I wish I could "post" here everyday, to better satisfy my faithful, kind readership. But there is much at stake to keep me away from my beloved panelology this new year!
Biggest news first: I have been retired from the "insurance game!"
I was offered a handsome early retirement package from my employers. They are among the many businesses affected by the "downsizery" of the American economy. Let's call a spade a spade--it's a Depression, folks!
My former employers referred to the very generous offer as a "severe package." In that it was severely good fortune for me to accept it, I concur.
You shalln't hear me singing that old "standard," "Brother, Can You Spare Some Change?" The sum they offered was startlingly large. As well, my full medical benefits will continue unabated for the next two years.
At last--at long last I have the bulk of my day to devote to the pursuit of panelology! Ye olde eBay purchases shall have to "downsize" a bit. But not entirely! I have worked out a budget, and it seems that, with my investments and stocks, I can afford around $1,000 a year to spend, free and clear, on vintage comic magazines.
Truth told? The job was merely a meaning to an end. Just a place to go and pass the hours. My heart was never in that line of work. Meaningless amortizations! Tax tables of maddening inscrutability! Triplicate forms with their flesh-endangering staples! Let the "young bucks" have all that "malarkey!" I've served my time--I'm now a free man!
Well, not entirely "free." Dorrie's Diner has been surprisingly and consistently popular. So much so that the "missus" has asked me aboard, to serve as ersatz manager and cashier. 'Tis a charming place to spend the day, and our 8 AM to 3 PM schedule allots the later afternoon and evening hours for the study of panelologic art.
Raphael has flowered in his role as maitre'd to our bistro. He has grown a magnificent moustache--something like that sported by Geraldo Rivera in his television heyday. He greets each customer, familiar or first-timer, with a dramatic bow and a sweeping gesture of his extended right arm, ushering them with warmth and welcome to our humble eatery.
This dramatic gesture only met with tragedy once--when Raphael did not see the elderly sister of ex-mayor Mervin Johnson. Poor Darlene (better-known as "Li'l Pea"), whose vision has been dimmed by cruel time, did not see Raphael's sweeping arm coming towards her. Because her forehead is exactly the height of Raphael's elbow, he did not see her, either.
His flat palm hit "Li'l Pea" directly on her cheek. This sent her glasses flying into a diner's soup. Her top dentures skidded into the kitchen area, where it pinged against the metal mop bucket. No harm was done. I honestly do not think Mrs. Johnson even noticed the blow--or, perhaps, not even felt it.
The accident made the morning paper (on the last page of the Local News section). "BISTRO WAITER SLAPS EX-MAYOR JOHNSON'S KIN" was a headline that made all of us at the Diner cringe. Yet no one criticized Raphael--or the rest of the crew--for this mishap.
In fact, "Li'l Pea" has become a daily customer to the Diner. She especially loves Dorrie's Mediterranean Fish Stick Salad. (Dorrie must liquify it in her restaurant-grade Cuisinart blender so that Mrs. Johnson can consume it with ease.)
Raphael has become increasingly conversant in American "slang" lingo, to the growing delight of our patronage. "Hey Rube!" is a typical greeting to our diners, along with such "crowd-pleasers" as "Wot'll yez have?" and "Reach, you rats! I'm takin' you in!"
The supply and demand of a cafe, even one as humble as ours, is as exacting as my former job any day. Without vital food ingredients, delivered fresh on a daily basis, our goose is cooked--if you'll allow the pun. Thus, Raphael and I are charged to make a daily "shopping run."
We do not shop at the traditional grocery store. No sir! As genuine restaurateurs, we are allowed access to wholesale food suppliers. Our main source is Shakey's Grocery Guild, which is in a seemingly sinister industrial road on the edge of town.
Within a gigantic galvanized tin quonset, amidst the roar of massive freezer cases, the foodstuffs to feed a nation of diners is sold for surprisingly affordable prices. Fellows named "Bud" and "Grumpy" vend these secret wares. They are a hard-nosed lot, and one must approach them on their terms.
I have found Raphael's adopted patois most engaging to these wholesalers. "Wot's fer sale, youse mugs?" gained us entree to what "Grumpy" called "the good meats." The squinting, perpetually bitter-looking balding man let us into a locked meat freezer. "If half th' rest'rants in this town knew about this here room, they'd be on us like white on rice," he said.
"Grumpy" then slammed the heavy door shut on the freezing room--stranding us inside its sub-zero climes! By the time our plight dawned on us, the old man was far away. Raphael tried to call the outside world with his "celled phone," but there was no reception. We simply had to wait 10 minutes before the wizened gnome returned to open the door.
He looked surprised to find us within the frosty tomb. "You guys again!" he exclaimed.
We retreated with a sufficient stock of beef, chicken and pork to serve our public for one more day of business. Such trials befall the "little men" of business each day, in every town!
I am glad we can now serve "the good meats" to our customers. I shudder to consider the quality of the meats we acquired from Shakey's Grocery Guild prior to this incident!
One must purchase common ingredients in bulk. Several of Dorrie's recipes involve large portions of tomato catsup. Thus, we buy our "ketchup" not in pint bottles, but in ten-pound plastic drums.
Eggs are purchased in quantities of 12 dozen--enough for Paul Bunyan's breakfast! Sugar, flour, rice and other "staples" come in fat burlap sacks, as do salt and pepper. But without these bulk portions, our business is doomed to failure. For of what use is a restaurant that cannot deliver on the promises of its menu?
In what passes for my spare time, I still peruse the golden gains of my recent holiday comic magazine acquisitions. Thrills and surprises still issue forth from these mellowed, time-bronzed pages!
Again I dip my cup from the seemingly eternal well that is Science Comics. From issue 6 of this tragically short-lived magazine, I choose today's tale--a sterling and shocking episode of "Marga, the Panther Woman!" It is a supreme achievement of Burl Whitacre--among the few Golden-Aged comic book creators who is still alive and active as an artist! Read on, dear friend...
Even at the time of its 1940 publication, Burl Whitacre's work spoke of older eras. Born in 1896, Whitacre can boast of being alive during three centuries. By 1912, Whitacre was an accomplished wood engraver. He supplied "lino cuts" for various small town newspapers in his home state of Missouri.The primitive but striking look he perfected in his "lino cuts" translated easily into the tools of the panelologist's trade. There is something of the America of the 19th century in his florid, arresting compositions, and in his blunt but forceful ink-work.
Whitacre was out of comic magazines by 1942--for different reasons than most of his peers. Too old to serve in the Second World War, Whitacre quit the field to become a Franciscan monk.
As he later wrote in his memoirs, Always an Artist:
In my line of work, I drew terror every day. For the newspapers, it was killings, muggings, wars, diseases. For the "funny books," it was fangs, claws, blood, monsters, fiends and vixens.
I had to draw--get me? My hands couldn't rest long on a piece of paper. Faced with a woodblock and a set of cutting tools, I ached to carve an image into being.
But all these visions of cruelty--I could bear them no longer! I searched and searched for a means in which to put my gifts to a higher use.
I read an article in the paper about a monastery in northern California where the monks still did illuminated manuscripts. Here was a way to satisfy that itchy feeling! To always have a need for my fingers to grasp a creative tool and draw--draw--draw!
In the midst of brutal war, I became a monk, and withdrew from the world. It brought me a peace I felt from head to toe... a peace that renews itself every morning, no matter whether I am working on a golden curlicue of a holy document, or lettering the signs for a bake sale. It is all good work. It is the work I intend to continue until my dying day.
That day has yet to come. At age 114, Whitacre still works each day in the monastery. His flowing, elegant illuminated manuscripts have been showcased in art museums--while his bake-sale, rummage-sale and "NO PARKING HERE" signs are highly coveted by collectors of "outsider art." (For those not in the know, that means artwork that was intended to be posted and viewed outside. Weather conditions being what they are, this 'outsider art' seldom survives. Hence, its great value to collectors.)
Whitacre may have felt ashamed of his bloody, brutal work for the comic magazines, but one cannot deny its flair, excitement and eye-appeal. In this panelologist's humble opinion, Whitacre's work puts that of the highly over-rated Fletcher Hanks to shame.
On that note, I must end this happy missive. My apologies for the infrequency of these "blog" efforts. I shall do my best to assure that you do not have such a long wait between "posts" in the future.
Until next time, bless you all, my four-color friends, and may wisdom and calm guide your steps!
POST SCRIPT!!! I have just been informed, from my comrade in panelology Paul Timey (I deeply apologize for mis-spelling your name in past posts, sir), of a delightful new site--another of these "blogs"--entitled Comic Book Attic.
These fellows have a terrific idea for bringing the panelologic art to the computer. I shall most certainly be in contact with them directly, to bring forth a couple of my dream projects: The Complete Shock Gibson, The Complete Pyroman, and The Quality Humor Filler Pages of Bernard Dibble. In the meantime, friends, I urge you to peruse their "blog" and see for yourself!
Dear Mr. Moray,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me offer congratulations to you in executing such an admirably smooth transition from one job to another. It is true, what they say: "when one door closes, a window breaks." I also wanted to offer to you the standard accepted definition of "outsider art," of which you seem to be unaware. The term was coined by an art critic in the early 1970's and refers to art that is made by self-taught artists, quite often people who live on the "outside" of mainstream society, such as those committed to an institution for the mentally "disturbed." In any event, it occurs to me to bring to your attention a new company on the Internet that I have recently discovered, Comic Book Attic (www.comicbookattic.blogspot.com). These folks are compiling interesting very affordable, collections of Golden Age comic book art, restoring the pages, and publishing them in attractive eBook formats, with scholarly notes. They asked me to write some notes for a Jack Cole volume. I mention it to you because it occurs to me that you might be interested in "curating" a collection and writing some notes for them. You can visit their site at www.comicbookattic.blogspot.com, where you can actually purchase and instantly download some great collections. Now that you are no longer chained to a desk, I encourage you to go forth and spread your in-depth, and fascinatingly unique (dare I say 'outsider'?) insights about comics!