Category: Cartooning

D.F. Rogers, Con Man

Last weekend, D.F. Rogers was at the NY Comic Con. The big surprise was seeing Gene Colan there. Last May and June, Gene was at death’s door, but Gene is still with his family who love him and his fans who admire him, and for that we are all grateful. Dennis sent some photos from the show, with captions.

Gene Colan with Captain American #117 page

Gene Colan checking out something I acquired at the convention — a page of original art from Captain America #117, penciled by Gene forty years ago. This is the issue that made me a Marvelite and True Believer!

Joe Sinnott with Captain America #117 page

Joe Sinnott holding the page from Captain America #117. Joe didn’t ink Gene Colan often enough, but this was one of their best (and earliest) collaborations. Joe said that he loved to ink Gene’s pencils because he could do a lot of brushwork on those patented Gene Colan shadows. Two of my all-time favorite artists — and people! I never fully realized until recently that they, along with the immortal Stan Lee, produced the issue that hooked me on Marvel Comics!

D.F. Rogers with Gene Colan

Gene Colan and D.F. Rogers at the 2009 New York Comic Con. It was a dream come true to see Gene back at the Convention after a one year absence due to health issues. He had a steady line of admirers who stopped by to say hello and get their art or comic books signed by Genial Gene.

D.F. Rogers with Joe Staton

Joe Staton and D.F. Rogers with two pages of art that I purchased from Joe. Archie published a four part “modernization” of Jughead last summer – with art by Joe Staton and Al Milgrom. This is the first page splash and the last page splash — fun stuff! It just came out a few weeks ago in a trade paperback and the art is reproduced much better there than in the original “digest” sized issues.

Thanks, Den! That reminds me. I have a couple of pictures of my own to show, from the NY convention back in November. Here I am holding the original Iron Man art to the cover of the Marvel Comic Tales of Suspense #93, drawn by Gene Colan. It could be mine — for only $42,000! I’d be tempted, but Eric starts college the fall of 2010.

DOuG pRATt holding TOS #93 cover

I’ve always had a particular fondness for that comic book. Here’s a cropped, high-resolution panel scan from a page of the TOS #93 interior original art. Ya gotta click to enlarge it, y’know…

Original art from Tales of Suspense #93

… and this is artist David Lloyd, who illustrated Alan Moore’s famous political thriller “V for Vendetta,” which was later made into what I think is pretty darn good movie.

David Lloyd with \

Waiting and Watching

The best comic book series I ever read was Watchmen. Now the movie of it is about to come out. I agree with everything that Boston Globe movie critic Ty Burr says about his own sense of anticipation.

http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/blog/2009/02/the_watchmen_wa.html

I thought 300 was one of the worst movies I’d ever seen. I scanned through most of it on DVD. Something I’m worried about for a general audience is that a full appreciation of Watchmen requires a vast knowledge of the history of comic books and their creators. Everybody knows Batman, but almost nobody knows that Dr. Manhattan was adapted from Captain Atom, and Rorschach is based on the work of Steve Ditko.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Happy Birthday, Monte Schulz!

Happy birthday to (paraphrase Stephen Colbert) friend of the blog, Monte Schulz. Has it been a year already? Aaugh!

On July 7, 2001, Monte accepted, on behalf of his late father, the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress. This picture shows Monte at the ceremony, with J. Dennis Hastert, then the Speaker of the House. Monte’s stepmother, Jean, is holding the medal.

Monte Schulz accepting Congressional Gold Medal

This, of course, is Monte’s father, Charles M. Schulz…

Charles Schulz at drawing board

… and this is the Peanuts comic strip that was published the day Monte turned twelve. The inscription seems to read, “For the Coroles.”

Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64

Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64Peanuts, Feb 1 \'64

‘Blind Date’ by Morty Gunty

Recently I posted comedian Morty Gunty’s rendition of “There’s A War.” Here is the flip side of the single, a comedy routine called “Blind Date,” with Morty backed by a cool jazz ensemble.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/JAN/GuntyBlindDate.mp3]

The writing credit is “A. Cogan,” presumably a misspelling of comedy writer Arnie Kogen, who can be seen with Mark Evanier and some other noteworthy gents, all associated with MAD Magazine.

Arnie Kogen, Al Feldstein, Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Al Jaffee
Arnie Kogen, Al Feldstein, Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Al Jaffee

Sugar, Sugar, Baby, Baby, I Do, I Do

One more time trying to put my appreciation of K3 into perspective. I once posted the Rubettes’ song “Sugar Baby Love,” but it was lost eighteen months ago when a bug-ridden WordPress plug-in allowed my database to be destroyed, forcing me to restore from a backup. Here again is “Sugar Baby Love.”

http://youtu.be/3X7PvU6qYEA

No, I never cared in the least for The Bay City Rollers, but this I love. If I were going to write and produce a pop tune, you can bet it would sound like “Sugar Baby Love.” Next, ABBA ranks right up there with the best of the 70’s sicky-sweet stuff.

Listen to the 15+ seconds that start at :45 into the song. That’s it! For me that’s the song. Perfection! The same bit is repeated at 1:45. (The song is over a little after 2:30, but they drag it out.) If you think my liking ABBA means I would be inclined to see “Mama Mia!” then you don’t get it. It’s the song itself. How it’s put together, and how it sounds, that I appreciate. Something that’s “based upon it” is of no interest to me at all. In the case of ABBA, the “how it sounds” aspect depended completely upon the girls, Anni-Frid and Agnetha.

And now K3, in a piece I can’t praise enough. “Hart Verloren” pushes all sorts of buttons in so many ways, even with the terrible quality of this video. And I’m speaking as a confirmed disco hater from the 70’s who favored The Ramones, Elvis Costello and The Clash.

http://youtu.be/sEackIhp-O4

The people who create this stuff really know what they’re doing. But the thing that I didn’t get when I first encountered K3, but I certainly do now, is that K3 is successful not because of the formula, but because of Karen, Kristel and Kathleen. Accept no substitutes, of which there are now two sets.

Finally, another reason why I push K3 so much is the fact they’re happening NOW. I caught them before they stopped having hits, broke up, or went into semi-retirement. Not everything I write should be about the pop culture I loved when I was 10-15 years old. There’s also the fact I can’t compete with the big sites that talk about the Beatles, Marvel Comics, etc., and here in America I have K3 practically all to myself as a topic.