Caroline Cash has moved from Chicago to Philadelphia. Why not? Philly is beautiful,
affordable, not at all car-dependent and has great weather.
And she's got a new comic series going. I bought a signed copy of her book
back when she worked at Quimby's in Chicago, and I got a signed copy
of the first issue of PeePee PooPoo at Partners & Son in Philadelphia.
Cash is continuing in a tradition of underground comics artists that stretches back at
least to the 1960s. My favorite pieces are the straightforward autobiographical ones but Cash
also shares reflections and plain old funny business. Her artwork is accomplished
and versatile and her writing has just the right touch and pace.
You can buy it
right here!
2025 July 21 • Monday
Here's a favorite composer back for the 866th Soundtrack of the
Week. I had never heard of The Mask of Sheba but all I needed to know
is that the music was by Lalo Schifrin.
The opening titles theme starts with some fanfare-type music before swinging into
a 1970s-TV swing lounge groove. Strings, horns and reeds play some romantic figues as well as "official"-sounding
music that one can imagine accompanying a shot of the US Capitol building, followed
by some flute and string work that has echoes of Mission: Impossible. Similar flute and string work follow in "The Letter", but this time with the addition of a plucked
string instrument that sounds as if it could be a bazouki or tres or something like that that,
as well as a sinuous oboe line that nods toward North African or Middle Eastern modalities. "Sarah and Bridget" starts off sounding like a romance theme but ends up in tenser, more
suspenseful dramatic underscore territory. A quick hit of hand percussion and wind instruments set the scene for "Ethiopia/Takahene"
with presumably source music but the jaunty feel is soon replaced by more Mission:
Impossibleesque suspense music. Then it's adventure time in "Jungle Trek", with propulsive rhythms and buoyant horn lines,
with an unexpected electric guitar figure at the end. "Search For The Key And Ben Gala" starts romantic and ends suspenseful while "How Do I Live?"
is the other way around. More Daktari- and Mission: Impossible-ish music comes next in Jungle Monastery
and Ms. Koman, followed by some intriguing long tones and sinuous reed lines accompanied by
hand percussion in "The Mystic". After a brief instrumental introduction, a male choir performs a capella in "Tortuous Philosophy
and the Chant". The next cue, "The Monks", probably refers to them, and is another
suspensful piece with exotic flavors and intrigue. Cymbalom and hand percussion as well as other international sounds, along with more conventional
flute and harp, create another effectively alluring piece for "An Amphibious Woman", which
is developed further in "Through the Underwater Passage". "The Unmasking" is the longest piece here, at almost five minutes, and is most likely
the climax of the story. More hand percussion and suspenseful tones from strings and
wind instruments, as well as statements from the resonant plucked instruments heard
in previous cues, generate considerable tension and excitement. The pace and energy pick up for "The Chase", which brings a lot of the previous ideas
to a boil, and then things settle down for a sedate "Finale and Closing Credits". The last track on the record, "Opus Parts 1 & 2", is a swing jazz piano combo piece
and quite nice.
2025 July 18 • Wednesday
The Hoeys actually did two comics about the after life last year. The other,
Stinson's Inferno, in which Replacements guitarist Bob Stinson
takes a brief tour of Sunset Strip hell with Brian Jones as his Virgil,
was written by Dave Nuss. The Hoeys did the artwork, in black and white
and with different textures and composition than I'm used to seeing from them.
It's a quick read and a lot of fun. I actually wish it were longer. There seems to
be more story that could be told here, as Stinson grumbles about gatekeepers and Gun
Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce laments "finely attired youth full of fascist sentiment
and heroin".
This book is limited to 200 copies but I think you can still
get one!
2025 July 16 • Wednesday
Last year, Gutbrain favorites Peter & Maria Hoey, a fantastic brother and sister
team who work in comics and illustration, put out a book called In Perpetuity.
It's a longer story than their usual narrative work but has all their calling cards
and is very good.
It starts in the after life, a shadowy world with a black sun and not much happening.
Our hero, Jim, works in a gas station and smokes a lot of cigarettes. If he goes to
a bar and orders a drink, he gets an empty glass. That's what drinks are in the
after life. As you'd expect from the Hoeys, the style of old movies in general and film noir in particular
are a big part of this world and pretty soon Jim is involved with some gangster types. Not only
did they know Jim when they were all alive, they actually killed him.
Apparently Jim is one of a handful of shades who can go back and forth between the worlds
of the living and the dead. And so our story bounces between the After Life (A.L.)
and Los Angeles (L.A.). What starts out as a fairly straightforward story about undead human trafficking soon
becomes more complicated as minor and major Greek deities get involved, including
Hades, boss of the underworld.
Like the Hoeys' other work, In Perpetuity has an extremelty strong and cohesive style,
and strikes the eye as a very "quiet" work in its deployment of colors and compositions. The story is intirguing and goes to numerous unexpected places. You don't find comics quite
this imaginative very often. You don't have to take my word for it. You can buy
it right here!
2025 July 14 • Monday
The career of former teen idol Fabian was winding down in the late'60s. He didn't make the jump to
movies as successfully as Elvis had done. But here he is in 1970, using his full name of Fabian
Forte and playing real-life gangster Pretty Boy Floyd in a movie called A Bullet for Pretty Boy.
The music, mostly by Harley Hatcher, is the 865th Soundtrack of the
Week.
The success of Bonnie and Clyde was one of those things that nudged the industry in a
certain direction and, well, this movie was part of that direction. The soundtrack album has a vocal side and an instrumental side. The vocal side, Side One,
features American International Records group The Source doing a bunch of songs that
freely mix rock, pop, country, even touches of prog. It's really impressive. There are voal harmonies, bass, drums guitar and Hammond organ. The song "Gone Tomorrow"
reaches back in time to The Shirelles' "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" while "It's Me I'm
Running From" is a sunshine country rock/pop anthem. "Got Nowhere To Go" is less than a minute long, so that's truth in advertising right there. For the instrumental Side Two, it wouldn't do just to say some guy wrote the music, so
this is a "Harley Hatcher Happening", not just boring old Harley Hatcher. The tunes there are more on the bubblegum/novelty side of things, with perky, bouncy rhythms,
flutes and keyboards and other interesting sonic textures and, on "I'm Runnin'", some
extremely energetic bongo playing paired with some
very languid electric guitar work.
2025 July 11 • Friday
After reading Joe Sikoryak's When We Were Trekkies
you should get his single-issue 1968: A Boy's Odyssey.
It's like a digestive after a meal and provides additional background
for his memoir of science-fiction fandom.
This is about three main events from the same year, 1968: the movies 2001: A Space Odyssey and
Planet of the Apes and the real-life Apollo 8 mission to the moon.
If I had been born 12 or so years earlier, I might have been swept up by
these too. It's a quick read. You should get it!
2025 July 09 • Wednesday
Quimby's in Chicago is still a great place to find new comics. (The Quimby's
in Brooklyn doesn't carry comics because their friend and neighbor
Desert Island Books does that.) I found Joe Sikoryak's "mostly true"
fandom memoir When We Were Trekkies at Quimby's and got hooked
right away.
It's about a group of friends in a New Jersey town dominated by an asbestos
factory that's also the engine of the local economy. They're all pretty different
but a love of science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular brings
them together. Of course this enthusiasm also brands them as outsiders. Nobody else
really understands this or even knows about it. After attending their first Star Trek convention and winning prizes
for their home-made costumes—as well as meeting like-minded people and personal
heroes like Nichelle Nichols, William Shatner, Isaac Asimov, Jack Kirby—
fandom becomes a consuming passion. They make different costumes every year, counting on the prize money to
recoup expenses. And of course despite this shared orbit, they still drift off
in different directions as school, work, family, sex pull at them in different
ways.
It's very well written and illustrated. I'd love to know what isn't strictly
"true" in here, how Sikoryak might have smoothed out his story
or added things for structure's sake. You should just buy all ten issues!
2025 July 07 • Monday
Bill Conti's soundtrack immortality was assured by Rocky. Shortly after that movie,
he also scored Uncle Joe Shannon, written by and starring Rocky's Burt Young.
It's the 864th Soundtrack of the
Week.
The movie is about a trumpet player and Maynard Ferguson was brought on board to supply
the trumpet playing. You hear him almost immediately, after a delicate synth intro
to "Seascape". He sounds great and it's a really nice piece, romantic and sad and ethereal. Violins playing classical music start off "Evening Concert", soon joined by Ferguson
playing an impressive staccato trumpet part. Then Ferguson makes the instrument squeal
and a jazz band come barreling in for an up-tempo swing tune which, of course, features the
trumpet. The classical strings pop back in for a moment but it's really the jazz band's cue. "Fire Tragedy" starts with somber long tones from trumpet and is an elegiac-sounding
piece, atmospheric and quietly assertive. A laidback, bluesy groove appears and Ferguson
plays some beautiful trumpet lines. Flutes start off "Alone Again", which sounds like conventional dramatic underscore but then
the attention shifts to delicate saxophone and piano statements before returning to the flutes. Ferguson then plays trumpet with mute for "Return to the Sea", which has a restrained setting
for his soloing, which builds gradually until the mute comes out and the trumpet gets to soar.
It ends with a dreamy and melancholy piano solo. The main theme, "Uncle Joe", is a change of pace, kind of like big-band disco but of course
with Ferguson taking the lead and playing a ton of great trumpet. It's got that high-energy triumphant
feel that Conti's Rocky music had. There's also some great alto sax playing. The remaining three tracks on the album are source music for "'Goose's Club' Scenes" performed by
an impressive band: Anthony Ortega on tenor sax, Al Aarons on trumpet, Mike Melvoin on piano, Dan
Ferguson on guitar, Chuck Berghoffer on bass and Steve Schaeffer on drums. "Hot Nights" is kind of fusiony disco lounge jazz, "The Goose" is up-tempo bop with great electric
piano playing and "Hard Time" is slightly less up modern jazz with walking bass.
2025 July 04 • Friday
Next time I'm in LA I'm going to drive out to San Bernardino
just to go to Birdcage Comics Cafe. Not only does it
look like a great cafe, it's also a valiant effort to publish
and distribute independent comics. Order something from their website and you might receive
this free mini-comic that tells the story.
It's an inspiring story. Definitely buy some stuff from them! The books are great
and it's a really good cause!
2025 July 02 • Wednesday
Wimbledon just started so here's a bunch of tennis stamps.
APPEARANCES