Gettin' Old!

Busy. Fighting sleep because of the pain drugs. Losing too much writing time to the Sandman. Crap.

Erosion of rocks by water and ice at Big Lost Cove Cliffs, near Wilson Creek.

Mountain Land

Carole owns several acres of land high in the mountains near the North Carolina/Virginia border. We have long thought about building a small cabin there. We haven't been up in a while, but every time we visit we walk  around the property looking for likely building sites.

We generally have two options.

There is a high ridge at roughly 4,000 feet that, if partially cleared, would afford us a fantastic view across a vast valley toward Virginia's highest summit, Mount Rogers. This has always been an appealing choice for us.

But there are also very nice spots where we could situate a cabin below the ridge, surrounded by beautiful hardwood forests and backed by a rock garden and thick growths of Catawba rhododendron. This is an attractive alternative, and one which we like more every time we go to the land.

This is probably my favorite spot on the property.

Looking up the steeper slopes toward the top of the ridge. If we put a place up there, we could see Mount Rogers from a potential front porch.

Andy meditating below the natural rock garden.

Andy walking along the gravel access road beyond the private gate.

View from the access road before arriving at the locked gate.

Enjoying the forest.

Someone put up a deer stand right at the property line. We're not sure if it's on our side or the other. Either way, if we put up a cabin, no one will have any luck hunting there.

Selling "Pure Southern"

I'd never written much in the way of crime fiction. Only once, a high-dollar sale to an anthology some years back, a yarn with the title of "Two Gun Bob is Dead and I Ain't Feelin' So Good Myself".

Then, not too many months back, I wrote another one: "Pure Southern". Since I'm not into self-publishing (I consider it a mug's game for creeps and idiots), I looked around for a market where I could try to sell it. Sadly, there seem to be almost no professional markets for short crime stories in this day and age. All of the magazines are just about gone. There was ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE and ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE and...well, that's about it.

So, I sent it to ELLERY QUEEN and, after a few weeks, they rejected it, reluctantly, and asked to see more material from me. Just like old times! Unfortunately, I rarely write crime fiction and didn't have anything else to send them. But I still had "Pure Southern" to try to sell. There apparently were lots of small press markets that pay a few bucks for stories, but I hate giving my work away. That's for the self-published folk and the pathetic newbies and losers. I need money for my fiction, not the knowledge that it's in print and nothing else.

Then I recalled THE BIG CLICK, an online crime fiction magazine that pays real money for real stories by real writers. I sent it to the editor, Nick Mamatas. He accepted the tale, and now it's in the latest issue of The Big Click.

You can see it here:

THE BIG CLICK.

"The people, anyway; they’re always cold. Cold eyes, cold hands, cold hearts; like blocks of icy steel the whole sorry lot of them." (From 'Pure Southern' by James Robert Smith.)

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3

I loved this comic when I was a kid. Classic Kirby.

What's amazing is to look at the cover and all of those fantastic characters that appealed to so many kids primed for the kinds of superhero comic books that only Jack Kirby could create, write, and illustrate.

Of the crowd of characters on that cover Jack Kirby created all but four. The few there who were created by other writers or artists were:

Kid Colt Outlaw, created by Pete Tumlinson and Jack Keller.

Sub-Mariner, created by Bill Everett.

Spider-Man, created by Steve Ditko.

The Human Torch, created by Carl Burgos.

Daredevil is featured, but as he was based on character sketches by Jack Kirby (and name stolen from the Lev Gleason character created by Jack Binder, one of the amazing Binder brothers). So it could be said that the Marvel Comics character Daredevil was co-created by Jack Binder, Jack Kirby, and Bill Everett.

This particular issue was a promotions bonanza for Marvel Comics. First of all, it featured the wedding of two of the members of the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) and Susan Storm (the Invisible Girl). Using the wedding, Kirby was able to concoct a story wherein almost every major comic book superhero and supervillain managed to make at least a one-panel appearance. It was a brilliant marketing tactic and amazed many a comic fan (including me). I'm sure a lot of kids who weren't buying some of the titles featuring some of the other heroes were spurred to start picking up those other books.

It remains one of the single favorite of the comic books of my childhood. Pure Kirby, all Kirby, nothing but Kirby.

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3.

Bushwhacking in Big Ivy

I went hiking a bit in the Big Ivy area of the Pisgah National Forest yesterday. I'll post a detailed trip report in a day or two.
 

One of the undocumented waterfalls we found on Walker Creek. This one was relatively difficult to get to, involving a serious bushwhack.

This is Walker Falls. Well known, it's located directly on a Forest Service road and is widely photographed.

Kirby Does the Human Torch

The inclusion of the character the Human Torch into the Silver Age Marvel Universe was done to keep dibs on the name and iconography connected to that name. The character was, of course, created wholly by Carl Burgos and claimed by Martin Goodman as spoils of his company, which published the character. Along with the Sub-Mariner, the two are actually the oldest superheroes in the Marvel pantheon (circa 1939). And both were taken from their creators (Burgos in the case of the Torch, and Bill Everett in the case of Namor, the Sub-Mariner).

Later in his life, Burgos tried to present a legal challenge to Marvel and reclaim his intellectual property, but he was far too poor to mount an effective effort and the suit wilted on the vine, abandoned. This is usually the way of things when regular folk try to struggle against corporate power. The one who can throw the most money at the courts wins by default.

While Goodman was not as hands-on as some publishers, he did send down his wishes through his proxy, Stan Lee. You can tell from the publishing end of things that he must have wanted the Human Torch as an ongoing character to protect what may have been a problematic copyright. To that end, the Torch was, for several years, featured prominently in his own adventures as the cover feature every month in Strange Tales. He was also frequently popping up in stories that featured the Amazing Spider-Man. It was obvious that they were trying to create a star, forcing the matter and trying to make the readers adore a character who was actually just a co-star, at best.

Of all of the characters that Kirby wrote on a regular basis, the Torch always seemed to me to be the weakest of them all. I can almost hear the editor constantly nagging. "Make him a teenager. Make him hip. Make him all Rebel-Without-A-Cause. Make him like hot rods. Make him go through girlfriends." Blah blah blah. I think Kirby obviously tried to comply, but to no real success.

The only time the character seemed to click with readers was as part of a kind of comedy team, serving as the hot-head foil for the otherwise stoic Ben Grimm. In the sometimes funny, sometimes pathetic, sometimes heart-warming exchanges between the two, the character worked well. But outside of that combination, the fans just didn't seem to give a damn about the Human Torch.

I think the last time Kirby tried to consciously push the matter and to force the readers to embrace the Human Torch as an upper echelon character for Marvel was during the period when this cover appeared, for FANTASTIC FOUR #54. It's almost as if Kirby was saying, 'Okay, guys. Here it is. I'm going to give it one last shot.' And he tried. And he failed. The Torch was just not first flight material in the Silver Age.

My copy of FANTASTIC FOUR #54.

Kirby, Kirby, and Kirby.

Soon, I'm going to write about the comic whose cover is pictured here. It was the final chapter of a four-part series in FANTASTIC FOUR. It was all Kirby. It was classic Kirby. Everything that Kirby was about is tied up in this neat and fantastic story.

However, I'm not going to write about the books and story arc in any detail, because I still need to add some of the issues in that arc to my collection. To do the essay now I'd be going on pure recollection, and I want to read it all fresh, in the original format that Kirby intended it to be read.

Give me a few weeks.

FANTASTIC FOUR #93. The last part of the "Slave" story arc that Kirby plotted, wrote, and illustrated. It's without doubt my absolute favorite Jack Kirby story. I loved everything about it when I was a kid, and it holds up today and is as powerful as it was when first published. Kirby all the way. No co-creator. Just Jack Kirby writing and penciling, Frank Giacoia inking, Artie Simek lettering, and the publisher's nephew editing.

Grand Teton eye candy today. As usual, busy working on novels.

Carole and Andy. The Park Service had these picnic tables all around parts of Jenny Lake.

The Stupefyin' Jones of USA Mountains.

You just stand and stare at them. They are among the best of the best.

We spent most of an entire day on the shores of Jenny Lake.

I was warned about Jackson, Wyoming. But I had to see it. Something as sappy as the elk antler arches made me head there. The place sucks ass. A playground for people with far deeper pockets than mine. I never felt so out of place or unwelcome in an American town. It's for the goddamned rich and only for the goddamned rich. They can keep it.

This was the nicest lodging we had in the two Parks. We really enjoyed our stay in this cabin.

We missed seeing a bull moose in Yellowstone, but saw three in the Tetons.

Sunset. We had stopped to see an out of the way lake just as the sun was going down.

One last viewpoint at Jenny Lake, then we had to leave. Alas!

This was the last place we stopped to take photographs before heading back toward Salt Lake City and the jet that would take us back to North Carolina. It was hard to leave the place.

Contrast

My dad was--to put it mildly--a grouch. He was a bitter man who thought in his youth that the world would see the beginnings of a socialist utopia. Of course it never happened and it never will. So like the guy expecting to see the return of Christ before the end of his own life, he was a frustrated man.

But strangely enough, he kept a copy of this poem in his wallet. As far as I know, it was in his wallet up til the day he died. He found it printed on a card in an old volume he'd bought for one of his bookshops. He read it, apparently liked the message, folded it carefully and placed it in that wallet. Said wallet going through tough times with few dollar bills, and better times with lots of big Franklins as companions, and back to a couple dollars again.

Keep On Keepin' On

by Anonymous

 

If the day looks kinder gloomy
And your chances kinder slim,
If the situation's puzzlin'
And the prospect's awful grim,
If perplexities keep pressin'
Till hope is nearly gone,
Just bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.

Frettin' never wins a fight
And fumin' never pays;
There ain't no use in broodin'
In these pessimistic ways;
Smile just kinder cheerfully
Though hope is nearly gone,
And bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.

There ain't no use in growlin'
And grumblin' all the time,
When music's ringin' everywhere
And everything's a rhyme.
Just keep on smilin' cheerfully
If hope is nearly gone,
And bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.

He'd take that poem out and read that crude little rhyme. Keep in mind that Mark Smith was no idiot--my dad could recite The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by heart, beginning to end. I can remember his favorite verse. It was this one:

 And fear not lest Existence closing your
 Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
   The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd
 Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.


He was a curious critter, my dad. When I think of this working class intellectual (yeah, he really was one of the last of those), sour, mean, but somehow hopeful to the end. I would wonder how a guy who would recognize the beauty and intensity of Fitzgerald's translation of The Rubaiyat could also admire a silly anonymous poem like "Keep on Keepin' On". I think it was those two lines of refrain:

And bristle up and grit your teeth
And keep on keepin' on.

Aye, I reckon there's something to be said for that.
 

My mom and dad. I think this was taken at Pemaquid Point in Maine in the early 1960s.

Just a Reminder

To all those brainwashed Stan Lee droolies who try to post their hate mail at my blog:

Give it up. There are millions of places where you can repeat the lies that were used to steal the intellectual property of Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Carl Burgos, Bill Everett, and others. If you try to post your pro-corporate propaganda and hate mail here I'll just mark your comments as the spam that they are. So don't bother, you're just wasting your time.

Bottom line:

The Marvel Universe was mainly created by Jack Kirby. The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Doctor Doom, the Silver Surfer, Galactus, The Inhumans, The Watcher, Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.--all of these (and more) were created by Jack Kirby. He didn't need a "co-creator" and never had one.

The Amazing Spider-Man, Doctor Octopus, Norman Osborne, the Green Goblin, Electro, the Sandman, the Vulture, the Lizard, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Doctor Strange, Infinity, the Ancient One, Baron Mordo, Dormammu, Iron Man's golden armor--all of these (and more) were created by Steve Ditko. He didn't need a "co-creator" and never had one.

The Human Torch was created by Carl Burgos. He never willingly gave up the rights to his creation and he didn't have or need a "co-creator".

Namor, the Sub-Mariner was created by Bill Everett. He didn't need a "co-creator" and one didn't exist. He likely also created the Marvel version of the character named Daredevil, based on sketches provided by Jack Kirby (who may, in this instance, have acted as a co-creator).

If you want to further the lie that Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and company were not utterly robbed of their intellectual property, then do so in some other venue. There are many such places open to the repeating of such lies. Go there to share your stinking bullshit.

My copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #12. Featuring characters created by Steve Ditko (and nobody else).

My copy of Fantastic Four #21, featuring characters created by Jack Kirby (and not with the imaginary help of some so-called "co-creator").

The World's Greatest Comic Magazine! By Jack Kirby!

Now that I've pretty much completed my collection of Steve Ditko's The Amazing Spider-Man, I'm going to focus my attention on Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four. I have a long way to go on this one, since Kirby wrote and illustrated a tad over 100 issues of FF. He created it in 1961 and wrote and penciled every single issue until #101, and one more issue after that. The Fantastic Four was his first stab at creating a superhero team for the nascent Marvel Comics. Later, he would create the Avengers and the X-Men, but that first time out of the gate he concocted the FF.

It is true that Kirby did not create the Human Torch. The teenaged hothead alter-ego of Johnny Storm was his, but the super powered hero was the brainchild of Carl Burgos. But, at that time, Martin Goodman wanted to exercise his claim on the character and so it's been said that he sent down word (through his nephew, the editor) that Kirby should include a character with the name "Human Torch". This Kirby did, teaming him with the learned Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic--akin to Plastic Man in abilities), Susan Storm (brother to Johnny Storm whose powers would cause her to be named the Invisible Girl), and Benjamin J. Grimm (also known as the Thing).

Kirby laid out a unique superhero team with the Fantastic Four. These guys were no Justice League of America. They were combative and argumentative and were alive with personal problems and faults. This was something new, and it was all Kirby.

I'm going to have a good time filling in the gaps in my collection.

America was really changing around Kirby as he wrote the stories for his comics. This tale was one of the last he would pen in his old style of writing. He was beginning to open up to the idea of the anti-hero and the outsider, and to the theme of revolution. Just around the corner was a rising tide that Kirby would incorporate into his Marvel Universe.

Kirby was hitting his stride as a power to be reckoned with in modern comics. Here he was introducing new characters at a tremendous pace. Alone, he was creating the basis for a company that became the powerhouse for the entire comic book industry. Nobody could compare to Kirby for sheer imaginative reach and his explosion of ingenuity and energy. The Inhumans would become an integral part of the Fantastic Four series for decades to come.

Mountain Snow!

Since it rarely snows here in Charlotte anymore, I like to head for the mountains of North Carolina if I can find the time. It does still snow in our high country, but some years not even very much there. Last year was a notoriously lousy one for snowfall in the Carolina mountains. I only got one chance to hike in the snow in the mountains during the past winter.

When Carole and I realized that the mountains were getting hit with a major snowstorm (high elevations only) we decided to head up that way since we both had Sunday off. We got up very early, went and had breakfast at a Waffle House, and then hit the road for the big mountains.

You can say what you like about the mountains of the South. We don't have a lot of what amount to impressive vertical scenery here, but there is some of it that stacks up favorably with the big sky country of the west. The higher ridges of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia are genuinely impressive. There is enough elevation, in fact, to create disparate climatic zones between the bases of these mountains and the summits. We do have some honest-to-gosh mountains here.

One of the easiest to access monster peaks for us are the Grandfather Mountain/Roan Mountain systems. Both of these mountains qualify as genuine massif. They stand apart from the ridges around them, and they dominate the skyline for quite some distance. Winter weather hits these ridges with some fierce conditions, and we were hoping for the best as we headed toward them.

When we passed Grandather/Tanawha, we were rewarded with a view of a mountain socked in with heavy snow and rime ice. We weren't headed for the top of that one, but we realized in short order that we would be seeing some decent snowfall when we got to the Roan highlands. How much snow, we weren't sure.

Passing across the NC/TN border, we headed for Roan Mountain State Park. We noticed a couple of herds of whitetail deer, but when we stopped to take their photo they got spooked and headed off at some speed. I reckon they're still skittish from hunting season. From there, we headed up the incline of 19E for Carver's Gap where we would stop and have lunch and then hop out to take photos and do some hiking.

We were stunned by the beauty of Winter's harsh gift when we pulled in to the parking  area at Carver's Gap. All of the trees were coated in snow and rime ice. The place was ablaze in ivory. The sky was cobalt blue, the temperature in the mid-teens, the wind racing around us, the sun glaring down. There were other people in the Gap also. Some were just there to snap some photos, but others were there with kids to go sledding, to hike, to backpack, and to cross-country ski. It was a grad day for all of this.

After our packed lunch, we got out and played in the snow. It was far deeper than I would have guess. When we ventured into the forest to hike we encountered thigh-deep snow with drifts five to six feet in height! Carole and I took pictures and then it was time for me to hike to the summit of Round Bald where I hoped to take in the views from more than 5,800 feet.

Tanawha, also known as Grandfather Mountain.

The Grandfather massif.

Rime ice and sunshine.

 

 On the summit. Raging wind and tremendous cold.

On the summit. COLD!!! COLD, I SAY!

Icy panorama on the Appalachian Trail.

When we hit the forest, we found DEEP snow!

Beauty everywhere we looked.

Frigid.

Waves of mountains.

Spruce transformed into sculptures of rime ice.

 

Hiking down from Round Bald.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1, AND #2

After several years of collecting, I've completed my initial run of The Amazing Spider-Man. This most iconic of all superhero characters was created by, plotted by, written by, and illustrated by Steve Ditko. Spider-Man/Peter Parker completely and utterly captured my imagination when I was a kid unlike any other comic book character, (with the possible exception of Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four).

Having spent my early years as the son of parents who owned used bookstores stacked high with old comic books, I got to grow up reading vast numbers of them. Even though I had the pick of the mass that publishers had produced for America's red-blooded kids, Spider-Man was my favorite. And Ditko's work on that book remains the best that the superhero genre has ever offered.

Since Ditko left the book and character he created with #38 of the title, I have no desire to own any copies done after his exit. And so my collection consists of all of the issues of Amazing Spider-Man from the beginning to the terminus of Ditko's time.

It hasn't been terribly easy to fill in the collection. But now it's done. The whole run that I set out to purchase are all in my possession. The guy I bought the issues from knows how I feel about Stan Lee. When he got ready to show me the books, he said, "I'm sorry, but the first issue is autographed by Stan Lee." I bought it anyway.

My copy of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1.

Back cover of #1.

My copy of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #2.

Back cover of #2.

Vulnerable Critters

The little critters of nature. They don't know that they're ugly.

Some of these photos were taken with the worst digital camera I ever owned--a small Samsung. It was awful, but I bought it when we were out in the middle of nowhere and our main camera had broken (the one I had dropped off a 50-foot waterfall two years before). You do what you have to do.

Hermit crab, near Panama City, Florida.

This little raccoon was casing the campsite trying to figure out how to steal food from us. This was just as he was giving up the fight and leaving. He had been stationed on a branch above us trying to get an angle.

Cormorant doing his cormorant thing. Cedar Key, Florida.

I'd never thought of the Brown pelican as particularly colorful until I stopped to look at this one in Cedar Key, Florida.

Box tortoise on the trail to Little Lost Cove Cliffs here in North Caorlina.

Taken with the crappy Samsung. White tail fawn. Big Spring National Park, Missouri.

Doe in Manatee Spring State Park, Florida.

Ground squirrel in Joshua Tree National Park, California. At about 5,000 feet above sea level.

Red-winged blackbird, Panama City, Florida.

This Suwanee River slider was laying eggs in the sand at Wakulla State Park, Florida.

Some kind of evil looking caterpillar on a rock along the Appalachian Trail near McAfee Knob, in Virginia.

Lizard. De Leon Springs State Park, Florida.