One of these days, 142-year-old Nugget Pete is going to ego-surf his own name through Google and find this post.

filed under Categories letters of comment, sugar and spike 4 Comments

So a couple of weeks ago I was talking about a Sugar and Spike story dedicated to “Nugget Pete,” a 90-something year old gent who’d been writing in and requesting an S&S story featuring Native Americans.

Well, longtime Ruinite C. Elam popped into the comments on that post to drop in a couple of message board links giving us a little more detail on Mr. N. Pete. Those message board entries were made only days after my own initial posting, so clearly the Nugget Pete zeitgeist was making its way across the comics nerdinet.

The first features a Sugar and Spike letter column containing what seems to be Nugget Pete’s first letter to the series, written back when Pete was but a strapping young lad of 87. And, sure enough, he’s asking for stories with Native Americans. “I suggest you put in something about cowboys and Indians – That never hurt a magazine yet.” …Words to live by!

The second link has another S&S letter column, this time from another fan (this one only 75 years old!) referring back to Nugget Pete’s letter and wondering if that was any inspiration for the grandpa/cowboy character Shelly Mayer introduced into the S&S strip. Mayer’s response, paraphrased: “yeah, probably.”

Anyway, that was a nice follow-up to what was (to me, anyway) an interesting tidbit of funnybook history. Thanks, C. Elam, for pointing that out to me!

The mystery word balloon.

filed under Categories I have no idea how to tag this 4 Comments

So a gentleman dropped by the store with a few pages of original comic art for sale…we don’t really deal in original art, but we brokered a deal between that person and one of our regular customers. He ended up buying a Kirby Hulk page from the fellow, and passed on the other pages — a couple of Carmine Infantino pages from a 1980s Green Lantern back-up story, and a Gil Kane page I only got a brief look at and didn’t identify.

I wish I did identify the Kane page, because the next day I happened to spot this underneath one of the store’s glass counters:


It’s a word balloon that had apparently been pasted onto a page, though clearly the glue had become old and the balloon popped right off. It’s not from the Green Lantern back-ups, so it must be from the Gil Kane page. The dialogue suggests it’s from Wonder Woman, though the page didn’t seem to be a Wonder Woman page just from my brief glance at it. Could be wrong, though.

Anyway, I’m hoping this customer of ours has the contact info for the gentleman he bought the art from so I can return this loose balloon to its proper place. Also, slightly curious to see what the original balloon said that this new one was covering. Oh, and what comic this is actually from, too, I suppose.

A subtle hint.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, self-promotion 3 Comments

The California tax law that caused Amazon to boot CA residents from their Associates program has been repealed, so my Amazon search box and links have returned to the sidebar. Just in case, you know, you happen to need to buy a $3000 camera and are stuck on where to go for one.

Also, click on the Bureau Chiefs link and pick up something from there while you’re at it. I get no direct commission from that, aside from a mild sense of bemusement that someone, somewhere, might be drinking coffee out of a mug with my “ATM Machine” gag on it.

I’m still feeling under the weather…

filed under Categories sick day, superman 5 Comments

…so for today’s post, you get a picture of Superman with a puppy:


…because Superman with a puppy makes everything feel better.

Back tomorrow, hopefully.

image from DC Comics Presents #94 (June 1986) by Barbara Randall, Bob Greenberger, Tom Mandrake & Don Heck

I sometimes get emails just like this.

filed under Categories advertising, letters of comment 9 Comments

From the letter column for Star Spangled War Stories #126 (April-May 1966):


“RK” being “Robert Kanigher,” natch. (Fake letter run to help dissuade similar letters from pouring in, or real reader comment pulled out and used as a lesson in what editors don’t want to see? No idea.)

From the same issue, an in-house ad that, I can only assume, resulted in the highest sales ever for any issue of Metal Men:


I vote “hotcha.” I mean, who doesn’t like hotcha?

What the well-dressed Swamp Thing fan will be wearing very soon.

filed under Categories pal plugging, swamp thing, this week's comics 4 Comments

I was going to save these for my next End of Civilization post, but decided I couldn’t wait. Now, I’m not much of a t-shirt wearer, but I think I will make an exception for these fine items, available in the October issue of Previews:


That’s the cover of the new Swamp Thing #1 by Yanick Paquette, and here is a plain ol’ logo shirt:


…one of which I’ve been awaiting for a long time. At last, I can finally retire (well, more retire) this worn-out piece of clothing.

• • •

In other news…I picked up five of the new DC #1s this week (minor spoilers ahead):

  • Superman #1: lots of stuff crammed into this issue — interesting, but can’t really describe it as “enjoyable” — and the last hope that someone, anyone, could make Superman’s new costume look good is finally dashed…though George Perez comes closest on the cover.

  • Aquaman #1: pulls off the nice trick of taking all the criticisms and mockeries aimed at Aquaman over the years and putting them in the mouths of a bunch of folks harassing our fishy friend. Effectively puts reader in position of siding with the hero against all those old jokes, probably a more effective defense than attempts at bad-assifying the character. I wasn’t planning to get this, but picked it up on a whim and, surprisingly, turned out to be one of my favorite relaunches of this whole New 52 hoohar.

  • Fury of Firestorm #1: noted just recently that I love the Firestorm character, but I’m not quite sure what I think of this new version. It’s a complete reboot, which seems to be taking things in a slightly different direction, and…I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. I’ll keep reading and see what happens. However, I am not down with reboot Cliff Carmichael…sorry, this is “Superman’s new costume” level of tragedy.

  • Green Lantern: New Guardians #1: think this may be the “one Green Lantern title too many” series. I’ve said before that I’ve probably had enough of the different-colored Lantern corps for the time being, so it’s probably not you, baby, it’s me. However, totally judging this from just this one issue, this feels like it’s more suited to a storyline in another GL book rather than a series on its own. Then again, you can probably say that about every GL series beyond the first one.

  • Justice League Dark #1: only picked it up because of John Constantine, not expecting much…but turned out to be not half-bad. Still in the “let’s get the band together” part of the story, being only the first issue an’ all, but am looking forward to more. And looking forward to any possible Swamp Thing cameos, but that goes without saying.

Also picked up Love & Rockets #4 by those Jaime and Gilbert cats, which is, as usual, a masterpiece of comics storytelling despite its lack of Swamp Thing. L&R, always recommended.

…If you want reviews of all of last week’s DC #1s, pal Dorian has got you covered.

And now, a thing I have never seen before.

filed under Categories I cast magic missile 14 Comments

…A copy of the Dungeons & Dragons-centric magazine The Dragon #1 from 1976:


We carried Dragon when it was being published, we’ve handled tons of back issues of the mag…hell, even I bought it for a short time during my brief D&D fling in junior high school. And I’ve seen some pretty early issues of the series cross my path…but never the first issue. Pretty neat, I think. It’s a bit rough, having had an unfortunate random encounter with some moisture (hopefully water) at some point in the past, causing some rippling of the pages, though it remains perfectly readable.

It’s in slightly better shape than this other item from the same collection, 1978’s The Arduin Grimoire Vol. 2: Welcome to Skull Tower:


It’s a sourcebook for an early role-playing competitor to D&D, and this particular copy’s cover is so beat and rough that it’s actually detached from the pages within. But the book remains readable, with plenty of detailed charts and elaborate descriptions of gameplay. While I’m not a game-player, I do have a peculiar fascination with reading about games, and for reading extensive rules systems like these. In fact, the temptation to hang onto this for a while instead of selling it is pretty strong. Alas, it’s gotta go!

…But not until I pull a handful of choice and somewhat out-of-context quotes from the book:

“A DM must be as heartless as one of his monsters if order is to be maintained and fun is to be had for all.”

“Once the people who play in your world realize that you mean business, they will be much more ready to act in a proper manner, and refrain from disruptive and childish temper tantrums.”

“…A man slain by an 8 dice vampire would require 8 hours to transform into one himself. Simple.”

“DICE ROLL: 81-85 HIT LOCATION: The mouth RESULTS: Tongue torn out, 10% chance of drowning in one’s own blood. Permanent coherent voice loss.”

“…For what is stranger, the alien with the blaster or the multi-tonned dragon that breathes fire? Think about it.”

Well said.