INTERESTING LINKS: Allan Holtz’s Library of Congress Survival Guide: October 16th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM: Allan Holtz at The Stripper’s Guide has been recounting his recent comics research trip to the Library of Congress, and has many tips for wading through the bureaucratic nightmare of getting what you want out of the LOC. Part I here, Part II here.

Here is a choice quote from Mr. Holtz:

“I really can’t stress enough how important it is to stay on the good side of these people. If you annoy them, and they are VERY easy to annoy, and they can make the rest of your time there a living hell. There are a practically infinite number of rules that they can choose to enforce if they so decide, and you will run afoul of them pretty much no matter what you do. In fairness I think I understand the reasoning behind it all. If you’ve spent a lot of time in research libraries you will have noticed that they tend to attract a certain percentage of weirdos and nuts. The LoC is no exception, and once it becomes obvious to the staff that they have one of these on their hands, they use their deadliest weapons — that laundry list of vague rules, some of which they come up with on the spur of the moment, to gradually convince these fruit loops to take their craziness elsewhere. I’ve seen the strategy put into action and it is remarkably effective.”

INTERESTING LINKS: Norm Saunders Featured at Comics Should Be Good: October 15th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

Comics Should Be Good at Comic Book Resources has been posting a lot of good stuff lately. They recently did a feature on golden age cover artist Norman Saunders, who I’ve always been very fond of. Saunders is best known as the painter behind the notorious Mars Attacks! trading cards of the sixties, but he had a long history of comic book and pulp covers before that. He’s like a psychotronic Norman Rockwell… I can’t get enough of his stuff. I’m particularly fond of the covers he did for the Ziff-Davis G.I. Joe series (the first incarnation, I believe pre-toy, of G.I. Joe), where G.I. Joe is always portrayed as a goofy, smiling, killing oaf, genially slaughtering Koreans during the Korean War (often with a flower on his helmet). Click either of the images to go to the article.

INTERESTING LINKS: Krazy Kat in the Kolumbia Kartoons at Uncle John’s Crazy Town: October 14th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM: Uncle John’s Crazy Town has been posting a lot of amazing looking stills from old Columbia Krazy Kat cartoons. I have always arbitrarily & stupidly dismissed these cartoons without watching them, as they totally ignored the “source material”… George Herriman’s brilliant Krazy Kat comic strips. It appears that in spite of their apparent disdain for or dismissal of Herriman’s work, their cartoons stand on their own as something werra werra interesting. From seeing the stills he has posted, they look pretty amazing… I’m going to have to see what Columbia Krazy Kats I can hunt down on the internet. Check out the short clip of the devious looking mesmerist doing his thing from the Krazy Kat cartoon Svengarlic by clicking the above image… and then check out the rest of the blog to see Kat stills.

INTERESTING LINKS: Comics Code Censorship, Before and After, at The Jack Kirby Museum Website :October 10th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

An example of Comics Code Editing

The Jack Kirby Museum brings us the fascinating post “The Most Poorly Reworked Story in the History of Comics,” an examination of the differences in one story published before and after the censorious Comics Code was implemented. Click the above image to go there.

INTERESTING LINKS: How to Pass Unpopular Legislation: October 8th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM: Boing Boing reports that some US Congresspeople were threatened that martial law would be imposed if the bailout bill didn’t pass. That’s one way to pass unpopular legislation!

INTERESTING LINKS: The Professional Monkey Man: October 7th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED LINK: Monkeys in the News brings us the story of a professional Monkey Man. Click the above image to go there.

INTERESTING LINKS : Fits in the Palm of Your Hand : September 29th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM: In his Pop! column, George Khoury at Comic Book Resources brings us a couple true tales of kids who ordered monkeys out of the backs of comic books. Yes, that’s right kids, for less than 20 smackers, and as recently as in the early seventies, you could buy an actual live monkey from the back of a comic book, shipped in a box to your door half-crazed and covered in its own shit. Amazingly, this went on for years. I wonder how many of these were shipped to the wrong addresses. Click the image below to read the story.

INTERESTING LINKS: Bob Staake’s LINGO: September 26th, 2008

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TODAY’S FEATURED LINK:
Drawn! points us to LINGO, an amusing looking take on the game BINGO by illustrator Bob Staake designed to deflect some of the pain of watching this season’s presidental debates. Print them out if you’re the sort of masochist inclined to put yourself through watching presidential debates.

INTERESTING LINKS: Strongbad’s 200th Email: September 25th, 2008

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Congratulations to Strongbad on answering his 200th email. Click the above image to view #200. Thanks to Metafilter for bringing this to my attention.

INTERESTING LINKS: Google Books Now Embeddable… Have Some Cartoons Magazine: September 23rd, 2008

Google Books are now embeddable… so I think I’ll give it a try. Here is a bound volume of Cartoons Magazine Vol. 6, no. 4 (Oct. 1914) for your enjoyment.