undergrounds

“Get one for your lil sugar too!!”

filed under Categories indies, undergrounds, zines 14 Comments

So Thursday afternoon I acquired a small pile of underground comics from a person selling off a late relative’s collection. It was some of the expected stuff…lots of Robert Crumb comics, including a full run of Mr. Natural, some Freak Brothers, even some Zippy mags. However, in the middle of all these was this odd item that I’d never seen or heard of before:


…Wolfman Jack Comics, a digest-sized 28-page staplebound black and white publication. Obviously it was available through the mail, based on the label (which I obscured) on the front cover there.

A search online turned up very little about this item, save for an approximate publication date (around 1970) that I found on some ancient Wolfman Jack fan page that I’m not linking here as it will automatically forward to porn ads. I haven’t dug deep into any ‘zine collection directories yet, so maybe I’ll find something there, but I haven’t found this on eBay, or in the usual comic databases, and it’s not even in the Fogel underground price guide. (I haven’t been able to check the older Kinney underground guide yet.)

Thus, in order to provide future Wolfman Jack fans with some details on this comic via a (mostly) non-porn site, here we go!

The outer covers are color, and here is the back:


The cartoons inside are…okay, maybe not the most polished artwork you’ve ever seen, but there is a charm and childlike energy to it.


The stories revolve around Wolfman Jack and various supporting characters getting into shenanigans, including a surprising amount of family-friendly nudity:


And I’m posting this sequence with the Wolfman in a tank because I like it:


There’s an activity page, where you can dress up Wolfman Jack as you please…this is just the top half:


And there are ads, like the come-on for the Wolfman Jack fan club:


…and this page of merch (who wouldn’t want to take a swig of Wolfman Whiz?):


Here’s what some of those goodies will set you back:


Did I just do a search (unsuccessful, alas) for Wolfman Whiz on eBay? I’m not saying “no.”

“Koffman and Berenson” are the only credited names here. Aaaaand…that’s all I know about this thing. If anyone out there has more info, let me know or where to find it and I can add it to this page for later scholars to track down. And if you go searching and find a page titled “wolfy1” — that’s the site that throws up the porn ads, don’t click! Unless you want porn ads, you do you, friends.

EDIT: big thanks to Matthew in the comments for using his superior Google-fu (or Bing-fu, I won’t judge) to find the site of one of the creators of this publication (Dan Koffman), who still has copies to sell!

And his middle name is “Midas,” which came even later, don’t get me started on that.

filed under Categories undergrounds 11 Comments

So in 1971, the following two issues of the underground comic Air Pirates Funnies were released:


And as you can probably see, these comics are heavy on Disney parody, and being undergrounds, they’re especially heavy on the, shall we say, more adult elements.

As you might imagine, the Walt Disney Company was…unamused, and lawsuits were filed, and court cases were held, and anyway you can read all about that on the Wikipedia page. But the upshot of all of it is that Air Pirates Funnies is very out of print and legally will stay that way.

Or…will it?

A thought occurred to me when I was talking to pal Brook about this comic, that Mickey Mouse, at least the first year version of him, is now public domain. And that got me to wondering…when do the other Disney characters used in Air Pirates Funnies enter the public domain?

Now, I don’t own copies of these, unfortunately, so I’m depending on the Grand Comics Database entries and whatever I’m catching in the issues they have on the Internet Archive to get all the Disney characters used.

Now this is a pretty wide spread of characters, so anybody I may have missed probably fit in this range anyway, but let me know if I missed someone important.

If I may also note, I AM NOT A COPYRIGHT LAWYER OR EXPERT. I’m simply basing these numbers on the “enters public domain after 95 years” calculation. If there are other circumstances at play here that would affect PD status, I do not know them.

So, here we go:

Mickey Mouse – first appeared in 1928, entered public domain in 2024

Minnie Mouse – first appeared in 1928, entered public domain in 2024

Goofy – first appeared in 1932 as “Dippy Dawg,” then known as “Goofy” by 1934. Enters the public domain as Dippy in 2028, as Goofy in 2030

Zeke Wolf AKA Big Bad Wolf – first appeared in 1933 as The Big Bad Wolf, gains the name “Zeke” in 1946. Enters the public domain in 2029 as Big Bad Wolf, and as Zeke in 2042

Three Little Pigs – first appeared in 1933, enters the public domain in 2029

Phantom Blot – first appeared in 1939, enters the public domain in 2035

Pete – first appeared in 1925, entered the public domain in 2021

Sylvester Shyster – first appeared in 1930, enters the public domain in 2026

Chief O’Hara (no, not that one) – first appeared in 1939, enters the public domain in 2035

Horace Horsecollar – first appeared in 1929, entered public domain in 2025

There are of course some caveats, as what is entering the public domain is the version from that year…later depictions of, say, Horace, aren’t public domain yet, just how he looked in 1929. And as you see in the Goofy entry, the Dippy Dawg version precedes the Goofy name by a couple of years.

The real sticking point here is Zeke Wolf, who is referred to by that name in the Air Pirates comics. While his character first shows up in a Disney production in 1933, his actual first name doesn’t appear ’til well over a decade later. Thus, the earliest that all the Disney characters in Air Pirates Funnies are public domain, making this comic safe(?) to reprint, is 2042, unless they carefully excise each occurrence of the name “Zeke” in the stories.

If 2042 is the potential date for a reprinting, then by that time later versions of the other characters would have entered the public domain as well. Even if they do edit out the “Zeke” usage and get the reprints out in 2036 (when the Phantom Blot enters the public domain), I think it’s likely okay. The Disney parodies are mostly based on the Floyd Gottfredson newspaper strips, and those versions of the characters would, I think, be mostly public domain by the mid 2030s.

I know, I know, I’m talking about this like it’s a sure thing, that someone will do it and risk the Giant Burning Eye of Disney shifting its baleful gaze upon them. But Erik Larsen got was with Mickey and Minnie in some recent-ish issues of Savage Dragon where Mickey performed some Not Corporately-Approved Shenanigans, and far as I know Disney hasn’t crushed Larsen beneath a truckload of cease-and-desists.

But I think it’s important for the study of parody and copyright law and our legal system, and a good book reprinting the comics with plenty of historical context and interviews would be of immense value to the comics industry, and to anyone else working in satire and parody.

Any excuse to link to Buddy.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, undergrounds 4 Comments

Okay, first, a couple of brief updates:

1. Okay, so I didn’t realize that the alternate Earth on which the Fantastic Four movie took place was numbered after Jack Kirby’s birthday (Earth-828) until folks brought it up in the comments. Post has been updated accordingly.

2. In the comments on Friday’s post about the Superman story and the cutting of Siegel and Shuster’s credits, it was pointed out that Tom Brevoort did a very thorough job outlining the changes in the different printings of that story. So, basically, my post was more or less redundant, and I could have saved everyone some time just by linking to that post in the first place, had I known about it.

I think the bafflement of my younger self trying to work out the internal logic of the story still stands, however.

Anyway, used to be in ye olden dayes I’d scour the internet making sure I wasn’t going to trod over well-traveled ground with all my posts about, for example, how great All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Frank Miller’s The Spirit were. I would go down the list of the recently updated sites on the Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000 to see what other people posted that day before I wrote my post and anyway, I’m feeling much better now.

Can’t say I’m never going to cover a topic not already covered by someone else. If I do, I’m not trying to step on any toes. But at the very least, I promise to bring my own spin on things, my personal perspective. No cheap listicles here! …Unless that’s all I’ve got time for, then LISTICLES AHOY

• • •

I am still taking your questions or topics, so query/topic-ize(?) away! Just follow the rules, please, and take it easy on your pal Mike.

I’ll probably start answering these pretty soon, so Watch This Space for your responses!

• • •

Thing I was not expecting here in the Year of Our Lord 2025…a new Robert Crumb comic:


Man’s 81 now and doesn’t seem to have slipped at all artistically. His writing has been…hit or miss, sure, but one more comic from the old master is certainly something to which we should pay attention.

Now, if we could get a new Freak Bros. comic out of Gilbert Shelton, well, I’m sure I’d just about plotz.

“All life is a blur of Republicans and meat!” — Zippy.

filed under Categories obituary, original art, undergrounds 3 Comments


Whelp, I suppose I’m an original art collector now, having followed up my Nancy strip purchases with this, an original pen-and-ink drawing of Zippy the Pinhead by his creator, Bill Griffith.

This is via the official Zippy the Pinhead webpage, though the actual arranging of the purchase had to be done via email (since the site’s payment processing is not working at the moment). This particular item allows you to pick either from a list of pre-selected “Zippy-isms” (like the ol’ standby “Yow! Are we having fun yet?”) to fill in the word balloon, or you can enter your own, if it’s not too long.

In my case I picked a Zippy quote from a published newspaper strip that probably baffled the squares but the real heads know:

And now here it is, an original Zippy pic in my very own home, bringing me inspiration and hope in this fallen world.

And I of course encourage you to get your own, or avail yourself of the many other goodies on the site. From the main page you can use a PayPal link to get yourself a signed copy of Griffith’s latest book, Three Rocks! Am I thinking really hard about doing so, even though I already have a copy? The answer is not “no.”

• • •

I want to note the passing of the great Bob Newhart, who escaped this world at the too-young age of 94. And I say “too young” because frankly, we could’ve used him around these parts for at least a couple more decades.

The comic book connection here is, of course, his short-lived sitcom Bob from the early ’90s, where he played a comic book artist. I watched most of these, and…well, Bob was always great even if the material wasn’t up to snuff. The one episode aimed directly at us nerds was the one where Bob’s character, “Bob McKay,” was accepting a comics award, with Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Jack Kirby, and for some reason Bob Kane, along with the always telegenic Sergio Aragones.

There was a six-issue run of Mad-Dog as a tie-in, supposedly the comic book McKay had worked on:

It was a flip book, featuring the “classic” version on one side (by Ty Templeton) and the “modern” dark, gritty version on the other (by Evan Dorkin and Gordon Purcell). The two different takes being a plot point on the show itself, you see. Haven’t read probably since it came out, couldn’t tell you a thing about it at this point, but…the creative teams give me at least some hope this is better than it should be.

So long, Bob.

Now if those actually are by Williams and Griffin, well, no wonder they remind me of them.

filed under Categories indies, undergrounds 4 Comments

So some oddball things I picked up in a collection late last week: six issues of Thrasher Comics, a short-lived series that ran from 1988 through 1990 and publishing in conjunction with the still-extant skateboarding publication Thrasher Magazine:

It’s a black and white anthology with color covers, with mostly weird and “edgy” contents that never really cross over into “adult” material, though the cover to issue 5 is, um, something else:

It has a real underground comix feel, like it should have been published sometime in the 1970s instead of, like, 19-freaking-90. Helping that feeling along is the fact that comix legend Spain Rodriguez was a regular contributor with the “Granny McGurk” feature:

And while some of the contents were…amateurish, there’s certainly an energetic weirdness at work, such as this bit from L.E. Coleman’s “Alley Gator,” another recurring strip:

And I think there’s some disturbing joy to be had in this attempt to out-Wolverton Basil Wolverton, taken from “Betties from Hell” by Johnny Childish:

This uncredited piece, taken from the inside fron cover of issue #9, reminds me a smidgen of some of Robert Williams’ underground work:

I’m pretty sure that is in fact not Williams, but this page from #5 is the Spain-est drawing that’s ever been Spained:

The covers are fun, especially with the Rick Griffin vibe I get off this one:

And dig the Heavy Metal-esque sci-fi cover for #8, which…doesn’t seem to have much to do with skating, does it?

EDIT: um, actually, it’s a wraparound cover with sci-fi skaters on the back…look, no one said I was bright:

Anyway, the Thrasher comics experiment didn’t last long, with #9 and its slightly more straightforward cover being the end of the series:

This is one strange comic, and apparently in short supply, judging by some of the prices I’ve seen online for these. The copies I received were…well-loved, mostly in Fair to…well, Fair Plus condition. Quite the range. Had no trouble already finding a buyer for them, so save those emails asking to get these from me, as they’re already gone! Sorry!

However, if you like undergrounds, and wild artwork (sometimes more enthusiastic than professional, which is fine!) keep an eye out for these. Thrasher Comics is something of a forgotten…well, “classic” seems like too strong a word, but it’s certainly worth checking out.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“I can see you!”

filed under Categories promo, undergrounds 8 Comments

So the other day my former boss Ralph brought in another box of comics for me to sell in my store on his behalf. He had emailed me a list of the books ahead of time, and as I was perusing it I spotted a title I didn’t recognize. “CCA Comix” was the name, and by the use of the term “comix” I presumed it was some kind of underground.

When Ralph showed up, I asked about the CCA Comix, which I had thought maybe, because of those initials, it was a book critical of the Comics Code Authority or somesuch. But no, what it was, was this:

…a short comics pamphlet on the importance of tree conservation and the usages for paper, particularly for the purposes of packaging. The “CCA” in the title stands for “Container Corporation of America.”

When Ralph was telling me about the comic, he described the art as a cross between Ernie Bushmiller and Robert Crumb, at which I point I said “yes, I’ll be keeping this.” And looking through it…I think that’s a fairly good description, though maybe more George Hansen than Crumb, if I may split hairs a tad. The actual art is by Bob Zoell, a creator of fine art of some note.

This panel stuck out to me right away, being the fan that I am of self-referentialism:

This is the first page of the comic, for a more representative sampling:

What’s wild about this comic is that Ralph had said he couldn’t find a trace of it in a price guide or online. I looked in the Grand Comics Database and it wasn’t there (so I suppose I, as a card-carrying but not terribly active contributor to the site, should fix that). I even used the Internet Wayback Machine to check the old ugcomix.com site to see if it was listed there (even though this is more an educational giveaway comic that looks like an underground than an actual underground) and didn’t spot it there either.

I meant to ask Ralph if he’d checked one of the newer underground price guides in addition to the original Jay Kennedy guide from the early ’80s (yes, the prices are out of date, but the info is usually still good). I’m guessing he had, but I wanted to double-check. Anyway, neither of us searched The Entire Internet looking for this, so if someone spots a reference to this comic out there in the wild, please let me know.

EDIT: Reader John added a link to this PDF in the comments, featuring the following blurb from a 1977 industry newsletter:

Interesting that the copyright date in the comic itself is 1975, but here it is being plugged in late ’77. Took a while to print? Maybe they had a bunch still sitting around after that initial ’75 distribution? …And yes, they spelled it “Slugo.” How dare they.

John Goodman’s finest role.

filed under Categories cartoons, retailing, undergrounds, variant covers 6 Comments

So in Monday’s post, where I was talking about variant covers in the “real” non-comics world, I brought up the multiple foil covers used for the Raiders of the Lost Ark novelization. I did say at the end of the post I didn’t think many people were actually buying all the different covers to be completists, but I’m sure it’s not nobody.

Well, Turan swooped in with some bookstore-sellin’ experience, to inform that book publishers weren’t producing multiple covers for their titles as a means of encouraging multiple sales. It was more for encouraging displays from sellers, or for offering more options possibly to attract different demographics by using different cover images/designs.

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and my comics retailing hammer may have been aimed at those old Raiders books. To be fair to me, I didn’t necessarily say that book publishers were doing multiple covers for the same reasons comic publishers seem to do so…at least, maybe not back then. But discussing those books in close proximity to comics probably implied as such, for which I apologize. But I’m sure there are still book collectors out there snapping up all variations of a new book’s release. C’mon, have you met book collectors?

Anyway, back to the comics…while I’ve been hitting the “variants are there to get multiple sales from the same customer” nail fairly hard around these parts, Turan does bring up other possibilities that I haven’t really considered. There is always the possibility of a comic publisher trying to attract a buyer that may not care for one cover, but definitely like another. I have over the years had customers walk up to the counter buying a comic they wouldn’t normally because of a specific image used on one of the many variants. In fact, a certain still-extant comics blogger of some note may have bought a variant cover or two simply because it had an unnamed swampy gentleman thereupon. So, basically, I should’ve pointed out this reason for variants long ago.

As for variants being issued to inspire creation of in-store displays…well, sure, comic stores could do, and have done, that. I don’t know if that was the explicit intent of comic publishers, but more a natural extrapolation by more clever shops to take advantage of the material offered. I mean, who knows. And again, this is something I’ve sort of done in the past…I mean, I try to display all covers on my racks anyway, but I haven’t gone out of the way to make a specific separate display of just variants in a long time (we did way back when with the 1990s X-Men and Spider-Man #1s). I don’t know if my racking these books like this counts:


…but boy, it almost got me to buy both covers. I do have to admit I was very tempted to display these covers on opposite sides just to annoy everyone, but cooler heads prevailed.

• • •

To follow up on some other previous posts, I received my newest shipment of weekly Marvel comics from their new distributor Penguin Random House. As I’d expected from how some replacement damages were shipped to me last week, PRH has responded to widespread criticism of their piss-poor packaging and the excessive damages of comics that resulted.

Like Lunar (DC’s distributor) PRH is now packaging their books inside a cardboard box, surrounded by bubble wrap inside another cardboard box. Frankly, the outer box isn’t quite sturdy enough (or large enough to allow for more wrap) to my tastes, but it’s definitely a step up from the last couple of weeks. I did experience some damages, but they were fairly minor dings on six comics, and to be honest I don’t know if these came from their time in transit or before (or as) they were packed in the boxes.

Also, replacements for all of my damages from last week (and there were a lot) arrived early this week. (I initially thought I was missing one, but that’s only because I didn’t recognize the variant cover as being a certain title. AGAIN WITH THE VARIANT COVERS.)

Here’s hoping things continue to improve, and that a certain other distributor who shall go unnamed here will begin to feel at least some pressure to step up their own game. To be fair, I only received two damaged books from them this week, but in the past that just meant I was due for a real problem the following week. We’ll see.

Now I hadn’t heard about this, but on this week’s episode of the Longbox Heroes podcast (being listened to even as I type this), apparently there have been other odd problems with PRH…such as filling an entire order of a book, not with the regular cover, but with the 1/25 or 1/100 ratio variants, which is pretty wild (and possibly quite the windfall for the less scrupulous retailers). I haven’t experienced that particular problem yet, thankfully.

• • •

And now, some good news…the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers is finally going to series, airing on the free TV app Tubi:


As has been noted, the styles of “Characters Created by Gilbert Shelton” and “Characters Not Created by Gilbert Shelton” do, um, clash quite a bit, but given the premise of the series (the Freak Bros. are spirited away from their ’60s/’70s stomping grounds into the world of today) that seems only fitting. I’ve seen a few of the shorts they did with this voice cast (which is great, by the way) on YouTube, so I’m looking forward to some full-length episodes.

Richard Corben (1940 – 2020).

filed under Categories obituary, undergrounds 4 Comments


So I got a copy of Rowlf #1 at the shop a while back in absolutely beautiful condition. It wasn’t Near Mint, but whatever minor flaws it had did nothing to detract from the visual appeal of this cover…the second printing, by the way, as the first print had a different image. It’s certainly the first image that popped into my head when I heard that Richard Corben passed away this week at the age of 80.

The first time I encountered Corben’s art was in an early ’80s issue of Heavy Metal, at a time when I was clearly too young to be looking at this magazine. Lush, fully painted art while still being cartoonishly exaggerated…it was some of his fantasy work, in the same arena as, say, Frazetta and Vallejo, but where they were more in the realm of representational illustration, more or less, here was that weirdo Corben basically doing Tex Avery, with the Wolf’s eyes bugging out of his head and his tongue dragging on the floor. It was a strange mix of styles I hadn’t seen before and had rarely, if ever, seen since.

He’s an underground comix legend, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone reading this. When people come to my store looking for undergrounds, more and more often they ask to see my “Crumb comics,” which can mean anything from actual Robert Crumb comics to Freak Brothers to, well, whatever you can think of. I’ve suggested before that “Crumb comics” may be well on its way to becoming a generic term for undergrounds. That said, the second most mentioned name from those looking for undergrounds is Corben. In fact, if anything, any Corben I get in tends to sell faster than my Crumb (I mean, actually by Crumb) books. A largish collection of Corben I took in earlier in the year was gone within just a few weeks. Demand is still high for his work, and his name still looms large among a certain segment of comics fans.

In recent years he seemed to be more active working for Marvel and DC, which, well, one has to go where the money is, but his work for these companies was no less idiosyncratic than his independent projects. The Hellblazer run he did over Brian Azzarello’s scripts, and worked with that same writer on a Hulk mini, and did some horror books for Marvel and Dark Horse…that garnered him some all new fans, certainly, who’d never seen Den.

He was a strange and unique talent, and I’m sure we’re all sad to see him go, but glad he shared as much of his imagination with us that he did.

So long, Richard.

I know technically the title is “Omaha” The Cat Dancer.

filed under Categories records, undergrounds 10 Comments

Yet another comic book-related record made it into my hands this week…I managed to find a copy the Omaha the Cat Dancer picture disc for dirt cheap on the eBays. Here’s the beautiful front cover:


…and who needs any stinkin’ liner notes when you can just print all the info on the record itself?


This is the original plastic envelope in which the album came, and I’ve already been told that’s not a good longterm storage option for vinyl, so I’ll get it into something else soon.

Released in 1988, and is credited to the band The Shakers, which features Omaha’s creators Kate Worley and Reed Waller as members. It’s not a bad album…, 11 tracks in all, kind of blues-ish, kind of rock-ish, kind of ballad-ish, with some catchy tunes and clever lyrics. Speaking of lyrics…the “info” side of the disc notes that if the lyric sheet wasn’t included with the record, check at the store’s front counter to see if they have it. Alas, my record did not come with said lyric sheet, and I checked my front counter and it wasn’t there either, so I guess I’ll do without.

Now, I wasn’t a reader of Omaha the Cat Dancer, though I was certainly aware of it (and its fairly convoluted publishing history). I remember it, and its collected editions, selling relatively well for us at the previous place of employment. I think it’s…well, I don’t want to say “mostly forgotten,” but I bet we could use a new release of the material for the current marketplace (and some of the sexually explicit content in the series may not seem so outré decades after its initial publication).

I did pick up the two-part Images of Omaha series from 1992, published to raise money for Worley’s medical care. That featured a lot of work from several creators I liked (Cerebus cover on #2!). And maybe someday, if that theoretical new edition of the original comics ever rolled around, maybe I’d try to sample it this time. Of course, I say that about every series I missed out on, so who do I write to in order to get an additional century or two added onto my lifespan so I can finally catch up?

Thus does the “records released by/in conjunction with comic book companies” collection expand even further (after that Tim Truman platter). Always keeping my peepers peeled for more!

I realize the phrase “following up on my Swamp Thing post” doesn’t exactly narrow things down.

filed under Categories does mike ever shut up, sterling silver comics, swamp thing, undergrounds 1 Comment

Following up on my Swamp Thing post, I should note that there are further reports about what may or may not have happened regarding the show’s cancellation. First it was “somebody messed up the tax credit,” then it was “they weren’t getting enough tax credit,” and now it’s “powers-that-be thought the show was a stinker and cut their losses.” The show’s getting plenty of good reviews now, but it’s probably too late for them to change their minds. Anyway, I have no idea what the full, real story is, but in the meantime, one of the My Little Ponies, a “community manager” at DC Universe, tries to keep things upbeat, as is the way of said ponies.

ª ª ª

More Swampy follow-up: after noting here and discussing further here that DC’s digital versions of certain Swamp Thing issues feature incomplete artwork or missing captions, BobH asked if the same problem was still in the print edtion. And yes, after getting Swamp Thing Book One TPB back in stock, I was able to check and…the color-hold image is missing from the reprint of #21, and the “and meet the sky” caption is still missing from the end of #24. Don’t worry, everyone, I’m sure they’ll have this fixed by ther time Swamp Thing Season Two shows up on DC Universe.

ª ª ª

Hey, look at this thing that showed up in a collection on Thursday:


And here’s the back cover, because why not:


I immediately recognized this as an Ods Bodkins book, featuring the work of Dan O’Neill, but quickly realized it was one I already had, albiet in the diffeof trent edition. It was, in fact the first edition, from 1969, of Hear The Sound of My Feet Walking..Drown The Sound of My Voice Talking. I discussed the book, or at least my edition of same, a couple of times on the site, including way super-early on, back when people read blogs. And I brought it up again a mere 12 years later when I decided my site needed a nice big scan of the cover.

It’s quite a bit larger than my copy (it’s about the size of one of those treasury edition comics) and there appears to be a page half covers in red ink. Not “oopsie we splashed some red ink on this page,” but literally “here, have a giant solid block of red for just that one page for some reason.” I’ll need to take a closer look and see what’s up with that…or just straight up keep the book, since I love “Ods Bodkins.” …Yes, I’m the guy.

• • •

So about the Will Eisner “Spirit of Comics Retailing” award my shop was nominated for…well, you can read the whole tragic tale here on my store’s Facebook page. If you eschew Facebook, and if so I salute you, the short version is: got the paperwork a while back, decided to hold off dealing iwth it ’til my eyes were a bit better, checked the due date, waited a bit, eyes are reasonably better, got out the paperwork again, realized I misread or misremembered the due date and now it’s too late to enter. Well, great.

On the other hand, if I tried to complete the paperwork and take the necessary photos and make the necessary video for the award application on time, I would have had to done with eyes that on a good day were barely adequate for my regular day-to-day stuff, and occasionally completely obscured leaving me with hardly any vision at all. So, let’s call this a “mixed blessing,” and should someone make the horrible mistake of nominating me again next year, hopefully my eyes will be back in business for good and I can give the award whatever attention I can manage.

And like I said in my Facebook post…my eyes are finally getting better. Both eyes. At the same time. Not “one eye’s mostly okay, the other completely blind” or anything like that. This is the first time I’ve had reasonable, though still a bit to go, vision in both eyes at the same time in over a year. Barring any more surprise sets (crossing my fingers ande my corneas) everything should be good sooner rather than later. Yes, I realize I’m jinxing it.

I can’t really call myself an “Eisner nominee” since I won’t be in the running, but it’s nice that someone thought well enough about me to throw my name into the hat. I’m not the biggest or most media-present store out there, but I am a guy who likes to sell comics, has a store full of them, and has done this for a long time. That I still get to do it is certainly an award in and of itself.

• • •

Don’t forget…I’m still taking your funnybook-related questions and post topics! I’ll probably start on them next, so be sure to tune in on your Internet Radio Box for that.