Author: DOuG pRATt

A guy named Joe

Mark Evanier has a post with this video interview with the great Joltin’ Joe Sinnott, the finest ink man there ever will be in comic books. Original art that has been graced by the Sinnott touch is a thing to behold.

Interview with comics legend Joe Sinnott, Part 1 from The Comic Archive on Vimeo.

Joe talks about the work his son Mark has done cataloging all of his published work. Denro has done a lot to find copies of all those comics, including Joe’s unsigned stories, for Joe and Mark.

Joe goes into some technical detail about his preferred tools of the trade, which is a treat for me, a wannabe cartoonist from long ago. Joe has praise for the former quality of Strathmore paper, which used to be made at a now-closed mill on the Westfield River, in Massachusetts. Knowing that comic books were drawn on Strathmore paper was one of the reasons why I decided to attend Westfield State College.

Here I am in Joe’s home studio, where he produced the finished art for some of the finest Marvel Comics ever done. I’m holding up two Alley Awards that Joe won for his work on the Fantastic Four.

Zappos zapped

Once, only once, did I order shoes from Zappos. The money I saved buying running shoes online, instead of at Marathon Sports, wasn’t worth the hassle of having to deal with the likelihood that my account information was hacked. Zappos is owned by Amazon, so I’m changing my login there, too.

First, the bad news:

We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password).

THE BETTER NEWS:

The database that stores your critical credit card and other payment data was NOT affected or accessed.

Abbey Road notes

A few Beatles-related items:

  • Mike Smith has passed away. He was the A&R man who, on January 1, 1962, signed Brian Poole and the Tremeloes to Decca Records, instead of the Beatles.
  • Back in October I noted that EMI was going to be bought by the rich Russian who bought Warner Music. But a last-minute deal between EMI and Universal Music was worked out.
  • Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, co-authors of Recording the Beatles, have sold out four talks at EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios on the 80-year history of the facility.