yXACLbwMJDWqczFEMz9gHG7ZF/s900/bnl240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizyOqe3lrVqpQsyJoYpZtoUrQCpJ8_OS2_-go-R6JcCEcYaKa3Lprbzr1vj1J-tkg6_NdHcfV83v4rlEfRooIbJ_7sDL_Tr5X3p5bpxoualshuYwI6A_augntSeMDxeVI9oLWKy9MOC_sOv7y9XCqI46hay32yXACLbwMJDWqczFEMz9gHG7ZF/s320/bnl240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc-o18p60UimPmJr_j2lvuWsWahzrZWwbBpKg8U2pdYxgeY2qpoHqxJTa5HButnGSTXLo4kRcMinz41mw89AoLhJRYkgjyChEMVkD_m7AflltsSadX7yWImT6tsX8zEm90NBp56xrS7BWl4Xx7VG0k7Hm7LfREezxFCRb-efhTdEUZEQr7puNx/s900/dr240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc-o18p60UimPmJr_j2lvuWsWahzrZWwbBpKg8U2pdYxgeY2qpoHqxJTa5HButnGSTXLo4kRcMinz41mw89AoLhJRYkgjyChEMVkD_m7AflltsSadX7yWImT6tsX8zEm90NBp56xrS7BWl4Xx7VG0k7Hm7LfREezxFCRb-efhTdEUZEQr7puNx/s320/dr240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioN2HqsB9F_bMwGMMhuDHwFo2t022crZcNt8PSF1VMEjnQ5UsMMAbmSHVmcuplt4eoxcX01x9OQUGSVX2Ss2y1fxd8Ps-XwmmjuEr1yzXsMHK2QW9BJkl4_5cntZWjK-fCDycp1Kh1aFeMtcvod9PqOGFSlhpz00FTn_IxkubbALcFB1vJ_doU/s900/fur240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; 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"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC7bRdYDD9UNCagtQBjIXnLHXjljlGN_5ZVVF7wZjdef9sO6-XHeBOpASA1qUSMqXNJOGFTwhHRWiMwsoOKHXJzTnHC4hx7XpwsFd1msIbNmZ4zxh7mGwH36BYDrtlT9adckYEugdkGIlm_wcRZs2nup-Rit8Tyy4yAs8Jmb_xizxPYKFoRn3O/s320/lc240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSMs5X9FIatoV6v-sSRdoPWeT-AmabCAbwpwtiIHYyYfJzaCCohBnjQ4Cvg7d8DqU5YD7JoalqWcbb8_aTadKORRn8w6PwRiFBkgcszOj-xTg7QuldEabMDYT_BWRJ0jqYlSSlEL8N19PuI0gp7U1e3o8qacvoW_IpCr0P5fkDkYk6a84gEYk_/s600/pb240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="188" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSMs5X9FIatoV6v-sSRdoPWeT-AmabCAbwpwtiIHYyYfJzaCCohBnjQ4Cvg7d8DqU5YD7JoalqWcbb8_aTadKORRn8w6PwRiFBkgcszOj-xTg7QuldEabMDYT_BWRJ0jqYlSSlEL8N19PuI0gp7U1e3o8qacvoW_IpCr0P5fkDkYk6a84gEYk_/s320/pb240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqRO8RmYfH_43wRtmlPnXfpb1PTeoyA4oQjO_VxgtJjv8EUHqrGVeMAPM6vTqK8o4kFX3-TSODjR1GRquG_fB6md72XVItOeCtwrdzZqrDaochxW4HpN-Uge3NQ07BAiih3OgFbHI0t51ecxsTIljwOLbIt7W2gSh77bdNlls4wJRqea68Hsy/s900/tab240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="308" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqRO8RmYfH_43wRtmlPnXfpb1PTeoyA4oQjO_VxgtJjv8EUHqrGVeMAPM6vTqK8o4kFX3-TSODjR1GRquG_fB6md72XVItOeCtwrdzZqrDaochxW4HpN-Uge3NQ07BAiih3OgFbHI0t51ecxsTIljwOLbIt7W2gSh77bdNlls4wJRqea68Hsy/s320/tab240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6cxU9RNCCymcmGeqngndJOc8jTQ_0qD_Xz2195yWzOgwaO8yt1ltUQTD9aBBOIal2MAXg9sq7jp4RxKz1h5sFusJSVemk-sd2CJMxH_kXrG72phhhxOz1lahP9kvwOIveTx6csSfk91bjBc-XPzbsceyf00mKiKxrRU2VNI1sHrZ4BpkxyNp/s900/tmrkt240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6cxU9RNCCymcmGeqngndJOc8jTQ_0qD_Xz2195yWzOgwaO8yt1ltUQTD9aBBOIal2MAXg9sq7jp4RxKz1h5sFusJSVemk-sd2CJMxH_kXrG72phhhxOz1lahP9kvwOIveTx6csSfk91bjBc-XPzbsceyf00mKiKxrRU2VNI1sHrZ4BpkxyNp/s320/tmrkt240229.gif"/></a>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaB-LcPFJcjVa7YzWJ54HIura2CKdoihzJQxkYih9urme6r3YUk9ui1LKbf_4AW531UtAwSBReEw702EnETwnoLUdc1ihaCSjUuHHcRFBgGgO5ibmMuzp5UsezFjr1XYKikhNphr-jyhv9EZvJONxqqfWV2iHlmfvYkS3SBMTPFYHHc8gzfhb_/s540/bvp240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaB-LcPFJcjVa7YzWJ54HIura2CKdoihzJQxkYih9urme6r3YUk9ui1LKbf_4AW531UtAwSBReEw702EnETwnoLUdc1ihaCSjUuHHcRFBgGgO5ibmMuzp5UsezFjr1XYKikhNphr-jyhv9EZvJONxqqfWV2iHlmfvYkS3SBMTPFYHHc8gzfhb_/s200/bvp240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5kb3uoBHmr9dfIPRb5GthzUkUF8u1fSw3kUGrEgoDdkd94bvzkeLf1Wf8xKbSQO6KnBWbq4-TfMGTCSx1drMV0EH55f7fefNhK8jOsRY3D3P0GyvCF2vyc4hY7HZgzwjWRMM8KNezjaZvtSIQuq6uzJlBb3iqL1UCYLHjKwG9shxBK1Keb_a/s1007/dave240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit5kb3uoBHmr9dfIPRb5GthzUkUF8u1fSw3kUGrEgoDdkd94bvzkeLf1Wf8xKbSQO6KnBWbq4-TfMGTCSx1drMV0EH55f7fefNhK8jOsRY3D3P0GyvCF2vyc4hY7HZgzwjWRMM8KNezjaZvtSIQuq6uzJlBb3iqL1UCYLHjKwG9shxBK1Keb_a/s200/dave240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHAMXYgyTXfJeP86CMr2omYwnvJJhuDx4i7Z0aNjdzHkwFFR5UfFmOemlKncspgbmVBbGx_f6bbzer6JYuXDJ0FYHl9bEc-ToOoFFnCFzQ6FIy9xxcaWTCJf7KgKLMU4afDPbaX2Cq3PV0ZkoVbIzZUQApwsaD8I_FZ9U3hOM98mu1vU38fQK/s540/of240229.gif" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrHAMXYgyTXfJeP86CMr2omYwnvJJhuDx4i7Z0aNjdzHkwFFR5UfFmOemlKncspgbmVBbGx_f6bbzer6JYuXDJ0FYHl9bEc-ToOoFFnCFzQ6FIy9xxcaWTCJf7KgKLMU4afDPbaX2Cq3PV0ZkoVbIzZUQApwsaD8I_FZ9U3hOM98mu1vU38fQK/s200/of240229.gif"/></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihl_SnnVfyxJp1x8x6Y86Jq6HCeBolyDDlE1ayyjFU3iH3tPLYwDt_NrkFP0WO3ulYm97ncuD-uTPfC7b4KaIJwj_1aQDPVT3B_yvN8pL3oih7joGDt1paCCwuzLD-WMDXhE6Rmd784dF3ndrQDAuexwPUPr5zjS5Gl4dSHWqf0EyehbJJpT6g/s489/sac240229.jpg" style=" padding: 2px; "><img alt="" border="0" height="200" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihl_SnnVfyxJp1x8x6Y86Jq6HCeBolyDDlE1ayyjFU3iH3tPLYwDt_NrkFP0WO3ulYm97ncuD-uTPfC7b4KaIJwj_1aQDPVT3B_yvN8pL3oih7joGDt1paCCwuzLD-WMDXhE6Rmd784dF3ndrQDAuexwPUPr5zjS5Gl4dSHWqf0EyehbJJpT6g/s200/sac240229.jpg"/></a></div>
</center>Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-35962409546468646072024-02-28T09:30:00.001-05:002024-02-28T09:30:00.131-05:00Remember Those Old Comics?Like a lot of avid readers I know, I usually have several books that I'm reading more or less simultaneously. I keep two or three in the nightstand by my bed, one or two in my laptop bag, a small pile on the desk in my library, another small pile on the side table in the living room. Which books end up in which spot depends in part on how/when/where I might end up reading them. Hardcovers or otherwise heavy books tend not to find their way into my laptop bag, since those are books I read while in transit and I don't want to carry around the extra weight. The stuff on my nightstand, by contrast, tend to be larger because I'm sitting comfortably in bed when I read those. <br />
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Anyway, I'm frequently scanning my bookshelves and long boxes for replacements as I read through things. I figure I've only read maybe a third of everything in my collection, so there's plenty to choose from. (I've been the recipient of multiple collections from others, so I've found my collection increase by thousands of issues literally overnight on at least four separate occasions!) But what strikes me is how often I'll spy a title that I don't immediately recognize and think, "This doesn't look familiar. I bet it's one of Dad's old books." But then when I pull it down and flip through it, I'll recall reading the story (although I won't always recall the story itself!) and remember that it's some book I picked up cheaply at a Half Price Books or something only a year earlier. Obviously, it wasn't a memorable story.<br />
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But I've also had instances where I come across some comic that I've had for forty years or more, but haven't looked at in at least thirty years, and yet I can remember curiously distinct details. Hell, <a href="http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2016/09/on-history-mr-action.html">I purchased a piece of original Kurt Schaffenberger art</a> a few years ago because I remembered that particular page so vividly from my youth, despite it coming from a pretty lousy back-up story. <br />
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<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96S3q3hwc8g5YsCNStpvlP_AS8_WyaXrAfWR_EhiZGB_cbeNPhwnAAyYNVzxG10Q9pnjiM2Wa9deTLzDOCrsifphYz0c2lOugnWIwXXXKEwDwjPrw0MH36NAI8SwyH4vr-SfX/s1600/Green+Lantern+No+Fear.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh96S3q3hwc8g5YsCNStpvlP_AS8_WyaXrAfWR_EhiZGB_cbeNPhwnAAyYNVzxG10Q9pnjiM2Wa9deTLzDOCrsifphYz0c2lOugnWIwXXXKEwDwjPrw0MH36NAI8SwyH4vr-SfX/s320/Green+Lantern+No+Fear.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517679423805484242" /></a>And yet, I couldn't tell you why I have a copy of <i>Green Lantern: No Fear</i>, what it might be about, or whether I've actually read it. But there it is, sitting on my shelf. (A <a href="http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2007/03/crazy-bargains.html">subsequent search on my blog</a> reveals that I bought it in a major discount bin back in 2007. Still no idea if I ever read it though.) <br />
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That doesn't mean that the stories I read as a kid were necessarily better -- just that several factors are different that predispose more recent reads to become more forgettable. To wit...<ol type=1><li>When I was a kid, I had read far fewer books obviously. It's easier to store them in long-term memory if you don't have decades of other books in there as well.</LI>
<li>The earlier books got re-read more often. I had more time than money back then, and wound up re-reading books several times because I couldn't afford new ones. These days, I've got more books than I have time to read, so re-reading very rarely occurs.</LI>
<li>As a child, we tend to be more impressionable in general. So whatever we come across is more likely to leave a memorable impression than anything we see as adults.<br />
</LI>
<li>But, most significantly, I think, because I had read fewer books, many of the ideas presented in those early days <i>seemed </i>fresh, even if they weren't. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" isn't a funny joke to you because you've heard it a million times. But it could be hilarious to a five year old who's never heard it before!<br />
</LI></OL>There are any number of ideas, visuals, and even cliches that struck me as a child, but I later learned were merely continuations or references to earlier material. And, interestingly, there were things that were genuinely new, but I didn't appreciate them for as innovative as they were because EVERYTHING that I came across seemed new and innovative. That's why, when I finally read the Galactus trilogy, it didn't have a particularly large impact -- I had already read dozens of Galactus stories by that point, and had even seen him physically beaten. <br />
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My point is really just that we sometimes ascribe more power to works just because of when we encountered them, not because they were necessarily better or more original than what we see today.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-65361805769716327332024-02-27T09:30:00.323-05:002024-02-27T09:30:00.134-05:0021st Century Freelancing, Same as 20th Century Freelancing<div style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29vhtDEPSSjrigbd5lYttWAUQNvuDCaeqgr44vGcNBWF-ehLA5F3s2MjPJKUus2WuqaK6jiNyw0l0ArG-TkUgMlq8crrboLRZfRTQ_x4QSSu_b3VhrsNALiV6w73b_EGKzVodaw2t59QpTfPmf2URkxqjIXbEuqEm6bI4TTwRW8QcMiAflD5N/s960/freelancers-blog.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29vhtDEPSSjrigbd5lYttWAUQNvuDCaeqgr44vGcNBWF-ehLA5F3s2MjPJKUus2WuqaK6jiNyw0l0ArG-TkUgMlq8crrboLRZfRTQ_x4QSSu_b3VhrsNALiV6w73b_EGKzVodaw2t59QpTfPmf2URkxqjIXbEuqEm6bI4TTwRW8QcMiAflD5N/s400/freelancers-blog.jpg"/></a></div>
I've seen/heard a few pieces lately lamenting the state of being an artist online in 2024. The basic gist of them is that you can't <i>just</i> be an artist. You need to build an audience so that people will see your work, but to build an audience you need to do all these non-artist things to get the search algorithms to work for you, and you spend so much time and effort learning how to do that -- and then maintaining that audience once they come! -- that you're barely doing any of the art that you wanted to do in the first place.
I've seen it mostly in terms of comic artists, but it no doubt applies to musicians and writers and anyone else pursuing a stereotypically creative freelance career.
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I sympathize with the people making these complaints.
I specifically went into corporate America for a job in large part because I did not want to deal with and learn all the crap that comes with being a freelancer of any sort.
I was a graphic designer at the time, and I knew that if I wanted to work <b>as</b> a graphic designer, that meant I would have to be in corporate America. If I were to go freelance, then I'd have to learn how to market myself, how to track down clients, how to sell all the benefits I could bring, how to manage budgets, how to negotiate payments, how to juggle invoices, how to set up and handle insurance, how to do tons of things that are very much NOT graphic design but are absolutely essential to doing that work.
So I must admit I'm a little confused as to why they're bringing it up now.
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When I made the decision -- and it was indeed a conscious decision -- to pursue a corporate career instead of a freelance one, that was back in the mid-90s. The web was barely a thing, so I didn't have to think about social media or any the bullcrap that comes with that, but I was keenly aware that while I would likely have less creative freedom than if I were to try freelancing, that was the price of not having to deal with a bunch of non-graphic design crap. That was the price of seeing the clock roll around to 5:00 and taking off for the evening, knowing that I did not have to worry about whether I had enough time to finish that one project until 8:00 the next morning at the earliest. That was the price of knowing I would get paid at the end of every two week period without having to pester anyone about it. I could still do freelance work if/when I needed some extra cash, but rent was taken care of by my day job.
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And I knew all this because, starting in the 1970s, my father started working as professional magician as a side hustle (obviously before "side hustle" was in the common vernacular) and he would do shows for schools and libraries, and the occasional birthday party. He worked side jobs because he needed money to support a family, but he chose magic because he loved performing it ever since he got a magic kit as a kid and was able to stymie his mother with some sponge rabbits. But to be able to get in front of people to perform, he would spend hours sending out fliers, developing booking sheets and contracts, juggling calendars, looking up directions to one-room libraries in obscure towns and villages hours away... all in the days before he even had a computer! If he did 100 shows over a summer (I know he did more than that some years and less than that in others; I'm going to use it as a rough easy-math median) each at 45 minutes (his usual show length) that's a total of 75 hours performing. If the shows were on average an hour away (he traveled all over the state; some places were 15 minutes away, some were 4 hours) that's 200 hours of driving. We're already looking at only 27% his invested time doing the thing that he actually wants to be doing, even before we address anything to do with sales or marketing or contracts or anything.
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Now clearly, that was a different time and a different market. Just as it was a different time and a different market in the mid-90s when I joined the work force. Not harder, not easier, just different. But the basic idea of doing a bunch of shit you don't want to do at the time and expense of the thing you do actually want to do is part and parcel to the job of a freelancer. I recall my father complaining about that back in the day and, as he got older, he more often questioned whether the joy he got out of performing outweighed all the extra crap he had to do in order to perform. I know many of my peers who did go into freelance graphic design work right out of college later expressed dissatisfaction with the non-design aspects of their work, and a few eventually decided it wasn't worth it and took corporate jobs.
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I don't say all this to dismiss the people today who are complaining about having to do a bunch of work unrelated to their main passion in order to pursue that passion. There are absolutely some bullshit issues they are having to deal with in terms of managing social media and SEO and working towards the whims of ever-changing algorithms and all that. There are aspects of that I have to manage with my day job, and literally every day I talk with SEO experts who openly admit that they're at best making half-informed guesses on what to do in order to improve search rankings or improved conversion rates or whatever. And if experts who expressly do this for a living don't have any real answers to this kind of thing, I can't imagine how difficult it must be for people who are trying to draw comics or create music or write or whatever creative vocation they're pursuing. It is extremely difficult, even if you are trained for precisely that sort thing.
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I just don't understand why it seems to be a thing people are talking about now, as if it's new. Even setting aside some of the old bullshit my dad had to deal with in the '70s because technology fixed many of those issues, the current concerns about social media and catering to algorithms go back at least a decade. YouTube launched in 2005, Facebook and Twitter in 2006, Kickstarter in 2009. Amazon bought comiXology ten years ago. There's an entire generation of webcomikers today who've grown up in an environment where webcomics were not only a proven viable career path, but where there were books published about how to do it. (Not a lot of books, mind you, but more than one.) Every creator under the age of 35 has been dealing with exactly this for their entire career, and every creator ever has had some version of it, so why bring it up as a sort of new-sounding existential crisis today in 2024?
It's not that it's not a discussion worth having, it's just the framing of it as a new problem that I don't understand.Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19387347.post-47691025227288878962024-02-26T09:30:00.002-05:002024-02-26T09:30:00.135-05:00BHM KickstartersOK, we're in the final days of Black History Month; let's see what's going on over at Kickstarter so folks can put their money where their mouth is...<br><Center>
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/newhorizoncomics/spirit-the-woman-of-hope-issue-1/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>
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<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/konkretcomics/luna-the-awakening-part-2-of-6-a-32-page-comic-book/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>
<br><br><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akoma/dark-sentinel-origins-issue-1/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>
<br><br><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nll/n-ll/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>
<br><br><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/varissa-comics/love-lens-issue-1/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>
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Just a handful of Black creators with their comic book projects on Kickstarter -- check them out!Sean Kleefeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10492399469370737192noreply@blogger.com0