"Post No. 720"

Got the above print (from 1977) in today's mail. It's titled: "The Wedding of The Phantom" and it's signed by both Phantom creator Lee Falk and the artist Sy Barry (who drew the newspaper strip for over 30 years). A whoppin' 17" X 21" in size, I plan on flattening it out a bit more (as it had been badly rolled), then having someone professionally mat and frame it for me. 'Course, then I'll have to figure where to ever hang it as my walls are packed already!

Great piece, though and I've always been a fan of "the ghost who walks" having read many a newspaper strip, Gold Key, King & Charlton comics (plus other companies) issues of him, and even some of the pre-Golden Age reprints (which I think were in King Features' Ace Comics). The Phantom has been around a llloooonnnngggg time. In fact, he was a costumed hero in newspaper comic strips (and in comic books, even if they were reprints) before Superman appeared in Action Comics #1, and some even claim that the skin-tight outfit he wore inspired the costume of the man of steel.

And, speaking of newspaper strips, I traded some stuff that I hadn't sold in a yard sale for several nice trade paperback collections. Got 5 different "Calvin and Hobbes", 4 different "Doonesbury" (2 of which were hardcover collections), a copy of "The Illustrated Roger Zalazny" (with Gray Morrow artwork), some "Bloom County" collections and even a MAD paperback that I didn't have (plus got shed of some stuff I didn't want).

Lots of good reading ahead for me!

I may try to get a copy of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes "sometime" (although I probably have most of it in some other collection), and I wouldn't even mind getting a C&Hs t-shirt eventually. There's a lot of nice designs for those from which to choose.

Been reading several issues of the 1987 DC Justice League/International/America, Justice League Europe and some of the last issues of the first volume of JLA here of late. I can see "why" DC decided to cancel the original JLA after a run of 27 years as it was indeed getting pretty stale. The first 60 or so issues of the '87 series were the best after the first run (even tho' the artwork seemed to suffer after a while), but we got to meet so many great characters in the title, like "Maxwell Lord", "Flashman", and the reintro of "Fire and Ice", and "Jack O'Lantern" (the last three of which were all introduced originally with various different names in, of all titles, "Super Friends"). After the first 60 issues or so, the title had just about lost any good humor and moved on to a more serious format. But there were some great scenes of the martian manhunter with his oreo cravings and conflicts between Guy Gardner/Batman/Ice (and just about everyone else as noby seemed to get along with Guy). Fun stuff!

Looks like my wife, aunt and I are going to have a big yard sale the weekend this town hosts the "DeaFestival"(a thing they're doing for awareness of the hearing impared). My wife wanted to set up a booth downtown during this but the commitee wanted $250. a space (!) Waayyyy too much! She'd be lucky to make $75. at such, so a yard sale permit's only six bucks and we can set up free in mom's front yard. The town always re-routes everyone right past the front of our house everytime they have some festival, so we'll just set up at mom's front yard and put a big sign in our own yard showing the way to it. I'm sure we'll do just as well (if not better). And I do plan on cramming the yard with everything I possibly can and marking it all down dirt cheap just to get rid of it.

"Heath-wise", I finally got rid of the poison ivy poisoning of a few weeks back by paying a rather expensive visit to a local doctor and getting a steroid shot in my butt, but now I'm not getting much in the way of a restful night's sleep due to severe leg cramps which wake me up numberous times (or my wife as as well as my legs "jerk" from the spasms). Which leads me to think that, at my age (now 59), it is always something. Probably poor circulation problems brought on from the many years of walking on concrete floors in the retail business.

Christmas arrives only FOUR MONTHS from today.