Comic Book People 2-Last Days!

It's aaaalmost funded. With 4 days left, it would be a shame to see it get this close and yet NOT make it. Keep in mind that if the project is not FULLY funded, Jackie doesn't get ANY of the pledged money! Will YOU be the one to push them over the top?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1472315988/comic-book-people-2-photographs-from-the-1990s

My Favorite Spirit Splashes

While it's still Will Eisner Week, I thought I'd weigh in with my two personal favorite SPIRIT splash pages.

My First Bookstores

I was waiting on a bus to the Zoo with my parents in front of Kidd's bookstore one day when I was 11 years old. In the window, they had a giant sized book with lots of superheroes on it! When we came back later that afternoon, I insisted that we HAD to go in and see what that book was! Turns out it was vol 1 of the STERANKO HISTORY OF COMICS. I talked my parents into buying it and then returned several times a week for the next 7 years or so until they moved. I rarely shopped upstairs, though, as the downstairs was more or less a head shop with hippies and underground comix, the first fanzines and European comic albums I ever bought, and every new book about comics that came along!

Above is the interior of The Ohio Bookstore. Unlike Kidds, it's still there and still run by the same folks. They used to call me and my friend Terry back in the '70s whever they got in Golden Age comics. I found out years later they had a list of people they called so we weren't as special as we thought we were! This is arelatively recent picture but it really doesn't change much over time. Same people running it even!

Comic Book People 2-Kickstarter

Last year, we reviewed a copy of Jackie Estrada's book, COMIC BOOK PEOPLE, a compendium of categorized and annotated photos of comics pros taken in the 1970s and 1980s by Jackie, herself, at San Diego and elsewhere. If you were a comics fan in those days, it was and is a MUST-HAVE for the pure nostalgia of it all!

Now comes Vol. 2 which will feature more such goodness from the next decade, the 1990s...only this one for some reason is having a little trouble finding funding. There are a lot of great creative works seeking and deserving funding these days on Kickstarter but I'd appreciate it if you'd give COMIC BOOK PEOPLE 2 a look and your consideration. 

I can't wait to see it but without a little help in the next 8 days, we may NOT! 

Go here and check it all out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1472315988/comic-book-people-2-photographs-from-the-1990s

My Batman Fan Club-1966

In 2nd Grade, I started my own Batman Fan Club.  I remember making dozens of these invitations and these are the only two I have left so I gave out a lot! Can't recall if anyone actually joined, though. Let's face it, in 1966, the playground was all about Batman and Robin one way or another! Even the girls jumping rope at recess had Batman rhymes! 

Stan Ross

Unlike just about every other performer in existence, there really isn't much out there on the Web about this guy--Stan Ross. What little info I can find indicates he was still alive as of just a few years back. Looking, as I've written elsewhere, like Buster Keaton's demented brother, Ross was in show business for at least 2 and a half decades, appearing on TV opposite Jack Haley, Jackie Gleason (below from 1951) and Jonathan Winters, always looking pretty much the same and usually doing his effeminate "I'm with YOU!" catchphrase.

He appeared in minor character actor bits in major films of the 1970s including WHAT'S UP DOC? with Barbra Streisand and (below) BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. 

Someone got the bright idea to give him his chance in a full-length feature during the 1970s as well...a porn one in fact! In THE SEXPERT, most of the "action" is softcore but for an insert section. Stan mainly does his darndest at a silent comedy bit around the otherwise softcore sex scenes. 1950s TV actor and voiceover performer Marvin Miller also appears along with future soap star Jamie Lynn Bauer!

Needless to say, neither fish nor fowl, the picture was doomed to obscurity, as was Stan's career. To add insult to injury, many of his appearances are confused online with those of later writer/actor Stanley Ralph Ross (no relation).

Jeff Jones

I just felt like doing a tribute to the late Jeff Jones aka Jeffrey Catherine Jones. By nobody's definition a comic book artist in spite of his love of the medium and the various covers and stories he published beginning in the late 1960s, Jones was an artist of the first caliber who continued to grow and expand over time.

Below, from the mid-'70s, is one of my all time favorite photographs of anyone ever. This was when Jeff was with The Studio, the comics and fantasy equivalent of rock royalty.

In 1977, I found myself in a room at a con in Philadelphia surrounded by all of Jones' now-classic originals!

I fell in love with the giant BLIND NARCISSUS painting and for years displayed a print above my fireplace.

As he grew older, Jeff decided to act on his belief that inside, he was and always had been a woman. He began being called Catherine. The transition wasn't easy and led to more than a few personal issues which even stopped his art for some time.

One day about 10 years back I got an email from a strange address with "Idyl" in the name. It was from Catherine, thanking me for saying nice things about her work on my blog! I was thrilled to say the least, more so when she asked if she could quote me on her art website, just under Frank Frazetta! 

I was one of a number of folks who she said convinced her to go on Facebook which I remain convinced was the best thing that ever happened to her. The intimacy and immediacy of the Internet allowed her to gain strength from the love and support of fans of her art and with surprisingly few issues regarding the transition from Jeff to Catherine (that I ever saw anyway). When I got my Mac, she emailed me for details and ended up getting one just like it (as seen in the documentary, BETTER THINGS). When  her Mac had issues, she asked my advice. While I would never claim to have known her well, I feel privileged to have known her at all. From a star-struck 18 year old in a room full of fantasy paintings to a 50 year old she would occasionally write to for advice. I'll take that. Gotta love the Internet. 

Hard to believe it's been nearly 4 years already since I last heard from her.