"Post No. 563"

Got in that 1919 Cupples & Leon Company 3rd. series edition of Bringing Up Father in the mail today. Not in the best of shape (about a "Fair minus") but complete enough to read and enjoy and add to my collection. It's nice to have one of these old "Platinum Age" comics around again, and this is currently the oldest of comic books I have in my current collection.

I took mom back to the heart doctor today and thought about going by Waldenbooks to check out the new stuff, but I had yet another one of those fitful nights last night where I'd sleep an hour or so and wake up, back and forth all night. I finally got up around 6AM but probably didn't actually sleep a full three hours and was pretty beat. By the time I drove her up there, waited around an hour and a half, and took her to get some lunch, it was all I could do to keep myself alert enough to drive the 45 miles back home. (Plus i fo9rgot my 25% Off coupon I could have used on something at Waldenbooks;That's life.)

I've had some better luck with current on line auctions here of late. In the past month or so I've actually sold two different items, albeit at minimum bids, but at least they both did sell. The first one was a "Bugaloos" metal lunch box (with no thermos or strap) from 1971 that I'd picked up at the local flea market for $4. It got almost an instant bid for $9.99, and, although I was hoping it'd go higher, closed at that price. Still a profit of $6.

Then I found several really nice looking pure pewter fantasy figures (a good oz. in weight) holding a lead cystal ball at a close-by "thrift shop". I bought one for myself and an extra just to see if it'd sell, and sure enough it got a minimum bid, too, at $9.99. Considering I only paid $1. each on those, I made a fine profit and am even considering picking up a couple more for some future auction and running that item again since I already have photos taken to list it.

Been watching a few of my favorite old horror-ish-type flicks on the AMC Channel, such as "The Bride of Frankenstein", "The Invisible Man", "Frankenstein meets The Wolfman", etc. Some of these are pretty hookey, but have some great effects especially considering the era in which they were made (mostly the 1930's to early 1940's), when everyone (or, at least real people) did the stunts physically and there was no such animal as computer animation or special effects. Watching these reminds me of the days of my youth when I collected (and couldn't wait for a new one of) those great plastic Aurora monster models and the smell of testor's glue! (Which is probably "why" I'm half brain-dead today.)

Halloween is upon us. I won't be handing out "trick or treats" this year as I won't get home until that's well underway in this community, but I may go down to mom's and help my wife hand out candy to the local kids since mother can't go back and forth to the door easily this year. And...speaking of such...., I think I've seen the best halloween outfit yet, worn by a man that I'm sure did so unintentionally just today while traveling the road to the doctor.

As we drove up the old road this afternoon, there was a construction crew, and some of the men were of the Hyspanic persuation. One man was wearing the following: Work boots, work pants, a pull over-hooded shirt, a high-visability orange safety vest over that, holding a "stop/slow" sign,and, of all things, wearing a sombrero on his head over the hood of the sweatshirt. But that wasn't the best part. The middle of the hat (the crown) was one of those highway, stripped caution-cones with red and white stripes! Now THAT'S something you don't see everyday!

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"Post No. 562"

Isn't that a really nice piece of artwork above? A friend of mine on one of the chat boards posted a link to it recently. It's done by an art student approx. 16 years of age. Shows she has a LOT a talent, and, if she's that good "now", you know she'll be even better with more time and training. Just one of the many, many reasons why I don't try to do a whole lot of artwork these days. As I've said before, my time has really passed to attempt to make art a professional endeavor. There's so very many younger people, those a fraction of my age, who are many times better, many times faster at producing quality artwork, and have great imaginations and eye for detail that it's next to impossible to compete. I hope she has wonderful success as a professional artist (if she so choses that occupation in the future). Click onto photo to bring it up MUCH larger for a closer look at the detail!

And today is Berni Wrightson's 60th. Birthday! Over on "Johnny Bacardi's blog site he's reproduced some of his own favorite Wrightson pieces. Well worth a look! The first time I saw Wrightson's work in was in a loc page of Warren Publication's Creepy Magazine in the mid 1960's. I was thinking that was issue #5, but I'm mistaken as I checked my own copy of that particular issue so I'm not sure which it was (one under #10). It was a horror-type piece though, and I remember instantly liking his style. Later I would become addicted to his work with his "Nightmaster" issues of DC's Showcase, myriad horror stories and covers for their various mystery titles, and of course, Swamp thing. Hard to believe he's 60, but then, it's very hard for me to accept that I'M 57.

Gunna be chilly here tonight! Lows predicted right at the freezing level for the first time since last Winter or so. Glad I finally got the outside of this house fairly Winterized and outside faucets wrapped.


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"Post No. 561"

Got in copies of the DC-Vertigo limited series, Greatest Hits #'s 1 & 2 (as well as an extra issue of No.1 with with a variation cover),

Although this hasn't received (thus far) the best of reviews, I personally thought it pretty good, and if you click onto the link above it'll give you a better inkling of this series. Both issues of 1 & 2 contained various "Beatles references" (all of which I've already listed on my "Beatles & Bizarros" blog posts); each of the four central characters to the storyline represent different Beatles as well as vague representations of various superheroes.

So far, only the first two issues are out, but it's a six-issue series and I definately plan to obtain the set.

"In other news...", my mother's youngest sister came down for a visit from where she lives near Indianapolis last week and stayed a few days. She was telling me how my second cousin (her late daughter's oldest son) is now into collecting. He's wanting those superhero drinking glasses that Pepsi came out with a good 25 years ago (which had the like of Batman, Superman, The Riddler, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Shazam!, etc.on them), plus he's now collecting comic books. With a name like "Thor", he outta be! So I'm going to dig thru all the boxes I have around here of modern dup's and set him up with a bunch he might like; just waiting for him to send me either a want list or a list of titles he enjoys. It's always a "kick" for me to help a fledgling comic book collector (although the poor kid really doesn't know what he's getting himself into, huh?)

It's supposed to turn pretty clilly around here especially at night in S-Central, KY. tomorrow, so I went down and removed and put up my mom's water hose this evening after work, turned off the water to the outside faucet and wrapped it for her, then came home and did some Winterizing around this old place as well, removing and storing my own water hose, wrapping the outside hydrant, putting up boards in front of the crawl-space area to the underneath of the house, etc. Still need to cover the air conditioner with a tarp', then that'll have most of it finished. I expect a cold and snowey Winter this time (although I always hope that I'll be wrong).

"Post No. 560"

Not having the originals of silver-age Amazing Spider-man issues around these days, I resorted to looking up that reproduced panel (see previous post) that's on the top of that metal pencil box and discovered that it's from issue #49 (June, 1967), page 14, panel 3. This was the issue right before the whole introduction and battle with "The Kingpin" began. Such memories... I was still hardcore into collecting every comic book Marvel produced back in those days. A happy little Merry Marvel Marching Society Member, was I (before Marvel made me so jaded with the tons of crap they produced after 1985 or so). I still love the early Marvel efforts, especially that which they produced prior to 1967. The 1961-63 years of that company are my favorites with "Ant-Man", the more humorous "Fantastic Four", the original clunky-armored "Iron Man", et all. Comics such as those will never be produced again.

Found a beautiful copy of the MGM 1975 flick, Rollerball (starring James Caan, Maud Adams, John Houston, John Beck, etc.) for $4. at a local store. Watched it. Had forgotten just how much I enjoyed that film. It kills me that the same store is still trying to push copies of that godawful Catwoman flick for $25., when anyone can buy a classic such as this for next-to-nothing (and it's ten times better).

Which is the reason for the above illustration. It's a pen & ink that I did in 1977 (Ghad! 31 years ago!) from recalling that movie a couple of years later after seeing it at a theatre, during the first Winter I moved to Bowling Green, KY. to work as a manager of a head shoppe. That first month or so I was there I didn't have much to do. There was a lot of snow on the streets, my t.v. wasn't working right, so I filled up several weeks of doing just misc. artwork and listening to a LOT of old music. I must apologize for the quality of this scan, though, as the original was 11" x 22" and I later had it reduced on a xerox machine to make it easier to send as an art sample, and the reduced effect made it a bit murky and dark, so it lost quite a bit of detail when taken down to a 8-1/2"x11" letter format (then add the reducing it even further to fit THIS format, and...well...). But--If you'll click onto the image that'll will make it a bit larger.

I look back on those days and the artwork I was producing at that time and feel it's probably better and more imaginative than what I currently "try" to do. I suppose I was just more inspired "back then". I think what I lost along the way was the patience for detail, making my work much more simple, cartoony and "undergroundish" (or, perhaps it's just because I don't have the extra time anymore to do more detailed artwork) .

Got in my copies of DC-vertigo's Greatest Hits #'s 1 & 2 today and will be reviewing same after reading them. Got both variations of the cover to #1. Looks like a pretty decent series.

"Post No. 559"

Comic Book Collecting-wise I've decided to do my annual thinning of the herd, so-to-speak, where I go thru box after box of comics, taking out stuff I don't really want to keep to either sell as one large lot or start sticking it into a yard sale.

Right now I approximate my inventory at a little over 13,000 comics. Gritting my teeth as I pull from those boxes I'm sure I can eliminate at least 5,000 of that as I have at least 700 duplicates.

Titles that will be pulled are mostly all modern Marvel "X" books (with just a few exceptions), tons of alternative press publications (Image, Now, Top Cow, Innovation, etc., etc. titles), lots and lots of Whitman humor titles, and, I'm not sure what else, but this will give me the extra bags and boards that I need for the stuff I want to keep (as well as extra "long" boxes), saving me from having to purchase more of those, and the books (unless they're in some low-grade bags with cheapo backing boards) can go "free-range".

I may or may not pull from 25-50 lots of those putting them together in 50 comic stacks to sell on eBay; haven't decided yet. Just depends on how much time I have to fool with them. I'm also going to eliminate any coverless and or damaged comics from my collection (unless it's something REALLY worth keeping even in that shape). I'll use the income from these sales to further einhance the collections I wish to keep complete until said time that I finally retire (IF that day ever comes) to sell on on-line auctions to help suppliment my social security (I can't sign up for that for another 5 years). Or, perhaps invest it into some good pre-70's stuff that I can find in deals that can be resold as a profit at that time.

I've stopped buying any new comics off the stands unless it's maybe an issue of The Hulk, Supergirl, FF or JLA. Cover price is waaayyyy to high for that. I'll still concentrate on my "want lists", but I'm even slimming that down as well. The only way I'll be buying any firther modern comics will be in "lot" deals as well, but ONLY those issues that are on the Want List.

I'm considering selling about 75% of my paperbacks as well, which I have in the 3,000-4,000 range. Complete sets of Edgar Rice Burroughs, most of the "Perry Rhodans", lots of pulp-related stuff, Frazetta and Jeff Jones covers, etc. I may sell my ERB vintage hardcovers, too, plus some myriad trade paperbacks and magazines.

The older one gets, the less clutter they want. I have a ton of things like action figures, vintage soda bottles and the like that I need to clear out of here. I have no living children to leave this stuff to, and really, my wife wouldn't have the foggiest idea as to how to sell it or even list it. She'd end up getting screwed over by someone selling it for her, and to let it go at an estate sell is next to giving it away. best to get the money one can for it in current times that not at all, and use it to better our lives and fix up things that still need it around the house, or put it into savings as neither of us have any health insurance and a good stay in a hospital would literally ruin us.

Here recently when I took my mom down to the local pharmacy, I noticed the druggist had some new J. T. Chick tracts and I was able to add four more to more collection of same. Counting the ones in Espano and variations now, I count 85 different ones of these, but I'm sure there's many, many more that have been published over the years.


And kudos to anyone that can recognize the above panel from a John Rominta drawn silver-age issue of The Amazing Spider-man (as I'm too lazy to actually look it up), which pictures Kraven and The Vulture II. (I'd say it's circa 1967-68). This is the top illustration to a metal pencil-box I found at the local Rite-Aid Drug Store on their mark down table for forty cents and thought it a good addition to other Spider-man tins of sorts that I have around. (Click onto picture for a larger version to read.)

"Post No. 558"

Finally got to see Justice league: The New Frontier animated flick Saturday night, or, at least most of it as I didn't know it was one for a good twenty minutes.

Very nice animation and retro type costuming, but a few flaws for an old silver-age guru like myself. For one thing, what's with that really dark eyebrows over Barry Allen's eyes which show up prodominently while he's wearing The Flash mask?

And, if it was really keeping incontext with the age it's supposed to be in (circa 1962), Wonder Woman was wearing the hot short-shorts and laced up sandles, and still fighting crime in America, then. Here she's shown on Paradise Island and in the 40's-type mini-dress, and tells Superman that she hasn't flown "the invisible airplane" in many years.

At the end of the flim we see the JLA fighting "Starro", but Starro was 1959 and the JLA had already been formed. John F. Kennedy is shown as the president, thus the title, "The New Fronteir", but actually, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president when the JLA first appeared. They show Aquman with long hair, something he never had until a couple of decades later. And the Superman of the early 1960's could literally move entire planets. This one is more in keeping with a later 1940's version. Green Lantern would have already been around for 3 years or so rather than having his origin in the early 1960's.

Even so with flaws such as these, it was a great flick! Superman and Batman & Robin looked like they could have walked off a page of an issue of World's Finest (from '62). It was really good to see Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern. And even a nice touch with such an esoteric early 1950's hero such as "King Faraday" joining the battle. The 60's style "Green Arrow" was done well. Neat shot at the end as well with the retro "Teen Titans". A B+ flick. I think I may have to break down and purchase me a copy to rewatch again.

"Post No. 557"

Recently won a copy of a 1919 "Bringing Up Father" newspaper collection book. Not in the greatest of shape, but it'll be nice just to have a sample of one of these early pioneers from "the plantinum age" to stick in my collection of comics. I've tried to have at least one example of all the various forerunners of the modern comic magazine, from early comic strips, to such collections as the BUF, to a few pulps, a copy or two of Puck, and even some BLB's. It's interesting to see how all of these various formats contributed to the creation of the 4-Color comic over the years.

And last night was certainly interesting to say the least. Stopped by as usual to see mom after work and she said her sholder was hurting quite a bit. Thought it was from being over exercised by the physical therapist recently. Finally got home and hadn't eaten dinner or cleaned up yet when mom calls back and wants to go the emmergency room. She thinks she may be having a heart attack.

Well...I knew she wasn't having a heart attack. She didn't
have any of the sympthoms of such, but just to have her peace of mind, I took her and had her checked out. As I figured, it was just strained muscles. What had happened was that she'd talked to her granddaughter who said that having such pain could cause such and it got it in her mind that she was. I'm going to have to talk with that girl 'cause my mom's very impresionable about such things. Anyway, the doctor gave her a Darvon and she's feeling better.

Myself, I had a fitful night, sleeping barely off and on until I finally just got up from bed at 5:15 AM this morning and have stayed up. (I have those nights occasionally at my age.)

Getting about time for a yearly cleaning out of my collections, and this time, I think it's going to be a BIG one. Getting rid of tons of modern Marvel Comics for one thing: countless "X" titles and the like that have accumulated from deals, Whitman humor titles, odds and ends and tons of direct sales alternative stuff. I figure I can clean out around 5,000 comics from the boxes, which will give me plenty of extra bags and backing boards needed for the stuff I really want to keep. Gonna have to find either someone to buy these as a "lot" deal, or eventually have that huge yard sale and see what I can move, or eBay the things. Just getting the enthusiasm to do this is the main thing. There's around 60 longboxes worth of stuff to dig through to accomplish this task.

"Things that urk me, Dept.": Honestly, couldn't companies such as these gas/grocery places at least train their employees better? Couldn't they screen them just a "little" bit better before they hire them? They're always so darned concerned that there might be a trace of marijuana in their system, but they seem really disinterested in if there's a symbolance of a brain in their heads. Here locally we have one of those "Minit Marts". I remember well working for this organization for a good four years, and back in that time (the early 1990's) we were put through several days of intense training on the lottery, the registers, safety, food preparation, stocking, bookwork, and company rules. And I must admit that the employees we had at this particular Minit Mart were very efficent and very quick. Those days of such seem long gone as the current crop, outside of the old timers who have worked there for a good 15 years, are just about as dumb as a stick and slower than molasses. What has happened to lessen the quality of said employees is that 1) A lot of people simply just don't want to work. There are some people that would rather bum off the government (and our taxes) than to do a decent day's labor. 2) There are people who are so uneducated that they aren't capable of holding down a job in the public eye, or have a decent attitude for same. 3) Such companies as Minit Mart are now scraping the "bottom of the barrel" to get people to work for them due to the hectic jobs there (due to having way too many handles in the fire going on in one store), so they're starting to hire just about anyone off the street and stick them behind the counter.

Because of this they're starting to lose business when there are competitors of the same nature also in the general area. At this same store, they've also hired some employees that don't know how to prepare the various foods (breakfast, sandwiches, pizz) correctly, and these lost customers are heading towards McDonald's.

And their slogan of "Get It, Got It, Gone", has become "Stand in line 20 minutes, Get the incorrect item, Bare with the ignorant employee". They really need to straighten up that company.

And...getting that outta my system...

I'm closing in on finishing that set of Xombi now. The title has yet to disapoint me. Like Transmetropolitan, I'll miss a nightly reading fix of the title when I've finished it.

"Post No. 556"

Another $35. and one more visit from my pc repair man later (who took about 5 minutes to fix this thing) and I'm finally back on my cable connection and off of dial up, and with DSL! Altogether I've got over $100. invested in a new pc now, but that's still a lot cheaper than going out and buying an entire new system. Lesson learned. IF I had known enough to have fixed it myself, the new pc would have cost me a mere $35. It's worth the lesson to know better if there comes a next time.

So, let me think what I've done since my previous post.

I read issues of Astonishing X-Men (Marvel) #'s 18-20, which is an attractive enough book save that being so far out of the loop on "X-characters" that I really didn't have the foggiest notion that they were all about, save that it had something to do with "Emma Frost" doing "something" to the minds of Colossus and Kitty pride to make them think they were married and had a child which turned out to be some sort of illusion...I think. Honestly, I don't know how anyone can keep up with all of the storylines in these X-books Marvel produces.

The artwork was fairly decent, especially the covers by John Cassady, but I'm far removed from buying comics just because the covers look nice. To me it's one of those "C" grade type of books that I've tried to ignore for many a year from this company, along with the greatest majority of titles regarding other over-hypes such as "The Punisher", "Wolverine", "Ghost Rider" and "Spider-man".

I'm afraid my love affair with The X-men and their companion titles ended many a year ago when the team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne left "Uncanny". Since then mostly these titles have gone downhill save for my one-in-a-while interest with people like Stroman doing X-Factor, or Milligan and Allred on X-Statix.

And getting those out of the way I finally moved into the set of the DC-Milestone Xombi, which contain more odd characters than "Johnny Bacardi" can shade a Thriller at. It was pretty much the last of the Milestone stuff and totally different from their hero titles, and I still feel it should have had the Vertigo imprint.

Been raking on this yard..again...and yes, I've lost count now how many times that makes this Fall. Maybe five. Dunt know. All I wish is that I had a penny for every leaf that's ever fallen here so I could retire in Bermuda.

"Post No. 555"

Okay, here it is October the 11th. and still no DSL. Took my pc to a repair man two days ago. He checked it out. Found the Network card was fine as well as the drivers. In fact, he found absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. Got a connection right away. Brought it back to me. Charged $50. Plugged it in: No DSL. Called him and he thinks that it's my home connection but I won't be around here until Tueday for him to come by and check that. If so I'll have to call the server to come fix their connection. In the meanwhile, still on slow dial up and out $50. for no good reason. (Grrrr.....)

In the meanwhile, I finished reading that run of JLA 47 thru 65 and found them to be quite good even for a title that's now 8 years past. This run contained several complete storylines, beginning with "Once Upon A Time", where an evil witch is released from a magical book and thinks Wonder Woman some sort of faerie princess, and with the power to make all written fiction come to life, to a tale concerning the JLA meeting people who think they are the "real" heroes (although in their civilian ID's), to battles with white martians, to "Golden Perfect", which gives Wonder Woman a crisis over trying to save an abducted child who has been taken to a secret city to rule as their new leader. The populous there thinks he's some sort of Bhudda personna and want to keep him as it protects the city. WW thinks that's wrong and tries to use her lasso of truth, which ends up breaking over the conflict of "two truths", and her goal to repair same and come to terms with her own philosophies.

Along the way we get a couple of single tales, one involving Plastic Man trying to convice a kid that Santa Claus is real, and a "Joker: Laugh Laugh" x-over. Enjoyable run written by Mark Waid, Chuck Dixon/Scott Beatty, and Joe Kelly, with the likes of artwork by Doug Mahnke, Cliff Rathburn, Darryl Banks, Bryan Hitch/Paul Neary (my personal favorites), plus others. (This run went from Nov.2000 to May '02.) When that JLA series originally began, I considered it one of the best DC titles in a long time, and still feel that way even though I think the current series---thus far---is perhaps a bit better.

I've got three misc. issues of Marvel's Astonishing X-men to read (#'s 18 thru 20) and then I'll be diving into that full run of Xombi.

"Post No. 554"

It's sad.

A few days back my computer simply died.

It was not an "unexpected" death.

I acquired my old pc back about ten years ago when I was having other people list items for me to sell on eBay. One of these people told me that I should really get a pc of my own and that way I could list any time I wanted, and have my items anyway I wanted, but I thought I just couldn't afford one at that time. I mean, a new computer in 1999, a GOOD one that is, cost about a thousand dollars. I was told not to worry about that since the sellers could whip me together a nice system and just take it out of my auction wins, so I agreed to those terms and ended up with a pc that, even though it's been reworked and rebuilt a few times over the years, still served my purposes.

But it only had 64 RAM (top of the line back then). And I'll admit that with the old pc I made a considerable amount of money. Enough, in fact, that (at one time) I could have quit my regular employment and done nothing but sell on eBay as I was bringing in twice the amount of my usual paycheck. I even bought me a real nice digital camera which cost around $450. and made back that money in a mere month.

Things change.

9-11 just about destroyed eBay sellers. Everyone was scared to let go of their cash, and my personal sales dropped to next-to-nothing very quickly. I got to where I'd only occasionally list items. Here in the past few years it's been just a handful every six months or so.

Instead, the computer became more of a learning tool, and a device to converse with people who shared my interests on various chat boards, an instrument to quickly receive e-mail from all over the world, and to post my numberous blogs.

And I'll also have to say that the old pc did not die quietly, but in screams of pain as it began beeping very loudly as it crashed. Really, it was like seeing a pet finally give in to old age and breath its final breath.

One can become much too connected with "things". Before 1999, I didn't need a computer. Had no real use for one. Blissfully didn't know what I was missing, and therefore, just as happy. I passed the time back then with the usual work, television, reading and visiting local friends. I didn't sit for literally hours on end looking at on-line auctions and chatting or looking up information from various sites.

But with technology as it is, I have become dependent on having a connection to The Net. It's become a security blanket of sorts, and even when the pc wasn't turned on, I still had a more secure feeling that it was only a push button away. So at present just to look at The net, I walk down three houses to my mom's and use her's for a little while, but I can't post my blog there because it's just a simple one I put together for her to use for e-mail and has no floopy drive. This extra one I'm typing this on here at home at the moment has the A-Drive and I'm saving these mullings to a New Word Pad Document to copy to a disc and, whenever I do finally get a new pc, copy and paste these words onto a blog post. When exactly that may be I don't know. It depends on how quickly I can find a usable system that will connect and allow me to do so.

What we have here is just the reason "why" I haven't posted, and I'll attempt to keep it updated on what went past between the time of "the old & the new".


Thus I'll speak of some recent acquisitions, "comic book wise" that came in. I got one of the two large "surprize" lots of comics which contained 50 misc. DCs. It was a pretty decent lot although there was around 7 duplicates I couldn't use. In this lot I got a run of JLA 47 thru 65 complete, a few issues of The Flash V2 (and even one from the 1970's of the previous series), a few issues of V2 of Green Lantern, plus other "stuff". The best book in this lot is a copy of The Demon Annual #2 from 1993 which features the first app./Intro of Garth Ennis's "Hitman". I'd had this on a want list but couldn't find one in the bins of the comic book store I sometimes visit, and didn't want to pay what dealers were wanting for a copy on eBay. This is a nice FN-VFN copy and I'm quite pleased with the entire lot.

I'm still anxiously awaiting the second lot to arrive which contains approx. 60 Marvel Comics, the largest part of which are issues from both V1 (formerly:Tales to Astonish) AND V2 of The Incredible Hulk, and, in particular, several issues which contain the "Planet Hulk" storyline which I've been wanting to read for some time. It should make it in within this next week.

Still reading Transmetropolitan and have presently gotten up to issue #51, which covers Spider jerusalem discovering he has a disease of the mind which will destroy his thinking and reasoning abilities within a year. He's still working on bringing down the current president, and with time running out for him to get all his facts straight, he's certainly not wasting time being "nice" about acquiring them. Still great stuff! I'll miss not reading his exploits when I finish the remaining nine issues in this series.

Mom is doing better all the time. I don't have to take her back to the doctor until the 28th. of October. Maybe then she'll get (or maybe before) an appointment to have her stomach rescoped from the surgery of past July. Today one of her friends came by to take her to church for the first time in a couple of months. (10-05-08)



So here's how things stand presently. I'm still on dial-up. All of the locals who used to work on pcs have all either moved and stopped doing that and the closest pc repair shop I know of is a good 25 miles away. What I need is a free download for this Windows 98 4.10.1998 Pentium (r)II processor, which is what my server told me when I tried to get my DSL connected this morning. I WAS able to get my Outlook Express back up, however, which was good. So I'm still able to do my blog posts, but I'm doing it all on a New Word Pad document at the moment, then doing a copy/paste to my blogger posts. The main problem with dial up is that my server: 1) Charges me more for it, and 2) My phone lines are tied up when I'm on line.

(UPDATE: I did finally get hold of one computer guy today and I'll be taking this pc just a few miles up the road Thursday to have him work on it. He seems to think, pretty much, it's my Network Card. Talked prices with him and still looks like, total, I'll have $100. or less in a good workable pc again.)

In other news... I finally finished all 60 issues plus the specials of Transmetropolitan and am now in that let down stage due to not having a "fix" of Spider Jerusalen exploits nightly. I must say that Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson certainly didn't disapoint me a bit with this series. Just wish there was more of them to read.

In the meanwhile, I've taken a little break to read some mainstream comics such as "The Planet Hulk" issues of The Incredible Hulk (1999 series) #'s 99 thru 103, which takes him thru a battle to secure the planet several of the Marvel heroes sent him to, and his marriage to the alien warrior woman who fought along beside him there. This storyline is, as I said before, the freshest Marvel has presented in years and it was good to read some of these in their original format.

And before I get into reading the full set of DC-Milestone's Xombi #'s 0, 1 thru 21 complete, I have a run of JLA 47 thru 65 that I think I'll dive into, along with a handful of of The Flash V2, plus a few issues of The Astonishing X-men. (10-07-08)

And RAIN today! The first decent amount in several weeks. Perhaps the drought here has finally ended.

"Post No. 553"

Nervous as I am regarding purchasing any electronics at a yard sale, I stopped by one that had a pc for sale. (It's a 2000 Gateway.) Guy wanted $35. for it; said all his kid ever used it for was games. Had speakers, keyboard and moniter. Missing a mouse and connection cord from the moniter to the drive. Got it for $30. and took it home and plugged it up. Bought a new mouse for $15.00.

Couldn't get the moniter to work. Thought, "I've got screwed again!" Brought my own moniter in the room and connected it, and...BINGO! Looks beautiful! In fact, checking the RAM it has 268 (mine was a dinosaur at 64!) The floppies work in it and it has Outlook Express (a program I'd lost). Looks like I'll now move into the world of high speed Net since my DSL has little or no affect on the old pc. This weekend I'll make hardcopies of all of the email and net addresses I want to keep, plug in this new one, eliminate the games (for extra space), download my scanner, printer and camera. Looks like a made a good investment considering I was just getting ready to spend a few hundred on a new system.

My old pc has served me well the past 10 years, but now it's time to let it go out-to-pasture for a while. I think I'll save it though and have it wiped out and reloaded (just the basics) and use it for documents only.

Well. I've read up to No. 39 of Transmetropolitan now; still very much enjoying it. I'm amazed at how relevant the storyline is comparing them to the current election. Thus far in these issues, Spider Jerusalem has destroyed the career of the former president, and helped get a new one elected, only to be dismayed at someone killing the canidate's assistant (someone Spider cared for) just to get "sympathy" votes to win the election. So now Spider's going to take him down as well. The old president is called "The Beast", and the new one's called "The Smiler", and I can't help but see a strong resemblance in those two characters (Bush=The Beast; Obama=The Smiler) and those who are in office or running for the presidency. I've got 21 more issues to go and figure I'll have those finished in a week or less. I think the one advantage I have reading these as such is that it's more like reading the chapters in a book; not having to wait a month between "chapters" certainly has its advantages.

Picked up a couple silver-age comics on auction this week: Hawkman #14 (DC/1966) and Outer Space V1 #19 (Charlton/1958). Both were just fair condition (but complete) "reader" copies, but well-worth the little of nothing I paid for them. The Hawkman has Anderson artwork (of course) and written by Gardner Fox, plus it's a "Go-Go Checks" cover (which I always like). The Outer Space is from a time period that Ditko excelled in his artwork for Charlton, pre-dating even his first "Captain Atom" app.'s; 17 pages of his beautiful artwork and includes a "U.F.O." story.

Mom goes back for her follow-up visit with the heart specialist tomorrow. I have to work but my neice is taking her this time. If everything's okay she's then be able to have her stomach rescoped from the operation of July. She's doing well but complains about being tired, which is due to the medication the doctor gave her to regulate her heart rate, I'm sure.

Raked again for the 3rd. or 4th. time this season. Probably a good 5 more rakings/mulchings to go.