The picture on this blog of me is me, folks. That's me. But the birds aren't.
They belong to my best friend Tigs. We have been friends like forever. And her birds are like so super-cool.
They are African Gray Parrots. Their names are Princess and Krak'r.
Krak'r can fly and fly like Rocket "Rocky" J. Squirrel. He is incredible to watch.
Now Princess, she is still having problems with flight but she will get there.
And they are the neatest birds to be around. They are by the way as intelligent as
dolphins and whales. I actually can hold conversations with them.
Princess is in love with me by the way. She wants to have my eggs. I haven't a clue why but she has latched on to me big time. She also too always wants to fix my hair.
And as some of you know I also have an 11-year old cat. Her name is "Baby" and she is the "cat from Hades". But Baby and the birds get along fine, great actually. If Krak'r hasn't seen Baby in a while he calls for her, Baby comes out and then she and the birds have a conversation.
I know it sounds weird but if you ever spent an afternoon with me, Tigs' birds and my cat you would see it.
So why am I talking about the birds this time out? Well I figure it would be a good reason to put up a "Birdman" cartoon. That was such a cool cartoon. It was done by Hanna Barbara which were not exactly known for the best animation but still; I loved it.
So now you folks know who the birds are. One of these days I might talk about my demon cat. That would give me a good excuse to put up a "Top Cat" cartoon. I loved that one, too.
Well Friday is the day after Canada Day and it is also banking day. And when I think of banking I think of....who else but RICHIE RICH.
Now I was never a fan of Richie. I always thought he was pretty lame. His dog was cooler than he was.
But I had a major crush on his girlfriend way back in 61/62. She had the prettiest red hair and ever since then I have loved red heads.
Red Heads according to some are going to be extinct by the end of the century. I sure hope not. Some of the best female characters in comics have red hair. We have Spidey's wife Mary Jane for starters, then we have Marvel Girl (or whatever she calls herself these days; hey; I'm a 60s guy folks!!) from the X-Men. And who can forget Ka-zar's blushing bride Shanna.
All great characters. All strong women. I don't believe of course for a moment it is because of their red hair but it sure suited their personalities.
Now what all that has to do with banking I don't have a clue but it gave me a chance to talk about red heads for a minute. Another strong female in real life who has red hair is the lead singer of Paramore. Hopefully I will be able to get up the video by them titled "Ignorance Is Your New Best Friend".
I like strong females both in comics and in real life. Strong, independent women are needed in this world. And in comics, well, if I was a super villain I would rather go up against Superman than Batgirl any day.
But I digress to borrow a phrase from Peter David. Back to Rickie Rich. I have sitting beside me as I type this RICHIE RICH DIGEST STORIES MAGAZINE #8 which I got sent to me by my buddy Richard Vasseur.
To be honest it is kind of a drag. I like the LITTLE DOT and LITTLE LOTTA fillers better than the RICHIE RICH stories.
No one I grew up with read RICHIE RICH. Like no one. Not even the girls. (Most of them read Millie The Model; so did the guys by the way but they would never admit it in public). So I always wondered how the heck did he end up with so many different titles. Who was buying them? Certainly not the people I hung out with as a kid. Heck we would by some obscure CHARLTON title before we would buy a RICHIE RICH.
RICHIE RICH just never did it for any of us and I have yet to meet anyone who bought the titles. So if anyone knows of anyone who was a faithful follower of RICKIE RICH please let me know. That has been haunting me for years.
Now before I go I do need to make a correction. In VOLUME FOUR NUMBER THREE there is a link that reads Susan McCabe. Now my webmaster, the ever-wonderful Groovy Agent, has it going to the correct site but the proper name for the link is www.shannonmccabe.com .
It is Shannon McCabe folks. Sorry for the confusion. At least I got a chance to mention my pal's website again.
Well it is Canada Day here as I type this and as I wait for a couple of guests to drop by I thought I'd do another off the top of my head piece.
Originally I was going to do one on the 1960s "Mighty Hercules" cartoon and declare how I wanted someone, anyone to kill Neuton the centaur-he was such an annoying little SOB-and then I saw the number of this installment and thought, well heck; Captain America. He did after all return to the world of comics in the 60s with issue number four of The Avengers.
Then I thought; well, why not talk about both. So I will.
First off; Captain America. It actually makes sense in a weird Canuck kind of way to talk about Cap on Canada Day. We actually don't have our own national super-hero. Now before you start think; how many Canadians actually know who Johnny Canuck or Nelvana or Captain Canuck are. Don't get me wrong. I love all those characters. And I have met both Cy Bell (the publisher of Nelvana and Johnny Canuck) and Richard Comely (Captain Canuck's daddy) and they are (or in Cy's case were as he has long since passed on) great people. But in the day to day thinking of folks up here in the Great White North they don't exactly stir the imagination or bring out a lot of patriotism despite the valiant efforts of the folks behind them. But then, what does stir that amongst us Canucks. Not much really outside of hockey. And beer.
Anyway; when I was growing up in the 60s Captain America was 'THE MAN' bar none. He was OUR hero, too. All the kids loved him and some of us-well me actually-went as far as having their (well my) father make a wooden shield just like Cap's to toss around. Come to think of it my father must have been nuts to do that for me as I could have done some serious damage to things tossing that bleedin' piece of wood around. Or maybe he just knew I had a rotten aim.
But dad did that for me which was way super cool and I ran around the neighbourhood for two, maybe three years with that thing. He even painted it for me.
Now I had intended to retire it but then some bright genius at Marvel decided to license some of their characters to a Z grade production studio resulting in some of the worst cartoons ever made. One of the characters was Captain America.
I loved those cartoons. Now I watch them on video and I think I must have had a screw loose but at the time I loved them. They were way super great cartoons and I plunked myself down in front of the television whenever they were on. My dad of course would shake his head believing I should watch something less violent such as "12 O'Clock High' of "Combat" and my mother gave up long ago ("Jim; the kid is gonna be a comic book writer whether we like it or not so just leave him the heck alone!".) . But I loved those cartoons. And the Sub-Mariner ones, too. Thor I could live without but Subby and Cap I loved.
But they were bad. Real bad. Bad animation. Bad dialogue. Bad, well, everything.
Which brings me next to "The Mighty Hercules". I think it was around 1963 when I started to watch that cartoon. Now I was pretty young so I can't say for sure when it was but I do seem to recall seeing it on "Big Al's Ranch Party" that used to air on CKCO TV out of Kitchener Ontario Canada. Now that show made the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons look like masterpieces. Again; bad animation, bad voices, bad dialogue..the works.
Now I was a kid of course so I didn't notice at the time but what I did notice is that darn annoying centaur Neuton. Everyone hated Neut. All the kids and I mean ALL. I don't know if the creators planned him to be annoying but they sure made him that way. We all wanted to see him dead. We all cheered when Deadalus trapped him and yelled "Kill him, kill him!", which I am sure you could imagine did not go over to well with our mothers at the time. But we hated him. Really, really hated him.
And you know what? I still hate him. As I was getting ready to write this I watched "Medusa's Sceptre" and my blood started to boil as soon as I saw that annoying little so-and-so on the screen. I am now 54 and he still bugs the daylights outta me.
Well company is starting to come around so I should wrap this up. Thanks all for putting up with my little wanderings these past couple of blogs. Actually I have found it kind of fun. What do you think? Let me know, okay. I can be emailed at JonAllanGilbert@yahoo.ca . Take care and Happy Canada Day fellow Canucks.
Well to be honest this is an "off the top of my head" column. The past few days I have have been working on a Dracula story for Red Leaf Comics ( www.redleafcomics.com ) and a few other projects that I will talk about later and when I need a break I have been turning to Utube or however the heck you spell it.
Specifically, I have been listening to some old tunes of mine from the 70s. Now I can't recall if I have ever mentioned this before here but I am an old school punk rocker. I hung out in a punk rock bar, did the door in at a punk rock bar, met punk rockers and even dated a couple of punk rock babes. This was from 1978 to 1980. Then I met the love of my life, left the scene and then two years later left the love of my life but that's another story.
But that time I spent in "The Scene" was as much fun for me as being involved with the comics scene. Sometimes more.
One thing I definitely learned from those times was how to have fun, enjoy life and giggle. I also learned how to work my butt off to get where I wanted to be in life. I learned that from some of the best; Frankie Venom of Teenage Head, Keith Whitteker of The Demics, Scott Bently of '63 Munroe and my bestest buddy from those days; Markie Burnaway.
Markie was and is an artist. He comes from a family of musicians all of whom are talented like you would not believe. Markie had taught me a lot about life. I thought I knew it all of course but I didn't. Markie taught me how to have fun, how to work hard and how to enjoy the world around me. And he was the best darn guitar player I have ever seen live.
He was/is-I-guess as he still is alive....a good man and a great friend and pal.
Now the problem is I don't know how to get in touch with the old boy. No idea. I have tired searches upon searches upon searches. I'd like to say hi to him and thank him for what he taught me and stuff so I am asking you, my friends, to help me out.
So if anyone out there can put me in touch with Markie Burnaway aka Mark Scott from '63 Munroe it would be much appreciated.
As for what I am doing now; well, the Dracula piece that I mentioned....Seppo Makinen will be doing the art and letters....and I am working on a two issue project with Star Verse Comics plus I am working on a secret project with Shannon McCabe (www.shannonmccabe.com ).
Plus the whole Red Lion thing, too. And other stuff. Next time out I will go into more detail and then after that I will finish up MLJ-unless the comics I am supposed to review come in-but speaking of MLJ and the whole Red Circle stuff that is being done by DC. I think it sucks myself. But hey; I am old school.
Like I said; this is just off the top of my head.
So I will let you all go now. If someone can help and get Mark in touch with me it would be much appreciated. And if you would like to know what sort of music I used to pogo to in my punk rock days if my webmaster can pull it off you will now be able to click on "New York City" by the Demics. Enjoy.
Jonathan "A" Gilbert of SeajayVentures (the creative arm of Red Lion Publications) and Ryan Crouse of Star Verse Comics are pleased to announce that they will be teaming up to publish a two-issue limited series that will feature the pencils of up and coming talent David Johnson Jr.
Set in the universe of Mr. Crouse'sTechStorm character the tale will take place between issues one and two of TechStorm: Rages of War.
"We don't want to give away too much info as yet but the storyline will involve Ryan's TechStorm characters, a hero called SwiftStar and my Destiny character" states Mr. Gilbert.
"And as an added bonus we will bringing Destiny back in his original uniform as designed by Lloyd Smith, publisher of the gone but still much loved Blue Moon Comics Group".
Sorry for the delay, folks. Once more I have had computer troubles.
Next installment I want to wrap up the whole MLJ/Archie Adventure Series serial that has been dragging on like forever. This time out though I am gonna do a long over due review of a comic by my buddy Ryan Crouse at Star Verse Comics.
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TECHSTORM: RAGES OF WAR Vol. 1 No. 2. For ordering information visit www.starverse.ca .
I have known a lot of small press creators in my time and my buddy Ryan Crouse is right up there with Lloyd Smith as being both talented and an A+1 guy. Check out his website and you will see all the neat stuff that he does.
As for this particular comic; well, it is a fun read. The artwork may not be to every one's liking but for me I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
Basically it is a high tech sci fi tale that is full of action, fun dialogue, cool layout designs and other neat stuff. I am not gonna give the story away here; not by a long shot. But I will recommend it.
You can also order the comic through Ian Shire's Dimestore Productions ( www.dimestormproductions.com ) and there is a pdf version if ya wanna read it online.
So if ya want a fun comic to read definitely pick this up; or any other comic by Ryan. I love Donar myself but they are all fun reads.
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Well I am sorry for the short review folks but I am busier than heck this week. I will at one point talk about what I am now doing. Maybe I will do that next time out and then wrap up the MLJ serial. We shall see.
Sorry I have been absent folks. To be quite honest between the three moves in seven months plus my health issues it kind of kicked the poop outta me.
I am starting to feel better now and in the next week or two I hope to put up a long awaited review of a StarVerse comic my buddy Ryan sent me and then after that wrap up that whole MLJ thing.
Sorry about neglecting everyone but I have not been well at all at all as The Groovy Agent will attest to. Doing better now though and back on track with lots of stuff.
And speaking of Ol' Groove, thanx, buddy, for that great Heap piece. That's my fave comic folks; plain and simple. And Groove did it justice. You are the best.
Well gotta run. I do live folks despite the rumours otherwise. Just been a real sick puppy lately. Take care and see ya all in a couple of weeks.
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