Skip Williamson and other Cartoonists

The top picture is of an old friend Skip Williamson, who was an underground cartoonist. Here he was at the Atlanta DragonCon in his allotted space. And I am on the other side of the camera. He got my son Adam and me in free.

I haven’t seen Skip since Bluto came to town and spent 9 days. I need to call him, Skip, not Bluto.

I just got a new toy, or a new gadget – on one place on the box it came it has a logo says VuPoint and on another place it says Digital Film Scanner, which also looks like a logo.

It is mostly for the reason of looking at old negatives that the prints have long ago vanished and make new digital pictures.

Today I was playing with it, seeing what all I could do with one envelope of negatives and came across some pictures I forgot completely about.

Here are a couple of Al Feldstein, editor of MAD magazine for about 30 years. He had him a booth, or table, too. He was much more friendly and personable than I thought he probably would be.





At that time he said had a ranch in Colorado and painting a lot of the local landscapes.

Which reminds me, at the postal service I worked with two men, one was an artist in his spare time and the other one was a builder of homes in his spare time. I knew that much about each because I listen and I am nosy. The two didn't know each other that well, and one time all three of us were working on one project and Jerry said something about a painting of an old barn he just completed. Walter said, "Oh, you like to paint!"
Jerry, "Jerry I love to paint!"
Walter, "Have you ever painted houses?" You know where that conservation was going and where it was going to end.



Here is Al and me again, which this picture has been on this blog a number of times. I wonder if he wrote somebody and said, “Here is a picture of Eddie Hunter and me. He is much friendlier than I thought he would be.”

HUMBUG

The above HAPPY FATHER’S DAY card was included with the purchase I made at Doctor No’s Comic Books in Marietta. The owner, Cliff Biggers, rung up the price, wrapped his latest Comic Shoppe News paper around it with the above card.

Cliff is something of a comic book expert and has created and published comics too. He seems to know the comic industry very well. He knows dates and names.

I asked him about the hardcover reprints of TRUMP and HUMBUG.

He said TRUMP was to be published earlier this year and they backed down. And HUMBUG is scheduled to go to press in September this year. Fantagraphics was to pint both. He said they did a study and found there was not as big of a want for TRUMP as first thought.

TRUMP magazine came out in the mid 50s. It was published by PLAYBOY magazine, which meant it was published by Hugh Hefner. It lasted only two issues before PLAYBOY pulled the plug. The artists and editor was the creator and original artists of MAD comicbook, such as Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jack Davis, and Wally Wood.

Shortly after TRUMP was de-TRUMPed, the same group, less Wood, started HUMBUG magazine, which lasted 11 issues.

The followers of these artists watched their work in other publications as the years went by. Now, over 50 years later a lot of us would love to see the magazines reprinted into book form as they did the original MAD comics and the EC all the other EC comics. This group we are in, are mostly males in their 60s, but there may be some as old fans as old as 80. At our age, we die in numbers daily…. No wonder the demand is not what they anticipated - and the demand keeps getting smaller.

I said to Cliff Biggers, “They better hurry with HUMBUG, many of us might not wait around.”

Tim Russert (1950-2008)

Tim Russert has died of a heart-attack.

We didn’t watch Meet the Press very much but I enjoyed watching him talk on The Today Show and other NBC political coverages. He seemed to have endless information on politicians filed right at the top of his head and the ability to recall it instantly.

He very often quoted what a politician said, maybe something like three months ago and compared the conflicting quote the politician said as recently as yesterday.

He seemed very impartial and unbiased. Politicians who called themselves non-partisan should study Tim’s technique.

I think his death might very well change the presidential race some. I think Tim Russert kept them honest, because he would call them on their blunders and under-the-table deals. Now, who is going to replace him?

Happy Flag Day!

SHOCK SUSPENSE Comic Book was published by EC Publishing Company, the same company that published MAD, PANIC, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, other horror comics, science fiction comics, and war comics.

SHOCK SUSPENSE dealt with moral issues such greed, hate, prejudiced, unfairness, and, well you get the idea. This issue had “THE PATRIOTS” in it. It was published in 1952 – right during the “Red Scare” all one had to do to ruin somebody’s career was to accuse them of being a member of the Communist Party – you didn’t even have to provide proof, all you had to do was to act like you knew what you are talking about. That is how paranoid we were.

I think “THE PATRIOTS” was about 6 or 7 pages, but the last three pages pretty much is the story in a nutshell.

Another Low-Rental Poject Bites the Dust

In about 1954 or 55, when I was about 14, we moved to Richard Street in Marietta. Richard Street leads off “the 4-Lane” (as we old Cobb Countians call it) aka Cobb Parkway, North (as newcomers call it). Richard street was just across the 4-Lane, Cobb Parkway, N, aka Hwy 41, from where White Water Park is now. We lived about two blocks inward. About a block away from the front of our house were the Boston Homes.

The Boston Homes is a low-rental project that one level apartments, connected and were in rows, going down a steep hill. In the paper this morning it said it has 125 units, which translates to 125 families.

They are to be destroyed; bulldozed; done away with.

The Housing Authority has said they will find every family in Boston Homes a new home and will pay moving expenses within Cobb County.

Right.

I bet when the actual home deals are made – some will be unhappy… it may not be near their friends or family or the rent is not based on their income, or many other reasons and I would not be surprised if the city’s generous offer will be replaced by “take it or leave it.”

Why are they doing it? They don’t even know what the area will be replaced with… they suggested possibly new homes? Homes for the elderly? Another business park?

Maybe the bottom line is they scattered the poor in-come folks, sort of thinned them out some – so they are least likely to cause trouble in groups.

They claim they are doing it for humane reasons….. now they don’t have much closet space; only window units air conditioners… I remember living in a Clay Home projects in very similar units without any kind of air conditioner and I didn’t know we were so much in misery.

I think there is more of a reason than the above…. Maybe a large group of low income people in one area is an eye-sore for the big spenders.

I have many good memories of my old friends who lived in the Boston Homes: Gene Brown, Milton Martin, Donald Lawson, Norman somebody, the Ramsey family, the Crow family, and Jimmy and the McEntyre brothers. And in recent times the late Orville C who fell on hard times.

What is next? The city or county fathers might want to do you a humane favor and relocate you and bulldoze your house and make a another doctors’ office.

Marietta may not be poor friendly, but it is money friendly for sure, which I reckon is better than not friendly at all.

2 Stories For the Price of One

I have never considered myself a mechanical minded person. And neither has anybody else considered me that. But today, I did a mechanical feat and even have a sore back to prove it, or you might say “back” me up… pardon the pun.

I spent several hours yesterday visiting Free-Flite Bikes and Radio Shack. I visited each twice. Early yesterday on my bike my odometer did not register my distance or speed, or the other stuff, like average speed, time in motion, and all that. The face of my odometer just showed 0’s. I figured it had to be the battery – but if it was the battery, why did anything show at all. So, I went to where I bought my bike, Free-Flite Bikes for a new battery. They were out, so I went to Radio Shack, that the battery, installed it and it still didn’t work. Then I realized it had to be calibrated to my bikes wheel circumference and I had no idea how. I took the thing off the bike and went to Free-Flite again and one of the people there took the time to set it for me. He even printed me off a manual.

I thanked him and mentioned that I hope it worked now. He said it should unless it is on the wheel fork – the thing that counts the magnet transmits its count by a battery too, he said.

On the way home I decided that had to be it! The battery on the fork. Because the 0’s showed fine… well, at least I got a new battery for the face, it would soon conk out anyway.

I put the monitor on the bike and rode up the street. Sure enough, no signal. It had t be battery in the gizmo on the fork.

I looked at the newly printed manual the nice guy printed for me and saw that the fork gizmo took the same type of battery. So, back to Radio Shack and I bought the 2nd, CR2012 battery.

I went back home and had a hard time putting it on. The only way I could see I could reach it was from the other side of the wheel, reaching through the spokes… then, my thick fingers did not leave me enough torque and strength to unscrew the thing to take out the old battery and put in the new one.

Wait! I had an idea! Why not twist the thing around so it would be facing me on the same side of the wheel facing me, which I did, and everything worked perfectly… except I strained my back, reaching through the spokes, I would find out three or four hours later.

But then, I took it for another test drive and it worked great!

I am thinking of opening up a bicycle repair shop.

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After Anna came home from work we went to Roswell to eat at a new barbecue place she read about. The name of it is “Spice Right”, and it in the historical section of Roswell. Apparently it is ran by two young men, under 35, and they are trying to yuppie the place up. It looks like a dive. I don’t think an interior decorator came in and told them what would go good in this corner, and they needed a potted plant by this window, and what kind of music would go good. I have a feeling, if there is a spittoon on their floor, it would not be there for decoration.

Outside in the parking lot is a big smoker letting off smoke and that bbq smoky smell.

The blues music played loud like this type is supposed to be played.

And above all, the pulled pork was delicious and plentiful. The Brunswick stew was delicious and so were some kind of potato cakes they pushed. The cole slaw was so-so.

When we arrived at 5:30 there was a another couple there. They left. And when we left at about 6:00pm, right when the dinner hour starts and there were no customers. I think they just need to grow on people more.

Atlanta Cyclorama – another view postcard

The burning of Atlanta in 1864.

It says on the back that the Cyclorama measures 50 ft high and 400 ft in circumference, and weighs about 18,000 lbs. The Cyclorama was painted in 1886-6 by a group of German and Polish artists commissioned by Mr. William Wehner. The Cyclorama was brought at auction by Mr. George V. Gress, who presented it to the city in 1898.

I think there was more to it than that. I think years later the CEO of Coca-Cola rescued it.

Also there has been some statuettes additions – for one Rhett Butler is on edge trying to get his horse-pulled carriage out of a ditch.

Hunter Genes Dribbling Down

Here is James and his wife Bessie. Bessie is/was* the granddaughter of John Rafas and Lilly B. Hill Hunter. John Rafas Hunter was the son of William A. Trammell/Hunter. James worked at a steel mill in Birmingham.

They look like a happy hyper couple. They had three sons. Here is James balancing one of the sons on his hand.



I met one of the sons, two years ago, at a Ray family reunion in Franklin, NC. He and his wife were very congenial . We have talked on the phone a few times before. He and wife live in Tennessee, near the Alabama border. We shared genealogy information about the Hunters.

*She is still living.

Bluegrass in Kennesaw

This coming Friday evening, June the 13 – opps! Friday the 13th, Kennesaw Opry will have their monthly bluegrass concert at 7:00 PM. Three groups are schedule to play.

Y’all come, y’hear?

Mr Natural by Robert Crumb

This is a cartoon postcard. The cartoon is Mr. Natural, which is a character found in may of Robert Crumb’s illustrative books.

I don’t know but I bet whoever printed up this card, published it and sold it made some bucks and probably didn’t make a dime.

You seen the Robert Crumb’s cartoon creation of “Keep on Trucking” haven’t you? Guess how much in royalties Robert received for it. Not a dime , the last I read about it.

Petty Cemetery, Fannin County, Ga.

Above, my g-g-grandfather, Elijah Petty (1806-1881).

Elijah Petty was a twin to Elisha Petty, born in Surry County, North Carolina, which is near in the northern part of North Carolina, near the Virginia border. His parents were considered early pioneers of Surry County. He moved to McDowell County, where his wife and my great-great grandmother Letty Lewis Petty died. He secondly married Sarah Parker.

I have been to Fannin County, Georgia, several times looking for the Petty cemetery. I knew it was there and even had directions I got from the book of Fannin County Cemeteries that is in the Georgia Room at the Main Library of Cobb County. I found the road it was supposed to be on and rode up and down it and could not determine in what thicket would a cemetery be.

Than, as happened more than once, I found it in a strange coincidental way. On a Petty bulletin board I talked to a lady Petty living out west someplace but grew up in Fannin County, and her parents still lived there. We could not determine just how close kin we were… we did not have the same progenitors, up to our great great great grandparents. Her father, decided to retire in Fannin County after his years with the Air Force. After he retired he was a school bus driver. Being a driver of a bus he rode higher than I normally do, and from his high perch in a bus dirver’s seat he could see over little humps or mounds along side the roads. He saw a cemetery. Just out of curiosity, he got out one day and looked and the surnames of most the residents were Petty, the same as his.

So, one year after a Hunter Reunion in neighboring Union County, I dropped by a telephone booth in Fannin County and called Mr. Petty. He said he was only about 5 miles away, so he and his wife drove out and met me. After we looked each other over and decided we were not the mugging or car-jacking type, they invited me to leave me car in the parking lot of a strip shopping center and we made the 18 mile trip down the road to the Petty cemetery. It was the same road I had been on several times…. Only thing, it was on the other side of a hump, that I couldn’t see over from the car.

So this is it.



This above picture is my g-g-grandfather’s 2nd wife, Sarah Parker (1818-1897). She married Elijah and had an instant family of 5 or 6 children. And in time she produced a bunch also.

More Petty relatives in residence:

Pat O'Brien's of New Orleans postcard

This is the courtyard of the famous Pat O’Brien’s on 619 St. Peter Street in New Orleans, next door the Preservation Hall.

The back of the card says the building and courtyard was erected in 1791 as the first Spanish Theater in the U.S.

It is also the home of the famous expensive Hurricane drink. You are just a nobody unless you are wondering the French Quarters holding in a drunken stupor holding the famous Pat O’Brien’s famous Hurricane tumbler.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLOW

Today Willow is two years old. And on June the 16th will be our one year anniversary with her. I took her out for this morning for 45 minute walk and a 1.5 mile run. She likes to run.

Hopefully sometime today I will be able to carry her to the dog park. She loves the dog park. She likes to play chase with the other dogs… when she is ganged up on or a bigger dog growls at her she will run and get under the bench I am sitting on. Maybe she can find a little runt to bully and harass – she likes that too.

Yesterday evening when I took her out for the last time for the day I was on the deck and happened to notice her. She was trotting around, suddenly making turns, and sometimes going faster and sometimes slowing down, but mostly a constant trot with turns. I wondered if she was cracking up – if so, should I shoot her or what – and then I noticed a little flying bug about a foot from her head… Willow was just trotting along following a flying insect.

Dick Day

Above is Dick Day at a beer pavilion at the NYC World’s Fair in 1965. And also is a promo picture of Dick now, today, present times.

We were in the Navy together. In our Squadron, HU-4, Dick was the journalist. He put out a monthly squadron newsletter and also sent news about homeboys to their home town newspapers.

Once he and I (mostly he) printed, on mimeograph, a magazine of prose called ALL THERE IS. We couldn’t give it away.

Before he came in the Navy he was in the doing showbiz kind of things in NYC. Dick was quiet person, in a well-trained-voice sort of way. He had a very subdued wit about him, sort of like a time bomb… you had to think of what he said, and maybe even go to the dictionary. Then it would hit you and it was a riotous funny.

Dick introduced me to many things in the way of liberal arts, such as jazz music and literature. I wished he handed out some kind of diploma or certificate for all he taught me… but then, he might want tuition fees or something.

We got out of the Navy not too far apart, maybe a month or two. Me first.

He became a radio announcer as soon as he departed the Navy. I visited him in Harrisburg once and he and his wife took me out to eat at a lobster house.

For ten years or so we kept up our communication lines. And that was before email! We would sometimes write letters and sometimes dictate into a cassette player.

And through the years he and his wife visited us several times, which we usually took them to Atlanta. Then, there were not much in Cobb County to see in the way of dining or entertainment.

They would usually drop by coming back from a trip south to Florida. Once, while they were visiting our Schnauzer bitch Schatzi had puppies.

I often wonder what ever became of my old Navy friends. As you know, Reuben materialized, and is retired and living in Thailand. I never knew what happened to Dick (and others).

Then, yesterday Rueben emailed me and said while watching the National Geographic channel special about 9/11 one of the newscasters in D.C. was Dick Day. With a little surfing and research he discovered Dick Day was working at WTOP in Washington, DC, and sent me a link.

Thanks Reuben.

I’m glad we are still alive.

Below I and Dick Day are trying to pull out the ghostly spirits of a pot and cast them into a herd of goats – New Hope, Pennsylvania – 1964 or 5.

Fatherly Advice

My neighbor, as I have mentioned several times, has a booming voice. You can hear him a block away. Really, while out walking the dog in the early morning I heard him a whole block away and could almost make out what he was saying.

The other day I heard him tell somebody on the phone that he had his boat in dry-dock waiting on something....if dry-dock means sitting on a boat trailer, it was in dry dock.

Today I overheard him give his almost grown son some fatherly advice:

"If I was you I wouldn't call him up and say that. They have Caller-I.D."

The Ponce de Leon Ball Park postcards.

These are not real post cards I bought off a rack or anything. I found them while surfing on the net, and since it is baseball season, I thought I would include them.

The Ponce de Leon Ball park, home of the Atlanta Crackers, was located just across Ponce de Leon Avenue from the big tall Sears Building in Atlanta.

I have been to several Cracker games, a couple of times with my Little League team each year and a couple of times with the Boy Scout troop I was in each year too.

One time I even stood at the Cracker’s home plate and batted… or I stood there with a bat anyway. I wasn’t a very good ball player and sat on the bench most the time. Our team was in some kind of playoffs. We were losing terribly. It was two outs and our coach Romeo Hudgins sent me in as a replacement, or whatever. I stood there, ready to knock the ball out of the stadium and behind me the catcher was saying all kinds of things to intimidate me …. I thought he must not realize which one of us was holding the bat… and about that time the pitcher threw the ball and it went by me so fast I could here it sing and the umpire behind me said “Strike” I wanted to say, “Ok, but what are you going to do about the catcher intimidating me?”

Then, another strike. And another strike and the game was over. I was glad, I didn’t really have much of a plan if I happened to hit the ball.

Every time we went to the stadium as spectators we got good seats. I don’t know if it was a lack of people or what. The stadium was concrete with an overhang to protect us from the weather… it could rain, hail, sleet, or snow and us lily white humans would be protected from the weather and the blaring sun. On the other hand, down the first base line, was the “Colored Section” which was shaky blenchers with no-type kind of weather protection. Shame shame.

One time, with the scout troop my little devil of a friend Jimmy Pat Presley try buying a cigar at the concession stand and they sold it to him. Then we all went down and bought cigars.

We had our own little smoking club – we went high up in the nose bleed section so the scout master couldn’t see us and smoked. We were not watching the game anyway. I remember, as we puffed our cigars we tried to think of cigar commercial jingles. One, I remember, went like this, “HAV-A-TAMPA CIGAR TODAY!” To the tune of “Two bits and a haircut”… also, something like “HAV-A-TAMPA CIGAR….LAAAAA!!!” - with about four of us with our right arm out, like just finishing a musical score. We were trying to rhyme Cigar and LAAAA. We had another pretty good one with Muriel Cigars, but I forgot.

This doesn’t have anything to do with Ponce de Leon Stadium, but worth mentioning anyway: There was a radio announcer in Atlanta, Henry somebody, I think Henry Thompson. By day he was a DJ with the named “Hank the Prank” Hank the Prank had all kinds of nifty bells, whistles, sirens, and what-all that was very entertaining when he had his show. In the evening during baseball season, he was Henry whatever, sport announcer for the Crackers. He used his sound effects expertise during the game also. I understand he was not really at the game but was in a studio reading a play-by-play teletype and if there was hit, his pencil hit something that sounded like a bat hitting the ball and then if it was a homerun he would play his roaring crowd tape…. You get the idea.

Red Baron BBQ?

The man on the right is Anna’s grandfather Paul E Foster (1895-1936). They lived in the Alpharetta, Cumming, Roswell area. This is a picture Anna's mother donated to the "Vanishing Georgia" Project.

The guy on the left has a Crabapple uniform on. Crabapple is also a little community in the area. You may recognize the name from a lot of Celestine Sibley’s books. Crabapple was her adopted community.

Also, there was a barbecue place in Crabapple with an old airplane’s tail sticking out the roof. I think the name of it was “Red’s BBQ.” It might still be there, we have not been there in years.

Bumper Sticker:

My Dachshund is smarter than your honor student.

Recent Movies

These are movies we saw recently with our Blockbuster movies by mail club we joined. Some were good, some were ok, and some some not so good or ok. But, don't trust anyone's opinion of a movie except your own... everybody looks at things through a different set of eyeballs and are filtered through different minds.

BEING THERE (1979), with Peter Sellers and Shirley MacLaine, is an older movie I have seen before but I wanted to see it again. I wanted to see it again because of the Biltmore Estate near Asheville, North Carolina, that I remembered was in it. We have been to the Biltmore several times, most recently, last December, I thought it was about a gardener who was a simple man who kept things simple by saying simple basic gardening 101 kind of things, “plants have to be nourished” and “they do need some fertilizer” which people were eating up like valuable metaphors. Suddenly the simper Gardner was in the news and being sought for interviews. Everything he said was taken for highest and cleverest meanings, which actually it appeared that he really only meant it to mean exactly what he meant. Like, “For growth you have to pull the weeds that take from the nourishment of the plant” or “There are seasons, spring and summer things grow in the winter and fall they become dormant” I least I thought he wasn’t talking straight and not metaphors - then in the last scene he worked across a pond… then I was baffled and the walking on water bit could change the whole meaning. It was good in a quiet subdued way.

THE ASSIGNATION OF JESSE JAMES w Brad Pitt is about the relationship between Jessie James (played by Brad Pitt) and his killer Bob Dalton played by Casey Affleck. Jesse James was a charismatic and unpredictable guy who seemed to have an extra sense to know when people are lying to him and all. He was also a down to earth family guy. As far as I know movie was historically accurate… pretty good too.


JESUS, MARY, AND JOEY was somewhat corny I thought, but that is just me. If you are a religious person you may enjoy this flick. It is about a big family and one of the boys in the family has questioned if there is a God or not, and just exactly how much doe He care and just how He pulled the strings to make things happen. I may have missed something, I feel asleep.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is about an overly shy guy and introvert who shuns off people trying to help him find a girl. He finally orders a plastic full size girlfriend (anatomically correct) off the Internet and he wheels him around town and treats her as if she was alive and witty. At first, the people in the small little community think he is bananas but after a while begin to accept her and respect her as a living being. It was a comedy.


MARTIAN CHILD is a movie about a shy little orphan kid who felt he was dropped on Earth my his Martial parents and one day will come back to claim him and his foster father, single, and their strained relationship. We got this one because we heard some good reviews about it….. that is the good thing about being a member of Netflicks or Blockbuster’s flick club, you get to see movies you other-wise would not waste the money on.

NATIONAL TREASURE 2. It is about hunting for the Hidden God City some meanies who belonged to a secret society that Lincoln shot at the Ford Theater. A lot of action in Indiana Jones style – a lot of action adrenaline pumping music too – to make it more exciting than it really was. Ho –hum.

Ostrich Mobile postcard

Dinah McCloud here.

I just wanted to show you a picture of me on my Ostrich back many years ago.

Then I was a pace setter, or a trend setter.

The man at the auto shop lent it to me for a loaner when I carried my roadster in for repairs.

I looked so debonair on this big bird with my head up and my nose pointed upward.

Then, I hopped off and marred up ankle deep in ostrich poot.

I made quiet a name for myself the next day at the homeless shelter, handing out ostrich burgers and ostrich stew.

Ta ta for now.