Fellow Mammals!

B'ars and sech that I have encountered on hikes and backpacking trips.

(Yes, busy on manuscripts.)

Brown phase black bear, Grand Tetons National Park.

Bull elk, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Black Bear, Beartown State Park, West Virginia.

White-tailed deer, Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Elk herd, Cataloochee area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Grizzly bear, near Avalanche Peak, Yellowstone National Park.

Another grizzly bear, Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park.

My Blog, and Welcome to It

I get a lot of emails and wanna-be posts from Stan Lee droolies; apologists for those who engage in the theft of intellectual property. Lots of such communication.

Generally, though, I'm not going to post those emails and communications. Because rich thieves and icons of such depravity have no place here at my blog. These monsters have plenty of champions elsewhere. All over the Internet and in publishing you can find their jibbering fans prostrating themselves at the feet of the undeserving scum.

But not here.

So you can save your misplaced outrage. Contain your slobbering groveling. There are many places where you can give vent to your uninformed bullshit.

Just not here.

Ben Grimm (The Thing) and the Silver Surfer created by Jack Kirby.

Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker, May Parker, Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, Liz Allen, J. Jonah Jameson, Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius) all created by Steve Ditko.

Critters Again

Working in the office again. Here are photos of animals, all of whom I encountered during trips to Florida.

Black buzzard, Salt Spring State Park.

Gopher tortoise, Egmont Key State Park.

Osprey chick. Egmont Key State Park.

Raccoon, Blue Spring State Park.

Osprey. Fort DeSoto Park, Tampa.

Key Deer. Big Pine Key.

Crane. Dry Tortugas National Park.

Manatee. Blue Springs State Park.

Fish. Lithia Springs.

Alas!

Stuck in the office writing today. Dreaming of the great outdoors. Would rather be hiking. 

McAfee Knob, Appalachian Trail, Virginia.

Hoyt Peak, Yellowstone National Park.

Apple Orchard Falls, Apple Orchard Mountain, Virginia.

Lindy Point, Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia.

Sally Queen Falls, South Mountains, North Carolina.

Avalanche Peak, Yellowstone National Park.

Comer's Creek Waterfall, Southwestern Virginia.

Ackermonster Chronicles Review

Some time back Jason and Sunni Brock wrote and produced a wonderful documentary about the writer Charles Beaumont. It was a freshman work that remains one of my favorite documentaries.

So I have been eager to see their follow-up work, THE ACKERMONSTER CHRONICLES, a film about Forrest J Ackerman.

To just about everyone in science-fiction fandom and the related fields, Forrest J Ackerman is one of the most famous personalities the genre produced. He was a classic huckster with a powerful ego who was as instrumental in the promotion of genre literature as Stan Lee has been to the comic book industry.

Lifelong pals: Harryhausen, Bradbury, Ackerman.

"Uncle Forry" as he was commonly known was a true character. He was often generous, always friendly, and a natural born promoter.

This documentary--as the name implies--chronicles Forry's life. Unlike the Beaumont film, this one contains interviews with Mr. Ackerman, the project having been initiated a couple of years before his death. So we have Ackerman himself dictating a part of the proceedings.

John Landis, Jason Brock.

Added to this we are treated to conversations with many of the people with whom he lived, worked, and influenced. And Forry was one hell of an influence to several generations of artists who went on to create much in the world of fantasy, horror, science-fiction, and films. Brock was good enough to give us interviews with many of these people--some well known to most of us, and some more obscure.

If you were a long-time fan of Mr. Ackerman, this documentary will  be a pleasure. If you're unfamiliar with his life and works, then you should see the film. As David Schow once said, "All of us are Forrest Ackerman's mutant children."

It couldn't be better said.

Ackermonster...

I got my advance copy of the new documentary of Forrest J Ackerman by Jason Brock. The review will be coming in a day or so:

The new documentary of Forrest J Ackerman by Jason V Brock.

The Triumvirate: Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury, Forrest J Ackerman.

Lingering Fall Color

I'm a man of few words today. Saving them all for the novel projects.

For your perusal: the lingering Fall colors at Rocky Face Mountain Recreation Area.
 

LITTLE LULU and TUBBY ANNUAL #2.

Well, I lucked out and nabbed the second LITTLE LULU & TUBBY ANNUAL. Now I've got them both.

Front cover. Stories all written and illustrated by John Stanley.

Back cover. From the days when the back cover had to have gag art, too.

Rocky Face Mountain Recreation Area

Because of my back injury, my leg muscles are getting weak. So one of my doctors suggested that I do some walking at try to get the muscles toned. One of my pals, Bob Johnson, had told me about a park near Hiddenite NC that was new to me. So I did some research from the links he sent and Carole and I drove up there on Sunday.

One reason I picked it is that the trails there are very easy on the legs. When we got to the park we saw the new facilities and read up on the trail routes from the literature that was being handed out. The park has an office and a ranger was on staff there. In addition, I later ran into an Alexander County Commissioner who was jogging the trails and he proudly gave me details about the creation and formation of the park.

The place has only been opened since Memorial Day, so it truly is new. The land was once part of a rock quarry, but the Nature Conservancy was able to buy up the little mountain and, later, hand the almost 400 acres over to Alexander County to develop as a park and recreation area. Rocky Face Mountain is a classic pluton, similar to Looking Glass Rock and Stone Mountain and any number of other such granitic domes in this part of the country. These were all once pools of magma deep beneath the surface of the Earth which, under pressure, metamorphosed into granite. When the softer earth around them eroded away, the tough granite bedrock became exposed and became, in essence, a mountain (or monadnock).

Rocky Face Mountain rises about 700 feet above the surrounding terrain. However, the trail to the summit is very gradual and easy to hike. The summit itself is long and broad, but there are many areas of exposed rock walls all over the peak. In addition to the interesting geology, the park is also home to some very rare plant communities.

It was a great place to spend part of the day. We'll go back, especially since I wasn't able to hike the entire trail system in the park.

This section of the park was once a rock quarry. In the wake of the destructive business we now have sheer cliffs that are nowadays used for rock climbing (which is allowed in the park).

Lingering Fall color.

Parts of the park are similar in many ways to Stone Mountain State Park.

View from the clifftop down to the picnic area and park office.

Trees and grass at the top of the cliff.

The forest.

Autumn hanging on.

Trail.

Yucca plants.

Ye author at an overlook.

Not terribly far from the summit.

One of the sloping domes of exposed rock.

This was actually not far from the base of Rocky Face Mountain.

A partially completed millstone we saw on the way down. Reminding us that this place was a quarry for a very long time.

I'm not into rock climbing, but I reckon this would be a fun wall to scale.

The mountain as seen from the road near the entrance to the park.