Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to the ass end of the internet!
This week: masked men; golden nuggets; rational thinking; cramping our style; flu review; fever dreams; lowered expectations; super boxing; giant-sized; pointless suffering; employee of the day; gang of idiots; party down; unexpected avatars; one-punch man; telephone tag; opera man; critical mascot; happy campers; political characters; stunt casting; all about Steve; banjo-based personality type; interested is interesting; Short tempered; Barry good; biggest comedians; humble guy; enjoy yourself; Giallo streak; Japanese horror; Ian is enjoying Agatha All Along; all about the girdle; foreshadowed is forewarned; the midday mulcher; a numbers game; leftover Led; and, finally, no pain, no grain.
Question of the Week: As a kid, what did you save up your birthday money for?
Sub-question of the Week: What do you do after the big holiday dinner?
Thanks for listening.
Here is a sweet pic from Mark’s visit to the Led Zeppelin exhibit at MOMA:
Rock’n’roll loafers!
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COMICS! I spent my birthday money on comics as a kid, specifically X-Men #94 if I remember correctly. My folks never really understood comics or my comic collecting, so for me to tell them a specific issue terrified them because 1) They had to go to the comic store in Dallas and 2) There were no returns if it went wrong. The easiest route was to give me money for birthday or Christmas and a ride to the comic book store, which was a drive to Dallas. Mom and Dad knew that would suffice and I knew what I wanted so around 1980 I could still get the beginnings of the New X-Men for a decent gift price.
Ian, I’ll have to look into those Treasury Editions you mentioned. Was the Superman vs Muhammad Ali a reprint or an original? I saw some Treasury reprints on Amazon like the Captain America Bicentennial Edition but some of the reviews were disappointed due to the fact the reprint wasn’t the original size. Isn’t that the entire point? That these comics were huge and unique because of that? I still have that Superman vs Ali original Treasury and the splash page of a beaten Superman on a stretcher still haunts me. I just went and grabbed my original and I’m happy to say it’s still in great shape! Even though I’ve met Neal Adams many times, I never thought to have him sign it! Bah!!! Remember the Spider-Man Treasury with the Sinister Six? There was a huge splash page for each time Spidey beat the hell out of the members of the Sinister Six, in glorious Steve Ditko style! Nobody drew The Sandman like he did.
Wishing you guys a belated Happy Thanksgiving up in Canada, I hope it was fun for all. My birthday is always really close to Thanksgiving or on the day of, so if it works out we’ve been known to celebrate my birthday after dinner. Mom used to make me a pumpkin pie instead of a cake, so we all had that too. Different years yield different results now, so we might separate the two days depending on what everyone’s plans are. My kids love to shop the midnight sales on Thanksgiving night before Black Friday so I let them get that out of their system and save my birthday for the weekend.
Speaking of Black Friday…
For about a half dozen years my employer demanded we go out on Thanksgiving night and audit shoppers who were waiting in line for Black Friday deals. I hated doing that but it was a mandatory thing we had to do for work, it was like cheap marketing. The following week we all got together and compared the videos and notes we had from bothering these shoppers sitting in the cold outside Game Stop and Target. My employer thought this was tremendous fun, he loved doing it and couldn’t understand why we didn’t find the fun in it. My family thought I was crazy all those years I had to go out and do this but thank God those years are over. Honestly, I don’t even think the whole Black Friday is even a huge thing anymore.
My big 40th High School reunion is this weekend everyone!
Everyone get up and dance! Happy Fall to Sneakers one and all!!