Volume Four, Number Twelve

If anyone one was wondering where I've been this past week it was some place I haven't been since 1992; on vacation.

Yes, that's right. The Jazzy One has not taken a vacation for eighteen years so this one was long overdue. I used to take vacations each summer with my parents back in the 1960s; most of them to Port Stanley Ontario Canada
( www.port-stanley.com ) where I eventually lived from 2000 to 2009.

Summer was always a fun time back in the 60s (these days all it usually means is more work preparing for fall and winter releases of my work). I spent a lot of time on the beach in Port Stanley and splashing in the waters of Lake Erie pretending to be either Aquaman or The Sub-Mariner; depending on my mood that day. I also spent a lot of time reading comics as summer time comics were full of really neat stuff.

From DC (the National Periodical Publications) summer meant the annual team-up of the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America in the JLA's title. These team ups began in 1963 and each year not only re-introduced members of the Justice Society (my favourite JSA member back then by the way was Starman) but also expanded on the DC/National multiverse concept.

The team-ups also brought characters from comics publishers other than DC/National into the multiverse including the Quality characters (Dollman, The Ray, Uncle Sam, The Human Bomb and Phantom Lady) and the Fawcett heroes (most notably Captain Marvel).

Summer comics fun also meant Marvel annuals which featured 72 pages for a quarter (the DC/National giants were 80 pages for the same price in the 60s). I didn't buy every annual from Marvel in those days-I had other more important things to spend money on such as the Archie Adventure Series titles, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, the Doom Patrol and The Challengers of the Unknown just to name a few-but those that I did definitely stick out in my mind even today.

One annual was The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #4 (1967) where Spidey and the Torch teamed up to battle Mysterio and The Wizard. Another annual I remember fondly was Avengers Annual #2 (1968) where Cap, Goliath, Wasp, Hawkeye and Black Panther get stuck in an alternate timeline in which the original Avengers were tricked by The Scarlet Centurion (another version of Kang) into getting rid of the super-heroes and super-villains (along with Nick Fury and a few others).

So did I read any exciting comics while on this vacation? Not per say but I did read a really neat book on the history of the Warner Bros. cartoons and a book on the history of Iron Man. Does that count?

I will still have a chance to read comics on vacation though as I am going away again for a week this coming August. Right now though I have a comic that came in the mail while I was away to read and hope to review at a later date here in E-Dispatches (along with another comic I got a month or so back).

So that's where I have been folks. But I am back now and getting to work once more. Take care and be safe.