Author: DOuG pRATt

The Entitled?

Federal taxes for the rich were cut, reducing distributions to states and, in turn, communities. Thanks to financial deregulation Wall Street defrauded everybody, further reducing tax revenues and clobbering pension funds, then Wall Street was bailed out by the American taxpayers. And now cops, firemen and teachers are being denounced for being greedy? Huh?

I live in Massachusetts, the leader in public sector pension fraud, especially in Boston. The fire department has been particularly rife with abuse. The most notorious case was the allegedly disabled firefighter who was into competitive bodybuiding. But the real abuses are at the top. Retired state senator Billy Boy Bulger is a smooth operator who really knows how to work the system. He’s the brother of crime boss James Whitey Bulger, who knows how to work the other side of the fence. One of the first things that Mitt Romney did as governor of Massachusetts was force Billy Bulger out as President of UMass, but there was nothing Romney could do about Bulger’s sweet pension. Later, Romney introduced a health care system that became the basis for what the Democrats enacted in Washington. Romney has a tendency to shift his stated position as it suits the moment, but he’s not corrupt and when push comes to shove he does what he knows is right — like Scott Brown, come to think of it. I had my doubts about Brown as senator, but he’s AOK.

Speaking of brothers taking all they can get, there are the Kochs, who have done an impressive job of building up the wealth that was left to them by their father. They’ve set their sights on Wisconsin, and it seems plausible that they intend to buy up the no-bid contracts for operating that state’s power plants, but they don’t want to employ public union workers, so Governor Walker is determined to bust the unions for them.

I’m not familiar with what Governor Daniels has done in Indiana, but I agree with what Brooks and Shields say here about Governor Walker. Mark Shields reminds us of the importance of the G.I. Bill after WWII. My father went to college on the G.I. Bill, and he met my mother there. After the war Joe Sinnott worked with his father at a cement factory for a few years. Joe’s thousands of fans have the G.I. Bill to thank for making it possible for him to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Spider-senseless

Last weekend D.F. Rogers was in NYC, and he saw Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, a musical that’s still in previews, but has been playing longer than many past Broadway shows.

Denro got a copy of the program book for me, and I’m flipping through it right now, and OUCH….! Paper cut. Darn, I dropped it on the floor. I’ll pick it up and OW!!! Hit my head on the desk.

So the reports are true. The Spider-Man show is dangerous!

Vestibular vestige

A week ago I suffered a case of vertigo that was so sudden and severe I couldn’t stand, or even sit. All I could do was throw up and moan. I thought I had food poisoning, but it was actually a viral infection, a condition called vesitbular neuritis, caused by the cold I had. The dizziness persisted, I was incapacitated, and a nurse practitioner recommended meclizine, an over-the-counter motion sickness medicine. Within ten minutes of taking Bonine, I went from feeling like the room was spinning, to being able to sit up, then stand and walk. A miracle!

Bonine is great stuff, and there’s even a formulation for dizziness after cow-tipping. It’s called Bovine. 😉

Surfer white-out

Monday, while Denro and I were hanging out with Joe Sinnott, on the Kirby Dynamics blog Robert Steibel happened to post a nice piece about Joe’s inking on a classic Jack Kirby splash page, and today he posted a follow-up. This is a scan of the page from a copy of the original 1968 comic book that you can click to enlarge.

What isn’t obvious on the printed page, but can’t be missed on the original art, is the white-out and re-inking that was done on Alicia Masters’ hair.

My vote is this work was not done by Joe, but in the Marvel bullpen by somebody else, and I’m tempted to say Dick Ayers. Although it isn’t easy keeping a consistent line when inking on top of dried white-out, the brushwork doesn’t look like Joe’s “feathering” technique. It would be helpful to see a scan of the original art for page #2, because Alicia’s hair appears to have been partially reworked there, too, especially in the second panel, although the pen lines are definitely Joe’s.

Joe’s perfectionism might have led him to go over his work again, but when more than one panel is involved it’s more likely that Stan decided he wanted changes made. And if the finished art were already in Stan’s hands in the city, he wouldn’t have sent it all the way back up to Saugerties, he would have had somebody in the office do it.

Here is a short interview with Joe that confirms something I’ve always assumed — Joe met Jack Kirby for the first time in 1972, and not in 1975 as has been repeated many times.

The reason why I have always thought that Jack and Joe met in ’72 is because I know they were both at Phil Seuling’s 1972 Comic Art Convention in New York, as was I.

I wonder what the Statler-Hilton management thought when they saw the huge, broken mirror on a hallway wall? Did they write it off, or make the con pay for it? They should have charged the convention, because Seuling broke it. I saw it happen when he jumped up on a table that was placed against the mirror. He was with some other guys, and they all ran off like school kids who had broken a window while playing baseball. I was only 16 years old, and I wasn’t going to get blamed for it and try to convince hotel security it was broken by the guy who organized the convention, so I took off too!

Follow-up: The Kirby Museum has just posted photographic proof that Jack and Joe met in ’72, and here it is.

The Sinnott Inner Sanctum

I’m back home from my visit to Saugerties, and I sure hope I didn’t give Joe Sinnott my cold! Today I had the great pleasure and honor of spending time with Joe in his studio.

Here’s a rarity — Stan Lee original art! Stan sent this hand-made card to Joe for his birthday some years back.

My thanks to Mark Sinnott for the invitation to Joe’s open house at the Dutch Ale House, and thanks to Joe, Mark, and the Sinnott family for their hospitality this weekend.

A one-man comic book convention

What a great day (despite having a bad cold)! D.F. Rogers and I are in Saugerties, NY, hometown of Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, the greatest ink man the comic book business has ever had. Joe held court at an open house in his honor at the Dutch Ale House. I was Joe’s cab driver to the event, which was arranged by Joe’s son Mark, and what a great turnout! Every time the line in front of Joe started to thin out, another group came in and Joe was kept busy at his table, signing autographs and chatting with fans and pros alike, for nearly four hours.

Here is Joe with comic book artist Walt Simonson, and his wonderful wife Louise, a writer who is affectionately known in comics fandom as “Weezie.” On the right is Joe with his surviving siblings.

This was how the scene looked before it got really busy. On the right is Joe Staton, who recently took over as artist on Dick Tracy, and with him is inker Terry Austin, whose work is second only to that of Joe himself.