[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/IraqInterview.flv 400 260]
My father’s cousin Lawrie pointed out this in-the-field interview from 2004, with Iraqi insurgents that were loyal to Saddam Hussein. This video is everywhere, yet I haven’t been able to determine who produced it.
The year was 1963. My father bought a big table-top GE stereo with an AM/FM radio and a swing-down record player. Something that came with the stereo was a demonstration record.
I enjoyed the first side of the record a lot, and I listened to it many times. I liked the way that one audio sample or snippet of music flowed into the next. The frequency sweep was something I used ten years later to test a stereo system I bought for myself with money earned washing dishes at a restaurant.
Also included on the record were a few so-called Cartoons in Stereo, that I think are still pretty funny. Side B was mostly a sampler of jazz music, but there were also a couple audio cartoons that were parodies of then-current TV commercials. The audio player below has the 20 minutes of side A, and the gags from side B.
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2012/08/StereoDemo.mp3|titles=Audio Fidelity Records Stereo Spectacular]Comic book fan Stephen Colbert comments on Marvel Comics killing off, for now, Captain America.
What a week, seeing so much truth and reality in the news.
I simply cannot believe all of the coverage the “death” of Captain America is receiving. Because the whole thing is, of course, a non-event. It’s nothing more than a publicity stunt by Marvel Comics.
When I was a kid in the 60’s and early 70’s, being a comic book fan was both a reason why I was something of a social outcast, and my coping mechanism for dealing with being relatively unpopular. The idea that the Marvel Comics characters would become as widely accepted as they are today, and Stan Lee would be a cultural institution, was beyond the most fantastic adventures of any comic book hero.
Yet on Thursday I heard both the BBC and NPR cover the “story” of Captain America’s assassination — a manufactured event! I wish Cap co-creator Jack Kirby were alive to see it. Fortunately, Joe Simon is still with us. I met Kirby in ’72, and Simon in ’80. Here’s the NPR feature.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/CaptainAmerica.mp3]
The Dog Rat gallery has two tellings of the origin of Captain America. The first is from the Golden Age of comic books, and the second is from Cap’s return in the Silver Age of comics. Click the pictures to go to each of the gallery albums.
If there’s one thing that’s for sure in the realm of comic books, death is a common event, and it’s never permanent. So at some point in the future, expect Marvel to hype the return of Captain America. Undoubtedly around the time the movie is about to be released.
Click the thumbnail pictures to check out this fancy ad in last week’s Newsweek. Honorable son Eric was the first to spot this unintentionally powerful print media slip-up.
The ad has a cardboard cover with some cut-outs. The picture on the left shows the ad with the cover opened. But look what appears on the other side through the cut-outs when the page is turned.
