The Screaming Bean and Ben

 

I don't know Ben personally and I've never been to Maryland. I don't even drink coffee, but I've followed the development of The Screaming Bean from Day One as it has been the lifelong dream of my friend and sometimes employer and/or collaborator, author Martin Grams to own the best coffee shop ever. He has dedicated the cafe, which has now been open a couple of years, to offering not just the best service but the best coffee anywhere! To that end, he personally researched coffees from their history to their cups. 

One of the things Martin planned all along was that his cafe be a community cafe, not just for business but for giving back. Helping young Ben here is just the latest example of that. And these days, community is more than just your home town, it's the world, both physical and virtual.

If you live near or happen to be in Maryland on June 24th, stop in at the Screaming Bean Cafe and help five-year-old Ben while getting better service and product than Starbucks ever had!

Supergirl Debuts

 

With Supergirl about to make her starring big screen debut, here's a look back at the original comic book announcement of her first appearance. Note the realistic dialogue. 

Late '60s Comic Creator Photos

A whole bunch of little seen late '60s photos of comics creators, from a fanzine scan (GOSH-WOW) on Ken Meyer, Jr's 's wonderful fanzine blog! https://www.kenmeyerjr.com/ink-stains-blog

 

An Old Friend's Go Fund Me

 

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-amy-publish-her-books-with-a-new-computer?attribution_id=sl:86bb9560-e945-4434-bd23-b427fd36f615&lang=en_US&ts=1778273468&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp17_te-amp20_t1&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=facebook

Amy Nichter is one of several folks whom I have mentored as a writer over the years. She's good! In a burst of creativity, she wrote and published her first novel a couple of years ago. I then collaborated with her on a second. 

The problem is that while time has moved on, her computer hasn't. She and her husband packed up all their belongings and animals a few years back and took to the road, eventually settling on a plot of land they bought out west, raising a small menagerie. The money to get even an inexpensive laptop just isn't there. Here's what Amy says: 

Amy’s current computer is over ten years old, and it’s making it hard for her to finish and publish her books. She’s working on two major projects — a novelized testimony/autobiography and a re-release of her earlier work — and her computer is essential for research, formatting, and publishing. A reliable Dell Pro 15 would help her keep her work moving forward without constant technical issues.

Please consider sharing or donating if this cause speaks to you. Every bit helps Amy get her books into the world!

#SupportWriters #HelpAmy

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-amy-publish-her-books-with-a-new-computer?attribution_id=sl:86bb9560-e945-4434-bd23-b427fd36f615&lang=en_US&ts=1778273468&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp17_te-amp20_t1&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=facebook

Creighton "Lon" Chaney, Jr.

He changed his mind. 

Pleased to hear he got those letters! I was one of those who wrote him when FAMOUS MONSTERS announced he was quite ill. I always wondered if he ever even saw the letters.

After his death Creighton...err...LON's body was donated to science. 

 

Clark Kent Comics and Stories

WHAT IF?... It’s 1954 and comic books are under fire. Most of the superhero books are already gone. EC drops its horror and sci fi books and offers up books about pirates, doctors, psychiatrists, knights, and…newspapermen. DC feels compelled to follow the trend. Batman is dropped all together. Wonder Woman becomes tales of ancient Greece. But Superman, of all their characters, is in a perfect position to be reinvented. He loses his powers permanently and the book reboots as CLARK KENT COMICS AND STORIES, featuring backups with Lois, Jimmy, Perry, etc. Luthor stays in prison and the number of aliens and monsters in Metropolis drops appreciably. The Superman TV show follows suit and continues on as a newspaper drama! IT COULDA WORKED! 

 

Buster Brown and Me-1965

 

One of the very first comic strip characters with staying power was Richard Felton Outcault's Buster Brown, seen here with his dog, Tige. Buster was created way back in 1902 and while the strips faded after a couple decades or so, a 1904 alliance with the Brown Shoe Company kept the characters in the public eye. 

By the time I came along in 1959, Buster was seen in print ads like the above (with famous little person Jerry Maren as Buster), in TV commercials, and in specialty comic books like the ones below. They weren't newsstand comics at all, but rather were distributed through various shoe stores carrying Buster Brown Shoes. 

In 1965, I was in Kindergarten and toward the end of the school year, our class put on a play--my first acting experience (outside of one line in a Christmas pageant). The play was apparently a standard one in Kindergarten circles and was based on a 1929 song entitled "The Wedding of the Painted Dolls."

 One of the song lyrics was: 

"It’s a holiday, today’s the wedding of the painted doll

It’s a jolly day, the news is spreading all around the hall
Red Riding Hood and Buster Brown
The jumping jack jumped into town
From far and near they’re coming here"

Me, I was cast as Buster Brown, a character I only knew at the time from shoe commercials. My mother somehow got hold of a brown Little Lord Fauntleroy-style outfit which was close to Buster's traditional look. I felt silly in it but I refused to wear a blond wig to complete the effect!

I've often wondered what I might have looked like had I gone whole Buster and today, thanks to ubiquitous AI, we have an idea.