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.
Mark Sinnott has announced that his dad, Marvel Comics legend Joe Sinnott, will have some of his fantastic art on display at the Dutch Ale House in Joe’s hometown of Saugerties, NY. The opening for the two-month showing will be next Sunday, February 20 at 3 pm, and I’m hoping to be there with D.F. Rogers, esq. Denro has done an incredible job of locating issues of comic books for Joe that he worked on decades ago, where Joe had only the story title on file because the publisher didn’t have a specific issue in mind for the assignment.
Mark is the world’s biggest Jethro Tull fan, and at this moment one of Ian Anderson’s flutes is in orbit on the International Space Station, with astronaut Catherine Coleman.
Lynn Johnston’s “modern classic” family comic strip, For Better Or For Worse (It’s not “For Better Or Worse”!), is in reprints, and the Boston Globe, which I still get as a newspaper, carries it. Since Lynn isn’t producing new daily strips, on her web site she writes comments about the old ones. Tuesday, she explained that she will soon be the age that Charles Schulz was when she met him. Lynn says that she’ll be speaking at the Charles M. Schulz Museum, and she mentions that she stays in touch with Jeannie Schulz. Jeannie can be heard in this recent audio interview. (And, no, I didn’t forget Monte Schulz’s birthday on February 1. I wished him well on Facebook.)
[audio:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Feb/Airtalk_CharlesSchulz.mp3|titles=KPCC: The Legacy of Charles Schulz]
Last September, Lynn did a video podcast interview. You’ll find it here in six parts.
Denro points out this short but super-duper Superman cartoon by animator Robb Pratt. Can’t say I’m a blood relation, but I’m glad there’s somebody keeping the Pratt name in the business, since the death of Hawley Pratt.
Denro points out that comic book artist Joe Staton has illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem. I’ve read The Fountainhead, and every single page of Atlas Shrugged too (well, maybe I skipped a few in John Galt’s redundant 60-page diatribe), but I have never read Anthem. Amazon has it for only $8.44 — less than the Kindle version.
Joe’s a busy guy, because he’s taking over the art chores for the classic comic strip Dick Tracy, although I’m sure for Joe it won’t be a chore, but a labor of love. I’m loving the revamped look. Bring back the Moon Maid and the flying garbage cans!
I’ve been reading an excellent book, The Horror! The Horror!, by Jim Tombetta, about the short-lived horror genre of comic books, in the first half of the 1950’s. In response to public pressure, resulting from Senate Subcommittee hearings led by Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn), the industry censored itself with a regulatory agency called The Comics Code Authority — which, as of last week, seems to finally be at an end. I’ve always felt the weakness in the defense of the comic book industry, in testimony by E.C. publisher William M. Gaines, was his failure to cite radio shows like Suspense and Inner Sanctum as inspirations for the horror stories. Those programs were very popular with both kids and their parents.
That same period of time saw one of the all-time greatest comic book creators, Carl Barks, hit his stride, working in the funny animal genre. Superheroes, the formerly dominant genre, had fallen on hard times after WWII, and had yet to recover in the mid-50’s. One thing that helped bring it back was the success of The Adventures of Superman on TV, which had previously been a radio series, and a movie serial.
Watching the DVD set of the series, it started out as a surprisingly hard-hitting, and often spooky, drama, but like comic books it lost its edge and lightened up. Throughout the show’s run, Jimmy Olsen was played with great spirit by Jack Larson. Some years ago, Denro and I saw Larson in Boston, introducing a collection of Superman shows, and talking about the series and his life since then. One of the screenings that evening was the pinnacle, or nadir, of Superman silliness, a pilot for a proposed Superpup series. This brief bit of video was taken from a 2006 TV special, narrated by Kevin Spacey, who played Lex Luthor in Superman Returns; a movie that did nothing wrong, yet failed to spark imaginations.
Now THAT’s what I call horrible! Here’s Jack Larson in an interesting recent interview. He’s slowed down from his “golly gee” youth, but Jack’s still as personable and engaging as ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjV9H35Hu5w
A more extensive video interview with Larson, from the Archive of American Television, can be found at this link. I would have embedded it here, but it’s an unlisted YouTube video.
