I haven’t been able to read much long-form lately for a variety of reasons. As you’d expect, Brian Clopper’s 101 First Chapters is the perfect book in that regard.
I’ve known Brian casually for over 30 years as, to invoke Chris Staros’ phrase, a friend through comics — save the sizable gap between the days I could make it to conventions or at least hang out in various Internet forums and when I slowly reconnected with folks, if only by returning to online activity, having lost touch with so many for too great a stretch.
The Clopper oeuvre grew wildly across those decades. While he was already a disciplined, prolific author when interviewed for my All-Brian Issue of Comicology back in 2001, some time after releasing early comics work like Partners in PanDemonium, Bombastic, and Marshall: Godling of War, the sheer mass and pace of his output is staggering.
This Facebook post that I’m always happy to have show up in Memories is somehow
from a dozen years ago now.
My sister and her kids are visiting. We’re in Mom’s driveway playing with those little wrapped snappers you throw on the ground. My sister J momentarily blanks on both the word “grown-up” and the word “adult”.
I’ll be sharing an overdue post on Star Trek here in the next few months, phasers crossed.
Meantime, I have this. I was moved to file it away three years ago while reading a
bunch of DC’s supernatural anthologies, and now I guess I know why. Yes, Strange New Worlds had already launched, but — although not exactly ripped from the screen — the panel didn’t quite seem to resonate with anything until this past week’s episode, “The Griffin Incident”. I won’t explain since that feels unnecessary if you’ve seen it and obnoxious if you haven’t yet and want to. Spoilers are fine in the comments, however, as I would love someone to at least headcanon away the pink dress.
Panel from “The Mask of Medusa” in The Unexpected #218 © 1981 DC Comics. Script:
Robert Kanigher. Pencils, Inks: Vic Catan. Colors: Jerry Serpe. Letters: Unknown.
Related: Mr. Pope Hail • Arch-Ray Vision • Ozy Ozy Ozy
My guess is that Chuck has strict instructions not to interrupt the “Barbers’ Picnic”.
Also, Barbers’ Picnic is my new band name and probably one of the activities in the parlor cabinet in the hotel on Widow’s Bay.
Did you think I’d segue from Peanuts’ currently syndicated repeats into talk of The Pitt instead?
You don’t really have to sell me on a book called The Art of Jerry Ordway.
I mean, Jerry himself being part of it’s sorta key, but otherwise there’s very little that could dissuade me from plunking down my actual or virtual cash despite my own and the world’s travails of the day. On which more in a few moments.
The ads worked.
Not that it was entirely the commercials. I’d seen ads online, too, and come across mention of Harry’s in the past when looking up potential alternatives to my usual razors of choice. The quality of Gillette’s Mach 3 and Fusion Pro Glide that I was now buying at CVS didn’t seem to match what Rite Aid was selling ere they went out of business, with the little strip of aloe that soothes your shave and lets you know when
it’s time to replace your blade falling off long before it faded.
So when spots in high rotation during the World Baseball Classic this March proclaimed that Harry’s was finally making a model — Harry’s Plus — with aloe strips and a detail blade on the back of its multi-blade head like I was used to, I ordered the starter set of that new model with one cartridge and a small can of shave gel for just $10, with tax, no shipping charge. The most fundamental aspect of advertising is to let you know that a product exists and how to get it; my need was not being invented here. I cop to having appreciated the streamlined, sharp yet scrappy image the brand projected when doing that earlier search.
A lot happened in the weeks and months since that order was placed to change my opinion.
