I refused to call it Avengers West Coast.
Sorry, didn’t have time to do a proper post last night, so please enjoy this stack of West Coast Avengers that I’m supposed to be pricing at the shop today. Enjoy!
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Many would swear *at* Superman 64.
Just in case you ever thought comments on old posts ever got past me…nope, they sure don’t! Here’s Reader Pete with a comment on my relatively recent video game post:
“I know I’m a few weeks late to comment on this post, but reading this reminded of the Questprobe game and tie-in comics from Marvel in the mid-80’s. I had the Hulk and Thing/Human Torch games for my Commodore 64 which I remember formatted like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book. I bought the Hulk and Spider-Man comics as back issues later on, but could never find the Thing/Human Torch one. It seemed like comics & video games would have been a much more natural partnership but that didn’t seem to develop until years later.”
The Questprobe computer games were illustrated “interactive fiction,” where the player would read text and type in commands of the “GO NORTH” and “TAKE AXE” variety, accompanies with still digital drawings.
There were programmed by Scott Adams — no, not that one, but rather this gentleman. And I suggest looking at that Wikipedia page to see the pic of Mr. Adams from 1982, which is literally the greatest.
Now, despite my affinity for computer and video gaming and (surprise) comics in the mid-’80s, I didn’t acquire these games. I’m not even sure I ever saw them for sale in the wild, and I regularly haunted the game software shelves at any store that stocked this sort of thing.
I was aware of the games, absolutely, as I definitely bought at least the first issue of Marvel’s tie-in Questprobe comic book series. (And according to the Grand Comics Database entry linked there, the look of the antagonist in this series was designed after Adams himself — again, reference that photo from Adams’ Wikipedia page.
Adams worked with John Byrne to put together a plan for the overall series of games, and of course the related comics, for a run of about a dozen installments. Only three games came out, due to the game company shutting down, which also ended the related comic book series. However, a comic based on the unreleased fourth game was created, and eventually released in issue #33 of Marvel’s Island of Misfit Stories, Marvel Fanfare.
And because the late writer Mark Gruenwald forgot nothing, some of this Questprobe stuff would turn up in his run of Quasar.
A couple of additional points: despite missing the games during their initial release window, I did sample one or two of them via emulation decades later. Which, unfortunately, is probably not the way to try them out given how very dated they feel now. As I recall, even the text interface seemed relatively primitive compared to the more complex commands available in, say, the contemporary Infocom games.
The Questprobe games had the affectation of the user prompt being, like, “SPIDER-MAN I WANT YOU TO” after which you would type in the command, like you’re controlling the character from afar. Here’s a playthrough of the Spider-Man game to show you what I mean:
The other point I wanted to make is that reader Pete (remember Pete? This is a post about Pete) said he couldn’t find the third issue of the run, feaeturing the Thing and the Human Torch:
And this is an issue we fans probably shouldn’t miss, as it features the excellent artwork of noted Thing artist (from the self-titled series and from many Marvel Two-in-Ones) Ron Wilson. I just checked, and this issue is not included in the recent The Thing Omnibus, almost certainly due to licensing issues, so folks, keep your peepers peeled for that lost gem. EDIT: Ignore all that, it is in the Omnibus, somehow I missed it when scanning the covers on the book’s back cover.
In my more nostalgic moods I might say that superhero video games never got any better than the Atari 2600 Superman from 1979. The best games? Maybe the recent Spider-Man games…maybe the Batman Arkham series. Many would swear by, say, the X-Men arcade game, or the various LEGO games.
These Questprobe games were an interesting attempt at moving superheroes into the then-burgeoning home computer market, but producing them as essentially text adventures with some pictures seemed to miss the point a little. I mean, yes, comic books themselves are pictures with some text, but if you’re handed a game, when you think “superheroes” you probably don’t want to spend hours guessing what noun-verb combination is the correct one to get you to the next guessing of a noun-verb combination.
Superheroes imply action, and in a video game market that means directly moving characters onscreen as per your controller interface. And with the release of the recent Batman virtual reality game, the games are coming closer and closer to actually just straight up living out the world are presented in comic books, with fewer apparent steps of remove.
Directly dazzling.
In making some slight attempt to arrange the “to be read” piles at home, I put aside a bunch of recently acquired fanzines ‘n’ prozines, inside one of which I found this article:
This comics from Comics Feature #6 in 1980, and I figured this would be a good article to pick out given that there’s a brand new Dazzler series out on the shelves this week.
What really caught my eye was the phrasing of the headline, referring to comic book specialty stores as “fan shops.” Comic stores were still relatively new, mostly beginning to crop up in the ’70s (though there were certain some examples prior to that). I know most of us just call ’em “comic shops” or “comic book stores” now, even if the actual comic book sections are a minor afterthought to the shelves and shelves of Pokemon and Magic the Gathering product.
“Direct sales outlet” is another term used in the article that feels a bit dated, describing the nature of the different distribution between comic shops and newsstands that was on folks’ minds then, but not so much now. We’re primarily reminded of it on today’s new comics with the “direct sales” slug present on UPC codes.
Seeing “fan shop” reminds me of a common criticism of comic stores, as those of a particularly…unpleasant nature are referred to negatively as “clubhouse.” It wouldn’t surprise me to see someone referring to some unwelcoming shop or ‘nother on social media as “fan shop (derogatory),” as the popular phrasing goes with you young folks nowadays.
That’s mostly all I wanted to mention about this article, but I suppose I should note that theh print run on this Dazzler #1 was “a quarter of a million copies,” and even that was noted as being slightly less than a typical Marvel first issue, due to the “restricted” circulation. There are comic publishers who would strangle their mom’s favorite goat to get a print run that high on anything today.
Also interesting is that, while the first issue was comic shop only, it started getting newsstand distribution with the second issue. Sorry, kids with no “fan shops” in your area, you’ll never get to see Dazzler’s exciting origin!
And then:
Well…thanks, Big Jim, I…guess?
“Hulk commit involuntary manslaughter!”
So there’s been some discourse online about editorial denial about specific events/characterizations both explicit and otherwise heavily implied in recent X-Men comics, specifically regarding Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Cyclops. I haven’t read an X-book in probably a decade-and-a-half, so I can’t speak to specifics, but it’s pretty clear the creative teams had one intention with the characters’ particular romantic triangle, and the highers-up are giving the ol’ “noooope” to the whole deal.
This put me in mind of other editorial decrees that seemed…oiut of place to me. This was a discussion on Bluesky, which started with my post here, and I fully acknowledge the contributions others made there with their replies in informing my blog entry here.
I’m going to address the second example I gave there first, in that it’s stated that the Hulk has never purposefully killed. Okay, I don’t know for sure that this was an editorial demand, but here in Incredible Hulk #110 (November 2007) by Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan and Jeffrey Huet, Hulk’s Really Smart Pal Amadeus Cho explains what’s going on:
He continues:
“How many times have you fought the military? How many tanks and helicopters have you smashed?
“And not a single soldier has died.
“Yesterday you brought down the Sentry’s Eyrie. You smashed the top of the Baxter Building.
“You pulverized all these heroes…
“…And yet you haven’t killed a single soul.”
Hulk brings up some examples where he has killed, but Cho counters these were instances of self-defense against other killers, as opposed to slaughter of innocents during mindless rampages. Basically, so long as the normal Bruce Banner/Hulk dynamic is in place, Banner is somehow running numbers/probabilities in the background, exerting some subtle influence to prevent Hulk from murdering people.
There is the caveat that Cho slips in there about “as long as your brain hasn’t been tampered with,” allowing for an “out” for examples of Hulk killing, like, say, during instances of Banner being entirely subsumed by the Hulk’s personality, or removed entirely.
This is all fine with me, to be honest. It feels counterintuitive, that there were no casualties during one of Hulk’s destructive rampages, but This Is Superhero Comics. This isn’t any worse or stranger than super-battles always demolishing abandoned buildings, for example, or like the Flash clearing the area of civilians before the rest of the Justice League fights the Shaggy Man or whatever. It’s not as much fun if you realize thousands of people got slaughtered because the Avengers didn’t get to the scene on time.
For some reason this puts me in mind of the events from Miracleman #15 (the Eclipse Comics numbering, from 1988) by Alan Moore and John Totleben. This is like the exact opposite of the “thank goodness these buildings are empty!” kind of explanation for why every superhero battle isn’t the equivalent of multiple 9/11s. In this issue, Miracleman has his final(?) battle with former sidekick-turned-evil Kid Miracleman, and it’s just mayhem and slaughter all over the place, and it’s not all done by the bad guy:
It works here in context because the superbeings have been presented as above normal human concerns, uncaring about mortal lives, and that when these “gods” battle it’s humanity that pays the price. It’s a theme of the book.
The theme of the Hulk is “man vs. himself,” Banner having to cope with the monster that lives within in. The additional guilt of “and that monster kills a lot of people” would have made it an entirely different book.
Another thing this all brings to mind is Wolverine, where, as I recall, an edict was put down by then editor-in-chief Jim Shooter that the ol’ Canucklehead has never killed anyone. You know, despite this happening in X-Men #133 (May 1980) by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry Austin:
…which was later retroactively explained that these guys Wolverine was fighting were just “injured” and came back as cyborgs or whatnot. Look, I’m not a big X-Men reader, I don’t know the details, but this clearly is a case of obvious intent being subverted by editorial edict. I mean, I get it, the X-Men are heroes, you don’t want ’em killing folks left and right, but this was clearly to show how dangerous Wolverine could be when not kept in check. It’s characterization, it’s a plot element adding tension to the proceedings. It’s a reminder that he’s not just a tough-talking bloke that hangs out at the X-Mansion, he is literally One Savage Dude.
Anyway, you can get into a whole thing just on X-Men comics alone. Jean Grey had to die because as Dark Phoenix she killed millions of beings, that sort of business. She got better, obviously, and I’m pretty sure they’re less shy about letting Wolvie off baddies now.
Should note that Amadeus Cho, in that Incredible Hulk #110 I excerpted above, goes on to tell Hulk that Captain America probably killed a few Nazis during WWII, because, well, it was WWII. Hate to tell you this Mr. Cho, but Cap did a little more than that:
I mean, holy crap. Though to be fair, maybe Bucky did ’em all in.
Not even a Holiday Special adaptation.
So I spotted on the back of the newest Marvel Previews an add for the forthcoming Star Wars comic book Ahsoka, starring the character who came to prominence in animation and recently jumped into live action portrayed by Rosario Dawson. A “fan-favorite” in the classic sense, as folks do seem to genuinely like the character, and at least at my shop toys and comics based on her usually do quite well.
The text of the ad reads “Ahsoka Tano gets her her own miniseries adaptation” and I groaned a little bit, as I realized it’s not new stories, but comic book retellings of the story from the recent Disney+ TV show. Now my immediate response was of course mature and reasoned…posting a meme to Bluesky:
…and informing said response was the rather lackluster response I’ve had at the shop to other recent Star Wars comic book adaptations of other media. The recent Obi-Wan barely sells for me, I’ve had folks drop Thrawn because it’s adapting a novel, even The Mandalorian, the strongest selling of the bunch, has begun to flag. I’ve had multiple folks express their disappointment that they were just getting retellings of stories they’ve already enjoyed.
Way back in Ye Olden Tymes, before VCRs and various forms of disc players, a comic book adaptation of a movie was one of the few ways to relive the experience at your convenience. And TV shows…well, there weren’t many direct adaptations of TV episodes in comics, mostly focusing on new stories, but it was still a way to relive a program outside of its normal broadcast times, back in the days before you could pick up (or download) complete season sets.
While some of these were…utilitarian, shall we say, several did have some artistic merit and were completely enjoyable on their own terms. I still think Marvel’s Time Bandits comic is a classic, for example, and I enjoy looking at it even though I have the Criterion Blu-ray of the film just on the shelf over there. Evan Dorkin’s version of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey is another great movie-to-comic translation, with Dorkin’s wild cartooning creating an adaptation that arguably surpasses the source material.
Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien. Hook, featuring work by Charles Vess and Gray Morrow, among many others. The absolute infamous madness of the adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s 1941 by Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch. The beautiful Jerry Ordway art on the comic for the first Tim Burton Batman film.
I could keep going. I have a soft spot for many of the Star Trek movie comics DC produced (even with the occasional storytelling glitch).
But in this modern age, where everything is just a click away (legally or otherwise), the desire to relive cinematic experiences in funnybook form just isn’t there like it used to be. Even doing new stories based on films and TV isn’t quite the draw it used to be…but it seems for folks attracted to certain properties, if they had a choice, they’d want their comics to be new material rather than rehashing stories they’ve already experienced.
I’m not saying there isn’t an audience now for comics like Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. In fact, I expect Ahsoka #1 to sell quite well, just by virtue of being a Big First Issue for the popular character. I’m expecting a big dropoff on #2, however, as readers realize it’s just stories from the TV show, and as speculators stick with thier #1s and eschew later installments.
In addition, there will be the folks who don’t care it’s an adaptation, and want to enjoy a comic book version of the show. And there’s the simple fact that not everyone has Disney+, and this is their access to these particular adventures.
Now, I realize Marvel may have its hands tied in regards to what they can and can’t do with their licensed properties. I have no idea. All I know is the majority of my customers, when they hear “adaptation,” decide the comic is not for them, no matter how expertly it is artistically executed. While I’ll still sell copies, the number I’ll sell has been capped off.
I really do wish the. best for the creative team on this new Ahsoka comic. I hope it does well, not just for their sakes, but for my own store as well. Selling more comics is preferable to selling fewer, after all. And if Ahsoka does well, enough, maybe a follow-up with all-new stories will be in the offing. One can only hope.
No, not the band that performed “Africa.”
Bryan says in response to my assertion that Venom made his first “on-panel” appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #300:
“I’m too lazy to go look, but doesn’t ASM 299 end with a splash page of Venom?”
Bryan is indeed correct, and in issue #298 we get this bit of business at the end of the issue:
…and then in #299 we get this page and a half leading directly into the shocking events of the extra-sized next issue:
Now to be honest, in my mind I’d remembered Venom’s pre-300 appearance as being restricted to his face popping up in the bottom-of-the-page next issue blurb. I’d forgotten that his cameos in these previous two issues amounted to quite this much.
The Overstreet Price Guide refers to #298 as “1st app. Eddie Brock who becomes Venom, #299 notes “1st brief app. Venom with costume,” and #300 gets “1st full Venom app.” I mean, I guess getting Venom’s gloves in #298 isn’t enough for the “1st in costume” honor, but you can kinda see what sort of splitting of hairs is going on here. To be entirely strict about it, #299 should get the “first Venom” since it’s our first look at him in toto. But #300 is an anniversary issue, and it has that striking cover, and yes it is a full issue featuring Venom in action, and thus it’s the one that gets the most attention from collectors.
There’s precedent, of course, with Wolverine’s first appearances in Incredible Hulk issues in 1974. Issue #180 is the actual first appearance, with the ol’ Canucklehead popping up on the last page in this two-panel sequence:
But again, #181 was the full-length in-story appearance of Wolvie, and had a kick-ass cover showing him in action, thus making this the most in-demand issue of the run. (Wolverine also appears in the opening pages of #182, and as we all know, was never seen again.)
So, yes, my statement of “first on-panel appearance” for Venom was incorrect, as he clearly shows up “on-panel” prior to #300. But like I said, I thought his only visual representation was in a blurb, not in-story, so I genuinely remembered #300 as The First One. And as far as collectibility and value goes, #300 is the most important one selling for many times the cost of the other two comics, with “first full issue appearance” and “first full appearance” being usually just shortened to “first apperance.” And those other two comics are generally just “cameo appearances” as far as the back issue market goes.
And the people pushing the house ads for Incredible Hulk #181 that were in earlier Marvel comics as the actual first appearance? GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT NONSENSE
This is the second post in a row I looked for a “Spider-Man” category to tag it with, but I didn’t have one.
So last time we were talking about that scene in Fantastic Four #274 (1985), in which the alien symbiote that had been Spider-Man’s costume is freed from the lab where it had been contained. Here is a better look at the page in question (as drawn by John Byrne, Al Gordon and apparently Dan Adkins):
It was brought up in the comments that it was a little weird that this important moment in Spider-Man’s history happens in a Fantastic Four comic, but commenter “S” reminds us that the scene did appear in Amazing Spider-Man #261 (February 1985) by Tom Defalco, Ron Frenz and Joe Rubinstein:
Slightly embarrassing in that I read this Spider-Man comic and should have remembered, though I think I can be forgiven since it’s probably been close to forty years since I’ve done so.
S also mentions this drone incursion was possibly sent by the Kristoff version of Doctor Doom (remember that period?), which is confirmed by this panel from Fantastic Four #278 (May 1985) by Byrne and Jerry Ordway:
As we see in the Spider-Man page, “Doom’s” plan didn’t explicitly involve “freeing the alien symbiote,” but somehow that critter managed to attract the probe into investigating further. Hence, the release of the symbiote putting it well on its way to Venom-ness, and leading into the release just a couple of months later of Web of Spider-Man #1, where said symbiote plays a part.
So there you go. Hopefully these couple of posts sucked all the Venom out of my blood and it’s no longer in my system, and I can finally move on to different topics. Like the Spider-Man villain Carnage, I could probably do a couple of weeks on him.
Spidey cars, Living Lasers, Aero / it’s a duck-blur!
Just been a week for surprise comics news, I guess, as Marvel has finally announced that they’ll be doing an Uncle Scrooge McDuck comic: Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime. Multiple covers, natch, with the “main” cover as such:
…and feast your eyes on the Alex Ross variant cover:
Now, if you read the description of the comic at the link, it certainly sounds like the most Marvel-type comic they could be doing with this Disney property. Is there a multiverse involved? Of course there is.
Speaking with a pal of mine, he asked “just who is the audience for this?” And ideally it should be children, and at my shop I get enough children passing through that children’s comics are a viable product line for me. I know this may not be the case at some shops, either by accident or design, but I think overall the target audience for this book may not getting exposed to it.
However, ain’t nuthin’ wrong with getting some of those Marvel readers to try out Uncle Scrooge too, either through some of that DuckTales nostalgia, or the fact that it’s being written by noted comics scribe Jason Aaron, or that Alex Ross cover, or that it’s being sold as a (quoting from the press release) “time-honored Marvel adventure,” and so on. Just getting the big push from Marvel may get more people to try it out aside from the usual Disney fans.
It looks like it’ll be fun, and. it’ll be a welcome return of Scrooge and Donald and the nephews to comic book stands. I hope it’s successful enough to generate follow-up comics, and that it creates new fans, especially young ones, for Disney comics.
I’ve seen several comments online hoping this means actual team-ups between Marvel’s heroes and the Disney gang. I would prefer this wouldn’t happen, but I can’t deny that they’d likely sell well until Marvel does too many of them. But I’ll tell you what, Donald Duck Vs. Howard the Duck: Battle for The Pants — Marvel/Disney, I would write that for (almost) free.
And the comics retailer in me has a wish or two of his own, like trade editions of Marvel’s previous forays into adapting Disney’s animation, like their Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast series. Or Marvel’s two Roger Rabbit graphic novels…people still like Roger Rabbit, they’d sell!
In even yet more news, DC Comics is returning to Wednesday on-sale dates for their new comics, starting this July. Just as well, since hardly anyone noticed the change to Tuesdays in the first place. I mean, there were a few early birds, but otherwise folks just waited ’til Wednesdays.
DC should do their own version of these Marvel variants from around the time DC originally made the move in 2020.
“DCs Back on Sale Wednesdays!” variants would be all the rage, I just know it.
The one with the gannet.
Well, this is certainly something.
I know, I’m a little late to this polybag party, but boy howdy what a weirdly pandering idea that’s only going to contribute to the idea that kids aren’t welcome to modern superhero comics. Which is okay, I guess, because kids got their own stuff goin’ on, and aren’t likely to be interested in Marvels outside of Miles Morales and Deadpool anyway.
Basically, Marvel has announced that they’ll be releasing a comic, Blood Hunt #1, where apparently you won’t have to hunt far for that blood as a “Mature Readers” version of the title with all the gore and violence you crave will be presented in an unexpurgated fashion. Meanwhile, they’ll also produce a censored “general audiences” version of the same book that won’t sell. The naughty version, naturally selling for a buck more than its bowdlerized counterpart, will be sealed in a polybag for that extra attention from parents who already think superhero comics are all too violent for their kids anyway.
Perhaps I sound a little annoyed at this.
Now chances are pretty good this series will go over like a thing that doesn’t go over very well, and the whole “pay that extra buck, see what the butler saw” gimmick will drop off the face of the direct market. Or everyone will decide “I don’t want the stupid version made for babies, gimme that explicit content” and it’ll sell like gangbusters and suddenly every Marvel comic has a polybag. (Then Marvel can push the “pure and innocent” unbagged variants and charge more for those.)
I was put in mind of Marvel’s publishing…let’s say “strategy” in regards to their initial attempt at doing Miracleman. In this post (and please excuse my optimism that new stories were “close”), I noted that they were polybagging Miracleman issues despite the content usually not warranting it. My assumption was that 1) it was a mature readers book under the Marvel logo, and thus should be hidden from theoretically innocent eyes, and 2) by polybagging every issue, when they got to the “birth” issue it wouldn’t stand out as the only polybagged one.
And also there’s 3) the hoped-for sales boost by providing the lure of the forbidden by sealing the contents away, which didn’t work and sales continued to plummet because nobody cared.
There is a chance this may not be the case with Marvel books, though, particularly ones set in the mainstream Marvel universe, under the Marvel banner, in a standard comic book format, and not shoved under some distancing mature-reader label like “MAX” or “Epic” or “Star.” (Yes, Star, that Heathcliff was a freak.)
As I said above, the main problem with this is the perception from parents in my shop that all superhero comics are “violent” and “gory.” I always try to tell them “there are plenty of kid-friendly superhero books.” But seeing this on the stands…well, okay, it’s just the one so far, but it’ll be more of a problem once Marvel starts cranking out more of them. Or, to be honest, folks tend to home right in on the very thing you’d prefer they didn’t notice, trust me on this. But this isn’t going to help dissuade the notion that superhero comics are scary and gross. (I mean, sure, some are, but not all of them!)
Also I’m being reminded of another time publishers tried this sort of thing, when Aircel offered “adults only” and “general audiences” versions of Barry Blair’s Leather and Lace. As I said there, given the overall look ‘n’ feel of even the supposed general audiences version, there was no way in hell I was going to sell that to kids. I’m hoping history doesn’t repeat itself with this newest iteration of the gimmick.
“HDMI Jack” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
So in response to my post about the passing of Keith Giffen, LouReedRichards brings up a title that I’m sort of shocked at myself for not remembering. On one hand, I couldn’t list everything, but on the other hand, I really should have pointed out this comic from 1987:
And here’s a sample page from the first issue:
Did ol’ Keith do 12-panel pages throughout the series? Oh he sure does, for the most part, with some smatterings of six and nine panel pages, so this is one series dense with storytelling. Even the last issue, featuring several guest artists (like Fred Hembeck! Walt Simonson! Trina Robbins! Jim Starlin!) is mostly 6 or 9 panel grids. There’s the occasional breaking of the format, including a pretty stunning two-page spread in the first issue.
So here’s the thing about this comic.
I remember really looking forward to it. I even picked up one of the promo posters at the comic shop, where they had a stack they were giving away, and had it put up at home. And I bought each issue off the stands as it came out, its release coinciding with my beginning months of college.
And I’m pretty sure that was the one time I read it. Well, okay, I probably reread the whole series once it was complete. And it’s been 35+ years and I remember very, very little of it. As I flipped through my copies, extracted from what remains of the Vast Comics Archive, I remembered bits here and there, some of the conceits of the series, the character designs, etc. But there is a lot going on and I’m sure there are plenty of details I’m forgetting.
Hell, I even forgot that this was written by former DC Comics stalwart Cary Bates.
I remember really liking the series. But I couldn’t tell you really anything substantial about it, beyond “dude falls into a TV world” and I’m not even sure that’s 100% correct. But glancing through it, it’s definitely a showcase for this era of Giffen’s art. I definitely would love to be able to reread it, but “rereading older comics” is on the backburner while I’m still trying to catch up with the new stuff. As I posted on Bluesky:
“Well, if I’m going to reread every book and comic I’ve bought and kept over the last five decades, I’d better get started.”
In some cases, it may be just enough to remember that you liked a think, even if it no longer lives in your memory and you don’t have time to revisit. Ah well.
And it took three and half decades, but I finally get the punny joke of the title. …No one’s ever accused me of being too on the ball. Do I need to tell the Ms. Tree story again?
