"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony."
William Henry Channing
"We are the music-makers, / And we are the dreamers of dreams, / Wandering by lone sea-breakers, / And sitting by desolate streams; / World-losers and world-forsakers, / On whom the pale moon gleams: / Yet we are the movers and shakers / Of the world forever, it seems."
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
"A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor."
George Bernard Shaw
{ Drew Dobbs / aka "Listener Mindwrecker" } : What an irony that when I first began to blog here (in January 2009) I had just completed a move across country that required leaving behind three-quarters of my record collection, so that I began to run out of amazing material rather more quickly than I would have liked, and eventually switched over altogether into this comic book-related series. Thanks again to Otis Fodder, who ushered me into the honorable position of bi-weekly blogging at BOTB. It IS often all in who you know. This will apparently be the next-to-last post of mine here and so I'm going to pour a lot into these last two (or perhaps I'll squeeze in an extra one), as far as content. Since I am always prepping future blog posts well in advance, there is a pile of sort-of-related things left to present here, and it will be a little bit of a jumble sale.
Today, we'll be going through the rest of the six-issue run of "Juke Box Comics" (we have presented some bits from the first two issues here before) from the late 1940s and combing out the best from those lovely books, as well as one small piece in a similar vein from "True Comics" #75.
A lot of fun stuff awaits -- right after the jump!
The art is by the justly-famed Jimmy Thompson.
Next we have Ella Fitzgerald the "Cinderella of Song", as rendered by Alex Toth.
Whew! Not one of Alex Toth's shining moments on that last story! Well, he was rather young when he did that piece, his later style is a lot easier on the eyes.
Next let's slip over to a different magazine series for a moment, specifically to True Comics #75, cover dated February 1949, and a little biography of "Tee Dee" (and his quarreling brother). No artist clues on this one yet.
OK - that digression complete, now back to Juke Box Comics, and the final issue, number six (we'll be coming back to issue number five - I'm saving it for last).
This one is cover dated January 1949, and the lead story is again drawn by Jimmy Thompson (with cover art by Ed Moore).
Obviously a good thing that Lionel got into doing music for a living, he didn't seem cut out for 'regular' work, did he?
Next we have a Phil Berube illustration accompanying some sheet music.
Here's a single-pager from that issue, again by Berube.
Winding up our selections from issue #6, here we have Desi Arnaz (!) as drawn by little-known cartoonist Chu Hing.
What a shame this book only ran six issues, it's such a fun series.
Now we'll back up to issue number five, from November 1948, a book that stunned me when I first read it, as it features one of my favorite musical acts ever, and a band I NEVER expected to see portrayed in a comic book! But first, let's go to the top of the book and start with Alvino Rey, with art by Ed Moore, who also did the front cover.
How's about some Lawrence Welk-style adventure (it's rather like a Scooby Doo story, in fact), as drawn by Jimmy Thompson? Well, heck yeah!
Here we have Cab Calloway in a cute little story, as drawn by Jerry Fasano.
And here's the feature that floored me - The Three Suns! I'm a huge fan of the once-obscure group, especially their work with Charles Albertine, the gifted arranger. This story is signed by "Jay". The art has a familiar look, in that it reminds me of a couple of artists from back then, but it has not been positively identified.
I love that little Three Suns tidbit above - of course they would bring along tools to repair electronic stuff - that's just good showmanship and planning!
And there you have it, now with this post, along with our previous ones on this magazine series, here, and here, we've presented all of the best bits from these comics. I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I did picking them out and cleaning up the files.
Well, sadly, only one more post to go here in Beware of the Blog's Comic Supplement, but I'll cook up a doozy for us, that's for sure; even though it will be a slightly-disguised "floor sweepings" kind of post to use up all of the goodies that I've been saving to display here.
It has been quite a ride, and the last awesome mile is yet to unfurl, in one week here at the same place!
Don't miss it! For comments and chat you can always reach me by emailing [email protected].
Thanks for all your posts. You and Bob Purse kept the FMU blog flame alive after everyone else moved on. I discovered FMU in 2004, about a year before the blog launched, I've followed the station and the blog since then.
I've been a long time lurker, but never bothered to comment before. I had to now, seeing that the the end is here. Thanks again, Mindwrecker, and all the past posters as well!
Posted by: em2ce | July 29, 2015 at 01:30 PM