Warning: Spoiler Alert If you have not read the my story, “How The Name Came,” please do so now. I am going to discuss the story’s finale later in this post. Collectors, of just about anything, can be a strange and/or surprising bunch. About 45 years ago I worked at a ceramics studio in the St. Louis area. One day a tall delivery truck clipped our telephone wire. I walked to the Elementary School next door to call Southwestern Bell. Apparently the only phone was in the Principal’s office. On one corner of his desk stood a vertical four-by-four shaft … Continue reading The Serial Squadron

How I met the Masked Rider, and other western avengers. Like most Americans my age, I grew up on westerns. There were western (and Northern) radio shows like James Stewart in “The Sixshooter,” and the modern day Sky King. Sgt. Preston (“The Challenge of the Yukon”) and the “Silver Eagle” kept the peace in the wilder parts of Canada. And, most importantly, for the younger set, “The Lone Ranger” hit the trail three times a week. Most of the movies I got taken to in suburban St. Louis were either swashbucklers or westerns. These were the “A” movies. I never … Continue reading Erwin’s First Blog Post

A Haven For Imagination, Mostly In Bright Colors Comics books, as regularly published magazines, began in the mid-1930’s. In 1939 the industry really took off. Twenty years later some long time comics professionals thought comics might die out. They were wrong, of course, but some young talents were advised to seek work elsewhere. In those twenty-some years many hundreds of comics book titles were published. A number of companies did not copyright their comics, or forgot to renew copyrights. An amazing number of those issues ended up in the public domain. At least 20,000. Somewhere in the first decade of … Continue reading Introducing the Digital Comic Museum

28 May 2021 On a mailing-list I follow today somebody commented about how a UK author confused a Mangrove swamp with a forest of Mango fruit trees. Let me assure everybody that there is nothing in the least “romantic” about a mangrove swamp. After rushing to Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis elements of the U.S. Army’s Hawk and Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile batteries settled in. Don’t know much about where the Hawk batteries ended up, but two of the Herc units got stuck with problems. One got placed in Everglades National Park. That meant that unmarried troops were expected … Continue reading My Old Army Unit Did What!?!