"Post No. 715"

Been off from work both yesterday and today (and tomorrow). Sort of wish I could work tomorrow as it hurts the ol' paycheck come Friday with just 34 hours, but I occasionally get those short weeks on the schedule.

Anyway, it gave me a little time to get some things done and still get to relax a little (although I had a fitful night's sleep last night with leg cramps and soreness from just overdoing it on yard work).

Yesterday I weed-eated mom's yard and put more calking on the shingles over the area where she had a major roof leak in the hopes that'll finally stop it, plus trimmed at least four foot from the side of the neighbor's hedge row that was infringing onto mom's property so much I couldn't even mow in that area (of course, I asked her neighbor's permission first; they're elderly and have no one to do such things).

Also went by the local flea market where I found VHS copies of "Radar Men from The Moon" (the complete 12 chapter serial) and "Justice League" (the animated 1 hr. first season opener), and a Reader's Digest from 2005 with a Beatles cover and article.

Also bought a fairly large "Batmobile" for my collection of such. Has a built-in "Bat-Bike" (for Robin); think it's from the George Clooney "Batman & Robin" flick now from several years past.

My wife set up at Somersville, KY. at a craft show and did really lousey sales-wise due to the 96 degree heat I think mostly. No one wants to get out in it if they can help it and I can't say I blame them. This is one of the hotter summers we've had here in S-Central, KY. for a while and when it does rain it seems to always be thunderstorms.

I did get in a copy of Comics Monographics: The Origin of Marvelman #1 (2nd. revised printing), published by Boardman Books. I was hoping this would have more reprints of Marvelman than it did (just 6 pages), but it was excellant all the same giving a precise history of the UK character and how it was continued from L. Miller Co.'s reprints of Fawcett's "Captain Marvel", "Whiz", "Captain Marvel, Jr.", etc. from the late Golden Age and into the early 1950's and beyond.

This, of course, is the same character that Eclipse Comics later licensed and it became "Miracleman" which contained not just UK stuff but original material by both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, and the character also appeared in at least a couple of dozen issues of Warrior magazine.

The book contained (probably) a complete listing of everything published by Len Miller, as well as a history of comic books in the UK and even touched on another UK publisher, Alan Class. I've always enjoyed these UK comics whenever I'd find one for my collection as they reprinted a variety of material (sans B&W) from DC, Atlas, Charlton and ACG (and others). In fact, I enjoy foreign comic books as a whole whenever they reprint decent material. 52 pages from Boardman Books, square-bound and it may be carried by Amazon.com (not sure), and hey! It even has a photo of Ringo Starr holding a British comic he's reading (which gives it a listing over on my "Beatles & Bizarros"> blog site (under the trade paperback section). $14.99 cover price, color cover and B&W interiors with several photos and the back cover has color repros of Marvelman covers.