"Happy Fat Tuesday"

Hurricanes may come and go, but nothing seems to be able to stop The Spirit of New Orleans or The Mardi Gras celebrations, so the best of wishes to anyone in the Gulf Coast Area today.


I neglected mentioning that my last post was the 250th. I've done on the "Elmo's Junction" blog. That's 250 posts in a little less than 2 years now (I started this one in May of '04).

Well I noticed that according to surveys, President Bush's popularity poll has now slipped to 34%; the lowest it's been in his administration. Question is: Would this country be any better if anyone else was in office? I certainly don't want his job. Me? Well...you know...I just wanna be The Supreme Pharaoh of The Galaxy (*heh*)!

My wife's going back up to see her dad in the U of L Hospital today while I stick around here and take care of some things that need being caught up on. We've got a pretty day here in South-Cenral, KY. with temperatures upwards to the 60's and tomorrow's high might actually reach 70 degrees! Even at 6AM tomorrow morning it's supposed to be 51. (Time to take off those long johns.)

Sad of course to hear about actor Dennis Weaver passing on. Haven't seen anything of his in years. I was never a "big" fan of his work I guess because I was never into the myriad westerns that appeared on t.v. in the late 1950's, although I do indeed recall watching lots of episodes of Gunsmoke when spending weekend nights at my grandparents. Also, I thought the show got pretty "cut-and-dry" after he left the series. I do also remember his early 70's t.v. series ("McCloud") and watching it quite a bit and enjoying it, though.

And in the mail yesterday I received about a dozen comics; a real hodgepodge of titles. There were 2 misc. issues of Animal Man I needed (1 by Morrison) as well as 3 different issues of the second DC-Vertigo series of Doom Patrol (2 of which were by Morrision). Also in the lot was a copy of the DC 1983 The Omega Men #3 which features the first app. of the character "Lobo" (quite different back then than he is today), and finally, 5 misc. issues of the 1970's DC title, Batman Family, of which I found the most interesting.

Beats me why I didn't have any issues of this title in my current collections. I suppose that I'd sort of forgotten about it because it was originally published during the short few years of my life that I didn't purchase comic books on any sort of regular basis. And these are right from that particular time period of 1975-76.

Well...that's not really true. I did have a subscribtion to Howard the Duck back around then, and did indeed buy "some" comics, but usually those that were less than fifty cent cover price. "Batman stuff" seemed to have been on the lower end of my collecting agenda at the time. I really missed out on some good stuff.

For instance, these issues I got are #'s 7, 8, 13, 14 & 16. They began as a fifty cent title then progressed into the sixty cent cover price. In #7, Robin and Batgirl fight the Golden-Age "Huntess and Sportsmaster" villians, and this issue also contains two different Silver-Age Batman reprints, one of which has artwork by one of my all-time favorite artists, Dick Sprang, and the original story artwork is by yet another personal favorite, Curt Swan.

In #8, it's Robin's first solo novel-length tale where he battles "The Catwoman", and it has a cameo by "The Joker's Daughter", plus a Silver-Age Batman reprint as well.

#13 contains the unique art combinations of Don Newton & Marshall Rogers where Batgirl & Robin AND Man-Bat fight "The Outsider" in what is his first app. since Batman discovered years before that he this was an entity which possessed his butler, "Alfred"! This issue also gives a history of The Outsider character.

#14 features a rare bronze-age app. of Batwoman in a double-length tale, plus a Man-Bat back-up feature and Don Heck artwork.

And #16 we have some rather beautiful artwork by Michael Golden on The Man-Bat back-up. Issues 13, 14 & 16 (as well as others in this series, I'm sure) also feature cover artwork by Jim Aparo.

There were 20 different issues of this title published by DC from 1975 to 1978 and I've definately added them to my comic book want list, now.