Just Cleaning Up The Joint

Well...how has everybody been?  Over 3 years ago now I locked the doors here at Elmo's Junction.  Sure has gotten dusty around here.  A lotta "stuff" has passed under the bridge since then.

The most important thing: My wife.  Debbie was diagnosed with brest cancer back in December.  She d a lump removed on February 3rd., and soon afterwards began chemotherapy treatments.  Finished now with those, tomorrow she begins the first of 28 radiation treatments, Mon-Fri, the last one being July 18.  Her return to work date is hopefully August.  She's doing well however, still very active, still sets up at craft shows and attends church and visits friends, and has a wonderful attitude.  Please keep her in your thoughts.

I'm still working at Pier 19 Retail in Cave City, Kentucky, and back in April marked my 14th. year there. 

I'm still collecting comic books, but have narrowed my field of collecting to Gilberton titles (Classics Illustrated, World Around Us, etc.) and anything (including reprints) containing work by Steve Ditko.  I also occasionally buy a Bark's book (the older the better) or a Marge's Little Lulu & Tubby.

My mother turned 89 last year and is still in decent health, although on a walker she will go anywhere someone will take her.  I keep a close eye on her, and do her shopping, take her to her dr. appointments, and keep her yard mowed.  But she still is able to dress herself, do light housework, and fix her own meals.  Her mind is just as clear as it was 40 years ago and that's probably due to obsessive reading.

Needless to say I stay pretty busy and that's one reason I closed the junction blog.   But you can still find my ramblings over on Facebook under the user name of: Dave Puck.  I still do some comic strip and single page illustrations and you can see those works on my albums on that page.

Back earlier in the year Seashell Books published a 140 page collection of my comic strips under the title: "~D.Puck's Tales", which is also available on Amazon.com.  I illustrated another book for Michele Hinton published by Seashell titled: "Humpty Dumpty: A Fractured Tale".

Well...it's getting dark and the electric's out here at Elmo's Junction, so I'll close.  Hope this finds everyone well.

Regards,

~D.Puck'

"Post No. 740"

Saw the new "Thor" flick. Fun stuff! Looking forward to seeing the "Green Lantern" movie, plus the new "X-men" flick, plus others.
"Summer", of sorts, has finally hit (at least for a few days, although it's turned much cooler now) here in S-Central, KY. after an overly wet, late Winter. Grass is growing like crazy. Already mowed both my own and mom's yards a half dozen times, but what with the ever increasing gasoline prices, I'm cutting that back to every ten days or so.
Traded some hardcovers & paperbacks on UFO's to a guy for The Essential THOR Vol. 2 (Still want to get Vol.'s 3 & 4 to have all of the Kirby stuff), the first 4 volumes of The Daily Spirit AND The Spirit Color Album. Since I already have nearly a full run of the Warren/Kitchen Sink Spirit magazines, the first 8 volumes of The DC Spirit hardcover archives, the 2 1960's Harvey issues and the two 1960's Super Comics issues, plus some of the Kitchen Sink regular comic and probably the first 20+ issues by DC Comics, that'll probably be about as much of The Spirit I actually want to collect.
Also found a few more J.T. Chick "tracts" I needed. Counting the variations I have plus foreign editions I think I must have around 155 of those now.
This year's started out steady in retail where I work, but seems to have slowed down a bit. (This past weekend was good, tho'.)
Finally, after over a year, I got my comic book collection back in order. I had sold one big lot of 3,000 comics to one dealer a year ago last Jan., then pulled another 5,000 for another lot to sell. This had left my personal collection in complete disarray, so I straightened out 34 "long" boxes and got everything back in alphabetical order and by company, then did an estimate of how many issues were in my collections these days. I figure it's around 7,000 (which means if you add everything together I'd had something like 15,000 comics before; my collection had gotten waaayyy out-of-hand).
And...
They say all good things must come to an end. Thus, this has as well.
Seven years ago on this date I wrote my first blog post. Since then I've written 739others, including this one. I was sort of amazed that people still read my rantings after that many years, but I've discovered that a few confess to still doing so.
And I've written about just anything that was going on in my personal life, or ideas, comments, reviews, collecting habits, so on and so on.
After a few years I actually began to number the posts rather than title them. And, after a few years my posts became less frequent. This was due to me just not having anything I thought interesting to say, or just being too busy to get around to writing something.
Seven years ago when I first started "Elmo's Junction", my life was somewhat different. My wife had a full time job. My parent's were both alive and well. Since then, my wife got laid off and hasn't found a fulltime job now for the past 2 years or better (in fact, she's currently unemployed), and my father passed away. Then my mother developed several health problems. I found my world being full of trips to hospitals, nursing homes, doctor visits, etc., etc., plus working more hours to pay the bills, plus attempting to take care of two households. I'm tired.
But just because I won't be "here", it doesn't mean you can't keep up with my silliness over on Facebook where my user name is "Dave Puck". And both my other blog sites will be accessable: "A Puck's tale" (personal publishing history) as well or the ever growing in lists, "Beatles and Bizarros" blog sites.
So...see ya, folks! Elmo has boarded the train...
And it's left "the Junction".
Thank you one and all.
Stay well.

"Post No. 739"

Today is May the 1st, so "Happy May Day" Everyone! For more information regarding May Day celebrations, click onto the link HERE.

Well, with all the hub-bub regarding the "Thor" movie being released this coming Friday (and I still think they "missed the boat and SHOULD have released it on May 5th. instead as THAT's "Thor'sDay"), I got in the mood to re-read a big slew of classic Marvel silver-age stories regarding the Asguardian hero-god. So, since I don't have all of those great tales in their original editions these days, I dug out many reprint volumes I have lying around and from re-reading off and on tales from Marvel Masterworks, The 1st. Thor Essential, Thor Annuals 1-4, Marvel Special Edition 1-4 and the better part of the 19 issues of Marvel Spectacular, I was able to re-read pretty much the whole storyline from Journey Into Mystery 83 thru Thor 140.

I've gotten in the mood to re-read a lot of silver age stuff here of late. I'd just re-read about 20 Ditko issues of Spider-man, and I'll probably start in on Fantastic Fours next.

Anyway, digressing aside, these reprints took me thru Thor's origin/1st. app., intros of the other Asguardian gods, 1st. app.'s of "The Excecutioner and Enchantress, Absorbing Man, The Trail of The Gods, the Norn Stones, intro of The Destroyer", etc., etc. and so on. Great Kirby stuff, and not too shabby a job by Joe Sinnott as well on some of the pre-1964 issues of JIM. Stories that made me a Marvel Maniac "back in the days". 'Shame I can't seem to enjoy the comics this company produces today as I did back then, but times change, people change, tastes change.

Rain here again in S-Central, KY., and they say if it rains on the 1st. it'll rain 15 days out of the month. Wouldn't surprize me a bit since we've already had a surplus of rain since Jan. 1st.; some 23 inches total.

And, I'm glad the royal wedding is finally over with, altho' we'll be hearing it constantly for the next year and then have to suffer thru every pregnancy Kate has "forever". The one thing I learned the most by watching that wedding is that British women wear REALLY UGLY HATS to such an occasion. (Let's hope Kate and William have a much better relationship and marriage than with Di and Charles.)

Start my vacation Tuesday and will be off from work for 5 days. Would have been a whole week but I told them I'd work next weekend just for the extra bucks, then I'll have the following Monday after Mother's Day off before I go back to the regular grind. Not doing anything "special" during that time off. Weather-permitting I'll work on my riding lawn mower to try to get that where it'll work again as I really don't won't to have to use a push mower on both my own and my mother's yards again thru what will probably end up being an exceptionally hot Summer. Tuesday, in fact, I have to take mom to a doctor's apointment, which will pretty much kill that first day. Just as well as more rain's predicted for that day.

Not a whole lot has happened to me since I last blogged. My tax refund still hasn't arrived, but after talking with an agent of the IRS the other day he assures me it should be here "worse case scenerio" within the next month. That money's pretty much all slated for use before it even gets here.

In fact, after two years of my wife being laid off from here last fulltime job and having to work partimers, she was let go,(for no good reasons, I might add) from her job just last week (again) about the time I thought we might get back on our feet again. It's always something.

"Post No. 738"

Stormy weather certainly has been the theme for April here in S-Central, KY. Fortunately I've had no more "large" limbs fall in the yard since the storm we had on the 1st., but dozens of smaller ones. Seems like I have to call the city for limb pick-up about once a month. Would luv to have these two very large trees cut to the ground that are in front of my house, but it'd probably cost a couple grand for that, so....

Anyway, the 14th. of April came and went and I never even remembered that it marked the 11th. year since I was hired in retail at the place I work. Days all seem to just run together after so many years.

Bought a lot of 300+ comic books from the 70s-modern at the local flea market a couple weeks back for a paultry sum of $15., which means I had about a nickle each in them. From that lot I pulled about 75 to either keep or read, and of course, after I read those, they go back into a lot of around 5,400: 1970s to modern I'm trying to sell "as a lot". Ones I kept included a high grade copy of Marvel's Kull #3 circa 1972 with nice John Severin artwork, a copy of the Amazing Spider-man Annual #12 which was all Frank Miller art, several modern books written/drawn by John Byrne and also several issues of Dark Horse Pub.s Spyboy written by Peter David. I also read one of the modern series Marvel produced of Starjammers, but was not impressed. More so I was impressed with several issues of DC Comics' The Human Race (but not enuff to keep them). I pulled 32 misc. issues of "Star Trek-Star Wars" comics and stuck them on eBay "as a lot" in case you'd like to look at that; a link to this auction is HERE. I also kept around the first dozen issues of The Ultimate Marvel Team-Up but haven't decided whether or not to keep them (as I put most all of the other "ultimate stuff" in the books I'm selling), but these are written by Bendis and illustrated by several decent artists such as Allred, Matt Wagner, Sienkiewicz, Totleben and McKeever.

Mowing has also been the theme for the past month. The grass gets so thick and tall that I have to stop the push mower numberous times just to clean out from underneath it from it clogging up so bad. All of this rain makes a vicious circle. I mow my front yard, then have to mow mom's front yard, then I mow my back yard, then her back yard, and by that time it seems I have to start all over again. What with gasoline prices high this year it plays hell on the wallet.

I see that next Friday's episode of Smallville will indeed feature "Booster Gold", the wannabe superhero from the future. Hope they do this character justice as I always liked the 1980's DC series.

Lots of new superhero movies soon to be out: Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, the newest Superman. I'd sort'a like to see "Cowboys VS. Aliens" as it's such a silly concept, but I still haven't seen "The Cowboy Way" where cowboys were fighting ninjas. (Heard it was pretty lame.) Well, I'm sure none of these could be as good as "Valley of the Gwangi" where cowboys fought a dinosaur, and that flick was made before all of the current use of computerized special effects.

Starting my "vacation" this coming May 3rd., and it'll run thru May 9th. No special plans. Probably filled with mowing yards par usual, and I have to take mom to the doctor the first day of it. Too broke to do anything else like visit my fave comic book store. Last year I got to where it was located and took my wife to a craft store, then just turned around and came back home. Times' been hard here on the ol' ~D.Puck' household for the past couple years, but perhaps are picking up now that my wife has landed a fairly fulltime job and whenever our tax return finally makes it in. Last time I checked on that with the I.R.S. site, they said it was "being processed", which is better than the usual statement of it "being delayed".

Found a copy of the CD soundtrack to "Pulp Fiction" for a buck recently. Always enjoyed the film and the music used, especially "Jungle Boogie" and "Commache".

Went over to my aunt's place and got her car started the other day. Battery was dead, so I cleaned the posts and jump-started it and it seems fine now save that the battery probably needs a good, full charge. 'Shame I can't fix my own as I still have that leaky water pump and am awaiting funds to have that replaced.

Got one job finished today I had slated to do ASAP, which was trimming mom's hedges down a good 3+ feet as they were getting literally too tall for me to trim. Now they're only a couple feet tall and easy to maintain.

And, finally... May the 16th. is the 7th. Anniversary of the "Elmo Jenkins" blog site. It will also be the last one as I'm closing down shop here. Fellow bloggers can still access this site as well as my biographical "A Puck's Tale", and the listings on "Beatles and Bizarros", but if you want to see what I've been up to you'll just have to look at my Facebook page, which is under the user name of Dave Puck.

"Post No. 737"

Today is April 1st., of course, also known as "April Fool's Day", or "All Fool's Day". For a history of this date click
here. Beware opening any suspicious emails!

Tomorrow, April 2nd., is the birth date of my late father, William E. ("Eddie") Puckett. Born April 2nd., 1920, he would have been 91 years old.

Usually, the first three months of the year just seem to fly on by for me, but it seems like it's been a long time now since January 1st.. I suppose it's because of the cold weather we've had for the past four months.

Not that we haven't had a "few" warmer days, but even then there were storms, one of which knocked down a 20 foot limb from high in a tree in my front yard. We were lucky that there were no vehicles parked underneath it as it weighed probably 150 lbs.! Just today I finally was able to get it all chopped up, sawed up and split up for anyone that wants the free wood for the burning.

I've had a leaky water pump now for a month and am still awaiting my federal tax return to have it repaired. I filled my federal on February 11th., electronically, and on the 25th. got a reply that it had been rejected because "someone else" was using my social security number! I then had to mail it in and now there's been a delay. I've tried to contact the irs through both the phone and on line, but that's a pointless waste of time and effort. Finally got a reply that it would arrive no later than April 26th.!

Anyway, I took my car to a local garage to get an estimate, and although the pump itself would be less that $30., it'd cost #130.00 (!) just to install it. I'm trying to find a "shadetree" mechanic locally who will do it for less.

Another date, not really important, but one I always keep track of is the 14th. of this month. This 14th. of April will mark my 11th. year in retail at work.

I've been pretty busy working on inking the "Bootz'x" comic series. Thus far, I've completed all of the work on the first three issues. If you wish to click Here, you can read a complete seven page back up story which is proposed for the 3rd. issue. (If the photos come up too small, simply "refresh" or press F5, and it'll come up larger to read. There's an "arrow" to the right of each page to progress it on to the next.)

Finally got around to reading a couple of comic book collections as well; the 1990's DC hardcover by Jerry Ordway: "Power of Shazam!" (which was very good), as well as the "DC Showcase present's Enemy Ace" which is excellant and reprints at least the first 40 appearances of the character, mostly drawn by Joe Kubert. i was especially happy to get the latter as I sold the first 25 or so app.'s of EA in the original comic books back a year ago in January.
(Please pardon any "typos"; March was a long month.)

"Post No. 736"

My cousin, Timmy Green died a couple of days back. Timmy was a good friend and one heck of a good mechanic. He had his garage about 2 miles from I live and if I ever had car problems, he was the one to fix them. Timmy had a great sense of humor and was a very hard worker, and my sympathies go out to him and his family.

...

I'm not sure who I'll use as a mechanic now. I have a coolant leak on my '95 Taurus, and I'm not sure if it's a hose or the water pump. This morning I took it by one local mechanic, but he didn't fool with water pumps, but suggested another mechanic who told me he was covered up with work and would have to make an apointment for me later this month. That would suit me fine as long as my auto holds up as I'm still awaiting my tax refund from the federal before I do do anything.

I've had a lot of problems with my tax return this year. We filed electronically over two weeks ago, and the following Friday we got a call from our preparer that our form had been rejected due to someone else using my SS#! It was finally discovered that this was a mistake made by some other tax preparer somewhere, that they'd accidently written down MY SS# on someone else's form. So, anyway, my preparer had to mail it in to the IRS and now it's delaying my refund by several weeks (always something).

I finally finished inking and proof-reading a 20 page strip I'd been working on for several months off-and-on, and will sometime soon take the 11" x 17" originals to have them reduced so that I can scan them on my own scanner, then the whole issuewill be posted to my Facebook page in a new album. (I'll note that here "when" that happens.)

Work's stayed steady at the retail store and I don't have much time off this week. I rarely seem to get two days off in a row, so this one day between 3 or 4 others means I have a lot of catching up to do. I'm still studying my Chinese tutoial. Currently I'm trying to learn "colors", having already gone through and memorized most of the greetings and simply words and the names of several animals. Lord help me IF I ever think about trying to learn how to write Chinese characters, however.

I have found what I think is an interesting mistake listed in both The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, as well as The Grand Data Base" regarding the date of a Gold Key comic. It was the movie adaptation of "Mutany on The Bounty".

The copyright on the cover of the comic states 1962, as well as the indica AND the little cover date on the splash page's bottom right-hand panel states "11/62". (This was also a 1962 film.) If this is true, it would tie the issue of Doctor Solar Man of the Atom No.1 as being the FIRST GK comic book. It's a shame one can't go back in time to when those books were originally on the shelves (spin racks, "whatever") and actually see if both titles were there at the same time.

"Post No. 735"

With three days off from work in a row, after working 6 straight days, I've actually had to "fight" to find me something to occupy my time. Already I've worked on a leak over the entranceway and one on the back porch, helped my wife with some of her craft stuff, helped clean up this house, etc., etc. Even tried to fix my riding lawn mower so I wouldn't have to use the old push-type this coming Summer, and I still find I have time on my hands.

I did get around to working more on inking a 20 page comic. Still lack around 6 pages having that finished. Probably 5 pages left by tomorrow as I ink fairly fast.

Stopped by the local flea market this morning and found a VHS copy of "Time Bandits" for a buck that I added to my collection of Beatles' tapes (since George Harrison co-produced that film and did the music soundtrack). But really, not much else.

So I looked at some misc. websites and saw where on "Smallville", "Booster Gold" AND the current version of the "Blue Beetle" will soon appear. They really need to fiesty-up that show since it's the final season and get rid of all the metaphysical crapola storylines they've used of late.

I read where Marvel's going to kill off a different character every quarter, so with The Human Torch now done, it's the Ultimate Spider-man's turn soon, which really suits me as I can't say I've ever cared much for any of the Marvel Ultimate series.

At least we've had some warmer weather here in S-Central, KY. to work outside. Hope it's a sign that it'll hang around a while now.