Nice Memories

I really like Reedy Creek Park. It's not quite the same place it was when Carole and I were young parents, but it has seen few changes since those times. We spent many, many days in this park when our son (Andy) was very young. It had (and still has) great playgrounds. Plus wide grassy fields, several lakes, miles of trails, and even things like historical ruins of old farmhouses from the early 1800s, a nature museum, grills, picnic pavilions, and lots of forests and streams. It's pretty darned big as county parks go--almost 800 acres. So there's plenty of room to spread out and roam.

Every now and again I like to stop by the old park and have a look around. Sometimes the memories are nice and make me happy. And sometimes the memories are sweet, but make me terribly sad.

Violets in the forest loam.

Redbuds bursting out.

A little stray azalea just getting ready to unfurl.

  

 The main lake at Reedy Creek where we would take Andy when he was a little boy.

The big field where Carole, and Andy, and I would lay out a blanket and have a picnic in the grass on a nice day like this one. Sometimes there would be people flying kites, or dogs playing, and other families with their kids, too.

Telephoto shot from across the lake. Carole and I would always stop to rest at that bench on our two or three-mile hike through the park. It was (and still is, I suppose) a great place to rest and listen to the wind.

Spring is here. Life goes on.

Where my tiny family and I spent many and many a day.

Great Movie?

I tend to judge all movies harshly. The only time that I'll ever cut a movie any goddamned slack at all is when its producers don't try to present it as something that it's not. If a movie is a mindless stinking action flick with no redeeming social value whatsoever and if it presents itself as such, I'll hold my tongue.

So I'm a very hard man to please when it comes to either literature or art. Despite that, I'm always out there looking for the perfect illustration, the most flawless novel, the best movie.

One thing I look for in a movie is a line of logic that is presented, accepted, and followed throughout. To that end I am ready, willing, and able to suspend disbelief and take at face value something that is, on the outside, completely illogical if the creator of the film follows that wobbly line of logic and adheres to it.

So that we all understand one another, I have only seen one perfect movie in my entire life, and that movie is the original 1933 version of KING KONG. We are led to a vast island whose natural resources have not been raped to the bare rock and where not only primitive humans live, but also dinosaurs, and also a giant ape named King Kong. I'm game if you are, and historically the American public (and the world's public) is very cool with this story.

KING KONG faces its dinosaurs and giant gorilla and the movie follows that line to its logical conclusion, all the while delivering decent characterizations and a fine story without screwing up. If you can find me a more perfect film than KING KONG, let me know about it, because by Jove I would like to see it. I've been looking...haven't found it yet.

However, there is a modern movie that I do look upon as nearly perfect and equally as entertaining as KING KONG. And that movie is GROUNDHOG DAY.

I love everything about this film. The characters are all lovely--every damned one of them, including the initially lousy person and talented TV weatherman, Phil Connors (portrayed

flawlessly by Bill Murray). And the romantic object in the movie is the painfully lovely Rita (played by Andie McDowell). Around them we are ringed by all manner of sweet, annoying, and funny supporting characters. Maybe Phil is King Kong and Rita is Ann Darrow. Hell...I, don't know!

The movie introduces the main players and the setting (an idyllic

Punxatawny, Pennsylvania) and then hits us with the illogical logic: Phil is stuck in a time loop, reliving the same day over and over and over. During the course of the movie this time loop becomes normal to us. We see Phil Connors horrified by this development; then depressed by it; then enraged by it; then humbled by it, before finally accepting it. We see the endless Groundhog Day slowly transform the asscrack TV weatherman until he becomes a decent human being worthy of winning the woman (and the day).

I always enjoy this movie. It's like a handful of other movies that hold me and force me to watch them whenever I pass a screen airing them: PATTON, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, THE GODFATHER...movies of that caliber. Even though I own the damned thing on DVD and can watch it anytime I please, and have seen it probably a dozen times, I will stop if I see it on TV and just watch it until the end.

It may very well be the best movie I've ever seen. It's funny. It's pleasant. It makes me feel good. It's full of attractive characters (in spirit if not in body). I love GROUNDHOG DAY. (For what it's worth, I actually consider it to be a Christmas movie. It has that kind of vibe.)

One thing that does give me just a little chill at the very end. The last line, uttered by Bill Murray.

"At first we'll rent."

As if the writer is giving us the slightest hint that the old, asshole Phil is already peeking out of the

shell of goodness he'd learned while stuck in his time loop. Dictating to the woman whose love he'd so painfully won.

I like that. I like the doubt.

Another perfect movie? Maybe.




Whatever happened to Nancy Taylor, anyway? (Now we know.)
 

Uncooperative Birds

I only take my cats outside when they're leashed. I don't want them getting hurt of course, but I also don't want them preying on songbirds. After I took the cats back in, the back yard was packed with birds. So I figured I could get my SLR and telephoto lens and tripod and get some great photos of some of the cool birds I was seeing out there.

And what happens? They all vanish. Where before they had been landing all around me, singing and chirping doing their bird-things, suddenly they were gone.

I got two lousy photos. I think one was a starling (an invasive species) and the other a common robin.

The robin. Always reliable for a little local color.

Starling? Not sure. He flew off before I could use the manual focus to get him in a clearer shot.

The Final Issues (Amazing Spider-Man #36-#38, Annual #1 and #2.

And here they are, the last of my copies of The Amazing Spider-Man, by Steve Ditko. Although the character as here seen was created by Steve Ditko, written by Steve Ditko, Penciled by Steve Ditko, and inked by Steve Ditko, ownership of this property was stolen by his publisher. Today, it generates--quite literally--billions of dollars in profits. Of that, the character's creator receives virtually nothing. Most people who read the modern comics and see the films starring the character are unaware of who Steve Ditko is, much less that he was the man who created the character they so adore.

Yes, I know that there are greater crimes committed in this world. But this is a crime, and the fact that it goes not only unpunished, but is rewarded only increases the injustice of it.

Continued from #30-#35.

I'm not sure what was going on with the issues directly after the Master Planner storyline. However, it seems relatively clear to me that Ditko was going out of his way not to create much in the way of new characters for Marvel Comics. I will assume that he had decided to take his leave of Goodman and Lee, but may have been hedging his bets and hoping that they would do the right thing. (No chance.) In this story we are yet again greeted by a cookie-cutter villain, the Meteor Man. This guy gets super strength due to his exposure to a pocket of mysterious gas trapped inside a meteor that he is examining in a museum (where he works). He does have an added gadget of a helium balloon in a backpack that he can activate and escape from the scene of a crime. Spider-Man kicks his ass and turns him over to the cops.

Recall what I said about Ditko hedging his bets? Well, with this one he was turning his hand to deepening the mystery of the Green Goblin and was hinting at future developments and giving us more clues as to who he might really be. And the Goblin's genius henchman here has developed some advanced robotics that he uses to try to defeat Spider-Man, including an amoeba-like robot that has to be one of the coolest ever created for comics. But apparently between this issue and the next, the proverbial shit hit the fan and Ditko was ready to walk.

Ditko didn't even deliver a cover for this, his final issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Or if he did, perhaps Lee rejected it and it was never used. However, I've always thought that this was a pretty darned cool cover and it attracted me like crazy when I saw it on the newsstand at the local drugstore in my neighborhood in Decatur, Georgia. So much so that I bought it instead of waiting to get it for free from my dad's bookstore. They created the cover by taking images and panels from interior Ditko illustrations and putting them on the cover. It works. I did an essay on this book once before, but I may do another one.

 

This book is pure fun. And it was a really HUGE comic book. The heft of it is impressive when compared to annuals from later years. They really packed it with great material, most of it new. Ditko delivers lots of pinups and various inside information about Spider-Man and Peter Parker. Plus the new story wherein Spider-Man battles six of his most dangerous foes.

Although a brief story, the new one in this annual is one of my favorite Spider-Man yarns. It guest stars Dr. Strange, Ditko's other major creation for Marvel Comics. Even the thief who helped to steal all of Ditko's work at Marvel admits that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of Dr. Strange. And, yet, somehow, his name is all over the character as "co-creator". If you're not disgusted, you're either a moron or without a sense of right and wrong.

The Amazing Spider-Man #31-#35.

We're approaching the home stretch for Ditko's final months on the comic book character he created for Marvel Comics and which was stolen from him by the publisher and the editor. From all accounts, Ditko was getting fed up with the way he was being treated. The personal philosophy that he followed to the letter precluded him from putting up much of a fight for his creator rights, but he was coming close to the only option allowed him by the dogma that controlled his outlook: walking away.

But until that point, he was creating some of the finest superhero comics of his day and actually did concoct what--to me--is the single finest superhero story ever to grace the pages of a periodical. I've already written one essay on the Master Planner story arc, but it's such a fine work that I may be forced to revisit it with a critical eye and do yet another essay.

Continued from #26-30.

This is yet another brilliant cover from Ditko. When the folk in the office allowed him, he could come up with stuff that was just purely brilliant--like nothing else in comics in those days. Here he was incorporating some themes and ideas that must have been percolating through the culture via spy movies (such as the Bond films). With this issue, he began the Master Planner story. Once more Spider-Man is faced with a criminal force that is being directed by a foe he cannot name or recognize and which is also a mystery to the otherwise omniscient reader. It didn't get any better than this in superhero comics, and it still hasn't been matched.

This was Spider-Man! Because he often battled villains who were not much more than regular guys with guns or hyped up weaponry, the fans sometimes forgot just how physically powerful and overwhelming Spider-Man could be. In this issue, with Aunt May's life on the line, Spider-Man has had all he can stand from the criminal element and by Jove he's not going to take it anymore. Here he roams around the city hitting at the criminal underbelly, terrorizing the thugs to get the information that he needs to save his aunt.

The best single superhero comic book ever done. Created by Ditko. Written by Ditko. Penciled AND inked by Steve Ditko. Possibly spurred by Wally Wood's inability to be bullied and taken advantage of by Stan Lee and Martin Goodman, Ditko had finally demanded that he--at the very least--receive plotting credits for the book. Since Lee was altering the dialog and acting as editor, Ditko obviously relented and allowed Lee to keep stealing the "writer" credits. But at the very least he was letting fandom know who was really concocting the stories: STEVE DITKO!

Ditko brings back Kraven the Hunter for the last time during his tenure. After the emotionally exhausting work of #31-33, Ditko returns to a typical superhero slug-fest with this one. The story is fun, but nothing like the intellectual yarn he had told in the previous three issues.

And another return engagement from Ditko's the Molten Man. In many ways, this story is similar to the previous issue. Not much going on here other than a big superhero/supervilain fight. However, Ditko was beginning to plant more seeds that hinted at another great story arc that would feature a final confrontation with the Green Goblin. Alas, we never got to see that, since Ditko would leave the company before he could complete that tale. This issue is also interesting because it's another example of Lee interfering with the cover art because he didn't like seeing Spider-Man's butt cheeks. He had someone in the bullpen alter the Spider-Man figure to erase the offending anatomy.

Here is the cover generally conceded to be the version that Lee killed.

Amazing Spider-Man #25 through #30.

The next five issues from my collection are on display here. Ditko was becoming more and more ambitious in his storytelling. He was not only expanding what had been the limitations of the classic comic book panel, he was also pushing the limitations of what had been the formulaic superhero script. Much has been written about the angst of the Ditko Spider-Man stories (credit going to someone other than Ditko on that). This was heartfelt material from the artist/writer--material so powerful that not even a pushy editor could screw up the emotional power of Ditko's storytelling.

(Continued from: 21-25.)

I've mentioned this issue in other essays. Here we have the Crime Master, another of Ditko's villains whose secret identity is even secret from the reader. We find the Crime Master and the Green Goblin at odds over which of them is going to rule the underworld turf. With Spider-Man caught in the middle.

Spider-Man at the mercy of the villains and their henchmen! But this is the old Spider-Man who was one of the most physically powerful characters in the old Marvel Universe. Back then, only a handful of super-powered dudes were stronger than Spidey--Hulk, Thing, Thor...that was about it. Battleship chain? That would slow him down, but ultimately...something he could break!

Good grief this is a brilliant cover. And not just a brilliant cover, but an inspired super-villain. The Molten Man was a fellow given super powers by accidentally getting drenched in a metallic alloy that was liquid at room temperature. The stuff is absorbed by the guy's body turning him the same golden hue as the metal, and giving him both super-strength and a measure of physical invulnerability. As with the Scorpion, it's stated that he's probably even stronger than Spider-Man, so the hero has to really use his wits to defeat him. Because of the black cover, this issue is almost impossible to find in the highest grades (even the slightest crease or blemish is spotlit against that ebony background). Thus, it's in very high demand as a collectible comic in grades higher than fine. I settled--as I generally always do--for a lesser condition copy. As I like to say, I actually read my old comics.

Another issue I've written about. Once more Spider-Man has to face off against a villain who is stronger than he. And once more Parker has to use his wits to find something that gives him an edge. The Scorpion costume is one of the best villain uniforms Ditko ever created. He took the basic segmented appearance of the arachnid animal and incorporated it brilliantly into the costume. No one was better at this kind of iconic thing than Ditko.

This is actually not one of my favorite Spider-Man covers. It's almost ineffective in many ways. I'm not quite sure what Ditko was after with this one, but it made it past the editor. Ditko was constantly trying to pit Spider-Man against foes who were human. The Cat was one of the most human of his early villains. No super powers whatsoever. Just a highly trained burglar with some weapons at his disposal. Of course some explosives can cause a lot of trouble for even a guy who can pick up 12 tons and cling to walls.

This Movie Needs Extra Love.

I just read the announcement that George A. Romero is going to remake the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. This mystified me for mainly one reason:

The film was remade in 1990 with Romero producing and Tom Savini directing. Why would Romero want to remake it yet again? To cash in on the zombie craze that he created? Hard to say.

But the thing is, that remake is one of the single most effective horror films I've ever seen, and it gets only a fraction of the respect that it deserves. By now, everyone is familiar with the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD directed by George Romero with screenplay by John Russo and George Romero. That film is a classic of paranoid fantasy and one of the most psychologically effective horror movies ever made. That it was filmed on a shoestring budget in black and white actually enhances the effectiveness of the movie.

However, because Romero, Russo, and company were inexperienced in dealing with distributors, they were ripped off and saw almost none of the massive profits that the movie generated for its eventual distributor. Thus, they all felt the need to remake the movie with a bigger budget in 1990 so that they could all, at long last, actually see some profits from the sweat of their brows.

I very much admire the remake. It is similar enough to the original to make it a powerful social statement, just as the first one did. And it was different enough to make further social and political statements in ways that make it different enough from the original for each to remain unique. The movie has a number of exceptional performances and is absolutely brilliantly directed by Tom Savini. After I saw this movie on its initial run, I figured that the door would be opened for Savini to direct many movies and receive funding for any number of projects to which he would be attached as director. His vision for the movie was just about flawless.

However, while the movie apparently did moderately well, it did not break any records, did not end

up making the producers much wealthier; and, worst of all, it was not the beginning of a long line of Savini-directed features.

Well, shit. There ain't no justice.

If you've never seen the 1990 version of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, give it a look. It's a truly creepy and effective horror movie. The film deserves a wider following, and Savini deserves a lot of respect and a lot of credit for the excellent work he turned in as director.

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

Amazing Spider-Man #21 through #25.

Mr. Ditko begins to REALLY cut loose and come into his own. This was his dream come true. He was going to now live the life of Roark from THE FOUNTAINHEAD. Lee was his foil Peter Keating and Ditko was Howard Roark. No shit, this was the real deal. And Ditko was making it happen, bound and determined to make fiction into reality.

Continued from 16-20.

Holy crap! Ditko was doing things that hadn't been done with superhero comic covers since...well, since EVER! I wonder if Ditko actually used the Torch here without nagging from management. As I said, Ditko had a way with creating some chemistry between these two heroes.

There hadn't been a cover quite like this one since the days of Jack Cole at Quality's PLASTIC MAN. How does one show animation in a static 2-D image? THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE, YOU MERE MORTALS!!!

"HA!" Says Ditko. "I'll have a cover for Spider-Man which doesn't even have Spider-Man IN it!" (Top that, bitches!)

Teenage angst!

Suck it, Lee!

The Amazing Spider-Man #16 through #20.

Today, it's issues 16 through 20. Evolution of writer/artist Steve Ditko on his creation, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

Continued from 11-15.

It was company policy to have stories from time to time that were crossovers. That is, a character from one title would guest-star in another hero's book. When Ditko got the suggestion to do such a story he generally handled it with unique imagination. Since Daredevil and Spider-Man are very similar characters this issue seemed almost natural. Whenever I see this cover, I laugh. One of the stories about the early days of Marvel is that Stan Lee had a thing about illustrations that showed the heroes' asses. He didn't care for it and would demand such illustrations be redrawn so that no one could see the superhero butt cheeks. This one, however, made it past Lee. How? Why? We'll never know.

Ah, the return of the Green Goblin. This story also featured the Human Torch. It seemed that Goodman and Lee had a hard-on trying to turn the Human Torch into a fan favorite. To that end they tried everything; but the fans were having no part of it. Ditko did seem to have a good feel for creating a working chemistry between the two super-powered teenagers, but the public was not impressed enough to make the Human Torch a bankable solo star.

I love this story. Spider-Man seems to "run" from a confrontation with one of his more powerful villains in this story (the Sandman). And he really does high-tail it. But not out of cowardice. It's because he has a personal reason for avoiding the confrontation until a later date. Ditko has Spider-Man acting in a mildly selfish way here, perhaps in a kind of reflection of the influence of the insane writings of the Queen of Selfishness, Ayn Rand.

More Human Torch guest-star stuff. The Enforcers return--they were an early and reliable foil for Spider-Man. And, of course, Spider-Man kicks Sandman's ass to even the score of his apparently cowardly run from the previous issue. On a side note, this is the book that got me back into collecting. For some damned reason I bought this copy at a comic convention and enjoying the reading of it I decided: Fuck it. I'm going to collect all of the Ditko issues.

I've always liked the villain the Scorpion as created and portrayed by Ditko. Gargan/Scorpion is a brutal thug given superpowers for the sole reason to capture Spider-Man. Unfortunately, the process that turns him into a super-villain also drives him mad with power (and insane, too). He has most of Spider-Man's powers and is actually physically stronger. But Spider-Man defeats him by using his wits rather than relying merely on brute strength. He gets his ass all but kicked in the process. The result, later in the book, is that Parker appears in public looking as if he's had his butt whooped (which he of course has). It was Ditko showing that there were consequences to what the character did, just as in reality there are consequences for anyone's actions.

Amazing Spider-Man Collection...

Next five issues of my collection of Steve Ditko's THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN:

Continued from 6-10.

Ditko brings back Dr. Octopus. Everyone thinks of the Green Goblin as Spider-Man's arch-enemy. But in fact it was Otto Octavius. He appeared most often as Spider-Man's foe and came the closest most often to defeating him. Octopus was, in fact, a really scary cat with the power and intellect to put Spidey away permanently.

The cover is not misleading, either. Doc Ock really did unmask Parker here. This was the first time that I can recall of any writer on the title using the idea that the flu virus had some kind of ability to cancel out Spider-Man's powers. Thus, when the suffering hero attempts to battle Octopus and is easily beaten and unmasked, everyone assumes that it was just a stupid kid trying to be a hero. Spider-Man's powers return as soon as his immune system fights off the viral infection. (But everyone ends up thinking Peter Parker is an idiot.)

Ditko cutting loose with a really twisted story. In this one, Ditko tackles psychiatry. (Maybe someone had appropriately suggested that he see one.) Scientologists would probably love this issue of the book.

Considered by many to be the most important issue of Ditko's run of his creation. Here we are introduced to The Green Goblin. This villain has no super powers, instead relying on brilliant contraptions and super-science weaponry. This would be the second time Ditko would use the idea of a continuing villain whose identity was secret not only from other characters within the story, but also from the reader! A stroke of brilliance. His character The Chameleon (from the first issue) was also unknown to the reader, but he turned out to be a minor experiment for Ditko and was rarely used again in the book while Ditko was around. This began an underlying story for the book that would continue throughout Ditko's time at Marvel. He never even got to complete the long-running Goblin story arc, walking away from his creations at the company before he could complete the task. (I was able to land this copy because it has tape on the spine, but is otherwise in decent condition. These days this is one of the hardest issues of the book to find and purchase.) Also of note here is the inclusion of The Incredible Hulk. Ditko was handed the character, created wholly by Jack Kirby, when Kirby got angry over interference from his editor (Stan Lee) on the direction Kirby was taking with the Hulk. Kirby walked away from it (it's not like he was stuck for other ideas) and they handed it off to Ditko who wrote and illustrated the character for a while in Tales to Astonish.

Another classic Ditko villain, Kraven the Hunter. Kraven was a dirty Russian, apparently. Obsessed with hunting wild animals, he was based on the character of the crazed Cossack General Zaroff from the 1924 Richard Connell story, "The Most Dangerous Game". Kraven does have super-powers--enhanced strength and heightened senses created by the consumption of a special potion he discovered in his travels. In addition, he keeps a few weapons hidden within his animal-skin costume that he uses against Spider-Man, whom he has chosen to be his ultimate prey. Ditko ended up using Kraven in three stories during his time writing Spider-Man.

Reason Enough

Blackwater Canyon.

A lot of people ask me why I go hiking. This actually confuses the hell out of me because, to me, the question makes no sense whatsoever. But I was raised to understand that no question is stupid, really. It was my own inquisitive nature promoted to the Nth degree by my parents that all but forced me to want to put myself into wild and rural lands. So I'll try to answer it,  but I don't think anyone will like the answer, because I don't like the answer, either.

I push myself to hike into the mountains, mainly. This is because that so much of the

Mackey Mountain.

forests and relatively untouched land that remains here in the eastern USA where I live is located in mountains. Mountains by and large don't make for convenient places to put subdivisions and shopping centers and the accompanying wreck of so-called civilization. Our eastern high country was ecologically raped early on in our nation's history and was ruined to such an extent that the nation spat it out and left it behind where it was, ironically, allowed to heal into a faded image of what it had been before the floods of people and the sawmills and the factories and the mines and drilling rigs.

I go camping, hiking, and backpacking because...the good guys lost.

That's right. The people who tried to warn us what was coming down the pike were all killed and silenced. They were labeled as crackpots, tarred with the epithet of alarmist, or gunned down where they stood and tried to speak.

Black Mountain Crest Trail, NC.

Dolly Sods, WV.

We've wrecked the Earth. And this, for good. There's no going back, now. The planet is quite literally withering before our worthless eyes. The tiny minority of folk who profit from this terminal destruction keep the lion's share of you drunk on a little catnip or reaching for a shiny object that you'll never grasp. All while they wallow in luxury you can't even imagine.

The bad guys won.

This is why I spend my time in the woods whenever I can find a moment to do so. It's all going away. They've taken almost everything we had of value, and they're going to get what little remains. The last wild animals are going fast, so if you want to see them, I

Midnight Hole, Great Smoky Mountains.

strongly fucking suggest in the most powerful terms that you by Jove do so. The existence of things like elephants and lions, tigers and whales, eagles and sharks, corals and redwoods, glaciers and rivers...these things are measured now in years, not centuries--not even decades.

Whenever I can scrape together the wages I'm allowed, I spend them to visit the vanishing wild. So this is why I take the things I earn--time and transportation--and run off to the whittled spots where trees still blow in the breezes and birds still land in the leaves and a few pitiful things continue to pace the forest floor.

In a little while, all of this will be gone. Your children won't even know that it ever existed.

Tower Canyon, Yellowstone.