I remember this short film by artist Richard Corben being screened at the 1971 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston.
Author: DOuG pRATt
Fueling Around
One of the many — many! — things I had to do during my last trip to Phoenix was see about getting my father’s old car started. Why he didn’t trade it in when he bought a new car a few years ago is something I don’t understand, but so be it.
The car is a 2001 Ford Focus wagon with under 13,000 miles, and because it had been sitting in the garage for a very long time, that’s only a thousand miles per year. Heck, I used to run twice that much, averaging 40 miles per week on foot!
I already knew from my previous visit the car wouldn’t start. I had checked the oil and the antifreeze, but when I turned the key to accessories there was nothing. Using an ancient battery charger my father bought as a joke gift for my mother 50 years ago — that she did not appreciate — I charged the battery. It took and held the charge.
The engine cranked but it wouldn’t catch. So a couple of weeks ago I had the car towed to a garage. Thanks to a small engine repair class I had taken, I knew the problem had to be in the fuel system. This video link should start at a point that shows exactly what the garage found. Starter fluid got the engine going, but the fuel pump was shot.
Notflix
I’ve been a Netflix customer for 13 years. Ten years ago I took advantage of the streaming option for Internet Explorer the day it became available to me, and I bought a 1st generation Roku player 8 years ago. Today, another Netflix milestone has been reached, because I have cancelled my DVD/Blu-ray subscription. It’s an online world, fer shore.
Bob Taylor. The Greatest Man You Never Heard Of.
United they fall
Listen to this tone-deaf former CEO of Continental Airlines, commenting on a passenger — claiming to be a doctor — being forcibly dragged off of a United Airlines plane. The customer’s crime? Refusing to take $800 to voluntarily give up his paid-for seat on an overbooked flight. Apparently, when there aren’t enough takers on these offers, a computer program determines who the best candidates are to be bumped, in order to accommodate customers with more expensive tickets. Follow-up: it’s been reported that four seats were needed for employees of United Airlines.
The condescending tone is unbelievable. He actually says the passenger acted, “like a child that didn’t want to leave.” Then he praises the CEO of United Airlines for being a nice man, and “a really human fellow.” This sort of an attitude is not only infuriating to customers, it is counterproductive to companies. Obviously, United is not nice or human, otherwise they would have a more flexible policy to deal with these situations.
United should have offered more money until somebody said yes. Would this lead in the future to passengers staying put to bid up the price before agreeing to deplane? Sure, which was undoubtedly why the ceiling was set by management at only $800. But now, between the bad publicity and the lawsuit that will undoubtedly be forthcoming, United stands to lose much more than what it otherwise would have cost the airline.
The ‘Publich’ Domain
James Warren ran a rather unique publishing company. He didn’t pay top dollar for top talent, and instead offered creative freedom that attracted some of the best artists working at the time to draw stories in Creepy, Eerie, Blazing Combat and, later, Vampirella. The contributors included Frank Frazetta, who was painting covers for Warren during the period he was also creating his famous Conan the Barbarian covers for Lancer.
Somebody must think that the Warren catalog is in the public domain, because there’s a scanned archive of many Warren magazines available at this link on Archive.org.
Issue #7 includes this concise Frazetta biography. I replaced the fan art on the page with the cover of Creepy #4.
