"Post No. 694?????"

"Du-uh... Department:

Someway or another, I didn't number my blog posts correctly and missed posting #694. Must have just miscalculated. When I had my 6th. Year Anniversary here, that was actually post #699. So here's #694, just to even things up.

~Mathmatically Challenged Puck'.

"Post No. 703"

I didn't realise that Howie Post had died recently. Always enjoyed his work especially on the 1960's DC title, Anthro.

"Post No. 702"

Been Spring house-cleaning time around th' ol' Puck' ponderosa. Carpets getting a heavy cleaning, door scrubbed, weeds trimmed, etc., etc. Always a lot of work to do maintaining one's property.

Speaking of which, after removing half of the ceiling plaster from my mother's back bedroom damaged due to water leaking from rains, I discovered said damage to be much more extensive that anticipated. Rafters are rotting as well as roofing boards and there's much more work that will have to be done than in the initial estimate. A new estimate is now being figured and I foresee this repair work going well into the Summer.

The main problem was caused from her previous repairman (if one could call him that), which replaced the shingles on her roof on the rear of the house a couple of years back from hailstorm damage. Instead of removing any damaged wood he simply cut corners, took the old shingles off, put down new velvet undercoating and shingles and told my parents (my father, still alive at that time) that the job was finished and took their money. Had it been repaired correctly the first time, we wouldn't have the problem with this now. Lesson to be learned? WATCH your repairmen and be sure they're doing their job correctly. If not, fire them and find someone that will. (Such people really like to target the elderly.)

In comic book news, artist Gene Colan is doing badly and could really use some help from all the many fans he has that have enjoyed his work over the years. To see auctions to benefit him, please click Here.

Finally finished inventory on my comic book collection. All lists are burned onto a CD, plus back-up lists for updating. Been working on this since January; glad that's completed.

Mowed for the 10th time yesterday and today for the year. Gonna go through a LOT of gasoline this Summer for certain.

Pretty disapointed with the way they finished up the "Lost" t. v. series. So many better scenerios that could have been used, but instead, it was turned into a metaphysical mess. I confess to not watching a whole lot of episodes, but friends always kept me up-to-date with the show. (Shame.)

Got in a full set of the 1985-1987 Megaton (published by Megaton Comics) that I'd won on auction, along with the 1987 Megaton Holiday Special #1 and a Wizard Ace Edition 2. Megaton Comics, to me, was the forerunner of Image Comics, in a way, as issues contained work by both Erik Larsen and Rob Leifield. Almost every issue contains strips of larsen's "Vanguard" character, but most importantly, issues 3 thru 5 have appearances (the first 3) of "The Savage Dragon" (then called only, "The Dragon"), and issue #8 has an ad for Leifield's "Youngblood" (making it also their first app. anywhere pre-1992 -Image). There's also work by jackson Guise, Gary Thomas Washington (who did an alternate comic back in the 1980's that I always enjoyed, "A Boy and His Bot", and whom is a nice guy as I met him once at a Kentucky comic book convention for alternate comic publishers) and several other pretty decent strips of various characters. The Wizard Ace edition reprints Megaton #3 (first FULL app. of "The Dragon").

"Post No. 701"

And off we go again...


Well I see that there's a lot of upsets in the primary elections this time. Doesn't surprize me in the least. People are scared. they are scared about the economy. They are scared about losing their jobs. They are looking towards Washington and saying "We don't want BIG government! Put it back into the hands of the people!" Democrates are sweating. They've had their little place in the sun for a while, but they know "the end is near". And, what do they expect? It amazed me how many eyes of the people they were able to pull the wool down over with empty promises; ones that are only designed to bankrupt the working middle-class. Without the middle class, the rich no longer can get richer, and the poor no longer have anyone to support them.

But politics aren't the only thing that's scaring people. Weird weather patterns, multiple earthquakes around the world, ever-growing unrest between countries, constant involvement in wars, Wall Street and the economy... The planet IS a scary place right now and this is a pivitol point in history. No one knows which of many paths our future will take. Will it pass over all of these problems and go on to a much brighter world, or will it fall into an abyss? Time will tell.

So, let's go on from the "doom and gloom" mood to other things...

Let me curse about the rain for a while instead. Yeah, yeah....You can complain about the weather but you can't do anything about it. Wish I could! I tell it to stay DRY for a while so I don' 't have to mow so often! I've been keeping count of how many times I've mow both my own and my mother's yard this year. So far, NINE times! That's rediculous! Year before last, when we had a bit of a drought, I may not have mowed that many times all year, but last year I was still mowing into November, and my yard is thick with, not as much grass, as clover. Just like a tightly-woven shag carpet. I set my riding mower up on the next to the highest setting and it still tries to bog it down. I mowed over much of it as much as three times yesterday just to make it look half-way decent.

Other "things"...

I've been making out a new inventory list of all of my comics again. I'm doing pretty well. Finished around 50+ "long" boxes of comics. Still have one long box that I need to sort in order. Got plenty of comic book bags, but unfortunately I'm running out of any sort of backing boards and will probably have to purchase at least 200 to get these comics in order (as I don't want anything in my collection these days that doesn't have one on it). I also need to buy at least 7 comic book boxes with lids as eventually, when this is all listed, I want to reput everything back in order in such boxes and out of the various copier paper boxes in which about half of that is stored. If there ever comes a day that I sell out, I want a "hard list" of exactly what the buyer would be getting.

Got yet another chore done at my mom's. I tore down 1/2 of the plaster board on her back bedroom ceiling where she had a bad water leak so the repair man can come and see what damage has been done and can tell how exactly to repair it. Only took about 2 hours and I even finished up cleaning up the mess I'd made acouple months back when I made her a new handicap ramp.

Lots of people at the local flea markets this weekend here locally but nadda that I'd want. Mostly just the same ol', same ol'. I did get in a couple of lots I'd won on ebay auctions: Nick Fury and His Agents of SHIELD #'s 1 & 5(completed the set), and The Losers 2 thru 5 (which gives me a run of the first five issues of that title).


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"Post No. 700"

And welcome to "Post No. 700" (!), which, incidently, coincides with my 6th. Anniversary Blogging! Still amazes me that people read this stuff.

Well, my vacation was over Wednesday (actually, last Monday but my two days off per week ran consecutively following it). Got to see two new flicks I really wanted to see: Iron Man 2, and The Losers. Iron Man was a pretty decent flick, but lacked, I thought, a bit of the personality the first one had. Plus, of course, they screwed around with the origin of the villian, "Whiplash". (BTW, Am I the ONLY one that misses David Hasselhoff in the part of "Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."???) and poor Stan Lee, now going on age 90, looked quite feeble and had his shortest cameo ever.

The Losers, on the other hand, was excellant! I'll admit to not being all that familiar with the source material having not read a whole lot of issues this flick is based upon (i.e., the DC-Vertigo comic book title), but even so, it stands as a great action flick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's performance was top-notch (well recommended).

I mentioned most of what I did on the days I was off work. Yesterday I finished painting the new boards I fixed the side of the shop with, and went down to mom's to talk to her insurance adjuster regarding water damage to her back bedroom ceiling. Plus I've listed some more comics on my inventory list. I figure I still have at least 2,000 more of those to list and I wouldn't doubt if my collection these days isn't between 11-12 thousand comics. That would mean that before I recently sold 3,000 of them, I'd had in the 15,000 range and that's definately the largest collection of such I can recall having since the early 1990's. Naturally, it isn't quantity but quality which makes a decent collection of such, but even so, and after selling so many, I still have an awful lot of decent books around. Give me another 10 years of off and on collecting and it'll be time to start selling again on ebay to suppliment my ("semi", hopefully) returement years.

Found an old l.p. at the local Salvation Army Store of peggy Lipton, who played "Julie Barnes" on the 1960's t.v. show, "The Mod Squad", and later played on "Twin Peaks". Didn't even realize she ever did an album and she was a pretty decent singer, even having one number on the charts back then called "Stoney End" (written by L. Nyro). Other tunes on this l.p. are also written by either Nyro or Carol King. It wouldn't surprize me to discover this is a rare l.p. I know I'VE never seen or heard it before now.

Back to work yesterday and wrote up and put out 7-1/2 pages of tools, assembled a "cherry picker", took out at least 4 different loads of trash, ran to the bank for change, etc., etc.

Then today I pulled yet another 5-1/2 pages of tools just trying to get caught up. (Gonna be a loonnnngggg time until the next vacation!)

"Post No. 699"

And the great Frank Frazetta is now gone.

There will be a ton of blog sites relating how he influenced fantasy artwork and how those who loved his work, myself included, were first introduced to it. Probably some of the first Frazetta paintings I ever saw and loved were on the Ace Tarzan covers, and later, Conan. I wasn't old enough to remember seeing his EC stuff, but I do recall just loving a few back-up reprints published in the DC title Tomahawk in the latter 1960's, some short strips in various Warren magazines, and of course the material printed in Bill Pearson/Wally Wood's Witzend fanzine. I really gained a great appreciation for his work when I bought a copy of a trade paperback which reprinted his "Johnny Comet" newspaper strips.

I envied his talent. The world is less without him.

"Post No. 698"

And today is Mother's Day, so I'd like to wish my own mother, Georgia Lee Puckett, only the best on this her special day! The top photo is a recent picture I took of mom, and the second photo is of her and my 2nd. cousin Thelma (who lives next door to her) to whom I'd also like to wish a Happy Mother's Day!

And...in other things...

On the second day of my vacation I went down to mom's and trimmed her hedges (which were like, a foot too tall) and weed-eated around her house.

On the 3rd. day of my vacation, Debbie and I went to Bowling Green where she wanted to stop by "The Hobby Lobby" and pick up a few craft items for projects. I thought about stopping by the comic book shop there, but due to lack of funds, or maybe these days, a whole lotta lack of interest, I didn't. In fact, all I bought was a bag of "Circus Peanuts" to munch on while she was in the store.

In fact, after we left Hobby Lobby we headed back home stopping only once at a Minit Mart to get Debbie something to eat, and by the local flea market where we picked up a few flowers to plant both here at our house and at mom's. When I got home I took a gallon of white exterier paint and painted the new plywood I'd covered the side of my old garage with, retouched it's front doors, and then had to redo one of our side windows with new calk and paint. Then I went down to mom's to haul her garabage can around front for pick up and Debbie planted some of the flowers we picked up. Later we went and picked up her van at a closeby garage where the mechanic had been working on a defective gauge.

On day 4 of my vacation I retouched the paint on the building I repaired, touched up and recalked a front window, finished work on the inside part of the entrance way window I had worked on the day before, took my mom to the insurance office, spread ant pellets on the yard, and dug through the garage trying to find an item a friend of mine was interested in (with no luck so far).

On day 5 of my vacation, I slept until about 8 AM and got myself ready and went to the local flea market. I "thought" I'd hit the jackpot on finding various DVDs I'd been looking for, but the dealer wanted $5. each for them and so I passed. Went back later on a second thought that there might be a few in the lot that interested me enough to pay that price, but he'd since packed up and left. Then went out to the garage to try to find a item a friend of mine was interested in, but obviously it's been long since either sold on auction or sold in a lot group of toys and the like to someone over the years. Listed 3 items on my own ebay auctions. May have another to list tomorrow but I need to repair a leak in mom's roof with some pitch, go see Iron Man II, etc., etc. (it's never over.

"Post No. 697"

Today began my yearly vacation at work/from work. As it figured on my following week's schedule, I also have the next two days afterwards off (par usual) for the week, thus giving me nine straight days off in a row.

And so begins all of the work I wanted to do during said vacation. Here on this first day I got up on my front roof and tarred anything I thought might be causing a leak in my entrance way. I used nearly a full gallon of pitch in various places, but couldn't reach one area on the roof cap that really needed it. Perhaps I can borrow a roofing hook-ladder from someone this week to finish up that task.

Then I began work on that one bad side of my shop where the wood's about had it. I bought a 4'x8' piece of plywood and had it cut in half at Lowe's. Unfortunately, it's not enough and I'll need one more piece the same size. Then I'll put a few long boards at the top of those sheets, get a gallon of white exterior paint and finish that up.

Task #3: Mowing; what else? My neighbor mowed his yard and when I went by to check on mom, I saw that her yard needed it as well, so I went down there and got her yard first and came back home and did my own. That now makes six times I've mowed already this year, going through around 7 gallons of gas so far.

Other jobs on the venue: Redoing and straightening up/cleaning out the tool shed, working on the dirt pile again, redoing several boxes of comic books and putting them in alphabetical and company(s) order and listing same on my "collection list", and maybe listing some more items on ebay auctions this week.

Also I'd like to get to my local comic shop sometime this week; maybe tomorrow. They have extended their 25% off back issue sale from last Saturday's "Sidewalk Sale/Free Comic Book Day" (which I didn't get to attend since I had to work).

Just as well that I missed FCBD as Bowling Green, where the shop's located, had a LOT of flooding from 10" of rain which fell from last Friday thru Sunday. Many parts of Kentucky were flooded, much damage and a few related deaths. Tennessee had it even worse. I hear parts of Nashville are still under 3 foot of water.

Mother's Day is this coming Sunday so, if you're fortunate enough to still have one that's living, please remember her. I bought mom a UK (that's University of Kentucky) billfold and plan on taking her out to either lunch or dinner (and since she doesn't read this blog I feel safe in telling about it).

My wife's new part-time job seems to be doing well and she may work into a fulltime position. She's been at it for over a week now, working in a similiar type of thing (cashier at a gas/grocery place) as she did for so many years before.

Watched Art School Confidential, a nice little film based on Daniel Clowes material from his comic Eightball. Very nice flick. maybe not as good as Ghost World, but very entertaining. Sure wish I had just a fraction of that man's talent as a storyteller.

Speaking of which, I abandoned that 12 issue limited series comic book I had been working on for nearly two years now. I was re-reading some trade paperback collection here recently and realized that my work was way too derivative of what I was reading. Obviously it had subconsciously influenced my writing. Just as well. My time to make it as a famous comic book artist is well past.