"In Memory: Alex Toth"

I was just informed that a great artist whose work I've always greatly admired in comics has passed away: Alex Toth.

There were too many wonderful comics and characters for me to chose a favorite that he drew. He also designed many of my favorite animated characters.

His work was truely unique.

"Post #300 - 2nd. Year Anniversary of ELMO'S JUNCTION"

When I first started this blog site I had no idea whatsoever that two years later I'd still be posting on it.

I think I've covered just about every subject under the sun; anything from current events, to comics, to movies, to religion, to mostalgic waxing about old memories, to personal family matters, other blogger sites, artwork and writing, "Bob" the cat and ranting about jobs or insurance companies. If anything else you can say about "Elmo's Junction", it's been a place where consistency in subject material has been inconsitant.

I'll start this off today with a quicky review of a movie: The Fantastic Four (2005).

Although this flick has it's problems, the good parts of it out-weigh the bad. It's not one of those blockbuster types of super-hero adaptation films that knocks ones socks off, like maybe the first X-Men or Spider-man. It's MUCH better than the attempts of putting such other Marvel heroes on the screen (i.e.,"The Hulk, Daredevil or The Punisher"). It's a world better try at trying to adapt the FF than the Corman flick. But, to me, it's just not good enough to have a sequel made of it.

I didn't mind what changes were made regarding the characters and aspects of their origins. This movie's been out a year now, and I'd read all of the reviews and spoilers, so I pretty much knew in advance what to expect before ever watching it. So I'll dwell on what I thought were the good parts to it.

Of course, the special effects. They came across "realistically". Albeit, the characters were updated a bit for the times, and maybe "The Thing" could have been a little rockier, but then, when he was show in issues, say, 3 thru 30 or so, he wasn't quite as bulky as in later issues (I neglect #'s 1 & 2 'cause he was more like a lumpy mass until Kirby decided just "how" to draw him). It was a fast-paced flick. It was a "fun" flick. There was nothing really overly special about it, but it was still "okay". I don't want to see a FF 2 made. This one can stand on its own.


And, with that out of the way...last Saturday the men came and put the new siding on the house. It looks, already, 100% better. Not realizing it was in the contract, they'll also be redoing the gutters and part of the front at no extra charge. Can't say I wasn't happy about that! Now we can concentrate on getting the windows repaired and use whatever money's left over on repairing the roof.


Been watching some of this news about where out in California, the homosexual community wants prodominant gays stated as such in history text books. It amazes me that in today's society whereas everyone wants their heritage recognized as black, or Jewish, or oriental, or hyspanic, and even their sexual orientation noted, but that they seem to neglect mentioning anyone else. I don't believe that I've ever read a single time any mention that, say, Abraham Lincoln was a "white, Christian". I'm just as proud of my personal heritage or religious beliefs as anyone else in this country...but I don't go around cramming it down everyone's throats. neither do I want others personal convictions forced upon me. And since California is one of the largest purchasers of school text books, such companies which publish them may think it profitibly unwise to print such editions with homosexual notations solely for CA, and note such in all of the print run which is distributed for the OTHER 49 states. If these books are distributed to school grades containing children in pre-school, I might consider this inappropriate. (But...as usual...maybe this is only MY opinion).


And everyone's up in the air about "The DaVinci Code". Such silliness. People not able to comprehend that it's author took aspects of history and mixed it in with fiction, just to write a novel. Really, some people take everything in life waaayyyy too seriously. I compare the state of those select few's minds getting all upset over this to some "fan boy" that went wild over seeing "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" and trying to make it a way of life rather than a few hours of escapism and entertainment. (Do a flick about the government and everyone praises it; do one about religion and everyone gets upset.)


Watched President Bush's address last night, and for once, I can not say that I disagreed with a single thing or idea he said or had regarding the problems regarding illegal immigration. (Amazing.)


Today are the local primaries, of course, of which I have absolutely no interest and could care less who's to become the new jailer or dog catcher. Small town politics are boring, and besides, people gonna do what they wanna do anyway so to me, it makes little matter.


So away from political and current events, and a little "comic talk". Was thinking about various DC characters I'd like to see brought back that's been absent from the scene for a while, like "Jemm, Son of Saturn", "'Mazing Man", "Amethyst", "Arak" and a host of others from the 1980's. Hard to remember which ones were killed off during The Crisis series (although I have a link to that somewhere saved). 'Think a team-up between Jemm and Jonn Jonzz would be interesting.


And, finally, sorry this 300th. post isn't as exciting as I wanted it to be, but frankly folks, I am tired. Had no real rest during my vacation week from my regular job at all, and I need a break for a while. So I'm taking a hiatus from "Elmo's Junction" for a while. Now this doesn't mean I'm leaving for good, but my posts will indeed be much less regular; maybe 2 or 3 times a month for a bit until I can catch up on everything that needs to get finished around here.

I want to thank my good friend, Pete Shorette, who continuously lets me use his image-hosting site for free to post various photos on this page. (You'll notice that after a week or so, I eliminate these photos just to save space on his site, mainly because I figure everyone that's actually looking at this blog has seen them by then.)


So, until next time..."Keep in touch".

~D.Puck'.

"2006 Vacation: Day 7"

In case you haven't been following this news item...

In an article by Jennifer Quinn for Associated press...

"...a long and winding legal road took another twist for The Beatles' record company (Monday, May 8th.) when a British judge rules that Apple Computers is entitled to use the apple logo on its iTunes Music Store.

Apple Corps, guardian of The Beatles' commercial interests, contended the U. S. company's use of the logo on its online music store broke a 1991 agreement in which each agreed not to enter the other's field of business.

But High Court Judge Anthony Mann said the computer's logo is used in association with the store, not the music.

Though Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs said he was "glad to put this disagreement behind us," Neil Aspinall, the manager of Apple Corps, said his comapny would take the case to Britian's Court of Appeal."


This upsets me in a number of different ways. For one thing, it doesn't seem to hold up an trademark protections of a logo. This could lead to just that much more bootlegging of products you thought was made by the original company. Foreign bootlegs are bad enough on the market; you can find them at any "swap meet" or flea market. By allowing this infringement in the agreement, it's like saying, "Well...it's okay for him to use the logo, so I guess I can as well, although I'm not associated with either company".

Also I think it's a damn nasty way to treat The Beatles, a group that produced music that will never be forgotten, and has inspired literally hundreds of thousands of musicians since they first appeared in the early 1960's.

But...that's maybe just my opinions.


The rain finally stopped about 10AM yesterday morning, so at 11AM I went out and got all my supplies together, and took them up on the roof to attempt to get that repainting task completed. I was right down to the nitty-gritty of the gallon of green paint when it began raining.

Fortunately, it didn't cause much damage; a bit of streaking on a few places, and I had to re-keel some of the white areas where the still not quite dry paint ran down the drain spouts, but nothing major. The worst part is that I didn't get it finished. I had only enough paint to do about 90% of the steep areas, and the flat part of the metal, which is about 60% the size of the rest, is still without a new coat of paint. So, I'm putting that off until Tuesday when it appears that the weather will finally clear up and my next day off. Which will give me time to go get another gallon of green roof paint. Time spent on what I did on it thus far is about 2-1/2 hours, and I figure probably about that much more time to complete the job.


And I had about 1/2 of the work I did today done when a friend of mine stops by and wants to know if I want to ride with him to the closest comic book store (35 miles from here). Had to turn him down due to needing to get the work done, plus now I've spent any extra money I could have spent there. It's like, "Where were you Saturday when they were having their 20% off store-wide sale and Free Comic book Day?"

Speaking of which, has anyone out there literally lost a comic book? After mentioning the Just A Pilgrim series on yesterday's blog, I went to look for issue #2, which I know I have and have read. But try as I could, and looking for a good hour, I couldn't locate that issue. Not in the primary and secondary or anywhere else in the 10K+ collection of comics around here.

I checked autograph collections (in case it was such and I had put it seperately), and I checked Beatles app.'s, but it was no where to be found. So, finally, I started checking about a 1,000 dup's I had around here, 'cause, with the number of books I've bought, I figured I could have always made the mistake of putting it among those. Sure enough, I found it half way down the second stack of the first box of them. Geez, I hate that when it happens.

And today we went to visit with my wife's dad, who is doing well considering his condition. We had a nice visit for about three hours, enjoying the conversation and munching on White Castles. We also went by and got our insurance check endorced by the bank and deposited that and stopped by the antique mall for a little while. I found 2 more issues of Animal Man I needed, bring that number down to about 14 of the 87 issues. Slowly but surely I'll have that collection complete yet!

This has been blog post #299. Join me back here next Tuesday (May 16th.) for Elmo's Junction's 2nd. Anniversary & Post #300!

"2006 Vacation: Day 6"

Well...continuing my personal nightmare over getting insurance to pay for the tornado damage, you might recall that our insurance company was nice enuff to 1) Give us about 20% of what we really needed for repairs, and , 2) Cancel our house insurance. So's...anyway...we finally did get a check from them yesterday, and we called the guy who's doing the siding replacement, and he wrote a contract and we wrote him a check, telling him not to cash/deposit it until we got this money in the bank.


This morning one of his helpers came out and took down the old damaged siding, and I thought, "Well, maybe things are finally getting straightened out". So I go to the bank to deposit the check, and, guess what? Not only is it made out to my wife and I, but also the bank that has the lean on the house. So tomorrow I have to do a 100 mile round trip to that bank just to have them endorse the check (which I've called ahead of time to talk to them about that, and thankfully, no problems in that).


Been a lovely vacation.

And since everyone's tired of hearing me rant on and on about all of that...

You know, I always wanted to write a comic book series that IF my mother ever read it (which she wouldn't 'cause she just don't read comics), but IF she did, she'd tell me I was going straight to Hell for doing so.

Fortunately, I never had to because of such a great writer as Garth Ennis, whose work I have really enjoyed over the years, especially in such series as Just A Pilgrim (that was published by Black Bull Publications), and Preacher (Vertigo-DC, of course). The cover illo posted above is to my favorite issue of the JAP series, #3, which as you can read, was also the Origin issue. I thought Kevin Nowlan did an admirable job on the starkness of it.

Naturally, it's raining here once again today, so roof painting's out. In fact, the weather is predicted to be raining all thru the weekend, with my next day off (next Tuesday) looking like my next best chance to finally get that accomplished. Probably I should have worked on the roof first, and then done the white wood trim here and there, but...

Anyway, I can't get it all done this week due to just lack of time and the bad weather, so the new sidewalk and the remainder of the trim will just have to wait. Anyway...I'm finally out of white paint.

Did finally win a copy of The Daring Advs. of Supergirl No.9, which I need for my misc. "Doom Patrol" app.'s. Of course, since then, I've had to add two more app.'s to my Want List of such that I've discovered: Batman Annual 25, and Teen Titans No.26 (both of which just came out this year). I also won a couple of misc. issues published by either St. John or Dell from the early silver-age that have Charles Schulz "Peanuts" app.'s. One of them is in Tip Topper comics, which I which have several issues of, but all of them published much earlier than those strips began. The other, is in (of all things), and issue of Nancy.

And I've finally gotten through those two long boxes of (mostly) modern comics I bought recently. Turned out after I pulled the duplicates and used the backing boards and bags, that 3/4's of them were both bagged and boarded and the rest just "in" bags, so looks like yet another 200 backing boards that I'll have to pick up sumtime. I've given up on ever getting everything alphabethized. Now not only do I have a secondary collection, but a third as well!

2006 Vacation: Day 5"

What a wonderful vacation it's been.

And yes, I AM being sarcastic about the whole thing. Rain has ruined any working on the house outside for a good 2-1/2 days of it. Wanted to paint the roof both yesterday AND today, bnut rain stopped that, so IF it doesn't rain tomorrow, that's yet to be done.

I finally ran out of white paint. Just "knew" I should have bought 2 gallons, and part of the back of the house still isn't finished. Won't have time to re-do the sidewalk; that'll just have to wait for another day.

Maybe if I had another week off just to work on the place, or had I just one dry week, it'd been finished. 'Course, we did finally get the payment from the insurance company, but it's only half or so of what we need to do all of the repairs (so the rest comes out of our pockets).

It would seem that I wasn't the only one here locally that got rather screwed by the insurance companies, though. A local tv station's coming here tomorrow (to this town, that is) to interview some elderly folk whose insurance companies only gave them $2,000. and told them that if they needed more, to let them know. Of course, after they cashed the checks, it was a closed deal. (Hope they end up hanging those crooks.)

And the yard needs mowing again. Yep. Sum vacation this has turned out to be.

But yesterday I did in fact go for that accessment for the mayo plant, so maybe some good will come out of my time off.

Also bought over 600 mostly modern comics for $40. I didn't have 2/3rd.s of it, so lots of good reading material ahead for me. (But...I Do need yet another 200 backing boards again!)

Two days left until I go back to my regular grind of a job.


I need a vacation! (*heh*)

"2006 Vacation: Day 4"

Sitting around relaxing last night I decided to finally read a couple of one-shots and lmt. series of Superman that were published back in the 1990's.

First one I read was the one-shot Elseworlds Superman: Kal, which involves "the man of steel"'s being raised during mid-evil times rather than the 20th. Century.

The story begins with an old man relating a tale to his young apprentist that had since beome legend. The tale of a hero from another world.

It's a time, of course, of superstition and ignorance of the sciences, and when his space craft lands in a farmer's field, the husband tells his wife it smelled of witchcraft and they should have othing to do with it. But he eventually gives in to his wife's pleading for a child since they had no children of their own and they keep baby Kal. The farmer quickly buries the rocket so no one could find it, fearing his head be on the block.

They raise baby Kal into manhood, discovering his amazing strength along the way, and that he never got ill from the myriad diseases of that time. So they told him to keep his mouth shut and stay away from town and others that may suspect he was different.

Then one day a blacksmith comes to reshoe thweir horses, bringing along his son. His son and Kal go out to play boyhood games and a bull gets loose. Kal saves the blacksmith's son by tossing the bull into a tree! Well, naturally, this upsets Kal's stepdad pretty much, but the blacksmith can only see this as a sign of some new, strong help around his business and asks to take Kal to the town and us him as an apprentise. The old farmer's agree, and Kal becomes a "smithy".

While there, he discovers that the most powerful man in the area which rules over the land is Baron Luthor, who holds captive a beautiful Lady that was the daughter of a man he murdered in his climb to power. Of course, Kal falls for the Lady, and enters a local tournament to win her favor. The Lady also falls for Kal, which begins the problems.

One day while Baron Luthor's out hunting, his hounds sniff out the remains of Kal's rocket ship. The old farmer claims he knows nothing of it, so Luthor takes the rocket for himself, and commands the local Smithy to make him a suit of armor from it. Kal, being the smithy's helper, finally using his heat vision to help mold the metal and the result being an indestructible suit for Luthor. Oh? Did I neglect to mention that Lex wears a green Kryptonite pennant around his neck? A little souvenier from a meteorite which fell many years back, and Lex considered it a stone of power. Indeed it was as anytime Kal got near it, he passed out from the Green K exposure!

And...back to the story...Kal and the Lady fall in love, and when Lex asks what price he must pay for his new armor, kal asks for the lady's hand in marriage. Reluctantly, Lex grants it, but at the wedding celebration he demands the right that feudal lords had during that time in history, which was to sleep with the new bride of anyone on the honeymon night!

Naturally, this pi$$es Kal off pretty bad and refuses, but the Green K makes him pass out and Lex takes Kal's wife by force to his castle, where he tries, in effect, to rape her.

When she won't give into his demands, he beats her to death and has his servants toss her body into the castle's molt.

Kal finally gets his senses back and goes looking for Luthor, grabbing a weapon: a large silverish sword. The sword was made from the left over metal from the suit, therefore, an indestructible blade!

He raises towards the caste followed by a rebellion of local townsfolk tired of Luthor's cruelness, storm the place and Kal dispells all of the guards, and finally faces Luthor head on, who is wearing his indestructible armor.

They battle, and Luthor manages to jump on top of Kal from a heigth, using the sharp, pointed end of the Green K crystal as a dagger. It mortally wounds Kal, but...at the same time Kal had his sword raised and the honed and sharpened blade pierces the otherwise indestructible armor, and kills Luthor as well.

The Lady's body was recovered from the molt, and Kal asked with his dying breath to be lain with her. He takes the sword and puts in in a safe place until, once again, needed to end evil in the land.

As the story closes, we see the sword stuck deep into an anvil. Later this indestructible blade will be called Excalibur.

But...that's not where the story ends...the young lad to whom the old man had related the tale??? Why...Merlin...of course.


Really well written by Dave Gibbons and some fantastic artwork by Jose' Luis Garcia-Lopez.

Another limited series (from 1995) I just read was the Superman/Doomsday: Hunter Prey 1-3. I have to admit, that when the whole hoopla of "The Death of Superman" was around, I read them all, including the "Funeral for a Friend" and "Return of Superman" issues. It wasn't that I was really what you would call impressed about the whole thing. It was obvious front the start that DC wasn't about the kill off their Golden Goose who started it all and to top it destroy 60 years of merchandising of the character. It's like when they turned the Hulk grey or gave Spider-man a black costume over at Marvel, or even gave Supes long hair, you knew it couldn't last due to protection of trademark images. But the whole thing was sorta fun reading them all, and it did indeed do a couple good things for comics. For one it brought a LOT of new collectors into the game. True, many did NOT remain, but hey! That's good for me cause I've been able to buy large lots of various comics I wouldn't have spent big bucks on anyway, cheaply these days from them giving up collecting. During that time, several new characters were created at DC as well, plus it gave the market a little extra boost for comic book companies.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a side effect as that's about when all of the newstand spin-racks started disapearing, but it did also weed out the lesser books (maybe killed a "few" good ones). Overall, it was probably a good move by DC.

Anyway, this limited series explained a couple of things for me regarding "Doomsday", such as his origin, which turns out to be Kryptonian, and "why" he originally wore that green suit and googles.


And, finally, I didn't get to paint the metal roof today because rain was predicted. It held off so late in the day, tho', that I could have already had it done (*sigh*)! Guess I'll have to wait to do that now Thursday as rain's predicted here again tomorrow and for all day.

"2006 Vacation: Day 3"

This is blog post No.295, so just 5 more to go until the 300th.




Tomorrow morning I go for an accessment and math tests for a job at a local factory that's opening in this town soon, which will produce mayo and mayo packages for restaurants. It's not that the current job I've held for the past 6+ years isn't tollerable, but after this length of time I've gotten as much pay per hour that anyone can make there, plus it doesn't have medical benefits. The mayo plant does have both health and dental insurance for employees, is within 3 miles of my house, and even the lowest of positions there pays nearly $2. more per hour than I currently make.

There's about ten different positions employees can work in in this new plant, and I'm sure that I'm suitable for at least one of them (so, wish me luck!)

And today on this the 3rd. day of my vacation, I repaired the window sill in the front of the house under the largest window. It was much more of a job than I figured once I got into seeing what needed to be done. The wood had totally rotted away; so much so, that I didn't have anything for either long screws or nails to grab into, so I had to remove the flashing and all of the old ledge wood and completely replace that, plus keeling the wood, nailing it into position, replacing the flashing, and then sealing any openings with calking. This along took a good two hours to accomplish.

Then the corner of the old shop roof needed to be nailed back down, so I used long screws on that as well, and scraped down and repainted the wood under that.

Then I touched back up on areas that looked weak from yesterday's painting, scrubbed and cleaned off other areas, some of which will need repainting, and others now "okay" from the cleaning. Then I scraped off the old paint under the front door and repainted it, and, finally, up on the roof to prepare the last bit I needed before repainting the metal.

This required scraping and repainting all of the wood areas first, then recleaning off the roof so that I could put down the new coat of hunter-green paint (tomorrow's task if the predicted rain doesn't move into this area).

I found the paint I needed at Wallyworld, a place I don't care to personally buy from, but it was indeed so much cheaper than a local hardware store was asking for it. At a "Tru-Value" hardware locally, the cost was $26.99 per gallon. At Wal-Mart I paid $11.00. (That's $17. I save by buying it there; what a mark-up these locals make when it's the only hardware store in a one-horse town.)

And outside of that about the only thing I've done was go by and pick up 4 comics I told a local dealer I'd take: 4 silver-age misc. issues of Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery (published by Gold Key). Interesting issues; one of which had a nice BK photo cover, and featuring art by the like of Reed Crandall, Alex Toth, Don Heck, Frank Thorne and others.

We have yet to receive the payment from the insurance for the tornado damages, still, and that's getting pretty old since I'd like to get that vinyl siding and windows repaired. For house insurance this next time we definately won't be buying from the same local firm.

"2006 Vacation: Day 2"

"Vacation's all I ever wanted.

Vacation...Time to Get Away!"

~The Go-Gos.


Watched Justice League Unlimited last night, and for those who missed that episode, the new "Legion of Doom", led by Lex Luthor, had this "split up" with 1/2 of them taking up for "Grodd" (whom they wanted as leader instead) and they battled it out. Luthor won, and turned their HQ into a space ship to try to recover the blasted particles of "Brainiac" so he could be joined with him again. But, as things have it, it wasn't Brainiac at all he recovered, but Darkside! So, it was continued, and the LOD will be teaming up with the JLA to fight Darkside next week, as well into this forte we'll see, I'm sure, the Kirby characters from "New Genesis".

Funny thing about Lex Luthor. He's one of Superman's oldest foes, and the most well-known, and started off as a villian with red hair.

Then, in Superman V 1 #10 (1941), a bald Luthor was introduced, and I dare say that had this bald version never been created, he'd never have been as "popular" and long-enduring as he is today.

This version led into story-lines introduced in Superboy V1 where Lex was actually a childhood friend of Superman's (when he was a teen), and because of such, Superboy built a laboratory where Lex could work on his scientific experiments. One day Lex actually succeeds in creating an artificial life form, but causes an accidental fire, to which Superboy comes to the rescue using his super-breath to put out the flames. The result was fumes from various spilled chemicals causing Lex's hair to fall out. Which also obviously did something to Luthor's mind as well, causing him to hate Superman and become his greatest of foes.

So much so that Luthor's tried to kill Supes on a number of occasions. Of course, "these days" Lex isn't like the silver-age version that much, with his "super battles suits" and the like, but more of a "Kingpin" character (at least, in the POST "Crisis" versions). And he is to Superman what "The Joker" is to Batman, or "Sivana" was to the Original Captain Marvel, i.e., somebody they could use over and over again in plots and stories into infinium.

It was in the 1960's that Lex Luthor stories got pretty strange. There were tales where he and Supes went to a distant planet with a red sun, ( under which Superman was like a "normal" man) and the two duked it out. In this tale, Lex becomes that world's greatest hero, and Superman, the villian.

There were Imaginary Stories where Lex married Lois Lane, or where he kills Superman, or even goes back in time to the planet Krypton and becomes Superman's father! There was even one where Ma & Pa Kent adopt ol' Lex and he becomes Clark's brother and in the end, gives up his life to save him.

And...way out yander on the square "Bizarro World" of the SA DC Universe, there's even a Bizarro version of ol' Lex Luthor who does Good, instead of Evil.


But...enuff about Lex.


Today is indeed the 2nd. day of my 2006 vacation from my usual "make-a-few-bucks-to-survive-from-day-to-day-existence-job". And it's been raining...which is REALLY upsetting my apple cart since my plans for today included more outdoor painting on the house. Too damp to do that, but after the rainfall ceased, but I did mix up some "Quik-Crete" for mortar to patch around the bricks in one place on the foundation, and as well I worked on repairing the arch-type lattice-work which had several runs knocked out from last month's hail storm. This rain has also killed any outdoor flea market activity in the nearby next town, so here I am stuck inside.


I noticed over on Robby Reed's "Dial B For Blog" site that it's not accessable for the past couple days. Keeps coming up that the "Band Width Has Been Exceeded" notice. I wouldn't doubt that a bit since his blogs are pretty darn big with lots of illos. Hope he's back up 'n' runnin' soon, though, as I enjoy reading his blogs.

And over on Johnny Bacardi's blog, he posed the following questions:


1) The first comic book you remember reading and its price?

(2) The first comic book you remember buying yourself and its price?

(3) The most recent comic book you bought and the price?

(4) Any particular big-time bargain you've stumbled across and the price?

(5) The most you ever spent on a comic or comics-content book and its price.?


Well...I really do not recall "what" was the first comic book I ever actually read, as my late brother bought comics and I always looked at them even before I could read. Nor do I recall what the first comic was when I could read. I'm sure it was some silver-age DC Superman or Batman, however from the mid to latter 1950's. The first comic I remember someone giving me was the "3 Camels Cover Version" of The Story of Jesus, which was December of 1957 when I was 6 years old. I think I finally narrowed down the first comic book I ever bought for myself as being a copy of House of Mystery #75, which was around 1958 and I purchased it at a local drug store called Caverna Drugs. That issue contained a story drawn by Jack Kirby, and was about those Giant Stone heads on Easter Island coming alive and trying to take over the world. Another early comic I recall buying with money that I had myself was a copy of Action #278, which was about Perry White getting super-powers and it was an early use of White Kryptonite, but that was in 1961 and I was well buying comics of various sorts by then. The cover price of any first book I bought was ten cents, tho'.

The most recent NEW comic I've bought was probably an issue of the current Supergirl series, or one of those John Byrne issues of Doom Patrol, which are around $3. now.

"Big Time Bargains?" Tons of them over the years. Got a lot of very expensive comics just in trades of one-to-ones over the years, usually swapping off duplicates.

The most I've ever spent on a comic? Hmmmm.....I'm sure I've spent over a couple hundred just on some single item at one time or another...hard to remember. The last book I paid over $100. for was a VG copy of Action #252 (1st. app. of "Supergirl, from 1959). I've paid, in recent years, $200-$350. on Golden Age comic lots (but not individual issues).


(Trying to satisfy my hunger for jazz today. Got the Chick Corea Akoustic Band: Alive CD in at the moment. "Hackensack" is probably my favorite cut on it. Great music, highly recommended, released in 1991 on GRP Records.)

Sat around bored today, so I watched "Unbreakable", with Samual Jackson and Bruce Willis, again. I've watched this flick at least three times and always find something in it I've missed. (Really like that flick.) Otherwise it's been a pretty duddy day.

"2006 Vacation: Day 1"

And so begins my vacation time for this year, and today is also Derby Day with the running of the 132nd. Churchill Downs Race.

I didn't place any bets this year, but the horse I was hoping would win, actually did "show", and that being Steppenwolfer, who came in 3rd. Gee...that's three or four years now that the horse I've picked has come in in the first three. Maybe I need to get to "the track" more often!

And today also was Free Comic Book Day, but, naturally, I didn't get to go to it. Really wanted to as my local comic shop was also having a Sidewalk Sale and everything 20% off in the store. But, as things go, I went there last weekend and could really afford to go today. Plus, my wife really had her heart set on going to the "City Wide Yard sale" event in a local town. So we drove there instead, fighting the maddening crowds, and she bought a few craft items she wanted and we walked around for probably three hours until the both of us were exhasted.

I spent the grant total of one dollar, and that ona pair of "Giant Hulk Hands" that made a noice when you hit them together (released as a toy item when the flick came out a few years back). The only other items I picked up was a McDonald's toy of "The Thing"(FF character) that slammed his fists together and a noice of "smacking" being made, plus a "Gambit"(X-Men) action figure; both of which were actually free in a box marked as such of just some stuff someone at one of the yard set-ups was trying to get rid of.

Then we came home, stopping by a gas/grocery mart along the way to pick up a snack for lunch. When we got home, my wife took a short nap before work time (she had to go in at 2PM), and I rested a little, then went outside and began, once again, to scrape and repaint the white woodwork around the house. I worked on this, non-stop, for a good four hours today, but did indeed get quite a bit of it finished.

I almost picked up a gallon of green roofing paint today so I could do the front metal roof as well, but the hardware store we stopped at was, I thought, too expensive ($26. for a gallon), so I suppose it's Wallyworld if I get the chance tomorrow for that. And, after I get all of the outside painting finished, I'll be lying a new sidewalk in the front of the house. That's be around 12' long, and it's a job I've never tried before, but I do know the basics of it. And I'll do a section at a time. probably by the third or forth section, I'll get it right! (*heh*)

And basically, that ALL of the work I plan to do this week around here. After all, I'm suppose to be resting on vacation...right?

"Just Busy; That's All"

Yeah, I know I'm not bloggin' as much as usual. Been just very busy at work. Right now I'm on the 4th. day of a six day straight work schedule. Still have till Saturday before I'm off and start vacation.

And, after I got off work tonight, I still came home, put some keel on outside wood places that I'd previously scraped off the paint, scraped off more paint and re-keeled them, picked up trash from the back yard, cleaned off about a zillion little twigs from the from roof in preparation for its repainting, put some more tar on the roof over the bathroom, etc.,etc. Been just busy as hell.

But I'll make it all up very soon. Have picked up a lot of both old and new comics I want to comment on, plus Saturday is Free Comic Book Day at your local comic shop (remember), and I'm sure I'll have more wonderous things soon to rant about, so...

Till then.