Thanks, Mr. Mooney....

...for producing some of my favorite Silver Age comics. I have wonderful memories of your work on Supergirl (it was the first long-form continuity story arc I can remember, in fact; from the time she began in her own backup series until her world debut in Action #285, Supergirl's transition from trainee to heroine was one of my favorite stories, and I remember looking for missing parts to find out what happened next). I thought your work on Tommy Tomorrow was phenomenal. I loved your Superman/Batman stories in World's Finest.

I wish I could have said this to Jim Mooney in person, but he died yesterday at the age of 88 or 89 (I don't know when in 1919 he was born). Mooney was one of a decreasingly small number of comic book legends who helped to shape my love for the medium.

Like Curt Swan, Mooney was a consummate illustrator, a man whose fluid line captured motion and vitality while at the same time depicting emotion and humanity. He could draw te ordinary and make it look dramatic; I always thought he would have been a wonderful comic strip artist, had he chosen to go that way.

I heard rumors one time that, to amuse himself, Mooney would pencil his drawings of Supergirl in the nude, adding the costumes at the inking phase; I have no idea if it's true or not, but it made for a great story.

Mooney worked at Marvel for years, but I will always think of him as a DC artist; along with Curt Swan and Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson and Mike Sekowsky, he helped to define the clean DC look of the early Silver Age.

Happ'ly Ever Aftering...

Remember that list of things I'd like to see on DVD?

Well, strike one title from the list.

It turns out that Camelot, the Richard Harris version that I had remembered so fondly from the early 1980s, is actually available on DVD--and I've already placed my order. You can order a copy for yourself right here if you'd like to...

This production features an older, more wistful version of Arthur, and I thought it worked quite well. I had always thought it was broadcast on Showtime, so I had searched for it as a Showtime production; once Brett told me it was HBO, I changed my search terms to HBO Camelot 1982 and there it was!

Anna Naps

While Mischa is always ready for rowdiness, Anna is a docile charmer whose sleeps with angelic innocence. Here, she's taken up residence atop a footrest in front of Susan's chair; she loves to sleep close by Susan, keeping her company as Susan stitches on her needlework. Anna is a remarkably gentle, empathic girl who frequently amazes me with her ability to instantly tune in to my or Susan's emotions. We've owned many cats, but none more gentle or loving.

Mischa Dozes

Here, Mischa takes up a frequent evening position atop her favorite scratching post, dozing with eyes slightly open so as to be ready to take full advantage of any opportunities for mischief that might arise. She's a charming girl, but she can go from indolent to hyperactive in a fraction of a second, and for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Whatever Happened to?...

Barry Windsor-Smith?

It's been more than thirty-five years since he rose to prominence as a superstar artistic talent with his work on Marvel's Conan the Barbarian; since then, he has become one of those elite "artist's artists" whose work is cited as a major influence by many... but like Jeff Jones and Jim Steranko, he's done very little in recent years. His last major spate of work came during the Valiant days, when he returned to regular comics series work. He was rumored to be working on a Superman graphic novel that never came about; other than that, he's been pretty much absent from comics.

Apparently, he hasn't abandoned the field, though; according to his website, he's well into another project, Monsters (and I think this was the same name as a project he was once reported to be producing for Vertigo, but I don't see any publisher linked to the graphic novel now, so I could be wrong). According to his description, Monsters "explores the disastrous effects of a Nazi program of genetic engineering, discovered at the close of World War II, upon two American families." There are no lengthy segments to give a feel for the story, but there are some enticing pieces of art, including the one I've included here.

I miss Windsor-Smith's work. He is a distinctive talent, an artist who took comics illustration (and fantasy illustration in general) in a pre-Raphaelite-influenced direction that had not been explored in the field previously. He is one of the few artists whose work is intensely evocative; not only does he create a unique look with his art, he also creates a distinctive mood with each piece. It's hard not to have an emotional response to his work--and to me, that's one of the most telling signs of artistic greatness.

Not sure what he's doing to fill his days now, but whatever it is, I hope he's enjoying it... and I hope that, at some time, he'll return to illustration with a major new project.

MIA

Things that should be on DVD but aren't:

Batman (the Adam West series from the 60's, of course)
T.H.E. Cat (short-lived Robert Loggia tv series)
African Queen (Bogart)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
Let It Be (Beatles)
Every season of Everwood (only one was released on DVD)
Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (TV series)
Work Is a Four-Letter Word (truly wonderful offbeat British David Warner film)
Batgirl (Yvonne Craig TV series)
Camelot (Showtime or HBO production from 1980 or so)
The Second-Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World (great, rarely seen film starring Tom Adams as Charles Vine, the second-best... well, you know. Here's the trailer)

Cat-astrophe

Well, we made the drive to Forest Park and to the cat show...

To say that the State Farmer's Market is a dismal, disgraceful facility would be an understatement. Offered the opportunity to stay there, the Joad family would have kept on driving. The state should be ashamed to own such squalor, much less to open it to the public. I ended up feeling sorry for the visitors and the cats for having to endure such conditions.

And the little bit of Forest Park we saw was scarcely better; it's hard to imagine this as it once was, a nicely maintained suburb on the way up.

There were some lovely cats to be seen, including a few Siberians and a virtual army of Bengals, along with the ubiquitous Maine coon cats that populate every cat show. Also saw a few very attractive Persians, but their ranks were surprisingly thin at this show. Virtually 15% of the cats there were Bengals, for some reason--and that's odd, considering the paucity of Bengals at the Gwinnett show last year.

However, if you hear that people are getting out of farming in Georgia, I suspect it's because they'd rather change vocations than possibly having to visit the State Farmer's Market sometime...

Lookin' for Fun and Feline's Groovy

I think Susan and I are going to head down to Forest Park for a cat show this afternoon. (And no, we're not shopping for another cat... I just like to look at cats of all types, so a cat show will always pique my interest.) I haven't been to Forest Park in many years--not since we used to visit a friend of mine, Rich Garrison, when he had a house in that area--so we may use the opportunity to drive around a bit and see how the area has changed over the past three decades. (Has it really been that long since those bygone Rich Garrison years?...)

The biggest problem with cat shows, of course, is that I end up wanting to take home oodles of cats--and I don't think that would be very popular with Anna or Mischa. Still, there's plenty of fun to be had in looking.

All The News That's Fitna...

There's a very informative short film out there called Fitna, produced by Geert Wilders; it offers some disturbing insights into the violent and brutal nature of Islam. Unfortunately, you mibht have trouble finding it, because Network Solutions shut down the first site set up for internet users to view the film in response to threats of Muslim violence if they allowed it to be run. So Liveleak posted it there for a while, but they took it down because of threats of Muslim violence if they allowed it to be viewed.

Thankfully, there's this thing called Bittorrent, and so far the Muslims threatening violence haven't figured out exactly who to threaten in order to shut it down.

Don't overlook the irony here: the response to the existence of Fitna proves exactly the point that Wilders was making.

Feeling Flaky

Ever find yourself really wanting something, even though you don't have the slightest idea what motivated the desire?

Tonight, it's coconut cake.

I love coconut cake. I love pretty much anything coconut, for that matter... but when it comes to cake, there is nothing better than coconut. And for some reason, tonight I can almost taste that dense, rich, whice-icing-overloaded-with-coconut cake that Mom used to make for me.

It's been a little over six and half years since I had coconut cake... that's the last time that Mom made one for me. But tonight, I can remember the texture, the taste, the touch of sugary crispness to that icing, the faintest hint of graininess to the sugared coconut, the extra moistness of the bottom layer of the cake as the dense sweetness settled...

Coconut and me, we go way back...