"Hot Sunday Afternoon Blog Post"

July the 3rd. A Day that lives in infamy to me. It was on July 3rd., 1969 while going to see a friend that lives not too far away, that I misjudged the speed of an oncoming car and turned in front on it, causing it to hit me broadside, sending to the the hospital to receive 16 stitches in my forehead and bad bruses on my chest where I struck the stearing wheel so hard it crushed it! I stayed in the local hospital recuperating for 3 days. Fortunately, the two guys in the other car received only very minor scratches, but the accident destroyed his brand new '69 Caddie and my '64 Plymouth Fury. Although the accident report stated that the Caddie was actually doing 70+ MPH, the accident was deemed my fault due to pulling in their path.

So, maybe it's just a superstition to me for never driving the same road or ever going to see that old friend on this date. But, hey...that was one damn nice car I wrecked.

In other news, if we don't have a good, decent soaking rain here locally soon, my yard will look like a desert. Already we've gone a good two weeks without rain and now I have these large brown spots of dead grass about anywhere that's not shaded by the trees. The plants are all taking a terrible lickin' from this heat and dryness, altho' each evening I go out near sundown to water them. The birdbaths are staying empty and need constant refilling from being splashed out or evaporation. In fact, about the only thing that seems to be thriving is the cactus garden and the weeds (which seem to be able to continue growing if they were planted on the sun).

In comic news, I finally got in that copy of Rawhide Kid #17 from 1960, which is the first true Marvel issue and the first appearence (and origin) of the Kirby version of The Kid any Marvel fan that grew up in the 60's grew to love. Jack Kirby was doing some of his best work then, and not everyone realizes, I suppose, that this was his first continuous strip for Marvel predating The Fantastic Four by a year. In fact, eight full issues by Kirby were produced before Fantastic Four #1 ever hit the stands. Kirby did about 15 issues of The Kid, followed by two issues by Jack Davis which are very nice as well.

I try to just ignore what Marvel's done with this character in recent years (as I try to ignore most of what that company has done with their characters since about the 1980's), mainly because they decided he was just a minor, old character that no one cared about anymore and used the recent mini-series to state that he was gay. They could have used any character they owned, but they probably thought it might hurt the sales of the like of Johnny Storm or The Ghost Rider, or The Punisher, so...they picked on Rawhide just because the newer collectors and fans didn't know him as well. Marvel, if you're going to use a "gimmick" to sell your books, try to remember the best gimmicks of all are: 1) Decent art. 2) Decent writing. & 3) A decent price. And from now on, try to think better of the work which went before you which created your company in the first place, please.

I've also read the current Seven Soldier: Klarion the Witch Boy, which is another of Kirby's old characters, but from the 1970's series of The Demon by DC Comics. I like the way DC's handling this character okay, but---they've made him a bit more naive that he was originally shown 25 or so years ago. It is nice to see that this character wasn't "lost" during their Crisis series tho'. In fact, I think this may be his only app.'s outside of a Teen Titans Special a few years back.


Fred Hembeck mentioned over on his blog the other day that a 5 DVD set of the 1950's George Reeves' The Adventures of Superman t.v. series will be released this October, and I'm anxiously awaiting that. Maybe I can finally retire all of those VHS tapes of those shows now. Like a lot of old fans, I grew up watching that series as a small kid, so they hold that special place to me.