WFMU's Beware of the Blog

"On the Air" NBC Radio Promo Comic from 1947

Jimmy's little sister had it right when she exclaimed as they listened to an elaborate radio dramatization, "It must take an awful lot of work and -- and people to put on a show like that!".  Jimmy himself remained unimpressed until he was reduced drastically in size by a manic and frightening anthropomorphous microphone and shown just how complicated and expensive the whole process really was.

Although this 16-page giveaway comic book put out by the National Broadcasting Company in 1947 is mainly a puff piece hyping all of the amazing material that one could dial up for free at home on their radios, it also stands as a fairly accurate guide to NBC procedures at that time.  Still, that evil little microphone character is just scary; no way around that.  We even get a glimpse of the early television broadcasting setup from New York.

So let's go on a guided tour of the most sophisticated radio organization at that time, with loads of thrills, chills, adventures, and you might even learn something along the way!   All as illustrated handsomely by Sam Glankoff, right after the jump!

"Music of Mystery" from Secret Mysteries #19, July 1955

No moon tonight? And you say that you can hear the faint and ghostly strains of an organ coming from - where? And played by - who? Strap yourself in tight for today's WFMU Comic Supplement, as we have a "Strange and baffling tale of mystery that defies human comprehension". 

Courtesy of Merit Publications, Inc. and its editor Adolphe Barreaux, a bit of post-comics-code toned-down horror and spookiness that features some of my favorite pseudo-gothic elements: a big old cobwebby scary house, and a dusty old organ that plays itself in the middle of the night. Join our unnamed private detective hero and his sidekick 'Sally' as he attempts to unravel the secret of the Music of Mystery - right after the jump!

"The Hiss Parade (with conductor Raymond Scat)"

Today's WFMU Comics Supplement Section shines a light on an interesting find: the ninth issue of 'From Here to Insanity', the Charlton Comics answer to MAD magazine, originally published as the April 1955 edition.  I had never seen famed composer and conductor Raymond Scott parodied in a comic book before, so this was a real shock when I stumbled upon it! In fact, this issue is full of music references, and I've included a single page feature and another short story from this same book, along with the featured tale which sends up the  'Plucky Strike Hiss Parade'.

The Hiss Parade yarn is bulging with 1955 pop culture references, most of them identifiable, but several that I can't quite put my finger on just who is being parodied, and I'm hoping our readers can help me out with those. Here in order of appearance is the group of players in this nutty story:

Our hero Raymond Scat, who is easy enough to peg - I had never thought of his ears as being all that large (see photo), but people did look much different than in real life on camera in those earlier days of cruder transmission technology, and also the colorist made him a blonde, but did retain his mid-fifties flat-top look;   the interviewer 'Dick Johnstown' - obviously drawn to resemble actor Jack Webb,  but just whose name is being joked with I'm not sure;   'all-knight DJ Vary Grayface' - I don't have any idea on this one -but it's probably easy for someone with a better knowledge of 1950s DJs than me to identify;   'Spooky Lambsclub' (series regular Snooky Lanson);   singer 'Dorothy Collars' - there's an easy one - Dorothy Collins, the regular singer on most seasons of the show and the wife of host Raymond Scott);   'Givesall McKillsme' - (another series stalwart- Gisele MacKenzie);   'Van Monotone' (love these names!) - no idea who he's supposed to be;  an unbilled Lee Liberace sticks his mug in there for one panel;  and in the third piece shown below, "What in the Heck is a Mambo?" we see Groucho Marx, who delivers a pointed MAD magazine reference and tells a character who says 'mad', "That was the lucky word!"

No writer credits (and this is some fudged-up 'humor' writing - those MAD imitators had their work cut out for them, the scripts in this book are almost completely incoherent), but the book was produced in the Al Fago studio (so he may well have had a hand in the writing), and the cover and single page feature were drawn by Fred Ottenheimer, who also drew for Charlton's other MAD clone "Eh!",  and the two full-length stories were drawn by famed 1950s-1960s comic book artist Dick Ayers.

Let's take a look at this odd and insane magazine right after the jump!

"Harmony of Horror"

"Did you ever hear a melody of murder, a dirge of doom, a tune of terror?  Heh-heh!    Sharpen you ears and they will catch that strain right now!  Many things are possible in this strange world.  I should know ... I'm one of those things myself!  So harken closely and get the wits scared out of you!"

Thus goes the cheerful introduction to another happy little WFMU comics supplement, courtesy our host The Thing, coming from his very own comic book "The Thing" number five, from the October/November 1952 issue.

It appears that mayhem of every nasty kind has been perpetrated in the comics world by music and musicians, so let's look in on another poor soul done in by one of nature's most deadly forces -- right after the jump!

"Favorite Fiddler!" (May 1947)

In todays Comics Supplement we'll learn a bit about the early years of synchronized film sound and we'll find out about the USA's favorite fiddler (in 1947 at least).

About all that we know about the featured TRUE Comics is that they were produced as a subsidiary to Parents' Magazine, which was edited at the time by Clara Savage Littledale (about whom there is more information here, and also over here). The books themselves were edited by Harold C. Field, and art-directed by Ralph O. Ellsworth. Artists and writers were not credited (although a frequent writer for the series was Louis Wolfe, so he may well have scribed these two stories). They are fun books, and well-produced, though.

Let's check out excerpts from two issues of the 1940s right after the jump-!

Space Ace and "The Harp of Death!"

Today we'll take the WABAC machine to 1952 and go rocketing with Space Ace Jet Black and his pal Jak Tal the Jack of Stars, where we'll meet some really strange characters and a few sexy space-women as well as the mysterious Harpist of Death himself.

All from the one and only issue of Space Ace magazine, which is full of very odd stories and art, as produced by an unknown writer plus famous (and prolific) Golden Age artist Fred Guardineer and edited by the wonderfully-named Raymond C. Krank.

Let's join our heroes in their dangerous adventure with a musical theme right after the jump!

Clyde Crashcup Invents Hi-Fi

"When all's said and done Leonardo, there is such a thing as too much realism in hi-fi!"

Although spoken in 1964,  the modern quest for high definition imagery leads down some thorny paths as well. Today we find our protagonist 'Clyde Crashcup', a Ross Bagdasarian creation, in the fifth book of his short five-issue run, seeking to improve his hi-fi set with mixed results.

From the John Stanley / Irving Tripp creative team that wrote and drew so many terrific 'Little Lulu' stories for Dell Comics comes this quirky series about a 'real gone' scientist and would-be inventor, adapted from his segments on the televised cartoon program The Alvin Show between October 1961 and September 1962 as voiced by Shepard Menken (in his impression of actor Richard Haydn).

Discover who really put the 'woof' in your woofers right after the jump!

A Singing Barber in the Battle of the Juke Boxes

"It started in a barber shop in Warren, Ohio..."  Today we meet the methodical man
who spurned cooked-up publicity feuds and gimmicks and made a sensation with only his pipes and his handsome five-foot nine-inch, 160-pound cleft-chinned self. 

You'll guess soon enough who beat Crosby, Sinatra, and even Dick Haymes in the Billboard polls during the month of this issue of Picture News, issue #2, from February 1946 (artist and writer unknown).

We'll also learn about the wacky DJ from Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey who insults his radio sponsors on the air every morning - and they love it!

All this excitement awaits in our sixth Comic Supplement Section here at BOTB, come and join us right after the jump!

"The Record of Doom"

You've heard the one about the songwriter who was also a disc jockey, have you, bunky?  Today's sordid little tale shows the problems inherent in splitting your talents this way.  We've examined songs that kill and maim before here at BOTB, and it seems that along with soothing savage breasts, some records just have nothing but ill will to convey. 

The forthcoming tasty yarn is called "The Record of Doom", by an unknown writer and drawn by Bill Ely. Originally published in 1956 in the April-May issue (#2) of Tales of the Unexpected.

The featured song of doom "Blue Monday" actually has a real-life pedigree as a genuine crowd-thinner for your radio audience, with some information regarding that to be found here. I guess some folks need a little music to get them into the proper mood to do themselves in. I suppose you should be careful if you plan to put this into the random-play selections in your music player or online radio - it may have grave consequences...

Join me here after the jump to find out the whole story about this charming number!

"How to Draw 1000 Funny Faces" Cartooning Instruction Record by Art Ross

Budding cartoonists and incurable doodlers take note: today's record will sharpen those skills!

From the front cover: "This amazing FUNograph record and cartoon course supplies countless hours of amusement for kids from six to sixty!  Anyone capable of writing his name can learn to draw more than a thousand faces."

No foolin'! This 1946 record by Art Ross (on the Funnyface Records, Inc. label, out of Forest Hills, NY) and the accompanying instructional charts will show you how!

Below is the record itself, so get out your pencils and paper and get ready to draw yourself raw - instructions follow right after the jump!

                               How to Draw 1000 Funny Faces

"A Bored Young Lawyer Makes the Nation Ring with His Tunes" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hoagy Carmichael Bio from Picture News #1

"To Boys and Girls, Brothers and Sisters, Mothers and Dads: PICTURE NEWS looks the same as other books, but with appearance and method of presentation the likeness ends. PICTURE NEWS reports the news, the news with its endless appeal and its prophecy of things to come, in action and speaking and color pictures.

Drawn pictures in bright colors with balloons, which are comics, have thrilled, amused, informed and taught. The U.S. Army has used them, so have important advertisers, and schools are beginning to know their value.

Most of these comic books have their virtues. Their millions of eager readers devour the drawn stories of dramatic adventures and sudden success. And many a comic character has become better known and admired and more widely imitated than Cousin Jack or Aunt Tillie.

Why is this so? Because the leading comic book characters personify the energy, dash, unbeatable spirit and the pure motives of our American ideal. And it is this ideal and that spirit that will make America enduringly great.

Now PICTURE NEWS for the FIRST time uses this new medium of action pictures and color and dialogue to make life real on the printed page. And life, as we know, has its ups and downs. It is what it is - life. And we, being what we are, work and play, and sometimes suffer and die to make life more secure and better. Everything that happens is news. Reporting it, is an important job. To PICTURE NEWS, it is a challenge."     (from the "January 1, 1946" introduction to the first issue)

That is an excerpt from the long inside-front-cover mission statement for the new book, and in it, among other things, we'll learn about musician, composer and actor Hoagy Carmichael in a tidy little four-page tale. Come feast your eyes and glut your soul - right after the jump.

"Disc Jockey" by Bob Powell

Today we begin our new Comic Book Series at Beware of the Blog with a jazzy little five page yarn ripped from the pages of Black Cat Mystery issue number 46,  cover dated October 1953. We'll meet Sam Webb, the owner of radio station WOW, a hard-working but unpopular on-air personality, and join him for one of his last broadcasts.

This tender tale was written and drawn by the prolific and unusual Bob Powell (1917 - 67), born Stanley Pulowski, who learned the ropes of the comic book business in the 1940s at the famous Will Eisner studio, over in Tudor City, NY.  His work during the period this story comes from was often inked by Howard Nostrand and I suspect that this piece was finished by Nostrand.  So settle back in your radio chair and enjoy this slice of broadcasting history - right after the jump.

Minicomics vs. Rob Liefeld

Comics are the greatest story-telling medium ever, combining words and art to build a narrative. But minicomics are like haiku: They set a mood, make a point, surprise the reader— communicate—in a spare, evocative way. Being small makes them seem more intimate; the fact that they are often produced by hand by the artist/writer makes them very personal. Minicomics may be twee, but they are rarely pretentious.

I have a small (obviously) collection, tiny booklets I’ve picked up here and there. One of my favorites is “Things I Saw and Did, Pt. 1” by dom the deer, who made a little pamphlet of her 2010 vacation in Paris and London, not because she had some heavy realization to impart but just because she had an impulse to share the fun. It’s very sweet.

Meanwhile, in Europe, where comix art is more generally appreciated, the folks at B.ü.L.B. in Geneva had the idea of issuing minis in box sets. They’ve been publishing sequential art since 1997, and apparently making a living at it—something that is unlikely ever to happen here in the US. I assumed their government was supporting them, because that’s the sort of thing governments do over there, but they claim to be unsubsidized, and their “manifesto” gives a shout-out to the D.I.Y. ethos of mid-80s hardcore, especially straightedge. (I’m reading a Google translation from French, though, so who knows?) In the past, I’ve picked up a couple of B.ü.L.B boxes at MoCCA and enjoyed them very much.

Each boxed set has five 1¼” x 2¾” 22-page accordions “bound” with a rubber band, each by a different artist, some well-known here (Chris Ware, Jad Fair, Ivan Brunetti), others not so much. Recently, B.ü.L.B sent me a copy of Box 2W Set Y (Charles Burns, etc.), which is how I discovered the work of the Swiss/German collaborative duo It’s Raining Elephants. Their mini, “Sunrise,” was my favorite of the set.

Thanks to the Interwebs, you can find and buy minicomics without having to hang around the fringes of some distressing comic convention. If you want to buy American mass-market comics, though—well, actually, why would you want to? I’ve found that most people have a dim idea that there’s still a spinner rack full of Richie-Rich and Superman and Caspar and Fantastic Four … somewhere … maybe at the grocery store? Isn’t that where they used to have them? If the latest news coverage of a superhero who’s “died” or come out as gay or whatever does cause you to want to go buy a comic, you pretty much have to call a special phone number to locate a comic-book retailer, and then drive to a special store in a sad little strip mall, and then deal with the pimply-faced 17-year-old loser who, no matter how many Eisner awards you have, will call you “Ma’am” as if it were an insult. Well, maybe not that last part, that might just be me, but the rest of it, absolutely. And then, when you actually find a comic book, you see: Rob Liefeld.

Bill Hanstock and Brandon Stroud have written a couple of brilliant articles reviewing the worst of Rob Liefeld’s "art," which must have been extremely difficult since it’s all so horrendous, plus they actually had to look at so much of it that it’s a wonder they haven’t both gone blind in self-defense. Here’s Part I, and here’s Part II. In Part II they say, “In the years between 1986 and 2011, not once did an editor crack open a FedEx package containing Liefeld's art, slide out the inked pages, and say, "What the shit am I looking at?" For 25 years, just "Beautiful! Send this to the letterer! Wouldn't change a thing!" So I guess what I'm saying is ... maybe Rob Liefeld isn't history's greatest monster?”

That is correct. Yes, that’s exactly what happens. Mainstream comic book editors are wonderful examples of what Erroll Morris refers to as the Anosognosic’s Dilemma: They don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know that they don’t know anything about art, because they don’t know that there’s anything to know. Same with writing. Same with editing. Same with any kind of business management. To know these things is not a requirement for the job. What comic book editors know is, for example, who inked issue 28 of Secret Origins in 1988.

It was Bob Lewis, inking over Rob Liefeld.

 

The Heretic Children Of The God Emperor of Dune Messiah

A strange coincidence when you are writing about someone, up against a deadline, and they die. No time to go back and make it a memorial, no point in going forward with what would now be an obsolete piece. A stranger coincidence in that the now never-completed post was to be about a never-completed project of Jean "Moebius" Giraud, the legendarily failed film collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky: Dune.
What follows is a free-imagining of a re-imaginging of the negated future of that impossible past:

E.S.P. TV Episode #9: Erica Magrey and YOU

Going back a bit, as we prepare the new E.S.P. TV episode #12 taped last week at Roulette in Brooklyn for their Xperimental Love Fest, to bring you this...

E.S.P. TV #9 taped late last year at The Schoolhouse and featuring performances by Erica Magrey and Brooklyn synth duo YOU. Animations also by Clara Kim and Amy Lockhart courtesy of Aboveground Animation and video by Ania Diakoff.

 

From SCREW to Screamin' Jay and Beyond: The Comic Art of Avi Spivak

"That's probably the hardest I've worked on any project," says Avi Spivak, the illustrator behind Norton Records' recent issue of Kicksville Confidential.  And if you've seen Kicksville, released this past October, you'll understand what he means by "hard work" -- the Brooklyn-based artist's painstaking renderings of Norton stars are as detailed as they are funny, and they're clearly the toil of someone with a deep interest in u-ground comics and gutsy r'n'r alike.  In Spivak's enthusiastic scrawl -- part Kaz, part MAD, part G. Panter, part urban daydrunk stupor -- some of the Norton stable's more colorful tales come to life, and we see, for example, Hannibal's fabled ride through Midtown Manhattan on an elephant, a Screamin' Jay Hawkins/Esquerita street-level fistfight and Hasil Adkins's rural shootout.

Spivak's resume prior to Kicksville is no less impressive.  In addition to commercial art and various other projects, like the mural he painted outside of the now-defunct Mars Bar, he's contributed to Maximum RocknRoll, The Scientist, Vice -- and Al Goldstein's SCREW, for which he illustrated a cover in 2006.

Brian Chippendale's Black Pus Live on WFMU (MP3s, Video, T-Shirt)

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

This live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome Biker T-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus:

Ship Shaping 2012 In Shots So Far

I haven't gone to as many shows as I'd like yet this year, but I will be heading off on the 70,000 Tons of Metal Cruise next week; expect a special and enough photos to get you seasick! Here are a some shots from some shows I did manage to get out to!  

The three below = Night Birds at Lulu's in Brooklyn. I didn't get any pix of Nuclear Santa Claust, but should have; they're a great band as well who were also on the bill along with the Livids, Foster Care and Pampers. Night Birds were frantically nonstop with their faster-than-Southern-California hardcore and surf mix. It was guitarist Mike Hunchback's last gig with the band; fear not, folks, a replacement has already been working out with them, and he landed on the floor and played his heart out on his back for the fans' sneakers and boots.

Many more pics and commentary below!

Entr’acte: The Rodeo Clown

 

So: Bullriding. You get on the bull in a chute, and the gate opens, and the bull comes out and bucks, and you stay on as long as you can, and then you fall off. Or, if you manage to stay on for eight (8!) seconds, then they blow a horn and you can jump off. And then what happens? You’re on the ground, in an enclosed area, with a pissed-off 2200-pound animal with big testicles, big horns, and also possibly ’roid rage. (There was a bull-doping steroids scandal in 2007.)  For your protection, they bring in the clowns.

There's A Super Genius In All Of Us

In February of 1990, I xeroxed 2 pages of the New Yorker magazine, to hold onto what I considered one of the funniest pieces of writing ever. It was titled Coyote V. Acme and was penned by regular New Yorker writer and NJ resident, Ian Frazier. In a nutshell, and I'll post part of it after the jump, Wile E. Coyote, plaintiff sues the Acme Company for product liability and the injuries he sustained over his career at Warner Brothers Entertainment. It's written in legalese and describes so well some of the cartoons and shenanigans involved, that you'll be able to be there with Mr. Coyote when he endures a violent feet-first collision with a boulder. Frazier published a book bearing the same name in 1996; a collection of his short humorous pieces, and has other books to his name, some humor collections like Coyote V. Acme, others full length adventures. I was reminded of the original piece the other day and wanted to share some of it, since it's been sitting xeroxed in my file cabinet in the FUN folder for decades. Ian's books are available through several online retailers. This time of year can be one of reflection and I'd like to look at the attempts of Mr. Coyote to capture his prey over the years, and the purity of his actions. Wile E. Coyote; Genius, and at some point in the Roadrunner cartoons, upgraded to Super Genius, was dedicated and single minded. He'd have made a great employee at the time of his upswing into the public eye. He was inventive beyond belief, and even when the same item would malfunction three radically different ways, he would remain a loyal customer of the Acme Company. Brick and mortars would die for a shopper like him! He is a reminder to all of us that perseverance and hard work pays off, or at least keeps you gainfully employed, and that there's a super genius lying in wait inside all of us. Perhaps it just takes an anvil to the head!  There was a response to the article published in 1995, I'm not certain of the source, which more or less takes the stand that since our beloved Mr. Coyote quite often looked directly at the camera before sustaining injuries that the Acme Company's products caused, that he was faking the extent of his physical damage. Imagine that!