Okay, here's another guessing game for you! Here's a cool-looking fake EC-style comic book cover in a scene from a movie! I know I want to read it! The question is...what movie is this scene from? It wasn't a huge hit but it wasn't a flop either. I will tell you that it's from the 1960's and you know what they say--If you remember being there, you weren't really there! Another clue tomorrow if no one gets it!
UPDATE-6-19-Not even one guess? Good heavens people! If this were a real comic book the buyers and sellers would be all over it! Okay, fine. That's two clues. You tell me!
UPDATE- Fine! See if I have any more contests for you guys then! First clue above was "If you remember being there..." In this case, BEING THERE, the Peter Sellers classic from 1979. That was to tell you this was from one of Peter's fims--albeit obviously a black and white one--and send you scrambling back through his career with guesses. Second clue was "Good heavens..." and final clue was "... buyers and sellers." The comic is taken away from a young church parishoner in the 1963 Peter Sellers film HEAVENS ABOVE!, a religious and socilological satire that plays it straight pretty much, makes a number of valid, amusing points and finally veers off into a ridiculous, thoroughly inappropriate ending that undermines the strength of the rest of the picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavens_Above!
So there! Now go! Go back to whatever it is you were doing before! No more contests here! Grumble, grumble, grumble...see if I care!
Clearly the classic opening to the campy BATMAN TV series of my favorite year, 1966, was created prior to the series airing. This is obvious because it appears on the first episode and then on every subsequent episode without variation until the Batgirl bit is added in season three. The opening presents a montage of villains, most of whom are generic but some of whom were clearly taken from the comics as likely villains to appear on the series. Thus you see the obvious images of the Penguin, the Joker and a rather different looking Catwoman. With Julie Newmar not appearing until episode 19, it's safe to presume the role had not been cast or clearly defined when this animation would've been done sometime in 1965. But wait! Who's that moving by in the second row so fast you can barely see him? Why...it's Clayface! Clayface had been a major Batman villain in the comics for about 7 years at that point so it was logical to consider that he might be likely to appear in an upcoming script. With his protoplasmic-like changing powers though and the nature of TV special effects at the time, it was probably deemed to be too expensive to do the character in live-action. Thus, according to Wikipedia, Clayface first appeared outside the comics in the 1970's animated series that had Adam West and Burt Ward reprising the voices of the Caped Crusaders. Hah! Obviously, someone wasn't paying particularly close attention back in '66!
A tip o' the Thompson topper to son bookdave for catching this recently!
Over at THE BRONZE AGE OF BLOGS today, we are reminded that it is the birthday of Frank Thorne, the great "dirty old man" of comics. Happy birthday, Frank! Once a Kubert clone who toiled unheralded on Gold Key horror comics and DC war comics, Thorne reinvented himself as "the Wizard" when drawing Roy Thomas's sexy barbarian title, RED SONJA in the mid seventies and has gone on to become quite a cult figure on his own. Eccentric to the max, he even took his show on the road with a series of Red Sonja Lookalike Contests at various conventions for a couple of years. These were often strictly fan service events with a number of nubile young ladies in chainmail bikinis waving swords, spouting Robert E Howardesque prose and tossing silver coins to an almost exclusively male audience as they competed for the role of best lookalike. Mr. Thorne dutifuly presided over all in his wizard costume and hat.
I got to see Frank, Angelique and the two Wendys at a Seuling Con Sonja Contest in '77. That was the year they had to move the New York Con to Philadelphia for reasons I don't recall at the moment. In spite of the appearances of Berni(e) Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, Jeff Jones and a ton of NYC pros, the only autographs I got that weekend were from Frank (who did a little sketch!) and Wendy Pini (whose chainmail was quite intimidating to 18 year old me). I think that's her husband and future ELFQUEST co-creator, Richard in the pic I snapped. I have a pic of Mr Thorne somewhere but it's AWOL at the moment. He was quite nice and rather soft-spoken but with a mischievous grin even during the brief moment we spoke. The only other surviving pic from the trip other than some Philadelphia monuments) is this not particularly good snapshot of my parents standing under the hotel marquee advertising the Con!
In 1966, National Periodical Publications teamed with the Ledger Syndicate to revive the BATMAN newspaper comic strip to take advantage of that year's Batmania. Heavily promoted but ultimately disappointing, this incarnation was most definitely the camp TV version of the Caped Crusaders, right down to Chief O'Hara who had never really appeared in the comic books. Although most papers dropped it much sooner, the strip actually limped on until 1974 during which time it took some fascinating turns! Not the least of these was giving up Batman and Robin a year or so before the end but retaining Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in support of a new hero called GALEXO! As this strip has never been reprinted save for a brief continuity in THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC (featuring Green Arrow), its very scarcity has made it intriguing to fans.
Very few examples can be found even on the 'Net and those that are tend to be poorly scanned (as seen in most of the examples here). Although signed by "Bob Kane" long after his famously overcompensating agreement with DC on the comic books had ended, art was by familiar hands including Sheldon Moldoff, Nick Cardy, Joe Giella and later Al Plastino. The final credited artist on the strip was Fran Matera, a longtime newspaper strip artist whose strips included NERO WOLFE, INDIANA JONES and THE LEGEND OF BRUCE LEE. Matera would thus have been the artist on the Galexo-era strips.
Has anyone seen Galexo? Does anyone have a picture or even a memory of this character? Was he an alien? A traditional superhero? What the hell did he have to do with Batman and Robin and why did they stop being Batman and Robin? Was the strip still called BATMAN? How many newspapers even carried it towards the end? Okay, troops. You have your assignment! Find me a strip with Galexo and we'll run it here!
Al Capp, for all of his much vaunted political satire (from both left and right depending on the year) was all about the crass commercialism that is "selling out." Thus we have Abner and Daisy Mae appearing in ads of all kinds over the years (along with, of course, Fearless Fosdick!) Here, for example, is a timely look at L'il Abner and family for Father's Day. Seriously, what could be a better Father's Day gift than Abner's underwear? While we're here, let's throw in yet another L'il Abner ad, this one for tasty Orange Crush. Forget all about that Kickapoo Joy Juice stuff. Orange Crush is the "offishul" drink o' Dogpatch! MMMM-MMMM Good!
One of my Facebook friends posted a Skeeter Davis video the other day and it got me reminiscing. I think the first time I ever heard of Skeeter Davis was on one of those oldies record commercials around 1971. Along with a whole bunch of songs I knew from having my transistor radio with me 24-7 (Yes, I slept with it!), there was one song I had never heard before--THE END OF THE WORLD by someone called Skeeter Davis. The brief clip of her they showed on the commercial depicted a quiet young woman with one of the most beautiful voices I had ever heard singing a sad and lovely song. I was intrigued. The Carpenters did a version of THE END OF THE WORLD not long afterwards and perhaps because of that, I began finally noticing the original version on the radio. In those heady days of Grand Funk, Jethro Tull and Shocking Blue on AM, the quiet beauty of this downer song was always kind of a a treat. I could detect a bit of a Southern accent in Skeeter's doubletracked harmonies but I still knew nothing about her.
Around that same time and completely unbeknownst to 12 year old rock and pop fan me, Skeeter Davis was continuing her long success on the country music charts with an autobiographical song entitled BUS FARE TO KENTUCKY. By 1973, she was having her own issues with the Grand Ole Opry. When she made a political statement onstage in Nashville in 1973, she was kicked out of the Opry. Unapologetic, it would be fifteen months later before she got enough support from longtime Opry members to be re-instated. Although it was the mid-seventies by that point, Skeeter considered her a hippie and a free-spirited flower child.
Originally, I would find out much later, she had been raised not that far from me here in Northern Kentucky. In the mid-1940's, the young Mary Frances Penick teamed up with her friend Betty Jack Davis and they began a successful radio singing career as The Davis Sisters (with Mary Frances using her childhood nicknname and adopting Betty Jack's last name). Signed and recorded by RCA in 1953, their biggest hit was entitled I FORGOT MORE THAN YOU'LL EVER KNOW. It took the two young girls on a whirlwind tour and up the charts. Fate being what it is, however, the pair were involved in an early morning collision with a sleepy driver in Cincinnati and Betty Jack was killed. There followed a complicated and complex series of family issues that left Skeeter doubting her sanity.
With other acts such as The Everly Brothers (also from Kentucky) successfully emulating the Davis Sisters' harmonies, legendary producer (and guitar god) Chet Atkins adapted or perhaps invented the concept of double-track voice recording in order to allow Skeeter to return to the charts with the trademark Davis Sisters harmonies intact by having her harmonize with herself. Skeeter Davis then began a long string of solo country successes with a couple of years of pop chart crossovers beginning with THE END OF THE WORLD in 1963.
In the early 1990's, her ex-husband, Ralph Emery, had written an autobiography in which he was vicious to Skeeter. When he did a booksigning at a Cincinnati area store (that I would actually take over years later), his negative comments on local girl Skeeter made the news with lots of yucks and nudges. I joked at the time that I wished Skeeter would write her own autobiography so WE could do a signing with her and hear HER side! At that time, she was already working on exactly that.
BUS FARE TO KENTUCKY by Skeeter Davis came out in late 1993 and at that time I was assistant manager at the Waldenbooks in Florence, Kentucky. As I was trying to track down (in those still pre-Net days for me) a way to get hold of her with my idea, her publicist called me! Seems Skeeter wanted to do a signing at the closest mall to where her relatives lived so they could all come by to visit as well as pick up a copy of her book. I ran with it. Her publicist, Leigh, was probably the easiest publicist I have ever worked with in any capacity and we quickly had chosen a date for a signing. She sent me posters, publicity material (some of which is seen here) and told me anecdotes about Skeeter on the phone. This was wonderful because, as anyone knows who's ever managed retail, we had virtually NO budget for that type of thing.
Then one day, she called to say that Skeeter was wondering if it would be okay to bring her guitar along and maybe strum a few songs. As you can imagine, I was all in favor of it but I told her I had best check with the mall manager and make sure it would be okay. Now here's where it gets interesting. Seems the mall manager not only HAD a budget but was a big country music fan. I put him in touch with Skeeter's people and within a short time, it was determined that Skeeter Davis would not only bring her guitar but her whole backing band, hot off a tour of American military bases in Germany and South Korea. The mall had already expected a big crowd that weekend for a planned car show and on extremely short notice, it was arranged for a mini-concert in center court...which was right outside my store!
By that point, though, it was less than a week away and there was very little time to publicize her appearance for anything other than the autographing. That's when I realized that the local oldies rock radio station was having their annual live concert in downtown Cincinnati the day prior to our event. I called them up and after a little bit of trouble convincing them that I was on the level, it was arranged for Skeeter to come in the night before and do a walk-on at their concert to promote our event. In exchange, what they wanted was the opportunity to display their banners at the store and at the mall and have two of their dj's do live cut-ins throughout the afternoon. Ummm...yeah. That worked for me.
On the day of the event, we had hundreds of copies of BUS FARE TO KENTUCKY but my boss was understandably worried that the whole thing had gotten out of hand. We opened on Sundays at noon. Nearly our full staff was scheduled that day and my wife, Rene, had even agreed to work as auxilary and handle photographing the event (both in color and in black and white for the press). The radio folks from WGRR had shown up early and immmediately set up shop at our storefront. They hung their banner over the autographing table and got their equipment going. About once every fifteen minutes, they did a live cut-in telling all of their listeners to come to the mall to see Skeeter for free!
Leigh arrived at the already crowded store about 12:30 PM and said that Skeeter and the band were wherever malls put such people before a mall show. At about 1 PM, the mall suddenly rocked with music when Skeeter took the stage just outside our store and stormed into an unexpectedly raucous version of SILVER THREADS AND GOLDEN NEEDLES. I was on the clock but felt justified in going out to get a close look while my wife was running up and down stairs snapping two rolls of pictures. The smooth voiced young lady I had first heard of some 22 years earlier had developed into a seasoned performer who could really rock! The audience ate it up! In the store, people started buying the book and lining up at the table for after the concert. I was called back in but made it out a few more times, particularly to see her perform a beautiful version of THE END OF THE WORLD as if it were the very first time she'd ever sung it.
The concert crowds built and we could hear her announce the signing between songs. Over the next couple of hours(!) she ran through a surprisingly diverse selection of pop standards, country hits, and some light rock! My boss kept askin me when she was going to be through as by that point we had a long line outside our store blocking the other stores down the mall. The managers of the other stores were not happy and we kept assuring them that we'd do something about it. We didn't. We secretly loved the crowd and the notoriety we were getting with the other stores.
Then I heard Skeeter say the darndest thing. From the stage, she asked, "Hey, where's Steve? Steve!" I stepped outside and someone pointed me out to her. She asked, "How long are we supposed to sing? Have we sung enough?" I was flabbergasted. Apparently I was in charge and no one had informed me! The gathered crowd cheered for more but it was by then after 3 PM so I nodded that they had done enough and gestured for her to come on over to the store.
The crowds were pleased to see her and, as she had hoped, there were a lot of relatives there. The cash registers were ringing constantly and the dj's began recording an interview between signings. My wife showed up with only a few pictures left to take and then she and I hung out with Leigh. Leigh's the woman with glasses next to Skeeter in the black and white photo seen here. Leigh was also hanging on to Skeeter's purse and after a short while, a very sleepy white dog popped his yawning head up out of said purse! Jack was the dog's name and we were told he'd been listless and hadn't eaten in days. Animal lover that she is, Rene went to the food court and got some fried chicken that she managed to get the dog to eat in the back room after tearing off the skin. Leigh was impressed and ran to tell Skeeter. Suddenly, my wife was Skeeter's favorite person! Leigh told us that Skeeter had apparently had a succession of similar dogs, some of whom appeared with her on album covers and all of whom were named Jack.
The sales, the reminiscing, the emotional reunions and the complaints from other stores continued for three hours until it was time for the mall to close at 6! The day didn't end there, however. Late in the day, two more disc jockeys from WGRR's sister station in texas arrived and it was arranged for them to interview Skeeter in the store's back room after closing! Some of the employees went home but my manager, Brenda, sat with Rene and I and just listened as the extremely animated star went on for another hour about dating Elvis, having Paul McCartney tell her her harmonies influenced the early Beatles, being fired from the Opry, getting cancer, marrying the much younger Joey Spampinato (from the always hip band, NRBQ) and, as expected, dissing Ralph Emery. After that she was anxious to actually spend a little time asking about US. She flipped through a photo album from her purse for us: "There's my Uncle! Oh, look, that's me and mama!" She flipped another one. "Oh, that's just Joey and Paul," she said, quickly moving on to, "Awww! There's my dog, Jack!" For the record, the "Joey" she glossed over was her husband who had just auditioned for touring bass player for the Rolling Stones (this was just after Bill Wyman's departure) and "Paul" was Mr. McCartney himself! Just a snapshot she had taken herself of the pair.
It had to be nearly 9 PM by the time we finally left. At the end, she invited us all to come to Nashville and stay with her some upcoming weekend. We presumed she was simply being polite in her folksy way so we all demurred. Leigh informed us that, no, Skeeter had been serious. She had often invited folks to stay for awhile...some of whom had stolen whatever they could get away with!
I went out and bought all of the Skeeter Davis albums I could find and got a few more (including her double act with NRBQ) at the Public Library. The store had Skeeter back five years later when she published a children's book but by then I had been promoted to another location. Her breast cancer resurfaced in 2001 and she died in 2004. In their obit, THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER stated that she had not performed in this area for decades. I didn't have many of the pictures anymore (we had sent some to Waldenbooks' home office and some to Skeeter) but I was able to correct them in a letter published a few days later detailing the day in 1993 when Kentucky's own Skeeter Davis, on very short notice, took Florence Mall by storm!
