Fun With Failed Prophecies

Great books pose great questions; bad books are hilarious.

In fairness, I have never read this book. It may be the answer to all life's questions or the solution to leveling off the kitchen table, I can't say? If I'm making an educated guess, I'd say it deals with prophecies--specifically Doomsday prophecies--that thankfully have failed to come true.
     On page four (the first and only page I checked out) the second paragraph starts:

"Who Built The Great Pyramids?

Some have declared that the monument's designer was a survivor of sunken Atlantis..." 

Atlantis? Atlantis? A sunken survivor of Atlantis? Out of all possible explanations, the first one given links the Great Pyramid of Giza to Atlantis? Yeeeesh.

Beware The Gutter In ALLIGATOR ALLEY

If there is a theme present--and I'm not referring to the lack of posts--it's comic book images. Why? Next weekend is the The Buffalo Niagara International Antiquarian Book, Paper & Ephemera Fair at the Convention Center in downtown Buffalo, and, for the past week, I've been bagging and boarding comics to present at the show.
     Most of the titles are DC and while I'm not a fan of the story arcs, I do love the artwork.

Just check out this issue of The Unexpected. The title constricts the image just a wee bit, but, overall, it's a good composition--a classic circular "X" shape with your eye zeroing in on a snarly, half-human/half-alligator and a scantily clad maiden to lead the focus up, around, and finally back down to the swamp.

I also like that everything in the background is in a brown-wash. It helps to bring the alligator/woman out of the background.


Ah, the conference papers one could write about this; the nerdy jokes one could resort to if we ignored that it's just complete, throw-away fiction. The whole point of the cover is to interest you enough to buy it, and I feel that this image raises enough questions to warrant, at least, a look-through. Why is that beautiful woman in that swamp? Do alligator men just bench press the hotties and eat the ugs? Was she living in that van? Why does that alligator in the background not appear violent and human-like? Why is his tail so long?

Or maybe the whole thing is a metaphor for...

                                                                        ..."parking?"

You know what I'm talkin' about.

Bow Chi-ca Growl Growl.

The Evil Eye

I sometimes wish that bad guys--real life bad guys--dressed the way comic book super-villains do. Imagine sitting at your desk, staring out into the glory that is "the outside world," only to have a giant, motorcycle riding Eyeball zoom by your window. Ignore the shock to your senses and tell me that you wouldn't assume they were up to no good?

And don't even get me started on the laughter.

Think of the laughter!

                     
It's got to be so hard coming up with villains. Orby here is a Ghost Rider baddie, hence the reason he's riding a motorcycle and, while comic-dom is no stranger to walking eyes, laser eyes, floating eyes, and the like, this kind of enemy is really a hard sell.
     I love lame bad guys; however, if for no other reason than the lampooning of said bad guy. A few years and a lifetime ago, Marvel was releasing a series Spider-Man's Tangled Web that focused more on the people Spider-Man affected, rather than the hero himself. And while most of the stories ended on something of a down-note, "lamer" villain stories were often written like they couldn't have been in the first place: as a parody.

So, for all my fellow nerds out there, if you haven't checked out Spider-Man's Tangled Web I recommend doing so. "Double Shots" is a favorite (as it got me into the series), but I am a fan of the whole 22-issue run.

And remember...

The "Magic" of Books

I have a confession. 

For a long time I've been haunted by a gift. And before you start trying to recall what you got me for the Holidays, I want to ease your worry and assure you that it's not a material possession I fear, but a being possessed! And that being...is me. 

Kra-ka-da-booooooooom!

A couple years ago I was bitten by a demonic book and given an extraordinary power. If I focus all of my energies on a damage, unsalable book, I can change said book into a more pleasing item. Allow me to demonstrate:

Amazing, right? Hmph. You don't know anything about "curses." That's right, curse. I mean, if you were given a magic power and the only thing you could do with it was change old, ratty books into things that you could blog about, what would you call that? Laughable? That's what they called my "gift" last year at the 2011 International Wizard/Warlock Meet-Up and Rummage Sale. There are people there that can telepathically communicate with animals. I can change books into things. No, scratch that. I can turn books into pieces of ephemera and ONLY if I blog about them. It's such a tease, and it impresses no one. 

No one. 

Hmph. Well, anyway...

The Erlanger Theatre exists no more but for a long time served as Buffalo's only professional theatre. Everything I'd be able to tell you about it's history has already been told (and done so much better) here, so, go ahead, I'll wait if you want to read up on it and come back. Done? Pretty interesting, eh? Especially that part about Erlanger being abducted by aliens. 

The playbill I found is from November 1931, and it features Maude Adams & Otis Skinner in "The Merchant of Venice." It's full of great, local ads and it even has articles (that relate to products) like "Is Plastic Surgery New?," "Are You Hat Conscious?," and "Murdocke of London Says--." There's also a little promo in the back that announces the Ziegfeld Follies as a coming attraction. 

My Prices Are So Low...It's Criminal!

"Alright, ya dope, tell me where all the deals are before I plugs ya!"

Guns and shoes, shoes and guns. They go together like toast and jam. Honestly, I can't think of a way to ask Mom for a new pair of kicks without glorifying firearms. Maybe it's my country upbringing?

I believe this paper gun, at one time, had a paper trigger which caused a paper George Washington (I am really not kidding right now) to pop out of the barrel and make a snapping sound. Jeezy Creeze, this is far too funny. "Unamerican?! Son, I'll have you know I load my gun with bullets resembling our first President!" What could be more patriotic than that? Wait, wait, don't think about it. Your brain will start screaming that it's finally had enough. The answer is: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Little boys love guns and George Washington. That's all you need to know.

Don't Spend It All In One Place

"Ah, man. Are these the new hundreds? Lame."

Money, Money, Money, Mah-nay! Mah-naaaaaay!

Yeah, relax. This treasury note is worth about as much as The Death of Superman Comic (zing! nerd joke). It's a reproduction note that's made to look old. If it was real it wouldn't have those margins...and say "copy" at the bottom right. That's fairly glaring.

Still, I got a little excited when I found it. It was tucked away inside an older Civil War book (which, I'm positive, added to said excitement) and when you're used to finding news clippings, subscription cards, and Borders bookmarks, anything with a slight variance can send even the most even keeled of men into an unabashed frenzy. Can anyone say "easily excitable?" I can't. I don't know the meaning of the words.

What's interesting about this reproduction is that there was supposedly a need to make the reproduction. Is it possible that the want to collect Virginia Treasury Notes became so great that it warranted the printing of cheap look-a-likes? It's doubtful. If I had to guess, I'd say that this note (and others like it) was sold off the impulse rack at the local Civil War gift shop. It's an item that's aimed at a certain group and not mass marketed to the general population. Your local big box chain will only sell these if they're printed on a pencil. Similarly, you may also find these at Historical Societies, coin shops, and on the interwebs.

Or in old books, I suppose.

A Little Bit of Non-Fiction Relating To That Which Is Considered Pulp Fiction

"Two Complete Science-Adventure Books." Why waste time being unnecessarily vague when you can tell people exactly what they're getting within the title? Do you like Science? How about Adventure? Well, you should check out this title.

Pulps are wonderful finds for a number of different reasons; pulp art is, in my humblest of opinions, one of the main reasons why these publications remain so popular. Like penny dreadfuls (great name, right? LOVE it!), dime novels, and pre-code comic books, these periodicals were not made to be kept. For ten to twenty-five cents you could purchase, read, and then dispose of said magazine before the elements did it for you. Pulps were so named because of the quality of paper they were printed on. They tanned very easily, came shoddily cut, and went brittle within a couple of years.
     Many of the stories used had been or were also printed elsewhere. The Time Machine (Hey, wasn't that a muh-muh-movie?) was published almost fifty years before this pulp hit the newsstands, so the text was already more common than, say, the artwork. Each time a publishing company circulated a story, they employed an artist to paint a new cover for it. Spice it up, you know? It's so much easier to sell the same story over and over and over if you supplement it with new imagery. Comic book fans have fallen prey to this hundreds of times. Why do you think they reprint the same comic book a dozen times--the same month it comes out--with a dozen different cover images? Because they're jerks. Greedy jerks. Because it's easier to sell multiples of the same thing when the art is different. And they've got to do something because they've ruined their own collector's market by flooding said market with overpriced garbage.

Vintage Pulps, even in Fair or Poor condition, fascinate me because they're not supposed to still exist. They were made to be thrown away, and that makes them truly collectible.

Side Note: Stay tuned for my newest comic book creation: Penny Dreadful. A comic book that will never feature multiple covers for the same issue.