A Life In Four Colors (Part Twenty-Nine)

My growing fascination with Marvel Comics grew even stronger through the summer of 1965. Gary Steele had rapidly become my best friend, and that summer we were virtually inseparable. Either both of us were at his house, or both of us were at my house; it helped that we lived only a brisk ten minute walk away from one another, so we could wander from Marchmont Drive to Leon Street on a whim. And we were both positively fascinated by the Marvel Universe, with its ever-expanding links that made every book an interconnected part of a larger whole.

Today, comics are so continuity based that it may seem odd to imagine a time when continuity wasn't a vital part of comics. That's exactly the situation over at DC, however, where almost every comic was set a self-contained pocket universe, a corner of the DCU where interaction was pretty much nonexistent and books could be read in almost any order because the status quo was re-established by the last page of each and every issue. The stories were well-crafted, of course, but there was no sense of a larger reality. They'd try to establish that bigger picture with the annual JLA/JSA crossovers or the occasional Atom/Hawkman or Green Lantern/Flash crossover story, but even those adventures had no impact on the big picture.

The best way to understand it is to watch a syndicated episode of Leave It To Beaver or The Andy Griffith Show or Gomer Pyle or I Dream of Jeannie. Watch one episode and you've got the premise. Now watch other episodes in pretty much any order, and you realize that it doesn't matter. The premise is always preserved, nothing really changes, and the stories are designed to be appealing little vignettes. That's what made syndication so successful back then; we could watch those shows over and over again, in any order, and it made for comfortable viewing because we always knew what the situation was, how everyone was going to act, and how things would wrap up.

Not so with the Marvel Universe. Their war book, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, seemed to be set in its own WWII pocket universe... but then Sgt. Fury met Captain America, and then he met Reed Richards, and later on he turned up as a government agent assisting the Fantastic Four as they confronted the Hate-Monger, and a little while after that he became an agent (and then the director) of SHIELD.

Thor might show up in a Human Torch adventure--not as a guest star, but just making a cameo appearance for a panel or two. These characters all operated in the same world, after all, so it was likely that they'd cross paths from time to time.

That concept of continuity defined Marvel from early on. The company tried to establish corporate barriers, adding captions that one character appeared with permission of such-and-such publishing, but it was obvious that it was all one comics line, and there was a relatively small group of creators telling the stories of all these characters.

We were fascinated. We'd look for little clues as to how things fit together; we'd try to figure out just what Thor was doing when the FF were battling Dr. Doom, just to establish a greater time-line.

For junior high school kids looking for something a little more sophisticated, the Marvel Universe filled the bill perfectly. So by the summer of 1965, I was a Marvel Maniac. I bought other comics, but I did so because of my appreciation of the art form; Marvel was my comics passion.

A Life in Four Colors (Part Twenty-Eight)

The late spring and early summer of 1965 was probably the height of my personal golden age of comic books; I was twelve, about to turn thirteen, and was starting to eran a bit more money mowing lawns, running errands, gathering bottles for deposit, and doing other things that could generate comics money. For the first time I can remember, I had enough money to buy every comic I considered a must-read, with a few bucks left over to buy whatever else caught my eye.

Of course, the "must-reads" were every Marvel Universe book. By 1965, Gary Steele, John Ball, and I were all avid Marvel readers, and each of us hoped to collect an entire run of Marvel books. Between the three of us, we had accomplished that goal, although none of us was 100% complete as far as our personal collections were concerned.

Of course, the presence of a complete Silver Age Marvel canon (even though it was spread among three houses within a half-mile radius) meant that we spent a lot of time visiting one another, reading and re-reading those books until they had no hope of maintaining their condition. That's okay, though; 1965 predated the development of comic book supplies and the related emphasis on near perfection. If a book was intact and showed no signs of serious damage (major spine roll, tears, heavy markings, etc.), it was worth having as far as we were concerned.

Even better, the three of us pretty much memorized what the other guys needed. If we were trading books with Bobby Wear and we saw a few comics that filled holes in the other guys' collections, we'd either trade for them or call the other guys when we got home. If we were getting our monthly haircut at the Shorter Avenue Barber Shop and we saw a comic in their stack of reading material that someone was missing, we hid it until the other guy could get there and do a two-for-one swap. (That's how I got my copy of Strange Tales #135, one of the few issues of Strange Tales I never saw on the stands in Rome... but that may have been because I was still looking for a Human Torch cover and totally overlooked the UNCLE-esque SHIELD series launch.)

We were comrades in collecting, watching out for one another, sharing books, and sharing ideas. However, I had more in common with Gary than I had with John, and pretty soon I found myself spending more time with Gary and less with John. John's father was coming more ill-tempered, and both Gary and I felt awkward when we were there, so we simply quit going to John's house. Of course, John still saw us at either my house or Gary's house, but I suspect his father's increasing anger and intolerance for John's interest in comics was affecting John, too.

Gary and I also shared an interest in music and in science fiction, pulp adventure, and fantasy, none of which appealed to John. So it was no inevitable that, as childhood friendships developed and grew, John drifted away from our group beginning in the summer of 1965; by the end of the year, I saw John only occasionally and thought of him as more of a school friend than a comics buddy.

But oh, what a wonderful summer 1965 was for Marvel fans; the powerless FF joined by Daredevil to confront Dr. Doom in FF #s 39 & 40; the beginning of the Sub-Mariner's solo series in Tales to Astonish; the first Thor Annual; the Doctor Strange-Spidey crossover in Spider-Man Annual #2... These were just a few of the stories that captivated me that year, solidified my belief that Marvel was producing the best comics on the stands. And at same time, DC seemed to be in a bit of a slump, leading me to cut my DC buying to the occasional bat-book, Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, JLA, and Hawkman, with on occasional experimental purchase of Doom Patrol or Strange Adventures or Mystery in Space or Adventure Comics.

Meanwhile, I was becoming enthralled by the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and began looking for more ERB books than the few I had found at Coosa Valley Bookstore. This was the year my love of books began in earnest.

Now We're Just Talking Price

So what do you call a woman who'll sacrifice her values, sell her integrity, and do anything for money?

A democratic senator from Louisiana.

A Sick Joke

The democrat aristocracy in the House has now voted to force a government takeover of healthcare (but of course, in the true tradition of any aristocracy, they lawmakers and the President are exempt from this, having created for themselves a superlative health care system that gives them all the privileges and perks they'll deny the plebeian masses). This bill, if not stopped by the Senate, will destroy the American economy in its attempt to force Americans en masse to pay for health care for those who refuse to take responsibility for themselves.

It's a sad day for America--and I can only hope this is the catalyst to convince a lot of Americans to take America back from democrat control next November...

Confounder in Chief

Less than 24 hours after the President reminded us of the problem of putting an inexperienced, shallow, political hack in charge or the greatest nation in the world (this is the guy who can't even manage an appropriately solemn speech after 13 American soldiers are shot, choosing instead to offer an adolescent "shout out" to someone in the room who had received an award that the President can't even properly identify), he urges Americans not to "jump to conclusions" about the situation yesterday at Fort Hood.

Great advice from the man who created a furor by jumping to conclusions about a policeman doing his job when a potential break-in was reported. But of course, the Prez has balanced that by failing to reach any conclusions whatsoever regarding the request for more troops in Afghanistan, even though weeks have passed since the man he put in charge of that mission said that he needed those extra troops to do the job...

It'll be nice when we can get a real President in the office instead of this cardboard cutout...

Cash Gone, Clunkers Still in Office

The government's "cash for clunkers" program has proven to be a dismal failure, according to a report at Edmunds (click here for the full story).

Turns out our government spend $24,000 per car to give away $4500.

And there are some who actually (a) want these weasels managing health care, (b) believe for a moment that they can keep any program on budget, and (c) will actually reduce costs through savings?

Changing Lanes

For the past few years, I've had to own a van for work reasons. Our shipping group has been comprised of three stores, and no vehicle smaller than a van would have handled the number of boxes we had to pick up on an average week--and since I'm the guy who drives to the FedEx hub to pick up our books, I needed that larger vehicle.

Now, I've got the best van on the market--a Nissan Quest (and I can offer a detailed comparison between that, a Toyota Sienna, and a Honda Odyssey, having owned all three)--but it's still a van. That is, it's adequately comfortable with an above average sound system and car-like performance... but it's still not my vehicle of choice.

We considered the Buick Enclave--twice, in fact--but both times, I've been put off by some of the vehicle's rather unsophisticated technology (kludgy navigation system, mushy sound on anything other than CD/DVD) and its rather awkwardly designed cargo area (lots of room, but poorly configured).

Most of all, I've been put off by the sales people who work for Buick/GM. My problems with Carl Black Kennesaw and Heritage Buick/Cadillac were detailed a year or so ago. I tried Carl Black Alpharetta and Jim Ellis Chamblee in the past few weeks, and after what seemed like auspicious starts, things ground to a halt. Jim Ellis seemed interested, aggressive, and competitive until I looked at the vehicle... then all contact ceased. Finally, after nine days, they contacted me and said they had a vehicle that I would want... only they didn't. Somehow, he had jumbled my list of desired features. colors, etc. with someone else's, and said he'd recalculate. That was six days ago.

Carl Black Alpharetta seemed disinterested. I spoke with a salesperson who seemed eager to meet with me; then, when I showed up, he immediately handed me off to someone else who seemed unfamiliar with the Enclave. He answered what he could, but he seemed more interested in selling me the vehicle he had right then than in selling me the vehicle I wanted. (Makes me wonder why Buick offers a variety of options when no dealer wants to acquire them for the customer.)

The info I've read about the upcoming 2010 Acura MDX sounds intriguing. I enjoyed the Acura when I had it--fun to drive, bold lines, comfortable, great sound for an SUV. And now, for the first time in years, an SUV should be sufficiently large to meet my business needs at least three out of four weeks.

Don't know that I'll get one--but it's nice to know that I can make it work if the vehicle is sufficiently impressive. Guess we'll find out in December, when the 2010 MDX is slated for release.

Cool Foods

Tonight we had homemade chili for dinner--and of course, that means that we have enough left over to supplement two more meals: one tamale dinner, and one hot dog dinner.

Since the cooler temperatures got here, we've been making a lot more of my favorite "cool weather" meals, and it made me realize how much I prefer fall and winter--not only because of the temperatures, but also because of the foods that we tend to make during those season. So now, in no particular order, my favorite "cool foods."

(1) Chili
(2) Irish stew (somewhere in these pages I posted Mom's recipe for that, in fact)
(3) Homemade chicken noodle soup
(4) Susan's spaghetti and meat sauce (we have a number of different pasta recipes, but Susan's original spaghetti and meat sauce recipe--the one we've used for 38 years now--is still a cold weather favorite)
(5) Homemade vegetable soup (which we really should call vegetable beef soup, since we add a little beef to the recipe for flavor) and cornbread
(6) Turkey and dressing (I could eat it every week)
(7) Meat loaf (best served with Jamaican Hellfire Sauce, although Susan would vigorously disagree)

And the added benefit for all of these? They either add heat or humidity to the kitchen/great room area, a detriment in the summer but an asset in the fall and winter, when central eat is likely to dry out the air.

Don't Let Me Down

As anyone who knows me had probably assumed before I ever wrote this, I bought both the Beatles Mono and Stereo Box Sets back on September 10th (the one after 9/09, get it?). I haven't written about them because I wanted to take a while to listen to them and draw some conclusions before saying anything.

First off, I have to point out that this isn't a revelatory new release or anything; extreme statements by some fellow Beatles aficionados to the contrary, the 1987 CD releases weren't abhorrent in any way. They were a little flat, a little lifeless in places--even in comparison with other 1987 era mixes--but they weren't awful. Of course, the fact that the first four 1987 albums were done in a mixdown mono (not the true mono mix, not a stereo mix--sort of a variant mix in their own right) left a lot of fans (including me) dissatisfied. So I was glad to get these reissues.

Don't assume that I've waited 22 years for better versions of the Beatles albums, though. In the intervening years, I've transferred the first four stereo albums in my Mobile Fidelity boxed vinyl set to CD, so I have those songs in stereo; I've acquired the Dr. Ebbett's mixes and the Millennium mixes, enhanced versions of the original CDs tweaked by technologically advanced Beatles fans; the Purple Chick mixes, which include all sorts of bonuses, alternate takes, etc.; and the Capitol mixes of the first eight American Beatles albums, which is in many cases the way I actually prefer to hear these songs (the Dave Dexter remixes, as I've said before, were always punchier and richer in sound on those early discs than the comparable British original albums, and since that's what I heard hundreds of times in my childhood, some of those songs sound more "right" to my ears because it's the sonic signature that has been burned into my brain cells).

I listened to the stereo set first, because I prefer stereo to mono. The first two albums still sound thin; since most of the songs on those albums were recorded "instruments left, vocals right," there's little room to improve the bass resonance, for instance--all the instruments are packed together in one channel, and the dynamic range can only be tweaked so much. Voices are clearer, like a layer of gauze has been removed, but there's nothing remarkable here.

From the third album on, the sound begins to improve remarkably. Once the remastering engineers had multitracks to work with, they were able to do much more with bass response, drum crispness, vocal clarity, etc. The mid-period albums sound crisp and sharp and have a strong presence--but it's the last albums that sound the most improved. Sgt. Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour show some improvement, but the albums that really stand out are The Beatles (aka the White Album), Abbey Road, and Let It Be. The sound is energetic, punchy, and realistic in a way that the original CDs weren't; it comes across as if you're truly listening to a studio monitor mix rather than a standard CD.

(A couple of fans have created their own DTS 5.1 mixes from these albums, and the sound is quite impressive. There's enough stereo separation and instrumental clarity to make the 5.1 mixes seem quite believable; I think I've listened to those albums in quasi-5.1 as often as I've listened to them in stereo.)

The box set is quite nice, but there's nothing amazing about the package itelf. The features about the making of each album are intriguing, the booklets offer some great background info and rare photos, but the best package of all is the Box of Vision, a 12" x 12" album-sized box designed to hold all the stereo CDs plus their accompanying booklets and covers, along with an album-sized hardcover reproducing the album art in the size that it originally appeared. I bought the Box of Vision before I received the stereo set, so I already had a home for the discs as soon as they arrived.

The mono set is the more impressive package in terms of design. The CD covers are true miniature reproductions of the original album covers, and each CD is packaged in a protective plastic inner sleeve to prevent scuffing and scratching (yes, even after charging over $200 for the stereo set, they didn't even put the albums in protective plastic inner sleeves... pretty chintzy, huh?). But the problem is, these are mono mixes, and they simply don't have the resonance and the rich sound field of the stereo version.

I have a theory that a speaker can only reproduce complex sounds up to a certain levels before the instrumental sounds blur together to create a single-speaker sound that is an amalgam of all the instruments than the distinct sound of each instrument. Stereo spreads the instruments and voices over twice as many channels, so each speaker only has to reproduce half as many component sounds; mono requires each speaker to reproduce them all at one time, so instruments get buried in the mix. There are many mono mixes where I can't hear guitar bits very clearly at all, or piano lines get lost in the overall sound. The same songs in stereo distinctly sound each instrument, and I hear nuances that just aren't there in the mono.

Even so, it's good to have the mono mixes. These aren't just remixes; in some cases, they are different takes or different versions of the same song, altered in post-production with differing sound effects, slightly different mix speeds, etc. In truth, they are variant editions, and the completist in me sees the necessity of having both sets. Furthermore, the mono box set is the only place where you can get the legitimate stereo versions of Help and Rubber Soul, since George Martin remixed those albums for the stereo versions in 1987, creating another variant mix.

What I'm hoping for, of course, is that Apple and EMI will choose to release a 5.1 DVD-A version of these albums at some point. That would offer the clearest, most high-fidelity version of the albums possible, spread across six speakers so that each speaker can reproduce a smaller facet of the overall sound, creating a much greater fidelity. If you want to get an idea just how good that could sound, listen to the DVD-A version of the Beatles Love and you'll realize just how breathtaking a genuine 192kHz 5.1 mix could be. It seems absurd that every album by the Doors or Genesis or the Talking Heads could be available on DVD-A or SACD, but the body of work of the most influential band in rock history is only just now getting upgraded CD versions; there should have been a 5.1 DVD-A set offered on the same day as the remastered CDs. That's the set that will be the ultimate version of the Beatles music; everything until then is just an interim improvement.

Hey, Wait a Minute...

I think I would rather have had the old price on that Macbook Air...