"End of the Week Catch-Up"

One of the greatest illustrators of the 20th. Century, was Gustaf Tenggren (1896-1970). He illustrated many a classic tale of mythology, several well-known children's books, and was an animation designer for the Disney Studios (being one of the main artists on the classic Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs). So you can imagine my delight when I found a discarded library copy of Robert Wagner's The Ring of The Nibelung (a Nordic tale that perhaps you're only familiar with from reading graphic novel adaptations with the likes of artists such as Gil Kane, or Craig Russell).

Taking my mother back to her job at the local public library recently, she told me that all of the books they had had on sale there (discarded older copies which hadn't been checked out in several years) were now FREE for the taking. I drudged through probably a dozen boxes of various old hardcovers, mostly juvenille fiction, passing on adventures of "Donna Dixon" and the like, and then...there it was: a 1932 copy of The Ring of The Nielung, missing only its original dust jacket and a blank front page where they had removed the old library card, but otherwise complete and with title pages. What wonderful ink drawings (a total of a dozen) awaited me inside of mythic Nordic gnomes and gods! It just proves that treasures such as these can still be found, and I was more than glad to save this precious one from being tossed aside.

The above illustration of "Wotan" is from this book, and, if you are not familiar with Tenggren's work, please do click onto the name link to see some beautifully rendered artwork. You might even be surprized to find a book from your own childhood that you didn't realize was illustrated by this master.


And I guess I should say, "I'm sorry" for not proof reading my last post very well. I just quickly scanned over it seeing if I screwed up anything major and let it go due to the lack of time I had to finish it, and then after it was posted and I got to RE-reading the thing I spotted numberous typos and misspellings. So many mistakes in fact that I went back with a dictionary and spell-checked the entire post! It may still not be totally correct, but it definately IS easier to understand now, so for those who read it before, you may want to go back and RE-read it again.


Something I forgot to add to those notations regarding those trips to the Christian youth get-togethers in Louisville, was that the next year (1965, and the last such thing I ever was forced to endure), instead of stopping at a "Glass House" on I-65, we stopped on the way back at some grocery mart while the minister filled up his car with gas, and they had a comic spinner rack there. Now, in Louisville, the distributors got the new comic books to the racks a week ahead of us down here, so there was a LOT of new books I hadn't seen yet. I remember that I bought either 2 or 3 new comics, and the only one that sticks out in my mind was a copy of The Avengers #17 where the new hero lineup of that team was fighting some villian called "The Minotaur". It was right after the new Avengers lineup had been introduced in #16, and before "The Swordsman" came on the scene. By then I had started buying ALL of Marvel's hero and western books each month (having previously only bought then eractically). I can remember which issues most were that I bought with regularity as them being that first issue until about the middle of 1970, and they were: Fantastic Four #39, X-Men #10, Tales of Suspense #65, Tales to Astonish #67, The Avengers #15, The Amazing Spider-man #24, Daredevil #7, Sgt. Fury #17, Journey into Mystery with Thor #116, Strange Tales #133, and...I forget which westerns or other titles, and I also remember buying magazines such as "Monsters To Laugh With" and "The Advs. of Pussycat". Oddly enuff, I can not remember which DC Comics' titles I started with (the particular #, that is); probably due to the large number of comics they produced back then compared to the smaller number of different ones that Marvel did. But I'd say that I bought ALL action hero, western, & war titles by DC, Marvel, Charlton, Archie, etc., etc. beginning with either the March or April, 1965 issues from each company.

I had to mow many a Summer yard and beg many a quarter from my folks to retain such a habit, which is "why' I sought out so many others that bought comics and did trades (mostly with my dups). One bad trade I made one time was 100 misc. comics for an old, cheap guitar around 1966 that I "thought" I could learn how to play. Brother, was I ever a chump! (12-05-07)


On this date in 1980, John Lennon died.


Today has been a messy one with an ice-cold rain for the better part of the day with a little mix of sleet. Thankfully the temperatures have been well up above freezing to make it a real mess, but it's a sure sign of worse weather to expect this winter, I'm afraid.

Got off early today and came home and worked on seperating out box-after-box of comics that I didn't sell on on-line auctions, and getting them all in one area for a friend to look through this next week. I ended up with 15 boxes of "stuff'. What he doesn't want I'm taking and storing away from my main collections. In fact, I may just go back thru all of the other boxes and see just what else could be pulled and try to get this comic book collection down to a reasonable size to deal with. I've probably pulled at least 2000 comics, and I'd really like to double that amount as I need the space around here. And since my inventory list is shot all to hell anyway, I'm eliminating it altogether and relying solely on a "want list' of sorts. No more large "lot" deals for me ever again unless it deals only with bronze age or before books of interest, or titles with really good artists/writers.

I'm off tomorrow (Sunday). Maybe a little time to relax. (12-08-07)