If you’re at all interested in reading the confessional piece that put this whole set of events into motion, may I point you towards “The Secret Origin of Fred Hembeck”!!

Now, about those links mentioned above. If you want to know more about the (still) impending Image Comics’ publication, The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus – including how to get either a simple autographed copy or one with my signature AND a custom drawing!- just use that link! And as always, check out my blog, Fred Sez, or my whole gosh darn website, Hembeck.com!! And before you know it, we’ll see you all back here at the Quick Stop bistro!

–Copyright 2008 Fred Hembeck

Today’s episode was for all you folks who’ve said, “The Fred Hembeck Show sucks!!”. Yes, this time around it did. Well, at least, it pretended to…

Now, about those links mentioned above. If you want to know more about the impending Image Comics’ publication, The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus – including how to get either a simple autographed copy or one with my signature AND a custom drawing!–just use that link! And as always, check out my blog, Fred Sez, or my whole gosh darn website, Hembeck.com!! And before you know it, we’ll see you all back here at the Quick Stop corral!
–Copyright 2008 Fred Hembeck

THAT should silence the critics who’ve said The Fred Hembeck Show has lost its bite!Well, gang, until next full moon – or thereabouts – stop on over at my Fred Sez blog to keep up on my latest doin’s! Adios for now!

So, see you next time – WHENEVER that may be!!

–Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

…And so ends tonight’s performance!

Hope you folks enjoyed this, the 101st – and long-delayed – episode of “The Fred Hembeck Show”! We went on an extended hiatus the past several months, mostly so as to cobble together a little something called The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus, a massive 900 plus page collection of my past work (even including several episodes of this very feature!), arriving in bookstores nationwide February ’08, courtesy of the fine folks at Image!

I’ll say no more, as you can read all about it simply by following this link on over to the info page I’ve installed on my home site, Hembeck.com (and don’t forget to peek in on my Fred Sez blog from time to time as well!).

Now that that’s done (for the most part, anyway), I’m happy to be back here putting on “The Show” for you, my Quick Stop audience. Sadly, I’m afraid that the days of this being a weekly feature are now in the past, but I do hope to favor you with whatever nutty notions leak out of my noggin on – at the very least – a semi-regular basis!

So, see you next time – WHENEVER that may be!!

–Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

And thanks so very much to YOU for tuning in, friends – after all, what kind of a show would we have without an audience?

Well, a canceled one, I imagine.

Which leads me to this next announcement – with this initial triple digit reaching episode, “The Fred Hembeck Show” is going on hiatus. No, we’ve NOT been canceled – this little break is entirely my doing. The thing is, I need to devote a goodly chunk of my time in the days directly upcoming to a specific fun-filled project – one I’m not quite prepared to announce just yet, but will, worry not, when the time is right!

In the meantime, I still intend to post a smattering of short entries over on my Fred Sez blog, so if you’re a mind to, keep checking there. Should events merit it, I may even pop back here with a fresh episode – Ken and Kevin would no doubt want you to keep checking THIS site as well! Hey – there’s always Peter Sanderson to keep an eye out for, y’know…

This isn’t goodbye, gang, just see ya later!

–Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

Parents and children.

If a specific day could be said to possess a theme, well, that surely would’ve been the one I’d’ve designated for last Tuesday, April the tenth.

Y’see, that was the day my 16-year-old daughter, Julie, though freshly back at school after her Easter break, came home several hours early. We were off to Albany – a near two hour drive – to meet and dine with my old compadre (and Empire City resident), Roger Green, followed by an eagerly anticipated concert in The Egg (a unique civic structure, to be sure) given by Sean Lennon. And oddly enough, opening for the son of John and Yoko was Kamila Thompson, the daughter of Richard and Linda Thompson! Also featured was a four piece ensemble (pedigree unknown) whose moniker – Women and Children – still managed to somehow stay on theme!

And as much as I wanted to see the show, I did feel some mild degree of regret (silly as it was, I’ll admit) for being dragged away from the TV only minutes before the true identity of the daddy of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby was about to be revealed!! Now, there’s one kid Sean’s surely gotta relate to…

Let’s review, okay? We were going to see John and Yoko’s kid – along with the Thompson’s kid – with my kid while the TV was chattering on and on about Anna Nicole’s kid! Like I said, theme time…

But how did I find myself in this position in the first place, you might well ask? Cuz, y’know, the truth is, if you’d’ve told me as recently as six months ago that I’d be heading off with great enthusiasm to see Sean Lennon sing live, I woulda probably thought you were, um, kidding…

Look, I’ll come right and say it – I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Yoko. No, she didn’t break up the Beatles, not really, but there’s always been something that’s nonetheless prevented me from looking upon her with anything more than, at best, begrudging respect – and oft times, not even that. Sorry – my prejudice, and perhaps an unfair one at that. But it is what it is, and it even unconsciously spilled over to Sean, the only child of her storied union with the beloved Beatle.

Julian? Hey, Julian I had no problem with, and I was in fact one of many who snapped up his 1984 release, Valotte, the debut LP that – however briefly – turned the offspring of Lennon and first wife, Cynthia, into an overnight teen idol. But the next several albums (three of which I own, picked up either in the remainder racks or for discount prices at a used CD outlet) were neither the critical nor popular successes that first offering was.

(Happily, a distinctive return to form creatively – if not financially – can be found on Julian’s most recent release, 1999’s wonderful Photograph Smile. Word that another collection of junior Lennon tunes (shockingly, Jules is now older than his dad was when the elder met his tragic demise) is said to be on the near horizon, and if it’s anywhere near the quality of his last CD, it’ll be warmly welcomed in these quarters!)

As for Sean, well, when he released his own solo debut in 1999, Into The Sun, (after collaborating with mom Yoko and subsequently playing with several avant garde musical congregations, material I’ve to this day yet to investigate), I pretty much ignored it. It wasn’t until a year or so later when a friend lent me a copy that I took the time to listen to the CD. I was pleasantly surprised by the disc’s quality, enough so to actually go out and buy my own copy. But as sometimes happens when I add something I consider to be marginal to my always burgeoning music collection (like, for instance, those three other Julian CDs), I rarely get around to playing it. Truth is, if I popped Into The Sun into the CD deck more than twice in the last half decade, I’d be surprised. So when the news came last year that Sean was readying his second solo collection for release, it was all I could do to stifle a yarn.

Hey, I never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the garden, y’know…

What turned me around? Well, it all began with an appearance by the son of Ono on Late Night With Conan O’Brien several months ago. Accompanied by his band, he took the stage and launched into a tune – probably the single, “Dead Meat”, though I can’t say for certain at this late date. Whatever – the thing is, I was immediately struck by both the song’s haunting melody and the group’s expert performance, particularly the vocals. My interest level had been substantially raised – not enough to go out and ACTUALLY shell out some bucks for the new album, mind you, but the seeds were definitely planted…

Because if I HADN’T witnessed that TV appearance, who knows how I might’ve reacted back in early March when Lynn informed me that Sean Lennon was playing at The Egg a month later? Without the evidence provided by Conan’s show, I may well’ve dismissed the notion of attending the show entirely. (Of course, the fact that tickets for the concert retailed at an extremely reasonable twenty-four bucks didn’t hurt the decision making process one iota, to be perfectly honest…). So yeah, we decided, “Hey, why not?” Albany’s not all that long a hike from here – and to sweeten the deal even further, we enlisted local resident (and fellow Fabs fancier) Roger Green! Once we were all in agreement, Lynn went online, secured four tickets, and we were set!

There was only thing we needed now:

A copy of the new CD.

So, later that week, I drove over to my local Best Buy outlet, and purchased a copy of Friendly Fire (which comes as a twofer – a DVD of music videos, loosely tied together as a story of sorts, is included along with the music CD). Arriving back home, I opened it up and slipped it into the disc changer.

How best to describe it? Well, it’s one of those albums that, upon first play you think, “Hmm, very nice. Better than I expected, even”, but nothing really jumps out and bowls you over. Still, it clearly IS good, so you give it another spin.

And then another.

And another still, and before you know it, the ten-song collection (clocking in at a modest 38 minutes) has completely insinuated itself into your subconscious. Whereas many flashy CD’s prove to soon wear thin over all too short a time, Friendly Fire very quietly – but unremittingly – grows on you. By the time Lynn, Julie and I sat down together to watch the DVD (a mere two days before the concert – I wanted the music to work as music first and foremost, and thus avoided the visual interpretations until the tunes were firmly set in my mind), all three of us had long been won over by the record’s subtle virtues.

What does it sound like? Well, unlike Into The Sun (which I naturally pulled off the Hembeck Rack O’ Tunes so as to afford it a thorough reassessment), there were no sudden and unexpected detours into jazz and Latin flavored riffs to be found on this new release. The music here was all of a piece. And while the Beatlesque flourishes regularly found on his half-sibling’s recordings weren’t in such obvious evidence, a close listen to Sean’s song-structure says a lot about the power of DNA. (And not surprisingly, the brothers with different mothers sound – at least at times – amazingly alike. Based on what we have on disc, though, neither one – especially Sean – is likely to pull off a convincing go at the likes of a “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” or “Twist and Shout”. But oh, what the boys could do with “Across The Universe”…).

Maybe the record sounds so cohesive due to the events that inspired it. With song titles like the aforementioned “Dead Meat”, “On Again Off Again”, “Falling Out Of Love”, and the tune that lends the disc its name, you’ve gotta figure there was bad vibes at the root of it all. You’d be right. Now, I can’t say I know all the details – I read about it in an online news story a few weeks back – but as best I can recall, Sean discovered his steady girl two-timing him with his best friend, and before all the conflicting emotions caused by this hurtful revelation could be sorted out, his long-time buddy was killed in a car crash. Yeah, that’s most surely a rotten price to pay for inspiration, no doubt about it…

But whatever the unfortunate circumstances, there’s no denying Friendly Fire is an inspired work of art, so tearing myself away from the tragically farcical Anna Nicole circus for couple of hours, we eagerly embarked on our trip to Albany Tuesday afternoon. Arriving shortly after five, we gathered up Roger directly from his place of employment (and you can read Mr. Green’s own detailed account of the evening by going to his fine Rockin’ and Rollin’ With Rog blog), went out for a vegan-friendly meal of falafel, and eventually made our way downtown to The Egg.

The Egg. I myself was a guest at several FantaCons held in that self-same structure back in the late seventies, early eighties, but hadn’t been inside it since – and I’d never, ever seen a concert there. Well, we parked, hopped the elevator, and soon reached our destination (but not before I turned to Julie and said, “Hey kid, dig it – we’re in The Egg, man! Goo goo ga joob!” Well, SHE laughed anyway…). Our timing was perfect – we were seated just moments before the lights dimmed. And ohmigosh, what seats they were! Third row from the stage, probably no more than thirty feet from the microphone!

Opening act, Kamila Thompson, was already on stage, accompanied only by her acoustic guitar. She sang several of her own compositions in a clear, strong voice, inherited no doubt from her legendary British folkie folks, Richard and Linda. The audience warmed to her, no doubt partially due to her engaging between song chatter, but also because she didn’t overstay her welcome, playing for just under thirty minutes.

In this instance, it WASN’T a case of Women and Children first, but instead, second. This foursome – which started out with the female vocalist alone at the keyboards for the opening number, subsequently being joined by the other members of the group one by one on the next several selections – wasn’t as warmly received. Oh, they weren’t bad by any means, but I’m thinking, in a small venue like this, two opening acts is maybe one too many. The crowd was clearly getting antsy for the headliner, and this group’s occasional atonal musical experiments seemed to be trying the auditorium’s collective patience. And they played too long – nearly an hour – after which we had to wait another twenty minutes before the stage was ready for the evening’s featured attraction.

Finally, as the clock neared 9:30 (the show had originally been advertised as running from 7 until 9, but that was sans Women and Children), Sean Lennon and his four-piece band hit the stage to a warm welcome from the small (a 450 seat venue not quite filled to capacity) but enthusiastic crowd! And like I said, there he was, no more than ten yards away! Quite a stark contrast from seeing his dad’s old buddy Paul in an arena, lemme tell ya!

Sporting a bushy beard, a fifties’ ad-exec hat, and a dapper suit and tie (with each male member of the band duded up in similar – if not matching – outfits, minus the head gear), Sean stepped up to the mic, brandishing an acoustic guitar of his own, and launched directly into one of the tunes from Friendly Fire. Which one, I couldn’t tell you, but over the course of the next hour, the band would play all ten selections from the album, as well as one new, unrecorded, song, the instrumental jam that plays under the DVD’s end credits, and for a second encore (the first being Sean alone with his guitar doing “Tomorrow”), “Mystery Juice”, the lone selection lifted from his debut CD. In fact, after introducing the band – Cameron Grieder on guitar, Brad Albetta on bass, Bill Dobrow on drums, and Yuka Honda on the keyboard – he turned to Yuka (who’s also the group’s musical director) and observed that they’d been working together for 12 or 13 years, and that little ditty was in fact the very first song they worked on for their very first CD, where it properly resides as the disc’s very first cut! Now, it’s the very LAST thing they play – hey, THAT’S irony!

How were they? Absolutely wonderful. The playing was precise, but still loose enough as to not come across as pre-packaged. Lennon’s singing was assured, sounding every bit as strong as on the CD – clearly, no studio trickery was needed to sweeten his vocal contributions. The man can most certainly sing! And y’know, when he hunched his shoulders slightly as he sang into the microphone, the body language looked remarkably similar to one of the fellows in that old A Hard Days Night flick!…

The arrangements for the songs (which, incidentally, were NOT played in the same sequential order as on the CD) largely adhered to the recorded versions, with the occasionally focused extended jam elongating a tune to nice effect. The only exception came with “Headlights”, a number that depended on syncopated hand clapping for it’s percussion on the disc. As the group clearly had their hands otherwise occupied, Sean announced that they’d prepared a modified arrangement for the road, and he hoped folks would recognize it (not to worry…).

I’ve gotta admit, initially, I’d just assumed Sean was going to let his guitarist do the heavy picking, leaving Lennon to merely strum his acoustic throughout the show. Midway through, though, he swapped his folkie model for an electric number, and I was surprised that when they came to Marc (T Rex) Bolan’s “Would I Be The One” (the lone number not composed by Lennon), it was Sean, not his bandmate, playing that number’s smokin’ hot guitar solo! Who knew? The kid (who’s now, um, in his early thirties) is apparently a man of many talents.

The crowd loved him – clearly, many in the audience were already familiar with Friendly Fire – but that doesn’t mean the evening was without incident. As the applause for the first number was subsiding, some knuckle head in the back shouted out, “Hey Sean – listen to what the man said!”. The place was intimate enough that there was no way to ignore the remark, though Lennon seemed momentarily confused by it. Hoping to be helpful, the big-mouth in the back clearly pointed out the McCartney connection, but Sean quickly fired back some humorously cutting remark to the unwelcome heckler, eliciting the wild approval of the remainder of the crowd, but unfortunately, the loose-lipped goofball wasn’t quite done. After the next number, he yelled out a total non sequiter (something about a coal mine, I think – I TOLD you it made no sense…), was blessedly silent after the third song, but screamed out “Lenny Kravitz!” after the fourth tune. As Sean once worked with Lenny, he responded by remarking, “Lenny Kravitz. Well, that’s a GOOD thing to shout out at a rock concert, I guess. Not like, y’know, “Celine Dion, WOOOOO!”, an ad lib that had the crowd laughing heartily.

Thankfully, this uncomfortably ersatz Abbott and Costello routine – “Who’s On Stage?” – came to a merciful end during a run through of the CD’s title track, as a couple of beefy guards escorted Lennon’s unwelcome straight man from the facilities, sparing the rest of us his “wit” for the remainder of the evening. The show was so much better without any more unsolicited contributions from the peanut-brained gallery, take my word for it. (Though when Sean later returned to the stage to perform his solo encore, someone else shouted out “Airtight Garage!!”, a reference that very much intrigued Lennon. He explained it was a comic strip by Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) that he quite liked, and that yes, he really digs comic books! In fact, growing up, he wanted to be a super-hero, but failing that, he became a musician instead – which he suggested was almost as good!)

(I suppose I should be relieved that over-eager patron number two didn’t squeal out “Magneto and Titanium Man!”…)

Well, after a rousing standing O, it was all over by 10:30. Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever attended a concert in which an album was preformed in its entirety – and one that I was so very fond of to boot! After having to practically be dragged to both a Ringo Starr concert and a Paul McCartney show in the not all that distant past, it did my little heart good to find my daughter nowadays so in sync (as opposed to N’Sync, who she USTA like) with her dad when it came to music generally and in particular this evening’s show. Fact is, we couldn’t possibly leave without securing a Sean Lennon tee-shirt for her, one she wore proudly to school the next day. (Lynn and Roger were similarly impressed, by the way, though both skipped the opportunity to upgrade their wardrobes…) (And hey, Rog – thanks for coming along! It made a swell night even sweller, sharing it with an old buddy!)

So my advice to you folks out there is two-fold: if Sean Lennon comes anywhere near your environs, grab yourself a ticket (they’re criminally under-priced), then run out, buy the CD, and live with it in the weeks leading up to the show, playing it over and over. After which, go to the show – you WON’T be disappointed.

And if he’s NOT playing anywhere in your area, well, buy the CD anyway. Again, disappointment is highly unlikely.

Y’know, maybe it’s time for me to reassess my take on Yoko. After all, she certainly raised herself an impressive kid under far from the easiest of circumstances.

Hey, Larry – you might do well to borrow a page – heck, maybe even a couple of complete chapters – from the lady’s book with baby Dannilynn, dig?

Hembeck.com – also not a DNA match with Howard K. Stern (and proud of it), but always open to a Lennon (even the Sisters!). And after visiting my site and Roger‘s, why not stop over at Sean Lennon‘s? You can check out a little of what I’ve been describing here for yourself!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

Friends, the following story clearly demonstrates the miracle of the internet. Exactly HOW, I’ll explain later, but first to the particulars…

It was about a week and a half ago. My daughter was on spring break and her good pal Courtney was over. We were having dinner – lentil burgers, a vegan delight (trust me…) – when the phone rang. Julie, assuming it was another one her buddies, went to answer it.

No one was on the other line. She put the phone back in the receiver and sat down.

The phone rang again. Again, no one on the opposite end.

Just in case, she brought the cordless phone back to the table with her, and sure enough: “briiing” (or however today’s new-fangled phones sound). I was in the process of assembling my second delicious lentil burger – lettuce, tomato, red onion, relish, catsup, AND pickle on the side – when she unexpectedly handed the phone off to me.

For ME? Really? Well, it had to be somebody selling something – it always is during the dinner hour.

“Hello, is this Fred?…”

“Yes?..”

“Hi Fred – this is Tom Kenny!”

Omighod – SPONGEBOB!!

(Trust me – I just THOUGHT that. I didn’t actually blurt it out loud. Honest.)

“And – ” another voiced interjected, “Andy Paley.”

Good gosh – the musical guru who produced the SpongeBob SquarePants CD, The Best Day Ever (as well as Brian Wilson’s unreleased masterpiece, Sweet Insanity, amongst many other impressive credits on his extensive resume) was on the line as well! Lentil burger be damned – it’s surely not everyday a call like this comes into the Hembeck household!

(Those of you who follow these weekly ramblings may recall that, back last fall, Quick Stop’s Ken Plume alerted me to the very real possibility of such a call coming in – reread episode 81 of “The Fred Hembeck Show” to refresh your memory – but all these months later, the truth is, I was still caught off guard…)

I quickly got up from the table, and wandered about the house as I spoke with this pair of genial gents. They apologetically pointed out that they’d been meaning to make this call since way back in 2004 – not long after I posted my enthusiastic reaction to their contributions to the soundtrack for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack CD, tunes that would later form the backbone of the aforementioned Best Day Ever release – and with apparently nothing more pressing on their agendas this particular Monday afternoon (as it was only mid-day out in sunny California), today was my lucky day!

Well gang, I did my level best to sound casual, engaging the duo in pleasantly breezy small talk, all the while attempting to stifle the ongoing realization that I was speaking with not only my all-time favorite cartoon character, but also the guy who made the genius Beach Boy sound like even more of a genius! Not an easy task, granted, but I tried…

What did we talk about? Well, first off, they clued me into some live gigs they played as SpongeBob and the High Seas at several comics cons – as well as on the late night Craig Ferguson program – and asked when I was coming out to San Diego. Regretfully, not anytime soon, as I confessed that I really, really don’t dig flying, but I helpfully suggested they pack up their gear and play next year’s big NYC con! THAT I’d surely go see!

Both of these fellas turned out to be extremely friendly, down-to-earth guys, and any celebrity-shock I may’ve initially felt wore off almost immediately. Tom spoke of his voice work on Stan Lee’s short-lived Stripperella series as being a big personal thrill – and then proceeded to do the best Stan impression this side of Jim Salicrup, which he topped off by demonstrably pointing out The Man’s vocal similarities with comedian Gilbert Gottfried!

“Thanks, guys – ” I deadpanned, “now you’ve gone and ruined Stan Lee for me!!”

(They’re not wrong, though – next time you spin your M.M.M.S. flexi-disc, it’s gonna be mighty tough to banish Gilbert’s distinctive pan from your mind’s eye, I guarantee it…)

While Tom was the more talkative of the two – hey, that’s his job – I didn’t want Andy to fell overlooked, so I made a point of praising his work on the Sweet Insanity bootleg I own.

“Bootlegs are illegal, you know” he sternfully reminded me, but inasmuch as the copyright cops haven’t yet come banging on my door in the intervening days, I’m sure he was just kidding me with his indignation. Well, pretty sure anyway…

Our chat went on like this for about ten minutes, but as I sensed our time waning, I felt I HAD to make a potentially unreasonable request:

“Tom, would you talk to my daughter, using, you know, THE voice?…”

I’m sure he must get this sort of thing constantly – and I tried to resist the urge to ask, really I did – but how could I possibly let an opportunity like this pass? Much to my relief, Tom was only happy enough to comply, so I walked into Julie’s room (dinner had been finished without me), told her someone wanted to speak with her, and handed her the phone.

Now, the truth is, she knew who was on the other line – Lynn figured it out when she heard me say “Hi Tom!” – and maybe it would’ve been even better back in 2004 when she was a mere lass of 13, but still, the look on Julie’s face when SpongeBob began to serenade her with a short accapella version of “The Best Day Ever” was absolutely priceless! The confused smile playing across her face intimated that she found the experience genuinely amusing, with a small but significant side order of creepy! Tom soon dropped the vocal facade, and chatted amiably with her for several more minutes. Julie eventually handed the phone back to me, but I gotta tell ya – I got almost as big a kick out of watching her talk to Tom Kenny as I did from actually speaking with him myself! Almost…

Knowing the clock was ticking, when Tom suggested we exchange contact information, I threw caution entirely to the wind.

“Tom, um, couldja give it to me in your SpongeBob voice?” (which I’d yet to hear).

Good sport that he is, Tom began to rattle off numbers in that lovable upper-register squeak of his, and I was somehow managing to keep it together – that is, until he came to the word “hyphen”! How could one NOT burst out laughing upon hearing SpongeBob’s precise pronunciation of such a word? Even Tom knew those six little letters were comedic gold, and commented that “hyphen” was a pitch perfect Jerry Lewis word! Which reminded him of the great lost SpongeBob SquarePants episode, the one written specifically for the comedy legend, casting Mr. Lewis as an even dimmer relative of our star – can’t you just imagine the hilarity? Well, you’re gonna have to – the folks holding the wildly popular property’s purse strings were reluctant to meet Jer’s (according to Tom) not-unreasonable asking price for his efforts. Tom and Jerry’s teaming, it seems, just wasn’t in the cards (or in the budget, sadly…). A tremendous shame, we three all agreed.

Well, time to say goodbye. Didn’t want to overstay my welcome. Had a wonderful time. Hung up. Put the phone back in its cradle. Sat down.

Wow.

The miracle of the internet strikes again!

How? Follow me here – I’ll try and make it brief:

1999: My nine year daughter turns me on to a brand new Nicktoon, one I immediately fall in love with!

2004: By now, the rest of the world has caught up with me, and a big-screen film featuring the underwater cast is released, along with an accompanying soundtrack CD. I write glowingly about both on my nearly two year old blog.

2005: Mark Evanier tips me off that Tom Kenny had read my comments, and was impressed that I “got” what he and producer Andy Paley were attempting with their pair of tunes!

2006: Ken Plume runs an interview on the Quick Stop site with Tom that spends an inordinate amount of space on yours truly, the amateur music critic, with a personal phone call threatened!

2007: SPONGEBOB TALKS TO ME ON THE PHONE!!

Without the internet, these chain of events would very likely never have occurred. So what else can I do but say, “Thank you Al Gore! –

BEST CALL EVER!!”…

Hembeck.com urges you to go out and buy the SpongeBob and The High Seas CD, The Best Day Ever, if you haven’t already – it’s quite good! Honest.

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

This week, we have a real curiosity for you folks.

Fact is, I’M sorta curious about it myself!…

Several years ago, I inadvertently stumbled across a small pile of 3×5 index cards (a thick rubber band wrapped securely around them) tucked away with the rest of my original artwork. It was twenty eight pages of rough layouts – plus cover – for something I chose to call “Living In The Marvel Universe starring Fred Hembeck”. The thing is, I have absolutely no memory of when – and especially WHY – I did this!! (Internal evidence garnered from some baseball references – don’t worry, non-sports fans, they’re only of a passing nature – would indicate that this was cobbled together during the 1985, ’86, ’87, or ’88 seasons, most likely earlier than later.)

But more importantly, WHY? Clearly, these AREN’T thumbnails for full-sized pages, what with the severely limited amount of panels found on each page. It kinda looks like I was designing some sort of pocket-sized flip book, but why I ever thought that would be a good idea, well, like I say, at this late date, I have absolutely NO clue. Considering that things never progressed past the extremely embryonic stage on display here, I would venture to guess that I eventually came to realize the folly of my labors.

But you know what? Despite some hastily scrawled drawing (not to mention some occasionally shaky lettering), reading this over again recently (and please, pardon me for saying this) actually made me chuckle several times. Try and get past the raw nature of this piece, and who knows? Maybe it’ll do the same for you! Here’s hoping…

Coincidentally, the New York Mets 2007 season begins this very Sunday. Y’know, I haven’t heard anything as of yet, but I’m still hoping good ol’ Spidey can swing on over to catch the opener with me!

And remember, fans, at Hembeck.com, we ALWAYS play ball!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

It was a late summer’s eve in 1971, scant days before I was scheduled to start my freshman year at college. My buddies and I had hopped onto the Long Island Expressway and made the fifty plus mile trek into The Big Apple for the evening. After catching a Marx Brothers flick at a Greenwich Village revival house – or maybe it was Humphrey Bogart classic – we found ourselves roaming the teeming streets of Manhattan in search of some grub.

All thoughts of something so pedestrian as food left my mind entirely when my eyes suddenly spotted a startling image hanging from the side of a newsdealer’s magazine booth.

This…

The Hulk! On the cover of Rolling Stone magazine! (Number 91, September 14th edition, to be precise) My good golly gosh, but was I ever stunned! I’d first come across the fledgling music magazine with its 19th issue, but didn’t encounter it again until number 27’s special “Groupie” edition somehow made its way out to our sleepy little town of Yaphank – at which point, I decided to leave nothing further to chance and began a subscription that, yes, still exists to this very day! But if all you know is the RS of today – or for the last 30 years, for that matter – you’ve gotta understand, Rolling Stone once was an amazingly vital, truly cutting edge publication, one I’d gleefully devour cover to cover as soon as each bi-weekly issue arrived in my mailbox – and then I’d proceed to reread the stuff that REALLY interested me! About the only thing that held my attention as steadily as the exotic doings reported in the Stone was (uh huh, you guessed it) comic books! And ESPECIALLY Marvel Comics!

So when I spied my two primary obsessions intermingled as never before, just dangling there from a small metal clip on the bustling streets of NYC, I knew I HAD to have a copy, and I had to have one IMMEDIATELY! Knowing full well that a copy would soon be delivered by my local postman, I nonetheless went right ahead and dipped into my not-overly-impressive finances and shelled out the sixty cent cover price for the privilege of reading Robin Green’s affectionate examination of the Marvel Bullpen a few measly days sooner than I would’ve otherwise (and YOU can read it now, for free, by going here!).

To satisfy my curiosity alone, it was well worth it – plus, I eventually wound up with TWO copies of that must-have collector’s item! Besides, sandwiched between cover shots of George Harrison on stage at The Concert For Bangla Desh (RS 90) and Jefferson Airplane (RS 92), Herb Trimpe’s illustration of the gamma-irradiated cover boy remains (in my mind anyhow) one of the most iconic images ever produced of the Green Goliath! “Hulk smash puny Wenner’s counter-culture rag! Cream’s Wheels of Fire deserved much better review – bah!”

I giddily related this otherwise rather pointless personal anecdote to the artist himself last week in an Italian eatery by the name of Goodfellas (found not on the mean streets of New York City but in the comparatively tranquil environs of Poughkeepsie) as I sat with Herb Trimpe and wife Patricia Vasquez, munching down a sausage and peppers sub for lunch shortly after putting in time as a guest speaker at the weekly cartooning central studies class the couple presides over at Poughkeepsie Day School (which institution – if not class – my daughter Julie not-so-coincidentally attends.).

(For those of you who may’ve come in late, a central studies class is generally one dealing in art, music, or theater – though there have been courses rooted in both math and science – that meets three times a month on Wednesdays from 8:30 until just past noon, and for the entire day the fourth Wednesday. The courses run for nearly half a year, with a short, five week CS rounding out the second semester (providing juniors the time to take a mandatory college prep course). Herb and Patricia (who, in the 9th and 10th grades, taught my daughter Spanish – or at least tried to; like her dad’s long-ago doomed attempts to master German, foreign lingo has consistently been Julie’s glaring academic Achilles Heel – as well serving as her student adviser the latter year) first introduced the course during the final five week slot last May, and since it was so well received, the duo brought it back for a lengthier run commencing this past January.)

And then, somehow, I got involved!

Actually, it was simple enough – Patricia had queried Julie at school as to the possibility of yours truly coming in one week and speaking to the students. To share my (ahem) expertise, such as it is. Well, sir, I was both flattered AND terrified by the request. Terrified because I am NOT – nor will I ever be – a comfortable public speaker; and flattered because hey, this was Herb “Incredible Hulk” Trimpe asking, y’know? Which he did, formerly, over the phone, a day or so following Julie’s passed along invitation from her former instructor. Truth is, there was a part of me that just wanted to decline and save myself the inevitable stress I’d suffer as the date of my classroom cameo drew inexorably closer, but I did my level best to shunt those feelings of doubt aside, deciding instead to step squarely up to the plate. There were several reasons why I was willing to accede to Herb and Patricia’s wishes – not the least being Mr. T’s assurance of this being pretty much a very low pressure situation for even the most skittish of speakers (i.e., me) with a good group of truly motivated students – but aside from that, a primary one definitely was the rare opportunity to spend a little time inside the walls of PDS during an actual school day!

Y’see, going all the way back to the days when Julie was attending pre-school, I’ve made a point of volunteering to chaperon as many field trips (or assist with as many holiday parties) as possible, all in not only a selfless effort to help, but (okay, I’ll admit it) in a selfish effort to get at least a small glimpse into what goes on in my daughter’s life during those otherwise mysterious school time hours. In the course of my efforts, I’ve been to an awful lot of pumpkin patches, served up a plenty of Valentine’s Day cake, and seen my share of historical landmarks, but in the two plus years Julie’s been at PDS, I’d somehow never managed to get myself involved in ANY classroom activities whatsoever! NOW was my chance! Okay, sure, my offspring was gonna be down the hall, lurking around in the dark in her photography class – nothing ever works out perfectly, y’know – but c’mon, did I mention that Herb “Phantom Eagle” Trimpe was gonna be in attendance?

(A totally irrelevant aside: one of my favorite chaperoning anecdotes dates back to Julie’s kindergarten days. The class was planning a half day trip to the now shuttered Catskill Game Farm, and the mother of virtually every kid involved volunteered to go along for the ride, myself included. Inasmuch as the teacher clearly didn’t seem to like Julie very much – long story, but happily, the only discernible instance of that happening in the kid’s classroom career – I was somewhat surprised when I learned that I was one of the lucky few chosen to accompany the wee ones on the trip! My delight soon faded when I discovered the TRUE reason for making the final cut: the teacher needed at least one adult male to come along to perform the all important job of accompanying, as needed, any and all of the gaggle of five-year old boys to the men’s room! Yes, friends, it’s true – I was selected primarily for Potty Patrol! And lemme tell ya, I was exhausted like never before – and rarely since – after THAT particular sojourn!

My chaperoning days came to an apparent end during a trip to one of George Washington’s wartime headquarters when Julie was an eighth grader, her last year in public school. The lackluster attitude evinced by most of the students on that trip was a long way from the sort of wide-eyed wonder kids just a few years younger had shown in the past, which I found a tad dispiriting. So a chance to spend some time in PDS with kids maybe a smidgen more lively than the bunch we had to basically drag from one Revolutionary War landmark to another that cold wintry day three plus years back sure looked mighty appealing to me by comparison…).

But WHAT was I going to say? What was I going to DO? Once before, when Julie was in the fifth grade, I was presented with a similar situation – my daughter’s art teacher got wind of my cartooning, and asked me to come in and address her students. I did, and it went reasonably well – only with those kids, I could start with the absolute basics, kill a little time that way, and then eventually just draw whatever they shouted out. Herb and Patricia’s class, however, had undoubtedly zipped way past the basics long ago, leaving me…what? A Ted Baxterish monologue? “It all began in a 5000 watt radio station…”? Oh yeah – THAT’D sure go over like gangbusters! Ultimately, I simply gathered together a handful of my originals – including some published versions of same for comparison – and decided to concentrate on three key areas: humor; doing the entire job on your own; and creating autobiographical comics. I emailed Herb with my tenuous plans, and, a few days later, he phoned back the night before my appearance to give me the thumbs up. We both agreed that I could do a lot worse than simply winging it…

Now, I’d like to blame my two cats, Mario and Luigi, because they often wake me up in the dead of night to go outside, then maybe an hour or so later, wake me again to come back in, and that evening was a particularly active one for the ol’ feline go-round (and no, I CAN’T just ignore them – their incessant yowling would allow for no rest whatsoever, trust me), so maybe THAT was why I got less sleep than usual, and it wasn’t at all due to a case of the nerves. Nope. Not at all. Well, whatever – I was wide awake when the alarm went off, and after dressing and gathering all my goodies, Julie and I were soon off to school together, just like old times – if you consider “old times” to be all of ten days ago! Y’see, now that Julie has secured herself a driver’s license, she’s begun to drive herself in, rather than hitch a ride with her mom three days a week, or have me make the early morning round-trip on the two days Lynn generally works at home. I’ve gotta admit, it’s quite an adjustment, having your kid drive off in a car, and you’re not with ’em. But it also saves everyone a whole lotta time and gas, so we’re trying our best to weigh the clear benefits against typical parental worries, and so far, so good. But this bright and beautiful Wednesday morning, father and daughter were once again driving into school together. I after all had me a very important appointment with Herb “Godzilla” Trimpe!

Once we arrived in the pot-hole riddled parking lot, Julie and I split – she headed for morning meeting, sort of (as Herb “G.I. Joe” Trimpe later described it) a daily military style briefing for the entire student body, while I set out for the school’s other building, where Herb and Patricia’s classroom was located. I signed in, and a very nice woman by the name of Sarah walked me upstairs to my destination. As I strolled in, there was Herb, going through the class’s work (Patricia was, as usual, attending the aforementioned morning meeting ceremonies). After exchanging niceties, Herb proudly showed me what the class had been working on: they’d broken up into several small teams, with each putting together a comics strip (three to nine pages) as a group. The subject matter was wildly diverse, and while not up to professional standards – hey, these are eighth, ninth, and tenth graders, after all – the work WAS brimming with enthusiasm. And for that matter, so was Herb! The goal of the day, he informed me, was to put the finishing touches on this assignment, and then moving on to the next: solo work by each student. Which was part of the reason why my visit had been timed for this particular Wednesday, inasmuch as I regularly do the entire job on my own. But before I could spend any more than a few brief moments going over my plans with Herb, the first few students began slowly wandering in. It was eight-thirty, and Professor Fred’s lecture de jour was only minutes away. Oh boy…

After a few opening remarks from Herb and Patricia – who’d accompanied the teen-aged throng as they made their way over to the upper school building after the mandatory AM get-together – Herb introduced me to the students (there were sixteen to begin with – though several more ambled in over the course of the morning – fully six of which were female, a pleasantly surprising percentage in an area of interest that stereotypically skews male). When asked if anybody knew who I was, several chimed in that they in fact did, but I’m guessing that was mostly due to Julie serving as my advance agent amongst those kids she knew personally enrolled in the course. So, directed to the board in the front of the room – a majority of the students were sitting around a large table, with several off to the side, ensconced in a deep and incredibly cushy couch (there were no individual desks) – I began my spiel.

For days beforehand, I went over and over in my head just exactly what I was going to say: I had some amusing personal anecdotes, a handful of pre-planned quips, even a few motivational rants all at the ready. Naturally, none of my carefully crafted exhortations made it past my lips – mostly, I just showed the class the artwork I’d brought along. I had some originals from a Petey story (you can read all the adventures of Peter Parker Long Before He Became Spider-Man by going here), several pages of Little Freddy (the entire autobiographical canon of Growing Up In The Silver Age of Comics can be accessed through this link), a couple of stories that AREN’T (yet) posted over at my home site, Hembeck.com (including my lone “official” Hulk outing, a five pager from the Gamma Glamourpusses’ 1999 Annual – hey, how could I possibly walk into a class presided over by Herb “Thunderbolt Ross” Trimpe and NOT bring a Hulk story along, huh?…), and a handful of stand-alone illos, including this commissioned piece I did of Barry Allen racing with Jay Garrick…

I used this to explain funny: young guy, running along casually; old guy struggling to keep up. As someone getting inexorably older by the minute, maybe this gag isn’t quite as humorous as it might’ve seemed in times past, but at least it served the purpose of demonstrating how facial expressions and body language play a key part in effective cartooning. And speaking of facial expressions, both Herb and Patricia were somewhat taken with this piece (which I brought along in its original black and white state)…

Dig this – the pair borrowed the artwork overnight so as to make copies for future use! Herb intends to use it in the cartooning class, natch, but Patricia also hopes to get some mileage out of it with her Spanish students! HOW exactly, I’m not sure – perhaps she intends to have her classes guess as to exactly WHICH facial expression best suits the phrase “Aye carumba!” Whatever – I’m flattered at the mere notion that my cheery little cartoon checkerboard will live on, dutifully serving the lofty goals of higher education. Or at least, help people learn how to draw silly pictures…

Well sir, I’m not sure exactly how long my scatter-shot meanderings rambled on, but once I sensed I wearing on the patience of my still groggy audience, I asked for suggestions as what to sketch up on the board.

“Draw Wolverine!”

For a moment, I thought I had somehow been transported behind a table at a comics convention, but I was quickly informed that this was a running gag with the class, who were well aware of their instructor’s history with the character. Before I had a chance to doodle up a Logan likeness, the consensus was for me to draw Petey instead – which I did, using the opportunity to show how a few simple lines around the eyes and mouth can change expressions entirely. All the while, it was Q&A time as well, and I fielded a few queries from the kids, and a bunch more from Patricia and Herb. Somehow, during the ensuing wide-ranging discussion it came out that daughter Julie has never actually read ANY of my comics, as – irony alert – she’s one of those poor, sad souls who, for whatever reason, simply can’t read comics! When word got back to her later about my inadvertent confession, she mockingly scolded me for blabbing her business (hey, at least I didn’t bring along this comic strip that I did of her as a baby, hanging out with both Cartoon Dad and Superman – be thankful for THAT, junior!…).

Herb offered a little confession of his own, and while it may not be my place to reveal it here, aw, what the heck – it’s included in his introduction to the next, upcoming volume of Hulk Marvel Masterworks: artist Trimpe, y’see, never actually READ the finished product after the books came out! Hey look, by that time, he was three stories ahead of the game, and he already knew what had transpired anyway, so Herb just kept charging ahead without looking back! Since Marvel recently sent him copies of the tales to be included in the new collection for him to review, he FINALLY took the opportunity to peruse stories I first read when I was still back in high school! Now it was MY turn to profess mock-indignation, and quickly drew a picture of the Hulk up on the board, expressing his profound disappointment in Herb as only ol’ Greenskin could: “Herb not read my comics. Hulk sad…”

After a little over a half hour of being the center of attention, it was finally time for me to take a seat and let the class progress in its normal manner. I’d survived my latest bout of public speaking, and Herb, Patricia, and, yes, the class thanked me with a small round of 9-in-the-morning-applause. I honestly enjoyed myself, I really did – and as is always the case in these sorts of situations, I always look back very fondly on the talk – AFTER it’s over! But since I wasn’t going anywhere, I settled in for the duration, and observed the goings on. A couple of short presentations given by a pair of students topped the list. The first concerned the Fox animated cartoon, Family Guy. Herb and Patricia seemed unfamiliar with the program, but were clearly intrigued by the unbridled enthusiasm for the show evinced by the student giving the talk (who at one point referred to creator Seth MacFarlane as “some sort of genius”). Said student spent a fair amount of time the rest of the morning attempting to call up clips from the cartoon comedy on YouTube to show both his teachers.

I didn’t have the heart to throw any sort of wet blanket on his parade and confess that I’d watched the show when it initially aired for about six weeks, but eventually crossed it off my must-tube schedule. I DID however make a pitch for my own favorite later in the morning, briefly talking up the always magnificent SpongeBob (and should you so desire, check out the details of my animated aquatic obsession by looking over episode 81 of The Fred Hembeck Show, friends!).

Next up was a short but concise dissertation on Peanuts by Charles Schulz (who somehow managed to duck the genius appellation) by a second student, after which it was time for a fifteen minute break before the kids got down to working on their projects, either finishing up the old one or beginning the new one. It was at about this point that my daughter wandered in from the dark room down the hall. So, for laughs, I drew a cartoon version of her up on the board, adding several potentially embarrassing word balloons just to get a reaction out of her! And I certainly did – said reaction being, “WHERE’S THE @#$%ING ERASER??”. Hey, bring your dad to school at your own risk, sweetie – you pretty much gotta expect trouble, y’know? Well, she quickly erased the offending portions (no, I won’t say what they were, save that it was little bit funny…), but left the drawings alone, including the blurb that identified her as Julie Hembeck – which was noteworthy in that it was still on the board the next day, when the room served, as per usual, to host her very own English class! She tells me it’s gone now, but ah, the memories will last forever (heh)…

After the class had reassembled, Herb further explained the new solo project to the kids, and then left them mostly to their own devices for the balance of the morning. However, since the room wasn’t really big enough for all 16 (or was it 18?…) students to stretch out to do their drawings (the actual more spacious art room downstairs was being used for – you guessed it – another art-centric central studies class), Herb sent two groups down the hall to a pair of empty rooms. At just about this time, we were joined by a young fellow from nearby Vassar College who was sitting in on a variety of PDS classes. Herb and Patricia explained the course to him, and then, like myself, he wandered in and out of the three work areas. In one, we found an enterprising trio putting the finishing touches on their nine page manga story. The plot was very excitedly explained to me – I seem to recall something about a quest for potato salad, and a big finish that included the execution of a Power Puff Girl! Yup, when in doubt, stream of consciousness non sequiters always work! Truth is, the thing had a lot of energy, not to mention charm – and hey, who, after all ISN’T on a quest for potato salad?…

Mostly, like our Vassar visitor, I observed. Oh, to justify my temporary pretend teacher status, I contributed the occasional pithy observation, but largely, I stayed out of the way – I figured, hey, these teens really don’t need some virtual stranger hovering over their shoulders, telling them “why not draw that nose a teensy bit larger, and don’t forget – five fingers per hand” and such. Instead, I spoke a bit with some of Julie’s past teachers who’d spotted me roaming the halls (Donna, it seems, is almost as surprised as we are to see Julie consistently behind the wheel of a car), as well as both Herb and Patricia. After relating to me how he’d done several recreations of his famous Hulk #181 cover, Herb demonstrated up on the board (right above Petey and Cartoon Julie) how exactly he’d drawn Wolverine’s noggin alongside his signature on a series of signed comics some years back.

I didn’t have a chance to explain to Herb how I too, um, do cover recreations…

EVERYONE loves that Wolverine debut issue, but I’ve gotta wonder, has Herb had a chance to revisit Hulk 170 yet? I have…

(Here’s links to the above pair of redos over at my cyber-home: Hulk 170 and Hulk 181.)

We got to talking about web-comics, something I’ve only recently dipped my ink-stained toes into (see The Fred Hembeck Show Episodes 91 and 95), but that didn’t prevent me from encouraging Herb to start one over on his very own website! He’s got some pretty nifty notions for a strip – I figure, if he serializes it, soon enough, he’d have enough pages for a full-blown book, one I’m sure some enterprising publisher out there would be more than happy to get behind! If, like me, you’d like to see such a thing come to funny book fruition, well, go on over to Herb’s site (yes, Virginia, this is the link) and utilize the contact option found therein to drop him a line, urging the affable artist to share his heretofore unseen creations with the world!

The rest of the morning zipped by, and soon, noon beckoned, which signaled clean-up time, followed immediately by lunch. I said good-bye to the class (and to Julie as well – I reluctantly had to skip her offer of a quick tour of the art room downstairs, as Patricia was pressed for time, needing to get back from lunch by one o’clock for some further, non-cartooning connected, duties. Next time, kiddo – promise!…), and so the three of us piled into Herb’s car for the short drive over to Goodfellas. Geez, what a day it was – Poughkeepsie set a new temperature record for the date, with the mercury topping out at a balmy 75. Which made the juxtaposition of rapidly melting snow leftover from weeks before all the more bizarre – and considering we were slapped with a full foot up brand new snow less than forty-eight hours later, even more memorable! Some people blame such extremes on global warming, but MY money’s on Flash’s old foe, The Weather Wizard! Makes as much sense as anything else, I’m thinking…

On the way out, incidentally, Herb noticed a student who reminded him of Michelle on 24, commenting on the resemblance to Patricia. I didn’t see the girl myself, but I took Herb’s remark as an opening to query the pair about what long-time readers of my Fred Sez blog will recognize as my favorite current television show during lunch (which they so graciously treated me to – thanks again!). Turns out that Herb just sorta stumbled into the show way after the fact (unlike yours truly who’s been tuning in since day one), watching each season via the DVD route. Luckily, I discovered this fact before I blurted out any spoilers about the most recent episodes! Truth to tell, Herb, Patricia, and Natalia (Patricia’s teen-aged daughter) have only made it through the first four seasons thus far, though I was assured that they have day five sitting at home, merely waiting for the opportunity to be viewed. I’m anxious to hear what they think about it myself because, in many ways, it was the series best season to date. A lot of startling stuff took place on Jack Bauer’s fifth really, really bad day, and I’m curious to learn their reactions. Y’know, that sub I had for lunch was scalding hot, but I think the reason my tongue was sore afterwards wasn’t so much from superficial burns as it was from biting it so hard!…

All too soon, lunch was over, and Herb dropped Patricia off at school, and me near my car in the parking lot. I think now would be as good as time as any to say a few words about Mr. Trimpe. Y’see, while I’ve known Herb for probably twenty years plus – I THINK I first met him at one of Berni Wrightson’s once-annual-but-lamentably-no-more Halloween Parties, and I KNOW I saw him at one of Joe and Hilarie Staton’s spring gatherings shortly after Julie was born – until last week (including a pair of quick run-ins at PDS last year), I’d likely never spoken to the guy for more than five minutes at a time, if that! Partially, this was my own doing – whenever I encounter anybody who was involved in producing the comics I read while growing up (particularly during the sixties), I’m automatically deferential to the point of being downright intimidated. It’s some sorta deeply ingrained “I’m not worthy!” syndrome at work, I suppose. But I’m here to let you in on something that’s no secret to anybody who knows Herb – he’s one heckuva guy! Amiable, enthusiastic, and just masterful at putting folks at ease – I can readily see how he’d make a great teacher. After, for the first time ever, spending so much quality time with him, the final results are in: Herb Trimpe, Marvel Bullpen Legend, also turned out to be Herb Trimpe, swell guy! And kudos to Patricia for making me feel so comfortable in unfamiliar environs as well! When the pair invited me to return later in the semester for a second go-round, I accepted without hesitation. I have absolutely no idea just WHAT I’ll be teaching the class (maybe how to write a really long-winded blog entry perhaps?…), but I’m sure I’ll think of something. Otherwise, I’ll just fake it, and spend my most of my energy on figuring out more ways to embarrass my offspring!

As a sort of postscript to the above, I feel compelled to explain how my exciting day wasn’t over when I disembarked from the Trimpemobile, not by a long shot! Before it was time to drive Julie home from school, I had about ninety minutes to (deep breath now) drive to Staples to make some copies, drop in Best Buy to look for the new Neil Young CD (which they didn’t have in stock yet), pick up some organic cabbage and the like at the local health food store, zip on over to the regular supermarket for some corned beef and my annual six-pack of beer (for the then impending St. Patrick’s Day meal), and finally a quick peek into Barnes and Noble, arriving back in the PDS parking lot only moments before Julie exited from class and headed for my (or as she likes to call it, “her”) car. We spied a smiling Herb “Shogun Warriors” Trimpe parked not far away, awaiting a pair of passengers himself, and gave a hearty salute to our cartooning colleague as we left.

You’dve thought that woulda been it for me, but no – in a bit of unintentionally ironic scheduling, the College Night prep lecture for parents of eleventh-graders was that very evening! So, after not setting foot inside PDS for over a year, this very day I was roaming those hallowed halls not once, but twice! Originally, the plan was for Lynn and me both to attend the evening’s discussion – and maybe I could’ve even begged off and sent my wife instead, save for one undeniably salient fact: Julie had a big pre-calculus test the next day, and considering the difficulty she was having with the subject, she needed SOMEONE to help her study. Given her options – and how I’d likely come in, at best, in a four way tie with our rabbit and two cats as to who’d be the most assistance to her – it was best that Lynn remained at home to help Julie. So, yeah, as wiped out as I felt – I even succumbed to a very atypical hour-long nap around five, feeling nearly as exhausted as I did after chasing kindergarteners around at that game farm over a decade earlier – I went back at seven for the nearly two hour talk. Sarah, who had first signed me in almost twelve hours earlier, jokingly wondered if I had even bothered to go home – at that point, it sure didn’t seem like it!

But while I learned a lot of valuable information during that evening’s Q&A, not a single person requested a Wolverine sketch from yours truly, so I won’t bother to go into any further detail. Suffice it to say, when you send your kid to college, you end up with (as our friend the Hulk might put it) “Puny bank account!”…

(I’ve already plugged Hembeck.com to death, but it’s customary to end these things with a link, so who am I to buck tradition?…)

-Copyright 2007 Fred “Petey” Hembeck

Hembeck.com – free of radioactive sperm for over four years now – and we aim to keep it that way!!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

This week’s episode of “The Fred Hembeck Show” is a thrill-packed sequel to our 90th edition, the one featuring “The Massacre of the Innocents”. You might recall that I identified that long-lost, highly idiosyncratic tale, as being one of three that I can’t help but look back on as extremely influential in shaping my own oddball approach to cartooning.

Well, friends, today we have a second neglected gem to share with you, one that actually appeared several years earlier than our previous offering. Released in late 1967, “The Best of All Possible Worlds” was NOT the subject of this memorable Rocke Mastroserio scenario (based, no doubt, on a striking layout provided him by editor/art director Dick Giordano) gracing the cover of the January, 1968 issue of Charlton’s The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves (number five, for those of you scoring along at home…), but trust me, it was in there…

(Oh, and if that cover looks a wee bit familiar to some of you and you’re not quite sure why, I should point out that it was prominently displayed in a Charlton Comics house ad found in all the line’s titles, right alongside Steve Ditko’s cover for Blue Beetle #6, the issue that famously never actually came out! In fact, you can find that very advertisement tucked inside the pages of Dr. Graves #5 itself, which offers the paying customer a curious – and unique – choice: “Hey kid, wanna buy ANOTHER copy of a comic ya already have, or wouldja prefer the one we’re never gonna publish? Yer choice…”)

The eight-page story – written by Steve Skeates and drawn (as well as lettered) by Jim Aparo – cleverly plays around with various comic book conventions, not merely breaking the fourth wall along the way, but downright demolishing it in the process! Both separately and in tandem, Skeates and Aparo did a lot of fine work in their respective careers (including a memorable run on Aquaman, one that allowed me, for the ONLY time in my entire life, to honestly utter the words, “Gee, I can’t wait until the next issue of Aquaman comes out!”….), but the strange saga of Charlie Droople remains my all-time favorite by the pair to this day.

Now, I don’t want to say much more about the story in question for two reasons. Firstly, I’d like you to read it for yourselves (yes, this entire sentence serves as the handy-dandy link), fresh, and without too much of it being given away. Secondly, I’ve already HAD my say on “The Best of All Possible Worlds” – y’see, several years back, I contributed a Dateline:@#$% strip focusing on it to a Charlton-centric issue of Comic Book Artist (Hey, remember Comic Book Artist, folks? Gee, whatever became of that fine publication anyway?…). When you get to the eighth and final page of the Skeates/Aparo opus, you’ll find a link to my strip at the bottom, and – should you be in any way interested – THAT would be the proper time to check out my thoughts (but NOT before – read the real thing first, cuz that’s the main attraction here, okay?…).

So, go! Enjoy! And afterwards, ask yourself – would I make the same choices as Charlie Droople?

I did, and look what it got me: Hembeck.com! Please come visit – I get SO lonely sometimes…

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

So The Departed won the Best Picture of the Year Oscar, huh? Did you see it? I didn’t, but that’s not all that unusual.

Y’see, these days, I generally prefer what broadcast television has to offer over what’s playing down at the multiplex, even the films that earn themselves statues of the coveted tiny golden eunuch. I much prefer an episode of 24 to most big-screen action flicks, an hour of Gilmore Girls to a majority of Hollywood’s romantic comedies, sixty minutes of Smallville to most cinematic super-hero adaptations, and a late night broadcast of Saturday Night Live to most any movie starring an SNL alum (Elf being a distinct exception)!

That being said, there was a time in my life (several, actually) when I fancied myself quite the cinephile. As a kid, well, sure I watched certain films – the Universal monster series and the Abbott and Costello canon come immediately to mind – but it wasn’t until I reached my mid-teens that I began actively seeking out quality films from the past. Once committed to the task, I’d regularly page through my Leonard Maltin Guide (first edition, no less) looking for four-star movies, and then scour the listings in the TV Guide to determine just what I could manage to eyeball that particular week. Sundays were always something else – I’d start the day off with some lighter fare (usually a Bowery Boys entry commencing around 11 AM), then view a classic or two during the afternoon (Mildred Pierce, High Noon, Arsenic and Old Lace, Twelve Angry Men, Fail Safe, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), followed by something fresher during prime time (Cat Ballou, Some Like It Hot), with a late night nightcap featuring an otherwise unheralded flick starring the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, or good ol’ James Stewart. Whew – those were some long, long days, lemme tell ya! But I’d later dutifully put a red check mark next to the Maltin review after making my way through each film, hoping one day to have nearly the entire book marked in red! Didn’t happen, but hey, it WAS a nice idea!

Once me and my buddies were old enough to drive, that once rare trip to the local popcorn palace (totally dependent on my stay-at-home parents) suddenly became a weekly – even bi-weekly – event. We didn’t always pick the BEST movies to see, true, but just by the law averages, we did manage to take in some contemporary classics (MASH, They Shoot Horse, Don’t They? , Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid).

But probably my most pervasive cinematic period occurred during four years in the mid-seventies while I was a student at SUNY at Buffalo. Not only did they offer recent releases (six months or older) for the bargain price of a buck on weekends in their own theater in the campus commons building (including such odd fare as Altman’s Three Women and DePalma’s Get To Know Your Rabbit), but, best of all, each Wednesday night, in one of those 500 plus seat lecture halls over in the college’s science building, true classic movies were shown on a big screen! I caught The Bride of Frankenstein there for the umpteenth time (but the ONLY time on a large screen), as well as Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Ace In The Hole (aka The Big Carnival), to name but a few. Those were some great times, friends – and did I mention it was all free?

Well, after leaving the campus environs, Lynn and I continued to take in our share of flicks – some on the ever shrinking big screen, some on pay cable channels like Showtime, and some on rented videotapes (later, DVDs). The last big burst of movie viewing came in the months just before our daughter Julie was born. We rented an average of three or four films a week in her last trimester, as there really wasn’t much else for my darlin’ dear wife to do at the time. We watched all kinds of stuff besides Oscar winners, including some of Spike Lee’s early movies, as well as some pretty bad SNL-derived comedies.

Then Julie arrived, and suddenly Disney became very popular hereabouts. Sitting down and watching OTHER movies? Not so much so. And going out? Hah! So, I settled instead into the network TV routine that I pretty much remain in to this very day. But even with this on-and-off relationship I’ve had with the movies over the years, I HAVE seen my share of feted films. I realized as much the other day when I was looking over a list of all the Best Picture winners posted on my buddy Roger Green’s blog (Relentlessly Rambling With Rog).

Roger indicated which of the movies he had seen, under what sort of circumstances and when he’d seen them, and offered impressions – if any – that he’d retained from viewing them. After going through friend Green’s list, I was all set to pitch my own two cents into his comments section, but then I was struck with maybe a BETTER idea – why not just steal his whole format and tick off my own Oscar-worthy memories? Yeah, I’m well aware that lists like this are pretty much pointless – that doesn’t mean they can’t be fun, though! So Roger – and anybody else who’s made it through my ponderous preface – begging your indulgence, here now MY Academy Award Best Picture of the Year Winners roll call!!

1928 – Wings: This hasn’t got anything to do with Paul McCartney, does it? No, I didn’t think so. Haven’t seen it.

1928 – Sunrise: Nope. 1928 just wasn’t my year.

1929 – The Broadway Melody: Or 1929 – I never saw this one either.

1930 – All Quiet on the Western Front: I watched this anti-war classic during one of those long-ago Sunday afternoon marathons, and unlike most of what flickered across my old black and white TV screen back then, a lot of this film remains with me. I should point out that, of all the popular film genres, the one I shy away from almost entirely is the war movie – unless it’s one that clearly makes the case that war is NOT a good thing, which this World War One-set scenario did brilliantly.

1931 – Cimarron: I’m not all that big on westerns, either, though I’ve seen my share. Not this one, though.

1932 – Grand Hotel: I THOUGHT I saw this one on the big screen during my college days, but after a quick consultation of my yellowed Maltin tome, I soon realized that I was confusing it with 1933’s similarly multi-storied Dinner At Eight. Both films feature Wallace Beery, after all, but it’s the latter one in which a radiantly sexy Jean Harlow shines in a comedic role (and a slinky dress), while the ’32 production offered instead the less yock-inducing allure of Greta Garbo. Guess I’m gonna hafta check into Grand Hotel someday. Room please – I vant to be alone!…

1933 – Cavalcade: I had to look this one up cuz I had NO idea what it was about. Turns out it was a lavish adaptation of an episodic Noel Coward play – songs included – starring a group of actors whose names I didn’t come anywhere close to recognizing! An early example of the Academy valuing the snooty over the popular, I’m guessing. Needless to say, I’ve never seen it, will probably never have a chance to, and – I can honestly say – I’m okay with that…

1934 – It Happened One Night: This was the one that won ’em ALL: Best Director (Frank Capra), Best Actor (Clark Gable) , Best Actress (Claudette Colbert), and Best Screenplay! And this was one I saw at a very early age – around ten or so – on the tube with my parents. It was breezy fun, and had several memorable scenes – the hitchhiking scene, the blanket that served as The Walls of Jericho between improvised sleeping quarters of the two leads – though the concept of sexual tension went right over my head at that tender age. I may have seen this one a couple more times shortly after that initial viewing, but not since. Still a quality film I’m sure, it’s nonetheless long been eclipsed in the Capra canon by the Oscar-less It’s A Wonderful Life in both stature and popularity. An angel doesn’t get its wings every time Claudette Colbert hikes up her dress out on the highway, after all (more’s the pity…).

1935 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Another Clark Gable starrer, another Sunday afternoon classic. Charles Laughton as the tyrannical Captain Bligh made for an unforgettable bad guy, one that really got my teen-aged outrage stirred up! THAT was the end of the sailor’s life for me, lemme tell ya! Oh, and unless otherwise noted, like most of the movies here, I’ve only seen this one once, but based on nearly my forty year old recollections, I’d still recommend this one.

1936 – The Great Ziegfeld: Inasmuch as I was a bit tardy in coming to appreciate the musical form – and I NEVER grokked the bio film (the sole dubious exception being the pair of movies retelling the life story of Al Jolson – sorry, Roger…) – this one never even made it onto my radar. I MIGHT consider watching it if the chance presented itself nowadays, but I can’t say I’d ever seek it out…

1937 – The Life of Emile Zola: A 19th century French writer I’d never heard of portrayed by Paul Muni, an actor (save for the original Scarface) whose films I’ve never seen? Uh uh – another one that I blithely passed by. (But dig the subjects of these two biographies. Hollywood went for the prestigious historical figures in those days – in recent years, we’ve instead been treated to big budget takes on the likes of Sid and Nancy, Ed Wood, Andy Kaufman, Larry Flynt, and even the autobiography of Howard Stern! Not a Louie Pasteur in the bunch – now, THAT’S progress, huh?…)

1938 – You Can’t Take It With You: Another Capra production, this one a stage adaptation concerning an eccentric family, with James Stewart taking the Lily Munster role. I caught this one during the mid-eighties, renting a VHS tape of it from Alice In Videoland during a tubing phase wherein I made a really concerted effort to catch up on some of the classics I’d somehow overlooked in earlier times. It was pleasant, funny even, but not quite in the class of the superior Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (although Mr. Oscar was inexplicably out to lunch that afternoon…).

1939 – Gone With the Wind: When I was a kid, my mom and dad only rarely endured the hour plus drive on out to the Cinerama theater in Syosset, Long Island, but when we did, it was always for a darn good reason. After seeing such triple-sized epics (because, young folks, that’s what Cinerama was – three massive screens perched right alongside one another, curved in at two joints) as How The West Was Won, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad World, my parents treated us all to a mid-sixties revival of the as-yet-to-be-telecast Civil War epic in the most impressive of surroundings available! Hey, we even bought us a commemorative booklet! This was a film I enjoyed immensely, and in fact have seen several times since (including on a big – if not exactly Cinerama sized – screen while in college). Hey, I even read the book in tenth grade when it was offered as one of several options – even instead of tomes clocking in at two to three hundred pages less, which oughta tell you something! The third Clark Gable starrer on this list – I was never a particularly big fan of his, but I have to admit he really brought the goods to each of these roles – the true star was the beauteous Vivien Leigh, whose performance hit all the right notes – alluring, annoying, determined, if perhaps a little TOO hung up on Leslie Howard’s Ashley Wilkes (I never quite understood THAT fixation as a kid, and I still don’t). The scope of the film (i.e. the burning of Atlanta) is literally jaw-dropping at times. And it boasts a good solid story that keeps moving along at a nice clip. That said, my pal Roger’s never been able to make it all the way through the picture, and inasmuch as I’m a white guy and he’s not, that’s understandable – it’s being filtered through a whole ‘nother perspective for my Mr. Green. Truth is, Rog, while it’s hardly three hours of Steppin’ Fetchit-like antics, I CAN see how some of even the well-intentioned characterizations can be cringe-inducing (“Oh lordy, I never delivered me a baby before!” screeched Butterfly McQueen at a very high pitch, waking sleeping dogs for miles around…), and there’s a whole sequence towards the end regarding the burning of a shanty town that resembles Klu Klux Klan-like justice far too closely for my tastes. But, on a happier note, Gone With The Wind is one of two Best Picture winners to feature – however briefly – the talents of the small screen’s future Man of Steel himself, George Reeves! (And no, the other Tarleton twin was played by Fred Crane, not Kirk Alyn – now wouldn’t THAT have been something, huh?…) Frankly, my dear Rog, most folks didn’t give a damn, but hey, I sure did!

1940 – Rebecca: Saw this one on video in the mid-eighties, another one of my attempts to play catch-up. I’ve probably seen at least half, maybe two-thirds of director Alfred Hitchcock’s ouerve. This one’s pretty good, if not outstanding compared to some of his later work (my two favorite Hitch’s would be Strangers On A Train and Rear Window, and I also enjoyed the novelty aspects of both Lifeboat (taking place in a single, cramped setting for nearly the entire movie) and Rope (filmed solely in several long, ten-minute plus uninterrupted takes). Judith Anderson as the hatchet-faced housekeeper is memorably creepy, though – this AIN’T no Sunnybrook farm, y’know!

1941 – How Green Was My Valley: Somehow, the notion of John Ford directing a story about a family of Welsh coal-miners somehow just never managed to get me in front of the tube (and most likely never will), but with a title like THAT, how ever did my pal Roger GREEN let it slip by unwatched I’m wondering?…

1942 – Mrs. Miniver: A story about war-time in England filmed during the actual war-time – somehow, that very fact seemed to date the movie for me (I could be wrong), so I never went anywhere near it. On the other hand…

1943 – Casablanca: THIS was a war-time story filmed during the actual war-time as well, and THIS one I’ve seen at least a dozen times! Mostly, that was due to a VERY HEAVY Humphrey Bogart phase I went through in my later teen years. I wasn’t the only one – the decade-long deceased actor was going through a tremendous revival towards the end of sixties. I happened upon an article about him which peaked my interest around then, and when a local station ran a Bogie week during their late-movie slot soon afterwards, I stayed up way past my bedtime that Monday all the way through Friday to watch each one of ’em. No, Casablanca WASN’T included in the mix (first up was High Sierra – which sold me right then and there – followed by Sahara, Dead End, and my two very favorite Bogart pictures of all, The Maltese Falcon, and the magnificent The Treasure of the Sierra Madre). Fact is, the first time I saw Casablanca, I didn’t quite understand its appeal. I later realized – upon seeing it on a big-screen at a Greenwich Village revival house circa 1970 – that my initial viewing of the classic (aired during a 4:30 to 6 afternoon movie slot) was horrifically truncated – they took out all the flashback sequences so as to fit in more commercials in! Can you imagine? Filled with great supporting actors – Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Claude Rains – this is a movie that just seems to get better and better with each subsequent viewing! Watch it again, Sam – and you too Bill, Tom, Terry, and Roger!

1944 – Going My Way: Oddly enough – especially with the recent bout of Bing-mania that’s infected my CD player over the past decade – aside from his Road pictures with Bob Hope, I still seem to have mustered little interest in actually watching der Bingle act – especially as a clergyman, Oscar or no. So no, I haven’t seen this one, though there IS a chance(especially if there’s a heretofore unreeled scene featuring ol’ ski-nose in the confessional!…).

1945 – The Lost Weekend: Forget Hitchcock, Capra, Ford, or Huston – by far my favorite director from Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age was Billy Wilder! Which makes it surprising that it took me til my belated mid-eighties cinema cramming to view not only this celebrated film, but the other Wilder entry on this list (The Apartment) as well. Ray Milland – though he’ll always be first and foremost X, The Man With The X-ray Eyes to me – is outstanding in his award winning performance as an alcoholic. It’s an excellent movie, certainly a trailblazer of sorts regarding some largely ignored social issues of the day, but in the Wilder resume, personally I prefer Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, Stalag 17, Double Indemnity, and Ace In the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) – how come you didn’t vote any of THOSE pictures the coveted Best Picture Oscar, Academy voters? (And let’s not forget The Major And The Minor, Wilder’s directorial debut, in which a fully grown, 30 year old Ginger Rogers pretends to be 12 years old in order to save on train fare, and then accidentally – and improbably – becomes involved in a sober if apparently near-sighted Ray Milland, and the military school he runs! I saw this well-played farce at a very, very young age – probably before hitting ten – and after seeing it again many years later, I clearly understood how the idea of the fresh-faced Rogers as a girl only a few years my senior could’ve left such an indelible impression on me – wotta sweetie! Y’know, I never DID find a twelve year old nearly as cute as Ginger – and no, Chris Hanson, I’m NOT still looking!…)

1946 – The Best Years of Our Lives: I saw this one in UB’s science lecture hall. Quite a powerful film, it concern several GIs coming home from the recently ended second World War, including the year’s Oscar winning supporting actor, Harold Russell. Russell wasn’t a professional, but he sure gave a convincing performance as a returning vet whose hands had been replaced by metal hooks – probably because he had to live the role, as those hooks were real. I remember this to be a mostly depressing film, softened by a modest dollop of optimism. Worth seeing, at least once.

1947 – Gentleman’s Agreement: Writer Gregory Peck pretends to be Jewish so as to expose anti-Semitism. I never saw it. Maltin says its once daring approach is tame now – and Len wrote THAT back in 1969! I’d be mildly interested in seeing this one someday. (Can you believe I’ve never seen the Peckster in To Kill A Mockingbird either? THAT one should be a bit higher up than this one on the too-see list I’m thinking…)

1948 – Hamlet: Shakespeare? Regular readers of my “Fred Sez” blog know where I stand on The Bard – once a year, I go to my daughter’s school and enjoy their annual Shakespeare offering, and that’s IT. I’ve never seen ANY of Willy the Shake’s film work, and even when I recently expressed some interest in getting me some much needed culture via one of the renowned playwright’s cinematic adaptations, several folks (hi, Tom!) warned me off this version. To watch or not to watch – there’s really NO question! I ain’t watching this one, sorry…

1949 – All the King’s Men: I saw this one in some pretty unique circumstances – someone at our high school decided it would be a swell idea to screen this in the auditorium for the entire school to see, the one and only time that ever happened. Broderick Crawford, years before he joined the Highway Patrol (and even longer before he appeared as perhaps the most openly nervous host in SNL history) plays a corrupt politician in a story based on real-life events. I recall it as being a decent movie, though viewed in surroundings not necessarily conducive to maintaining one’s full attention (“Hey! Cut it out with those spitballs!”), so it’s hard for me to say much more about the film.

1950 – All About Eve: This Bette Davis back-stage showbiz expose was another classic rented from the fine folks at Alice In Videoland during the eighties. I enjoyed it well enough, but can’t muster up much of anything else to say about it – insert your own “it’s going to be a bumpy ride” gag here.

1951 – An American in Paris: During the early eighties, after long ignoring movie musicals, I went through a phase where I became overly enamored with the work of Gene Kelly. This was likely due to my vast appreciation for his performances in both On The Town and Singin’ In The Rain (the latter of which I’ve seen multiple times, and is my favorite of all movie musicals). So I eagerly rented An American In Paris! Eh. Some nice dance sequences, but ultimately, it left about as much an impression on me as did one of Gene’s later works: Xanadu – and THAT one boasted a Marvel Comics adaptation to help jog the ol’ memory (not to mention an Olivia Newton-John/ELO soundtrack to boot!). Guess I really missed seeing Singin’ In The Rain co-star Debbie Reynolds in that French setting – now, she was truly an eye-full!

1952 – The Greatest Show on Earth: This is one of those movies that critical revisionism would have you believe really, REALLY shouldn’t have taken home the big prize! They’re probably right, but inasmuch as this was likely the very first of ANY of these films to be viewed by yours truly when I was but a lad of single digits – and not once since – I can’t say definitively. The only thing I do recall about this circus picture was the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo of a silent Hope and Crosby, sitting in the bleachers, sharing a carton of popcorn. This was one time when the boys were clearly on the road to an easy payday, lemme tell ya…

1953 – From Here to Eternity: Omigosh, but this one is a REAL goodie – you’ve gotta make a point of seeing it Rog! I first caught in on one of my housebound Sunday afternoons at the cinema, but mere months later, it was memorably run, thirty minutes at a clip, over a weeks time in my 9th grade English class! And it was during that group viewing experience that I clearly recall more than one of my fellow students calling out “Hey look – it’s Superman!” when George Reeves appeared on screen (his role having been pared down only weeks before the film’s release because the very same thing happened during previews), making this the second Best Picture winner to feature the faux Kryptonian (What? You were expecting maybe Superman Versus The Mole Men?…). Beyond that, the cast is superb – Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Ernest Borgnine, and featuring an Oscar worthy turn – and career reviving performance – from Old Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra! All this, and you’ve got the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor for your big finish! Lotsa story here, and it moves at a brisk pace. So what if I didn’t quite realize that Paul Peterson and Shelley Fabare’s TV mom was supposed to be a high-priced call girl when I originally watched it – it was still plenty engrossing! Highly recommended!

1954 – On the Waterfront: As is this one! Watching On the Waterfront as a teen, alone in my room, this gritty Elia Kazan directed expose of union corruption packed quite a wallop. I’ve seen it several times since, including on the big screen up in Buffalo. Marlon Brando is at the absolute top of his form, and is there any more iconic scene featuring the legendary actor than the one set in the back of the cab shared with brother Rod Steiger? “I coulda been a contenda” indeed! (By the way, it sure was nice to see co-stars Brando and Eva Marie Saint together again last year in Superman Returns – he as the Man of Steel’s Krytonian dad, she as his earthly foster-mom – wasn’t it? Too bad Steiger was unavailable – he’da made a keen Luthor!…)

1955 – Marty: How’d I ever miss this one? Captain McHale dating Lou Grant’s boss, Mrs. Pynchon? But I did. Maybe someday…

1956 – Around the World in 80 Days: Despite the myriad of star cameos – over forty! – I never mustered the prerequisite stamina necessary to sit through this adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic overseen by one of Liz Taylor’s early, doomed hubbys. But if I ever feel the need to go on a Cantinflas kick, this’ll be the first movie I’ll look to!

1957 – The Bridge on the River Kwai: This one I saw on one of those prime-time NBC Saturday Night at the Movies thingies during the mid-sixties. Long and epic, I also wasn’t overly impressed – sorry. This highly respected film concerning British soldiers building a bridge while being held in a Japanese prison camp during World War Two – and the American who wants to blow it up – wasn’t exactly The Longest Day (a re-release of which friends dragged me to in the early seventies), but it wasn’t Paths of Glory, either, and like I said earlier, I prefer my war movies more along the lines of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece rather than anything featuring John Wayne (there, I’ve said it – I don’t like John Wayne, whether he’s on a horse or sitting in a tank! He WAS pretty good on I Love Lucy, though…). If nothing else, this film produced the most popular tune ever whistled – that is, until the Andy Griffith Show commenced production few years later!…

1958 – Gigi: A musical set in turn of the century (the one before last, that is) France, starring the aging Maurice Chevalier singing about the praises of little girls – gee, how’d I ever let this one get past me? But I did. Maybe someday, but please – I’d advise no holding of the breath…

1959 – Ben-Hur: Full scale Biblical epics have never been this ol’ heathens cup of tea, and I honestly didn’t think I’d ever actually seen this until I sat down to write this. Now, dimly, I DO recall viewing a mid-sixties prime-time airing. Way cool chariot race, but otherwise…

1960 – The Apartment: Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine, Fred MacMurray, all working under the direction of the great Billy Wilder – you’d figure me to absolutely LOVE this picture, wouldn’t you? Well, I don’t. It’s…okay, but still, to me, lesser Wilder. Of course, I only saw it a single time, via a tape rented from a girl named Alice. Maybe this is one film on the list I truly owe a second look…

1961 – West Side Story: Remember how I said made it a point to always avoid musicals? Well, I did my best to duck this multi-feted video adaptation of the popular Broadway production for a long, long time – and that’s the way things may well’ve stayed if gal pal Lynn hadn’t dragged me along to see a re-release of one of her favorites back during our Buffalo days. Gang, that’s ALL it took – I absolutely LOVE this movie! LOVE! AND the music as well – I have me the original Broadway cast recording, the movie soundtrack, even an all-star CD that features (among others) Little Richard singing “I Feel Pretty”! I’ve seen the movie at least three times, most recently on the tube with daughter Julie, who also dug it, but as I’ve played the various CDs so often – and they always bring the story so vividly to mind – it seems like I’ve seen it far more times than that! And every time, every single time, I get all weepy at the end! Sniff. If I had to pick my single favorite film from this entire list, well, I’m not saying this would be it, but it sure would be among the finalists! And hey, if you DON’T dig West Side Story, what else is there to say, save “Krupe you!”

1962 – Lawrence of Arabia: Another David Lean epic blockbuster, and another movie that has eluded me over the years. I was nine when this hit the theaters, and my most vivid contemporaneous memory of the film was the issue of Mad magazine – one of the very first that I’d ever bought – featuring Norman Mingo’s painting of Alfred of Arabia on the cover!

1963 – Tom Jones: Okay, now I’m ten years old, and people keep talking about this bawdy English film with the suggestive eating scene in it! How can eating be suggestive, I wondered? Well, even though I have seen that particular clip several times over the past few decades, I’ve never actually seen the film proper. And if you think avoiding Tom Jones has somehow improved my table manners, well, that’s not unusual, is it?…

1964 – My Fair Lady: Again, a musical I’ve long ducked. I should probably cut it some slack and check it out someday – which is more likely to happen than with Gigi, I’m thinking…

1965 – The Sound of Music: Hey, I saw THIS one – and more than once! Fact is, the whole family hopped in the Chevy and drove on down to the Cinerama theater (even though it wasn’t actually filmed in Cinerama) to view this Julie Andrews star-making vehicle soon after it’s initial release – and yup, I even have the souvenir book to prove it! I was quite taken with it at the time – I used to spin around on my next door neighbors front lawn, croaking “The hills are alive with the sound of music!” until I got dizzy and fell down! But as the sixties rolled on, the film gained a reputation of being vastly uncool – and being the impressionable rebel that I was, I quickly bought into that perception. It wasn’t until, in an effort to move on up from a diet of non-stop Disney fare, we rented a copy of it and showed to young Julie back when she was 7 or 8. After which, it was all my long-suffering wife could do to keep me from warbling and twirling in the living room! (Julie liked it, too.) (Oh, and do look for a young Nicholas Hammond, TV’s first Spider-Man, among the older children. Sadly for Nick, few folks are ever likely to shout out, “Hey look – it’s Spider-Man!” when this film is revived…). It was a lot better than I remembered it to be, honestly…

1966 – A Man For All Seasons: This one’s all about ancient British history! My head hurts just thinking about it – even Gigi‘s got a better shot at grabbing my attention…

1967 – In the Heat of the Night: Hard to believe, but somehow, I’ve never actually seen this one. It hit the theaters about two years before me and my buddies got behind the wheels of a car, which severely restricted our access to new releases (I didn’t see another widely written about examination of race relations, Hollywood style, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, until I caught most of the last two-thirds of that film on a hotel TV in the early eighties, by which time it just seemed…quaint. Not sure how Steiger and Poitier’s efforts would look forty years on, but I’ll admit, I’d be mildly curious to find out.)

1968 – Oliver!: The last gasp of the Hollywood musical, and from what I’ve heard, it was no My Fair Lady – or even a Gigi. Never seen, and odds are I never will, guv’nor!

1969 – Midnight Cowboy: Saw this a couple of times, though not right after it came out – it was originally X-rated, remember? And I was only 16 at the time. I probably caught a 1971 re-release, and then saw it again during my college stay in Buffalo. It certainly wasn’t the prurient movie I was expecting (did I mention the X-rating?), so as a thrill seeking teen, I was initially disappointed, but I was able to appreciate it far more upon my second viewing. Good acting all around, and a heart-breaking ending. 1970 – Patton: My buddies dragged me to this one (we finally had our licenses – yay!), but outside of the opening with George C. Scott pontificating in front of an enormous American flag, and then later when the general slaps the private’s face, there’s not much I recall about this film – save that aside for those two scenes, the whole things seemed like the sort of standard issue battle picture I strove to avoid. After going along with this, I think I talked my pals into taking in Robert Altman’s follow-up to MASH, Brewster McCloud – and lemme tell ya, I NEVER heard the end of that one! Bud Cort building a set of wings so as to fly in the upper reaches of the Houston Astrodome just didn’t seem to resonate with my friends. Philistines!…

1971 – The French Connection: The movie that put Poughkeepsie on the map – and now I live in the very next town over! Ain’t life crazy? It also put future Lex Luthor Gene Hackman on the map in his role of Popeye Doyle (Hey! ANOTHER comics reference!), one of the first big screen cops that didn’t always go by the book or look like Steve McQeen, but still clearly was the good guy. This film went over just fine with the gang, even though it’s probably no true cinematic classic. Still, that car chase sure was thrilling to see up on the big screen…

1972 – The Godfather: Another book brilliantly brought to the screen. Yeah, I realize it’s, um, a tad violent Rog, but there’s SO much else there to compensate for the liberal use of caro syrup (though that horse head in the bed scene remains the single most unsettling moment in the film). I’ve seen this one several times, once upon it’s original release, once up at college, and later on the small screen. The acting is first rate all around, with Al Pacino giving perhaps the most interesting performance as we see his character slowly but inexorably evolve over the course of the film. Epic in a good sense.

1973 – The Sting: Saw this when it came out. I remember it as being light fun (though clearly not as memorable as Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s earlier triumph, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid), and the Scott Joplin soundtrack became so pervasively popular, the background music for my college tenure – at least a small portion of it – was ragtime! Who’da thot? Otherwise, I recall no other details, save for the fact when the sequel came out, the leads made themselves unavailable, so the studio hired Jackie Gleason and Mac Davis to headline The Sting Two instead! Sure – makes sense to me! Hard to tell those four apart when you get right down to it, eh?…

1974 – The Godfather Part II: Even without Mac and Jackie, THIS follow-up proved to be even better than the original! And to make up for Marlon Brando’s Godfather absence (he died – peacefully even – in the first film), Robert DeNiro ably filled in as the same character in flashbacks to Vito Corleone’s earlier days. I haven’t seen this one in a while, but I’ve long been meaning to watch the resequenced mash-up of the two films that’s known as The Godfather Saga (I’ve never seen the third, largely panned, chapter either, but I really should, if only just because…).

1975 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Lynn LOVED the Ken Kesey book this movie was based on, so we were pretty much right up at the front of the line when this one hit the theaters back in ’75. She wasn’t disappointed, and neither was I. Director Milos Forman and his cast – headed by Jack Nicholson, and featuring future Taxi castmates, Danny Devito and Christopher Lloyd – did an amazing job bringing the source material faithfully to life. Still, though, having read Kesey’s novel not long afterwards, I was always somewhat ambivalent about the ending. I’m not sure WHAT exactly I wanted to see (or read), but I felt vaguely unsatisfied by the way things wound up. Maybe that’s why, as good as this film is, I’ve never gone back to take another look…

1976 – Rocky: The little film that could. The big lug from The Lords of Flatbush and Deathrace 2000 (I didn’t always go see the BEST of movies back then, y’know) not only stars in this saga of an underdog boxer, but he WROTE it too! Wow! Talk about playing against type! An enjoyable, sentimental cornball popcorn movie, it was good enough to get me to fork out cash to see the sequel. The sequel, however, WASN’T good enough to wrest anymore money away from me for subsequent sequels (though the latest – some say the last, but we’ll see – episode looks genuinely intriguing) – I never spent any money on Rambo, either. But hats off to Stallone – Rocky‘s definitely carved out a place in pop culture history for Sly, and that’s no small achievement.

1977 – Annie Hall: Woody Allen’s best film? Probably. I loved it at the time, though I haven’t seen it since it came out (I instead kept going to each new Allen release for the next decade or so before finally giving up as the funny quotient continued to get smaller and smaller – though I DID see – and liked – Mighty Aphrodite). This one features my all-time favorite Allen gag: Christopher Walken is Diane Keaton’s demented brother, who, upon first meeting his sister’s new beau, describes to an unsettled Allen his fantasy of, one day while out driving, just randomly swerving head-on into traffic in the other lane! Given Walken’s line reading, that’s already creepy funny, but the real topper comes several minutes later, after Walken has been off-screen long enough for the audience to at momentarily forget him. We find out, in an off hand manner, that whoever was supposed to drive Allen and Keaton to the airport had to bail at the last moment, and before we can wonder who’s gonna take over the job, the scene cuts to a speechless, wide-eyed Allen sitting next to Walken, who’s manning the wheel, the windshield wipers going back and forth in the driving rain, Woody’s fear playing palpably – and hilariously – across his face! Y’know, I think of that scene every time I get into my car – hey, anybody out there need a ride?

1978 – The Deer Hunter: Okay, this one I really didn’t like all that much. Hey, I wasn’t the only one – at the nearly packed theater I saw this in, mid-way through the Viet Nam sequences, a fellow got up out of his seat, loudly proclaimed “It wasn’t like that at all!” and stormed out. If we had all been in a movie, the disgruntled vet would’ve opened fire on us, but happily, in real life, he was simply annoyed, not deranged. Too long for my tastes, and far too ambiguously arty as well. And Roger? I’ll gladly take five seconds of a severed horse’s head over the a grueling game of Russian roulette anytime! Man, that’s one sport that’s just plain awful tough to watch (and, in the context of Viet Nam, historically inaccurate to boot). I much preferred the Jane Fonda/Jon Voight returning vet drama, Coming Home, to this overrated bit of business (even though I’ll never, ever sign up for swimming lessons given by Bruce Dern, that I guarantee ya!…)

1979 – Kramer vs. Kramer: It’s Dustin Hoffman versus Meryl Streep for the custody of their young son – thankfully NOT played by Michael Richards – in this well-acted soap opera. I saw it on the big screen when it first came out, but don’t recall all that much about it except that I liked (not loved) it.

1980 – Ordinary People: Another soapy pic, only far more depressing than the previous year’s comparatively fun-filled custody battle. Still, I was happy to pay full price to sit in the dark and watch Mary Tyler Moore play an icy matriarch.

1981 – Chariots of Fire: Once, when we flying to a convention, headphones enabling one to listen to this, the movie that was being projected up front on the tiny silver screen, were being offered for a buck or two. Even though it had just won the big prize, I passed. Having heard the once inescapable Vangelis theme at least, oh, a hundred thousand times, give or take, I figured that about did it for me regarding this one .

1982 – Gandhi: This would seem to have a LOT going against it: it’s a sweeping epic biography, and it was viewed (via a rented video-tape) on the small screen a full half-dozen years after its release. Truth is, I found it very involving and surprisingly moving, with Ben Kingsley’s turn as the title character nothing short of unforgettable. As historical epics go, it’s high on MY list…

1983 – Terms of Endearment: Even without a Russian roulette contest, this rivals The Deer Hunter for the lowest position of all the films on this list that I’ve actually seen. I referred to a pair of films above as soap opera, as I would this one – save they were GOOD soap opera, and this one, well, not so good. A quarter of a century after leaving the theater, I don’t recall many of the story’s details, save for an overwhelming sense of annoyance at both Shirley Maclaine and Debra Winger. Y’know, I never understood the appeal of director Jim Brooks’s Broadcast News either, another vastly overpraised two hours of meandering plot. But he sure was good to Mary Richards (before she got all icy, natch…).

1984 – Amadeus: I LOVE this movie! I wish I’d seen it on the big screen instead of on the tube (via Showtime). It’s funny, gaudy, dramatic, wonderfully acted – sort of like a Ken Russell flick that’s done right (though I DO love his Tommy…)! Who’da ever figured Tom Hulce, the kid from Animal House, to convincingly play a musical genius? Director Milos Forman, whose earlier film version of Hair was neither a popular nor a critical success (but is also much beloved by me after a single long ago viewing on Showtime), finally garnered some well-earned respect for this musically oriented quasi-biography. I’m betting daughter Julie would dig both these movies, as well as some of the others found on this list. Maybe we’ll watch Hair today, Gone With the Wind tomorrow?…

1985 – Out of Africa: Lynn and her mom went out to theater to see this one, but I opted to stay home. I’m not much of an outdoorsy guy, even when that means staying inside and merely WATCHING fresh air footage! I heard this was long, long, long, and that Robert Redford was pretending to be British, so no thanks. I don’t recall any real rave reviews when my wife got home, either. This one I’ll likely never see.

1986 – Platoon: The only thing that appeals to me less than a war film is a brutally realistic war film. I put the cap on my Viet Nam viewing with The Deer Hunter, and even though this HAD to’ve been a better film, I decided to steer clear. Even as big a Kubrick fan as I am, I’ve also avoided Full Metal Jacket. And Saving Private Ryan? All I had to do was read a review that declared the first twenty minutes of that particular movie to be nearly as harrowing as actually being in combat for me to ask the simple question, “And I would want to experience that WHY?…” So sorry, no Platoon for me – I’m much happier with my Sgt. Bilko and Gomer Pyle reruns!…

1987 – The Last Emperor: Reading descriptions of this sumptuously filmed tale of a three year old Chinese emperor, I can’t quite determine if I’d be dazzled by it – or totally bored? Seems like it could either way. If I ever get around to actually seeing it, I’ll be sure and let you know which way the pendulum swung…

1988 – Rain Man: This was one of those pre-baby video rentals Lynn and I watched in 1990, and probably my favorite of the three Dustin Hoffman starrers on this list (What? No Tootsie?..). Tom Cruise acquits himself quite nicely as well. Worth seeing at least once.

1989 – Driving Miss Daisy: Another entry in the “Waiting For Julie To Arrive” film festival, and this well-intentioned, stagy drama starring Morgan Freeman made for an interesting contrast to the Spike Lee “joints” we were renting during the same time period. Watching this not long after Do The Right Thing was a rather fascinating juxtaposition (and frankly, the latter film was the one that made the deeper impression…).
Then the baby arrived and the drought truly began. I’ve only seen ONE Best Picture winner since 1990 – and that was about six months ago – though several others are at our fingertips. And looking over this list at Wikipedia, I’ve determined that, out of the fifty nominated films up for the Oscar from 1980 through 1989 (and aren’t you way glad we’re NOT canvassing every single nominee? I sure am!…), I’ve seen exactly twenty-five. You don’t need to have Russell Crowe’s beautiful noggin to figure out that that’s fifty percent. However, of the eighty-five flicks in contention since 1990? Six (seven when we go see Little Miss Sunshine, which both Lynn and I want to see, and soon). Stay at home parents, that’s us. A quick look at the winners then during the littlest Hembeck’s lifetime…

1990 – Dances With Wolves: I prefer Kevin Costner when he’s playing baseball (Field of Dreams and Bull Durham are both favorites), but I’d probably be as likely to see Waterworld as I would this one…

1991 – The Silence of the Lambs: Oooo, scary – maybe TOO scary for me. But considering Julie recently talked me into watching Candyman, a film based on a Clive Barker (my first, Pinhead fans!), maybe, just maybe I could make it through this one as well. No snacking in front of the tube, though..

1992 – Unforgiven: Westerns don’t much appeal to me, pardner, so I reckon I’ll ride out into the sunset without ever giving this one a look see…

1993 – Schindler’s List – Okay, I really SHOULD see this one, it’s just that I find anything to do with the Holocaust to be a tremendous bummer – and it’s not like I need to be convinced it happened, y’know? Still, someday I’ll take a deep breath and screen this one. Haven’t set a date yet, though…

1994 – Forrest Gump: This one is not only the most recent movie on this list that I’ve actually seen, but it’s also the most recent movie on this list that I’ve actually seen, if you catch my drift – Julie’s friend Courtney suggested they rent it for a sleep-over last summer, and since it was week-long rental, Lynn and I checked out the tape a few days later. After watching it, I just couldn’t understand all the fuss – yes, it’s a good movie, but a great one? I really don’t think so. For one thing, it’s all over the place – it’s a comedy, it’s a tearjerker, it’s a docudrama, it’s a war movie, and the tone veers from being an ersatz episode of Gomer Pyle, USMC, to that of a doomed romance, and then back again! Tom Hanks is fine, but when it was all over, all I could think was, was THAT what people have been going nuts over for the last ten years? Nice soundtrack though…

1995 – Braveheart: There was a time when I would’ve named The Road Warrior among my very favorite movies of all time – I watched it over and over on Showtime – but I don’t think I’ve seen a Mel Gibson flick since that third, largely disappointing Mad Max entry hit the theaters. I have zippo interest in watching this one, and I assure you, the Jews had NOTHING whatsoever to do with my feeling that way (Lynn lets me watch whatever I want, bless her li’l heart….)!

1996 – The English Patient: I remember the clips of this that ran on the Oscar telecast as being really, really boring – and if THAT was the best they could do in trying to promote the flick to their coveted world-wide audience, well, I’m thinking even emptying bedpans might be preferable to sitting through the actual movie!

1997 – Titanic: We own a VHS copy of this film! Lynn went on a bit of an eBay buying splurge a couple years back, and she saw a copy of this for an extremely cheap price and quickly scarfed it up. The fact that we have yet to find the three plus hours in our not-really-all-that-busy schedules to actually watch it says something about both us AND the movie. Fact, I kinda forgot we had it until I went through this here list. I WOULD like to see it – preferably on the big screen, but that ship’s sailed, hasn’t it? Let me get back to you on this one as well, okay?…

1998 – Shakespeare in Love: Bard Lite! This looks like it could be fun – I’d be amenable to renting a DVD of it sometime. And after all, taking a peek at Gwyneth Paltrow’s thespian chops might not be such a bad idea – hopefully, this award winning actress can prove worthy of being the screen’s first Pepper Potts!

1999 – American Beauty: This is another one I was sorely tempted to go out and see, and only sloth – and some mixed reviews – kept me from the big screen. But it’s pretty high on my list for my next round of playing cinematic catch-up. Plus, here’s yet another example of an actor turning Oscar gold into funny book fame – Kevin Spacey IS Lex Luthor! Just like Award Winning Gene Hackman was before him!…

2000 – Gladiator: Nope. Not my cuppa.

2001 – A Beautiful Mind: I remember digging that great episode of Freaks and Geeks featuring a tense mathlete competition, but that’s about as far as I want to go with watching people do addition on either the big or little screens, sorry (unless of course Russell Crowe signs on as Happy Hogan to Gwyneth’s Pepper Potts – THEN I might reconsider…).

2002 – Chicago: A friend gave me his copy of Moulin Rouge awhile back (cuz I don’t think he liked it), but if this musical is half as enchanting as that one was (yeah, I dug it), I really owe it to myself to see it, don’t I? Consider it way up top the list…

2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. This bears some explaining. First off, I haven’t seen ANY of the three Rings movies. Second off, I have the extended 4 DVD box-sets of each in my possession (the ONLY films on this list that I own, though I ALMOST bought the double DVD of West Side Story when it came out last year). I’ve never read the source material, and I assure you I never will – that sort of fantasy has never appealed to me. The reason then that I have the three films is that wife Lynn DID read the trilogy (though a way long time ago now); the movies are supposed to be really, really good; and I waited for the extended versions to come out because I figured, if I’m gonna watch these, I might as well see EVERYTHING! While I knew I was losing something not seeing these on the big screen, by having all three chapters at my disposal concurrently, I wouldn’t have to wait a year in between entries – AND I could pause the DVD anytime I wanted to go tinkle and not miss a beat! However, daughter Julie saw parts of the second installment at a friends house one night, and decided then and there that she wanted nothing to do with our plans to watch them. That’s fine by me, but it also made me think twice about watching them with her around – when would we ever find three nights in a row when Julie would refrain from interrupting us for nearly four hours at a time? Can’t be done – trust me. But we’ve finally come up with a solution – if all goes as planned, Julie will be going off for a month long pre-college art course in another state this summer, and – ah ha! – THAT’S when I’ll finally learn if those cute little guys ever do find those rings! There’s only one sliver of controversy left, and maybe some of you folks out there can help me – Lynn wonders if we should perhaps just watch the versions as released to the theaters, figuring all the additional footage might drag down the pace of the films as intended, while I’M of the opinion, hey if I don’t watch all this extra stuff now, I ain’t NEVER gonna go back and sit through these cinematic endurance tests ever again! Opinions? (And please bear in mind, I prefer one that agree with me…)

2004 – Million Dollar Baby: More Clint Eastwood. A lady boxer. I hear there’s a surprise, bummer of an ending. Somehow, I’ve never stumbled upon the secret. Makes me a mite curious (don’t tell me – this ain’t an invitation to blab, people!), maybe even increasing the possibility I’ll see this one someday.

2005 – Crash: The Saturday after the Oscars last year, Lynn, Julie and I actually went out to see this, but the line at the multiplex was enormous, and Crash was already sold out for the evening, so we went home and watched a Three Stooges marathon instead! (No, not really – we DID head home, but I forget just exactly what we did after we got there…) Considering the mixed reviews this one got, I’ve been a bit ambivalent about whether I truly want to see it or not. Let’s give it a big solid “maybe” and be done with it, okay?…

2006 – The Departed: Y’know, I’m glad Scorsese FINALLY won the award, but the odds of me running out to see this (or rent it) aren’t very high. Funny thing, in a way – I saw Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (the only Scorsese film to spawn a sitcom!!), New York, New York, and The Last Waltz all on the big screen, while I caught Raging Bull and King of Comedy on cable (no, somehow I’ve never managed to see Taxi Driver). I enjoyed each of those movies to varying degrees – Lynn, too – but after awhile, I kinda just tired of gangsters killing each other in as bloody a manner as possible, all the while swearing up an effin’ storm. For me, a little of that goes a long, long way. So, if I ever do check out another of Marty’s flicks, it’d most likely be the seemingly more genteel The Aviator, or the (personally) overlooked Taxi Driver, not this most recent opus. But hey, good for him – he truly deserved the award WHATEVER the quality of this latest film!

And now I’m FINALLY done with going through the entire list (thanks for the idea Roger – I think…), and what have I learned? Well, that only a precious few of my very favorite movies were ever voted Best Picture of the year by members of the Motion Picture Academy. Why is that? Well, looking over the group of films above, you’d have to agree that a vast majority could be at least categorized as better than average, but I really believe the quality of the work is secondary. I think what the Academy folks are TRULY voting for are the films that’ll give them the most prestige. Seriousness trumps entertainment value, simply put. Oh, it’s nice if a film has both, but whichever film is going to make the motion picture industry look best in the eyes of the world, THAT’S the one that gets the lion’s share of the votes. Sometimes those movies endure, sometimes they don’t. But truth is, I’d happily swap Elf for most of ’em! (Not to mention Bean, but most folks would find THAT concept just out and out demented, so forget I mentioned it, okay?…)

But Roger? Do see From Here To Eternity when you get the chance, okay? Just please, outta respect, DON’T scream “Look – there’s Superman!” when George Reeves comes on the screen, okay? The poor guy’s been through enough of that already, y’know? It’s enough to make you play a game of Russian roulette – with bullets in all the chambers…

And the Oscar goes to – Hembeck.com for Best Website To Never Mention A Wayans Brothers Movie Like Little Man! (Until now – oops…)

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

Now, while I can’t honestly say I’ve actually READ the comic in question – I haven’t really kept up on what my ol’ pal Spidey’s been doing for quite awhile now – but when I stumbled across this news while surfing the net (via Tom the Dog’s You Know What I Like blog, which in turn provided a link to a detailed review by Graeme McMillan of Spider-Man: Reign #3, offering more than enough evidence that it was Peter Parker’s pecker that indeed did in his missus in this misguided mini), I was stunned, absolutely stunned!

Initially, I mistakenly believed that this plot twist (or more to the point, twisted plot…) took place in mainstream Spider-Man continuity, but after deciding to do a little research before going off half-cocked (such as it were), I discovered otherwise. As these curious events occurred during the course of a gussied up imaginary story, this considerably queasy notion somehow left a slightly less bitter taste in my mouth – but only slightly.

Y’know, I haven’t really stayed up to date with the adventures of a certain Man of Steel either – anybody out there know if DC’s ever gotten around to publishing that oft-speculated tale in with the lusty Kryptonian annihilates bride Lois during the throes of a Super-orgasm? If not, well, hey – after Marvel having just thrown down the gauntlet, it shouldn’t be too long now, should it?

(And as I see how the Archie folks are coming out with their own version of Civil War, one can only imagine what THEIR take on all this would look like!!…)

Hembeck.com welcomes Jugheads and Big Mooses of the world alike!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

It may not be a trip to the mountains, but a visit to Hembeck.com is ALWAYS a vacation – and remember, footwear is optional!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

Over at my home site, Hembeck.com, I have a sub-category on my catch all More page called “Stuff I Had NOTHING To Do With”, the general concept of which – if not the specific contents – should, I trust, be reasonably self-explanatory.

Of course, if I had nothing to do with the material contained therein, then I really don’t have any, um, RIGHT to post it, now do I? Not wanting to overstep any ethical bounds (at least, not by TOO much), I’ve tried to resist the urge to host online any but the most obscure strips, pages otherwise unlikely to ever again see the light of day.

Okay, admittedly, that description’s a bit extreme – and doesn’t quite cover some of my earlier selections – but friends, it sure does hit the nail square on the head concerning what I have to show you THIS time around!

Anybody out there besides me remember THIS?…

This 15 page story was unceremoniously chopped up into three parts and run in three consecutive early 1972 issues of the RBCC, numbers 85, 86, and 87. As I’ve mentioned here in the past, the main purpose of that once popular zine was the buying and selling of comics, and clearly, any editorial material contained within was likely included mostly to satisfy mailing regulations. The cavalier way this lost gem of a story was treated bespeaks its second class nature, at least in the context of RBCC‘s primary mission (in fact, the story’s concluding panel dates the work as being completed in 1968, meaning it sat on the shelf for an agonizingly long period of time before FINALLY seeing publication!).

What exactly IS “The Massacre of the Innocents” you might well ask ? Well, for one thing, it’s one of an unheralded trio of stories that nonetheless perhaps had the greatest impact on my own personal approach to doing comics (I plan to post the other two in due time – in for a penny, in for a pound, I’m thinking…). Back during a time when the very notion of a legitimate Spider-Man/Superman teaming seemed less likely than man walking on the moon, this cleverly constructed tale intermingled characters from both Marvel and DC, all plopped down in a lovingly rendered, richly atmospheric Eisner-like setting. Someone’s killing all the super-heroes, y’see – and though all the names have been changed (to protect the innocent, we’re told – the author!…), the art styles are strikingly familiar…

Ditko, Kirby, Boring, Sprang – they’re just a few of the cartooning immortals whose iconic styles are paid loving homage in this stirring – and in the end, moving – tribute to the costumed crimefighters of The Silver (and Marvel) Age of Comics. As big a comics geek as I was at the time (and yes, remain), there was just no way a story like this WASN’T gonna get to me! And though it was labeled an amateur effort (by the late Bruce Hamilton, who was auctioning off the pages in an ad adjacent to the stories’ very last page, something I never actually noticed until now! Guess it’s a tad too late to get my mitts on a page or six, huh?…), this was obviously the work of someone destined for great things.

Brad Caslor.

Yup, I don’t know who he is either.

Certainly, he didn’t go on to make his mark in the comics field. Happily, though, these days we have a little thing called Google, so once I typed in his name, I quickly discovered what had become of the talented gentleman who’d created “The Massacre of the Innocents” – he went into animation! (Unless, of course, there’s ANOTHER Brad Caslor that likes to draw funny pictures out there, but hey, what are the odds?…).

Fact is, there’s a swell little cartoon called Get A Job posted over at YouTube that was done by our Mr. C, and you animation buffs out there in readerland might want to go grab a peek at that as well! But before you do, take a few minutes – and this link – to zip on over to my site and read “The Massacre of the Innocents,” one of most memorable stories – and maybe the best “insider” tale of its kind ever attempted – I’ve had the privilege to read.

I love this story! I worship this story! I treasure this story! And now, I’ve just gone and completely WAY oversold this story! Pardon my passion, folks, but I’m telling you – you’ll probably enjoy this story, at least a LITTLE bit. Honest.

And if you somehow get wind of this, Mr. Caslor, I hope you’ll dig that I only want folks to share the thrill your delightful tribute afforded me, all those years ago. I calls ’em as I sees ’em, and I calls it a lost classic, case closed!

Believe me gang, when all is said and done, you’ll be just like THIS guy…

There won’t be a dry eye left in the house.

Sniff…

Hembeck com – now also featuring Hembeck! Check it out!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

I was 16 years old in 1969, but oh, was I ever wise beyond my years.

Or so I liked to think.

Y’see, I’d been digging on comics since nearly the beginning of the decade, and by 1969, I figured that qualified me as a stone-cold expert. And not only had I been reading these not-so-funny books since Ike was in the White House, but I’d been amassing a pretty impressive collection of fanzines over the past two years, and the knowledge I’d garnered from these products of like-minded – and clearly impassioned – individuals only infused me with more confidence in my own considered opinions.

So when I sent in a letter to the leading adzine of the day, RBCC (Rocket’s Blast and Comic-Collector being two earlier zines that had, long before I came along, fused together to successfully – and regularly – serve as one of the main focal points of the fandom of the time), with my less than complimentary comments regarding the results of the 1968 Alley Awards (the Eisner/Harvey Awards of their day – and the originals, at that). Apparently, I had voted, and I WASN’T at all happy with the way things came out!…

The letter appeared in RBCC 68, which arrived in my mailbox early in 1970. This wasn’t my first epistle to wind up inside the pages of RBCC – I’d had at least two others appear previously, including one in which I chime in regarding my recent discovery that comics were no longer being sold in New York’s Penn Station, a bit of news I reported with such hysteria, one could’ve easily been convinced that the whole field was teetering on the brink of extinction based solely on the fact that commuter’s could no longer score a copy of Little Lotta to read on their suburban-bound train trip homewards!

But that was nothing compared to my most controversial RBCC contribution. You won’t have to take my word for it, friends – you can judge for yourself. Below – sans a pair of short opening and closing paragraphs essentially saying, “Good job, RBCC” – are the thoughts regarding 1968’s comics crop courtesy of 16-year-old Fred. And yes, I winced on more than one occasion while retyping these “pearls” of wisdom, but hang with me – as we shall see, there’s MORE to the story than a know-it-all teenager making some typically clueless statements.

Ready? Here it comes…

Well, the results of the 1968 Alley Awards are in, and for a large part I’m disappointed. What happened was that too many Marvel fans answered the plug in the Bullpen pages. And, voting on a straight Marvel ticket, they slanted it unjustly. How else would Sgt. Fury beat Enemy Ace by 69 votes? How else would Stan Lee beat Dick Giordano by 185 votes? Granted, in a tally of strictly fandom, Lee still might have won (I voted for Giordano myself), but hardly by such a great margin. Lee also won by a tremendous (150 votes) amount in the best writer category. Of the fans I know, most agree Stan had an off year in 1968. Here’s another example: Joe Sinnott won by 118 votes over Wally Wood. Granted, Joe did some fine work with Steranko and on the FF, but 1968 was Wood’s year. His return to comics helped rejuvenate the whole DC line. Shouldn’t the voting have been a bit closer? That shuck from Lee about “King ” Kirby enabled Jack to finish second in the best artist category – ahead of Neal Adams! I have nothing against Jack – he’s a good artist, but not THAT great. Luckily, talent won out and Jim Steranko won almost everything in sight: best artist, Hall of Fame Award (for Nick Fury), numbers one, two, four and five of the best covers, numbers one and four in best short story, plus the fact that the character Nick Fury finished quite high in several categories due to Steranko. Real talent will out! Mark (Hanerfeld) says next year it will be a straight fandom vote, which is good. Like you say in the RB&CC: don’t be a Marvel fan, don’t be a DC fan, but be a comic fan. Look for quality, not Stan Lee’s name. I wish more people would think that way when they cast their Alley vote.

Ouch.

That is WAY difficult to read – especially since, in subsequent years, three of the nicest folks I’ve had the privilege of meeting (and dare I say, befriending, however casually) go by the names of Lee, Kirby, and Sinnott? Clearly, I needed someone to – as the vernacular would have it – “tear me a new one”!

Don’t worry, gang – my comeuppance wasn’t long in coming…

Only a matter of days after fishing the latest RBCC out of the mailbox in our front yard, a neatly typed envelope turned up in that selfsame governmental canister. As I rifled through the day’s Lumpkinesque arrivals, I stopped dead in my tracks when I spied the letter’s return address.

It was from Roy Thomas.

Huh?…

Of course I knew who Roy was, but how would he know who I was – and WHY would in the world would he care?

Obviously I had forgotten about my tacky little tirade, so I hastily opened up this unexpected communiqué from Marvel’s number two man, and proceeded to absorb the contents.

(Roy apparently sent along a copy of his thoughts to the staff of RBCC as well, and the following letter – which I’ve reproduced in its entirety – ran in the very next issue, number 69…)

Dear Fred Hembeck and RB&CC,

Fred’s letter in the last RB&CC issue (just out as I write this) stated his disappointment with the topheavy Marvel vote in the 1968 Alley Award poll. His viewpoint has, I suppose, its merits; however, it was so steeped in misconceptions that I had to take typewriter in hand… in an unofficial capacity, of course. Why I do this, I’m not quite sure. Certainly Marvel – whether winning or losing – has nothing to do with the poll, and while we’re flattered to receive any award, we know – as surely as fandom must – that any award dispensed by only a few hundred fanzine readers (or even a larger group) is at worst meaningless, at best a pleasant ephemera. I say this, by the way, remembering that I NAMED the Alleys back in the early 60s, and counted the very first ballots – and knowing that I usually finish well in the running myself. But still, rather meaningless, more’s the pity. But onward…

One of Fred’s allegations, at least, is true. Marvel did probably benefit from straight-ticket voting by readers who read the Bullpen Bulletins item. But this in itself merely proves that fans (read “readers”) in 1968 preferred in general Marvel’s product to National’s, despite the undeniable improvement in quality wrought by Infantino and others. After all, DC itself plugged the Alleys (in larger type, yet) in a sizable number of magazines, and if anything more prominently than did Marvel – which used it merely as a bottom-of-the-page throwaway item. (In fact, this was only done as a favor to Mark, and after he had written a plug for it in the DC books which otherwise would have made it completely DC TOPHEAVY.) If Marvel readers responded with greater numbers and enthusiasm than anyone else, then it merely proves Marvel deserved the awards – that year.

It’s really all a matter, Fred, of semantics and one’s definition of a FAN. Unfortunately, that of the Academy has changed almost every year. In 1968 a fan was anyone who cared to vote – and who saw the poll advertised in a fanzine or a comic book. In 1969, a fan was anyone who cared enough to vote – but who saw the poll advertised only in a fanzine. Neither, I think, has much validity. No fannish poll is ever likely to gain any real respect until it is definitely tied to some fan group or event. The Academy doesn’t seem to be that group, as it’s moribund despite the best efforts of Mark Hanerfeld and Dave Kaler before him. My own choice, influenced by s-f fandom as I am, would be to have all the members of the New York Comicon each year be the voters – and the votes would both mean something AND help support the only real national event there is.

But nobody’s asked me to settle the anarchical state of comics fandom, and since I now consider comics fandom a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there, I’ll push my views no further… except to assure Fred et all, that I don’t SCORN the Alleys; indeed, I still own and treasure the one I won some years ago for my fan work. But that the awards should have any meaning to professionals – not until the fans can show that they can organize for something more constructive than a comic-trading session.

I meant for this letter to comment at length on some of the more asinine statements by Fred with regards to the 1968 awards, but the press of work beckons, so I’ll keep this part brief by quoting Fred’s statements and my own disagreements:

1) “In a tally of strictly fandom, Lee still might have won… but hardly by such a great margin.” Quite possibly true, and I yield to no one in my liking and admiration for Dick Giordano (among other editors). But Stan is editor over more than two dozen titles of undisputed fannish popularity, Dick over only a handful. Thus Stan has even more POTENTIAL fans than Dick, in the loosest sense of the word. Besides, nothing except actual voting can prove statements like Fred’s – and the voting just didn’t. And since it will never be 1968 again, Fred will never be able to prove his unsupported assertion.

2) “1968 was Wood’s year.” Not so’s anybody noticed. I like Wally’s work, especially his inking, as evinced by the fact that he and I are now at work on a Dr. Doom strip for Marvel. But he didn’t do enough significant work in 1968 to affect anyone but the most rabid fan. Wally’s winning an award made more sense several years ago, when he was doing Dynamo; don’t try giving him one every time he enters the list. (Now, in 1970, with quite a few Dr. Doom strips under his belt, it might be something else again – and it would make SENSE.)

3) “That shuck from Lee about ‘King’ Kirby enabled Jack to finish second.” If Jack never got a vote from the hordes of fandom, he would still be THE super hero artist; the “epitome”, as Gil Kane called him in A/E 10. I don’t vote for him each and every year myself for various reasons – but the thoughts of some fans that Jack is overrated by Stan and Marvel is ludicrous. I’m sure Neal Adams (who’ll do better in the future, never fear, Fred) would hardly mind finishing second or third to Jack Kirby, since he agrees with Gil’s statement – as do most other action artists.

4) Re: Steranko’s winning : “Real talent will out!” By this snide statement, Fred, waving a triumphant sword aloft, is saying that justice has won the day – or, to be more precise, that one of his choices won the poll. I’ve been a Steranko fan far longer than most people (since I saw his work long before any of it was printed), but Kirby is still the King, in the sense that his superhero art has set the standard for the field since the early 60s. Other styles are beginning to alter that somewhat today, including Steranko’s, Adam’s, even Buscema’s. But Jack will remain as the superhero artist par excellence of the 1960s – and a thousand Alleys to such great talents as Steranko, Adams, Williamson, Wood, et al, will hardly change that – any more than voting, say, Denny O’Neil or myself best writers would make us better that Stan. It wouldn’t.

Okay, I’ve had my say. Sorry to go at even greater length than Fred did in RB&CC, and I assure you that there’s nothing personal in my remarks – but I thought someone might like to hear the opinions of a comics fan who is also a working professional – and who, incidentally, DIDN’T vote a straight ticket in 1968 or any other year.

Roy Thomas
Editor, Alter Ego

Well, THAT was sure like a bucket of cold water applied directly to the face!

Not that it wasn’t warranted – and not that it could’ve been far less civil, cuz it certainly could’ve been! – but still. Whew…

As you might well imagine, Roy’s letter had a sobering effect on our young Mr. Know-It-All. After the initial shock of being singled out for a well-deserved verbal reprimand from one of my favorite funny book scribes finally wore off, I sat back and seriously considered what Mr. T had to say (not all that stuff about coming up with a better way of choosing the year’s best in the field – since that only peripherally concerned yours truly, it pretty much went in one ear and out the other. Fact is, I’d forgotten all about Roy’s various modest voting proposals until I sat down at the keyboard today to reproduce his letter. Things didn’t quite work out as he envisioned along those lines, huh?…).

Well, while he may’ve been off-base with his look into the future of comics’ award balloting, Roy was one hundred percent on the money regarding my aptly characterized “asinine statements”. Stan really DID deserve a tremendous amount of admiration for keeping his ever growing stable of titles heading inexorably towards the top, all the while maintaining an impressive level of quality across the entire line. And in all my years of going on record regarding matters four-color related, have I EVER uttered a STUPIDER sentence than “I have nothing against Jack – he’s a good artist, but not THAT great.”?

No.

No, I have not.

I may’ve come close at times, granted, but nothing quite approaches dismissing the immortal Jack Kirby as “a good artist, but not THAT great”! In my defense, what was going on in my addled teen-age head wasn’t so much disrespect for the mighty triumvirate of Lee, Kirby, and Sinnott, but a situation where I unconsciously began to take their always top-notch efforts for granted. After all, I’d been reading Stan and Jack’s books for a half-dozen years by then – and Joe, nearly as long. Good as they remained at their job, a certain surface sameness couldn’t help turn up each month. Neal Adams and Jim Steranko – not to mention some of the offbeat books DC assigned editor Giordano – were, in comparison, so fresh and different, they won my affection on those grounds alone! Hey, I was 16 – can you blame me for wanting something a little more flashy than what had been the norm up to that point?

But still – “not THAT great”? Oy…

So I sat down, gathered my thoughts, and wrote back a fairly lengthy reply to Roy, pointing out essentially what I said above – the ol’ hypnotized-by-pretty-colors defense. But what I also said was that his letter had truly put Jack Kirby’s career in its proper place for me. I can honestly say that, since Roy set me straight all those years ago, I have NEVER again thought of Jack as anything less than great! While I may not have been completely taken with everything he did subsequently, I always maintained the utmost respect for the man, and what he managed to accomplish overall in the less than ideal circumstances afforded him by the not-always-friendly confines of the comics biz. Hopefully, I would’ve figured that out on my own eventually, but I’m eternally indebted to Roy Thomas for getting me there all the sooner!

(Oh, and that phrase where I use the word “shuck” just makes me want to go crawl under a rock! I don’t think I’ve ever used that word in such a manner in all the years since, and lemme tell ya, I literally grimaced when I came upon it while reviewing my ill-advised comments! Bleh – I’m even gonna avoid the subject of corn just to make sure I never have to use that word ever again!…)

Happily, Roy accepted my sincere mea culpa, and the ever busy Marvel staffer kindly took a few minutes to dash off another note to tell me so (unhappily, for a guy who still has all his old fanzines – not to mention virtually every comic book he ever bought while he as a kid – my fannish correspondence from the late sixties, including Roy’s notes and an extensive collection of letters from my three primary pen-pals (a story onto it’s own, albeit one for another time), have all apparently disappeared over the years. A shame, really…). This time, our postal communications weren’t marked for RBCC eyes as well, so there’s no way for me to reproduce Mr. Thomas’s follow-up (the only thing I clearly recall – aside from him graciously letting me off the hook for being a big-mouthed teen-ager – was him plugging an upcoming issue of Iron Man written by Archie Goodwin featuring a new character named Firebrand that Roy figured might be a bit on the controversial side, since he was meant to reflect the social upheaval then occurring in the country. Guess he thought I’d dig something like that, punky little firebrand that I was myself!…)

I wrote yet another letter to Roy – hey, what 17 year old comics geek wouldn’t have wanted Roy Thomas as their pen-pal in 1970? – but that turned out to be the last of our correspondence, as I never heard back from Roy after that. Fair enough – the man had Kree/Skrull Wars to stage and Hyborian Ages to bring to life, after all.

He taught me at least two valuable lessons, the first regarding having a proper appreciation of Jack Kirby, and second being, don’t be such a blowhard, especially when it comes to negative stuff! SOMEONE clearly had to clue me into the fact that my opinions certainly aren’t the ONLY opinions, and I was lucky enough to have someone I admired as much as Roy Thomas be the one to straighten me out! Thanks, Roy – I remain forever grateful!

(That said, I STILL think Enemy Ace had a better year than Sgt. Fury!…)

The votes are in! Hembeck.com has been voted the website most likely to dredge up inconsequential old letters from quarter-century old fanzines – and proud of it, too!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck (save for Roy’s words, which are his own, now and forever)

Back in 1990, a telefilm with the self-explanatory title of Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys was broadcast by (I think) NBC. As many other fans of the group undoubtedly did, I tuned in. The star of this compressed, two-hour (minus commercial time) recounting of the turbulent history of the legendary West Coast pop group (who initially came to fame by riding surfing’s new-found wave of popularity in the early sixties, but eventually exceeded all artistic expectations thanks to the musical genius of group leader, Brian Wilson), the focus of this TV movie, was actor Bruce Greenwood.

He played Dennis Wilson.

Hey, he was the sexy one, the bad boy, the one who hung out with Charles Manson, the Beach Boy who – how’s THIS for tragic irony? – actually DROWNED! Throw in numerous drug problems and a revolving cast of bedmates and you’ve got yourselves a story even the most casual American tube watcher could understand, one that surely comes across a whole lot easier than trying to properly portray brother Brian’s fragile mental and emotional state during the group’s heyday, the period when he composed his masterworks. To be fair, Brian DID get a fair amount of screen time, second only to Dennis. After that, attention paid to the core members dropped off precipitously: Mike Love was mostly there to man the microphone for some iconic lead vocals and, later, not dig his cousin’s revolutionary ideas – and to bluntly tell him so! Young brother Carl, well, he had a few lines, and a few vocals.

And Al Jardine?

Pity actor Andrew Mylar. The Internet Movie Data Base lists his portrayal of Jardine as his debut credit – followed up by only three more, the last in 1995.

(Bruce Greenwood, by contrast, has 89 credits, dating back to 1979 right on up to the present. I recall him best as Dr. Seth Griffin during the 1988 season of St. Elsewhere…)

Anyway, you’d think taking on the role of a world-famous rock-star would’ve propelled Mylar’s thespian ambitions, but there was one little thing missing from his role that might’ve helped him even further:

A line.

Look, it’s been 17 years, so maybe I’m misremembering, but best as I can recall, the Al Jardine character wasn’t afforded a single line of dialog in the entire piece! Mostly, our faux Al just hovered around in the background, smiling when the group was up, frowning when they weren’t.

Not fair. Not fair at all. Not to a man who sang lead on (among others) “Help Me Rhonda” and “Vegetables,” and who suggested Brian cut a version of “Sloop John B,” the only smash hit single from the since-universally lionized (but at the time of release, commercially disappointing) Pet Sounds LP.

Hey, there’s even some evidence that Al, following founder Brian, was actually the second man recruited for the group. After a musical assemblage made up of the pair and some of their college friends didn’t quite jell, their university associates were booted, only to be replaced by Carl and Mike, and THAT’S when the real Beach Boys were born! (Mother Audree Wilson later insisted that Dennis be added.)

You’d think THAT scenario would be worth a line or two, but apparently not.

Well, all these years later, Brian and Al are back together, touring to perform Pet Sounds on stage in it’s entirety one last time (or so they say). This is a rather recent development. Brian and The Boys went their separate ways years ago, with Wilson touring on his own while Mike Love, Carl Wilson, mid-sixties recruit Bruce Johnston, and Al went out before audiences as The Beach Boys. After Carl’s tragic passing nearly a decade ago, the group not only sorely missed his angelic voice (my personal favorite amongst all of the group’s extremely talented vocalists), they also missed his peacekeeping nature. Thus, soon after, lacking in love for Mike, Al split to go off on his own. However, Love legally controlled The Beach Boys brand, so Jardine was forbidden from performing under any sort of a moniker that included the word “Beach” in it.

Still, Al managed.

Don’t believe me? Check out this live recording, Al Jardine Family and Friends: Live In Las Vegas…

Recorded in 1999, and featuring Jardine sons Matt and Adam – as well as Brian’s offspring, Carnie and Wendy – sharing lead vocals with Al on a generous helping of Beach Boy classics and overlooked gems alike (“Surfer Girl” and “Breakaway,” “Good Vibrations” and “Girl, Don’t Tell Me”), I was pleasantly surprised not only by the music’s energy but by its polish as well. Frankly, as much as I love The Beach Boys, I have never been overly impressed by the handful of concert recordings they’ve issued over the decades (and that includes most of Brian’s recent forays as well), as the shimmering vocal precision so instrumental to the original tracks’ success is rarely close to being duplicated, with the live recordings always sounding positively ragged by comparison. Plus, there’s always those groan-inducing raps of Mike Love’s to endure. After all, who needs to hear “Good Vibrations” sung live if the lead vocalist is gonna mock it midway through?

But this record is an awful lot of fun (which Al closes out with “California Energy Blues, a studio track of his own). Hey, it may not be SMiLE, but it’s not Looking Back With Love, either. You can order a copy through Al Jardine’s Official Website, and I think even a casual Beach Boy fan would find it to be a worthy purchase.

Who knows – maybe somewhere out there, Andrew Mylar is listening to his very own copy right now?

(And Ned Vaughn, as well. He also took on the role of Al Jardine, this time in 2000 TV flick called The Beach Boys: An American Family. Frankly, I don’t remember if I actually watched this latter day rehash of The Boys history or not – as big a rock music fan as I am, after awhile I wearied of mostly second-rate attempts to dramatize pop music history, and have a half dozen still unwatched network takes on key moments in Beatles history languishing downstairs to prove it, and the American Family likely suffered from a similar indifference…

Maybe I SHOULDA tuned in – Vaughn’s imdb listing is far more impressive than his predecessor – 47 credits overall, 18 since he slipped into Al’s striped shirt, including four appearances as Mitch Anderson during the fourth season of my beloved 24! I don’t know if he sidled up to the mic to warble “Help Me Rhonda” during The Beach Boy bio flick, but I’m pretty sure he screamed “Help me, Bauer!” during his 24 stint!…)

Sadly, Carl and Dennis are gone – and Mike has staked out his own path – so for the group’s two originals, Brian and Al, it’s a much belated reunion, which, from all accounts, has infused a new level of confidence in the stage-wary Wilson. Clearly, Brian is the musical immortal, but let’s not overlook the contribution Al Jardine made to the group’s success. This man has seen it ALL, folks – just imagine the sort of book he could write? A blockbuster, I’m betting – one just ripe for a THIRD teleflick!

AND a far juicier role for narrator Al Jardine, I’m betting!

And now, for you comics fans who’ve muddled through my rock ramblings, allow me to share with you a strip I did for the 71st issue of Marvel Age (February 1989) which features not only Cartoon Fred hosting an earlier version of “The Fred Hembeck Show,” but Brother Voodoo, several Beach Boys, and their NEW lead singer as well! I even give Cartoon Al Jardine a pivotal line – and this a full year before Video Al Jardine showed up on the small screens of America, woefully bereft of dialog!

This strip was drawn in the regular centerspread format of the day, meaning that I had to divvy up the twenty one panels rather than just post the double-wide pair of pages for your viewing enjoyment. Also, bear in mind that this was composed while I was deeply in thrall of the great Jack Benny, and shortly after Mike Love shot off his mouth during the group’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech! In retrospect, I wonder exactly HOW many Marvel Age readers knew just what the heck I was talking about, but good ol’ editor Jim Salicrup let me run around unfettered, and this was one of those times where, hey, good luck getting the punchline, kids! (Another was when I did a strip about Roy and Dann Thomas taking over the scripting of Dr. Strange, and the humor revolved around Cartoon Fred mistaking Roy’s missus with comedian DANNY Thomas, culminating with a Dormammu bearing a big honker, and an “Uncle Tonoose” reference to boot. After it came out, I was in my local comics store, and the clerk – a pre-Hutch Owens Tom Hart – confessed he didn’t understand the gags in that particular strip at all! I think that was when I first began to realize that, y’know, maybe I shouldn’t always be so narrow with my quips…)

But before that overdue bolt of lightning finally hit, I did the following strip…

Aside from my labored caricature, the Jardine impressions above were all garnered from the 1979 trade paperback, The Beach Boys, by the late Byron Preiss, and were the work of, in order of appearance, Bill Nelson, Joey Epstein/Tom Hachtman, George Chastain, and Overton Loyd. This handsome volume also contains contributions by such stalwarts as Howard Chaykin, Ralph Reese, Edward Gorey, John Pound, Kenneth Smith, Walt Simonson, Bobby London, William Stout, and Harvey Kurtzman – none of whom, unfortunately, offered up a Jardine of their own. Still, it’s a book well worth searching out, especially for the comics fan who likes to listen to Endless Summer while reading his (or her) Man of Tomorrow Archives…

Well, that’s about it for this week – say good night, Al…

Visit Hembeck.com for all the good vibrations you can handle! And worry not – no one’s gonna eat all your corn there, I promise!

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck

Even though All-Star Comics #3 hit the newsstands a full thirteen years before I was born, I’ve nevertheless harbored a life-long affection for the Justice Society of America…

Why, you ask, would this child of The Silver Age feel such a deep connection to those costumed bastions of comic’s Golden Age? Timing, friends, timing!

Y’see, back in 1961, at the tender age of eight, I had barely begun buying my own copies of DC’s superhero line (Superman #146, with an on sale date of May 4th was the first) when the company released their treasured Secret Origins #1 collection a month and a half later on June 15th (and no, my memory isn’t THAT good – there’s a wonderful section over at the Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics website that groups each month’s titles from every year the firm’s been in business together sequentially by release date called, aptly enough, The Time Machine! It’s proven to be a fun way for me to relive those grand old days loitering around the comics rack down at Heisenbuttels General Store in Yaphank – and has also shown me that Secret Origins #1 (pretty much the closest thing you could find to a Readers Manual for beginner comic book fans in those days) was merely the 14th DC Comic yours truly ever bought!).

And included in that landmark issue was perhaps the single most important Silver Age story of all (at least, up to that point in time, with the emergence of a certain foursome still a few months off) – the origin of The Flash. We all remember what Barry Allen was READING early on in that tale, don’t we class? Uh huh – an issue of Flash Comics ! Only, not one featuring the sleek-domed red-garbed speedster we kids were familiar with during the dawning days of JFK’s administration, but rather a fellow adorned with a Mercury-styled helmet dating all the way back to midway into FDR’s White House tenure! I couldn’t help but be curious – who WAS this guy?

Little over a month later, my question would be answered. July 20th saw the release of my second ever issue of The Flash, #123, featuring the justifiably legendary “Flash Of Two Worlds”…

I was immediately intrigued by this Jay Garrick fellow. I liked his looks – nice hat, dude – and the fact that he was already married to HIS romantic interest was a breath of fresh air. Hey, in those days, it only took a few months of collecting to become weary of DC’s woefully overworked snoopy girlfriend shtick! Yeah, THIS Flash didn’t have to pretend to be a slowpoke just to throw off his (seemingly clueless anyway) gal pal the way Barry did “reporter” (hah!) Iris Allen! More please!

A week later, I got my wish – sorta. That’s when Showcase #34 made its appearance, featuring the debut of the second-generation Atom. All well and good, but to me, clearly the coolest part was the pair of text pages wherein editor Julie Schwartz took the opportunity to explain the genesis of such characters as The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, this newly minted Atom – even the august organization known as the Justice League of America – by revealing to us young ‘uns (via an illustration reproducing the gathered greats sitting around a table as pictured on All-Star #3’s cover) the inspiration behind all our (then) modern day favorites!! Wow! You mean there was an entirely DIFFERENT group of super-heroes saving the world from evil-doers way back before I made MY arrival on the scene – ANY scene? Cool! And since there was absolutely no way I was gonna get my hands on any of those old comics at the time, a sort of romantic, almost mystical quality grew in my mind, surrounding any and all characters from the Golden Age of Comics, but most especially members of the Justice Society.

Well, after that one-two-three punch, I had to wait nearly an entire year for another glimpse across the fog of time. Flash #129 hit the stores on April 19th, 1962, and not only did it feature the second ever pairing of Barry and Jay (the latter of whom was referred to throughout, interestingly enough, as “the other Earth Flash”, sans numerical designation), but a memorable three page flashback to the JSA’s final adventure as well, bringing such characters as Dr. Mid-Nite and the Black Canary out of limbo for the first time in decades, alongside some of the JLA’s prototypes/dopplegangers! Wonderful stuff!

Nearly a day to the year, it got even better! Flash and Flash, round three (in Flash #137) found several members of the Justice Society playing a small – yet happily, non-flashback – part in the proceedings as the Crimson Comets took on forties’ menace Vandal Savage for the first – but not last – time in the modern era. At stories end, there was some conjecture amongst the reassembled JSAers about maybe, y’know, getting back together for a little more fun and games! GREAT idea! And WHEN exactly might this much anticipated event occur, I wondered?

How about nearly two months later, on June 13th, 1963? THAT’S the day the word “Crisis” firmly entered the comic-book lexicon – and as we know all too well, it sure hasn’t left yet!…

Was there ever a more majestic cover scene that the one illustrated by Mike Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson (and, like all the other pieces included in this edition of “The Fred Hembeck Show,” lovingly redrawn by your humble host)? Literally emerging from the very mists of the past, this initial meeting of the two Justice organizations spawned an annual tradition of two-part summer team-ups that lasted for over a decade, always the most eagerly anticipated JLA issues of the year for moi!

(Here’s part two of that first monumental assemblage…)

After that, gee whiz, you wouldn’t have supposed it would take very long for the two Lanterns to ring up an adventure together, would you? Well, you’d’ve been wrong – over a full two years later, on August 26th, 1965, DC FINALLY put their two green good guys together in one adventure – and what an adventure it was, too!

“The Secret Origin Of The Guardians”, we would learn just over two decades later in the pivotal maxi-series, Crisis On Infinite Earths, was nothing less than the basis for the creation of the entire DC Comics Universe! Gosh, and at the time I thought it was just another piece of pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo that the company had long had a reputation for churning out – who knew? (The unadorned truth is, as fond as I am of these characters, unlike the contemporaneous adventures of their Marvel Comics counterparts, there’s very little I recall about the actual STORIES, just a certain “feel” that the art – and especially those iconic covers – exuded. The plots, though, never stuck with me the way Stan’s did – sorry Fox fanatics…)

And then there were the two Atoms, one big (relatively speaking), one small. They teamed up twice – once on December 1st, 1966, when Atom #27 was released, and later (as seen below) in 1968’s 36th issue. (February 1st, 1968 – I just know SOMEONE’S keeping score out there!!..)

Nice, but not only was I growing up by then, the novelty of finding JSAers on sixties’ comics racks was clearly fading. (Come to think of it, we never DID get a Hawkman/Hawkman pairing. Mighta had something to do with those two outfits being practically identical…)

But still, to this day, I have a definite soft spot in my heart (and yes, my head as well!…) for the JSA. That’s one of the reasons I got such a kick out of redoing the classic covers you see above (another reason being was cuz I was PAID to! Quick plug – go here if you’d like to commission me to do up my version of a favorite cover of yours, ANY cover – but be advised: on February 1st, my rates will increase an additional $25 per cover. Still a good deal I’m thinking, but if you’re looking for a bit of a financial break, better hurry!).

Y’know, I kinda dig Captain America for a lot of the very same reasons DC’s premier super-group so appeals to me, but hey, that’s a whole ‘NOTHER episode, isn’t it now?

(Oh, and if you’d like to see slightly larger versions of today’s featured Classic Cover Redos, they each have their very own page over at my home site, Hembeck.com . You can access each individually by clicking your mouse over these links: All-Star #3, Flash #123, JLA #21, JLA #22, Green Lantern #40, and Atom #36.)

-Copyright 2007 Fred Hembeck (Earth Prime version, natch)

After dinner last Friday night, Lynn, Julie and I settled in to watch the previous evening’s episode of My Name Is Earl, taped on our old fashioned VCR contraption. After the laughter had subsided, we all went our separate ways for the next several hours, but around ten o’clock, I proposed to wife Lynn that we view the next offering on that selfsame tape, The Office. As long as she could be comfortable, she was fine with that idea, so I met her in the bedroom. I’d taken the tape out of the machine earlier (one of four such working antiquated devices we have constantly humming around here at the house – hey, they don’t call me “The Human Tivo” for nothin’, y’know!…), and had placed it on top of the VCR. The only illumination in the room was the light coming from the TV screen, and in my careless and darkness-addled haste, when I reached up to grab it, I instead knocked it off its not-particularly precarious perch.

CRUNCH!

Yup, it hit the hard wood floor behind the set, and it hit it hard. In a nutshell, it broke.

Nearly twenty-four years of handling VHS tapes, and this was only the second time I’d ever broken one (I’ve dropped more than that, true, but sometimes you get lucky with just how they land, or are blessed with a soft surface to receive ’em…) – but unlike that other, long-ago attack of the butterfingers (two decades past, maybe?…), THIS tape had stuff on it that we still hadn’t seen yet! Oh, the horror! Besides The Office, there were the latest episodes of 30 Rock and ER (no, we don’t watch Scrubs – I bailed out after the first season. Yes, it’s well done, but I find several of the characters just a tad bit too obnoxious – plus, I found the tilt from wacky (if inspired) comedy to patients actually dying and then back again to the yuks a bit TOO disconcerting, so no, I don’t watch Scrubs…). Julie tried to fix the busted VHS tape using some carefully administered clear tape, but ultimately, we decided it was just too risky – what if we popped it in the VCR and it got stuck? Better to live with the loss of a couple of programs than kill a videotape machine in a fruitless attempt to watch said shows.

Besides, NBC had the entire 30 Rock episode posted online, so we were good there. Eventually, we’d see that Office episode, since that’s one of the few currently produced programs that I make sure to pick up the DVD sets of (which I wouldn’t have even considered after the show’s uneven first season, but man oh man, did they ever come on strong during their sophomore season!), and as for ER, well, they usually rerun those things, too. If not, we’ll just have to muddle through. Unfortunately, unlike the Tina Fey starrer, NBC isn’t giving those shows away as they’re certifiable hits, but they do have a little thing called “The Two-Minute Recap” on the web, and eventually, we opted to check those out, mostly so we wouldn’t be confused by NEXT Thursday’s entries. Well, The Office review was good enough, but the ER one tossed a little promo for the upcoming episode on the end of the recap – and proceeded to give away what otherwise would’ve been a pretty big surprise to me! Geez – this was exactly the sort of thing that made me swear off watching ANY coming attractions (or hitting the mute button when a commercial for one of my faves comes on the screen) years ago, but this time around, I was blindsided, and didn’t have enough time to react properly. Oh well – that’ll teach me not to turn on the light when I’m handling something fragile.

And if THAT didn’t, well, later that very same night…

Lynn and Julie were asleep. I was out in the living room with my laptop. Sitting alone in the dark, with only the light from our slowly dying Christmas tree and from my own computer screen, I was beginning to watch one of Mark Evanier’s YouTube selections (a Paul Winchell show). Since the sound on my laptop can be pretty loud and tinny, I always use a small set of headphones at night when other folks are catching their zzzzzs. Now, usually, I sit up close to the screen, but since I realized that this video would run for nearly half an hour, I decided to sit back and relax.

And when I did, I inadvertently pulled my headset out of its jack.

So, I flailed around with the end of the headphone wires, trying to get the end back into the proper hole.

In the dark.

Well, I missed the green-coded input source, and the red one, too. Instead, I accidentally touched the end of the wire to the USB jack, a half an inch away (this is where I hook up the scanner cord when I need to use that aspect of the computer), and as soon as I made contact –

Blip.

The screen went dark. Instantly.

Now, I’ve had my share of errors where the laptop turns itself off (not TOO many, thankfully), but this was different. On those past occasions, I just rebooted. This time, pushing the start button did absolutely no good whatsoever. Suddenly, there was no power left, none. My computer was dead. I’d killed it. All because I wanted to get a little bit more comfy – AND didn’t want to bother to turn the light on!

Yeah, last Friday was a fairly bad night hereabouts…

I couldn’t go wake up my technical expert – she was sound asleep. Realizing the potential enormity of what I’d done, though, prevented me from getting to sleep anytime soon. Why, I had to watch TWO entire episodes of the recently released Gomer Pyle, USMC DVD set (Frank Sutton is perhaps the most underrated foil in television history, don’tcha know?…) before I could calm down enough to even consider snoozing off. All of Hembeck.com was contained on that laptop – did I just kill that, TOO?…

The next morning, I explained what had happened to Lynn. She had no immediate answers – and since tech support takes the weekends off, she couldn’t call up the big guns, toll free number or no. So I walked through most of Saturday in a daze. The temperatures hit an unsettling – yet delightful – seventy degrees here in upstate New York, but I couldn’t even begin to appreciate it. All I could think about was that I didn’t have my trusty, faithful PC. Four years of dutiful service, turned on from practically the moment I first get up every morning, with the off switch rarely flipped until I go to bed later that same night. No, I don’t sit in front of it the entire time (THAT was three years ago now…), but even when I’m slaving happily over my drawing board, I’ll take the time to regularly stroll by my laptop, constantly checking to see if any mail came in – y’know, the sort that’s NOT concerned with selling me ways to add inches below deck! And on Saturday, I couldn’t do that! Lynn was willing to share the master computer, and even Julie let me check my MySpace on her own laptop, but it just wasn’t the same. WAH! – I wanted my computer BACK!!

So I went out shopping with my daughter to get my mind off my troubles, when, standing in Macy’s, trying to look inconspicuous loitering in the Young Miss section while Julie was in the fitting room, I suddenly knew what THIS, the 86th episode of “The Fred Hembeck Show” was going to be about!

Me 86ing my laptop!

(I really didn’t have much of a Maxwell Smart tribute ready to go anyway. Now, a SGT. CARTER one – well, soon, friends, soon…)

Hey, at least that’d be a way of making SOMETHING out of this sorry situation.

And then came Sunday. Lynn did a little bit more research on the net. She tried taking the battery out, dusting it off, and putting it back in.

Wonder of wonders, it booted! But a check of the battery also indicated that there was very, very little juice left, even plugged in (which how I keep it nearly all the time). All we really needed to get was a new battery, and considering we’d seriously discussed investing in a new laptop, that was quite a bargain. (Oh, I know that a new laptop would be even more up to date with all the latest bells and whistles, but as I told Lynn: savings for not having to buy a new PC, a thousand dollars; not having to endure the aggravation of slowly and methodically teaching me an entirely new set of computer rules, PRICELESS!!…)

So we ordered the fresh power source Sunday (they may not be there to help you on the weekends, but by golly, they ain’t missing any chance to make a sale!), which finally arrived on Wednesday, after several days of closely monitored – and limited – use of the outgoing battery.

No, I DIDN’T really 86 my computer – and Lynn insists that the whole plug in the wrong socket scenario was merely a coincidence and that the thing woulda probably blinked out anyway – but I like the whole synchronicity of the 86 terminology that I decided to tell you the story anyway! Plus, lessons learned: we’re transferring a lot of my website’s files to the main computer as back-up just in case, and every time I pick up a VHS tape nowadays, I grasp it with a tight and steely grip.

And y’know, I’m not gonna shave in the dark anymore either! I’m kinda tired of people staring at me at the supermarket…

(Fear not, though – there’s always a light on at Hembeck.com, folks!)

-Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck

Pardon me, friends, but I’m afraid things got a little bit away from me over the holidays. Thus, today we’re offering up a classic little essay originally presented over at Hembeck.com back on November 22nd, 2004, one I cleverly titled:

“…But How Did Like You Dallas OTHERWISE, Mrs. Kennedy?…”

But, as I mention in the piece’s opening line, to fully grasp what’s what, you need to first go and read the story I scanned in just for the occasion, one from the very comic you see below. Do that, and then come back and begin reading my, ahem, ageless commentary, okay? Thanks!

If you haven’t already done so, you might just want to go and read “The Infamous Four” before tackling the following frank and open discussion of this shock-laden mid-sixties Superman Family entry! Go – NOW!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Okay – everybody back? Are you all comfortably sitting down, freshly used smelling salts at your side, the breath that was knocked out of you by the story’s stunning finale gradually re-entering your collapsed lungs? Good. NOW we can pick away mercilessly at our featured presentation, “The Infamous Four”, written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger, and originally published in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen number 89 (December 1965, but going on sale earlier that Fall in late October).

By now, you’ve been able to surmise my reason for posting it on this very specific date, as it deal’s with events taking place in Superman’s Metropolis exactly 59 years from today. Yup, folks in Supes adopted home town are still stricken by the tragic assassination that had taken place precisely a century earlier, which, frankly, may’ve been a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the comics field’s most blatant JFK groupie, Superman uber-editor Mort Weisinger. After all, wasn’t the very year THIS story was published, 1965, the hundredth anniversary of the shooting of one of our OTHER most beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln?

And yet, thinking back, I can recall no special ceremonies when THAT dark day rolled around (heck, I don’t even know WHICH day it was!…), and certainly nobody took five minutes off to stare, stone-like, at the front of a five dollar bill (the technology to project an image of a bearded chief executive into the ether not having been invented as yet)! Instead, we twelve-year olds were more likely to crack our black-humored “…but besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?…” jibes as to pay tribute to a fallen hero (hence the above title).

The handsome young President appeared in a score of stories overseen by DC editorial honcho Weisinger during the three brief years Kennedy was responsible for the country’s welfare – a survey for another day, people – but as best I can determine, this was his third, and final posthumous cameo in one of Mort’s magazines. (The first was his ill-timed stand-in gig for the Man Of Steel in Action Comics #309’s lead tale, which hit the stands just weeks – and perhaps only days – after the stunning assassination. You can read a more thorough examination of this infamous episode accompanying my Classic Cover Redo of said issue’s frontispiece by going here – and view JFK’s two panel gig by cueing up the November 22nd, 2004 “Fred Sez” entry. The second turned up in Superman #168, a story that was in the works when the shooting occurred but which was finished and printed at the behest of President Johnson (so it was said) concerning one of the slain leader’s pet projects, promoting physical fitness among the nation’s youth, a story that wound up doubling as a tribute to JFK as well. And then, there was THIS story, the one everyone invariably overlooks. Which brings me to one of my slightly off-kilter, long-festering personal anecdotes…)

Mort Weisinger’s Superman Family of titles were primarily responsible for sparking my interest in adventure-themed comics in 1961, when I was eight. Four short years later, the bloom was definitely off the rose: Marvel Comics had come along in the intervening time, and by late 1965, DC was desperately trying to seem hip, as both their surprisingly new (yet old) competitor – AND the decade’s rapidly evolving styles, mores, and attitudes – were making their fifties-based approach (once the industry model) seem stale by comparison virtually overnight. To that end, DC was only a month or so away from their lamentable Go-Go Checks era, which would tarnish the uppermost reaches of the cover of the very next issue of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. Even a quick look at this cover is a clear indication of how the clueless National Comics big-wigs were flailing about, trying to hop aboard any available band-wagon in the hopes of not being left too far behind. The times, they WERE a-changin’ – even, it would seem, in the halls of four-color fantasy publishers.

I make this point to explain how, in later years when I’d grown older and became warmly nostalgic for the comics of my youth – including the very mockable but nonetheless lovable Weisinger line – I invariably pulled out an early sixties issue to wax goofy-eyed over. Reliving the red-headed cub reporter’s antics in his recurring guise of Giant Turtle Olsen was SO much more fun than seeing him attempt to one up James Bond. Fact is, over the years, I’ve rarely cracked open many post-1964 Weisinger comics (I even stopped buying em’ all early in 1967, unhappy with the direction the line was taking, though I ultimately rescued many of these skipped issues from a score of quarter boxes during my Comicon tours of the eighties – but that’s a whole ‘NOTHER story altogether…). This, patient readers, is all a partial explanation serving as a prelude to the story that (finally) follows…

Come the mid-seventies. Having grown up with friends who weren’t at all interested in comics, I was lucky enough to eventually meet a kindred spirit while attending college by the name of Charlie Johnson. Though we soon became great pals, he lived 30 miles away from me in those days, so our visits were severely limited by the excessive distance. When we did manage to get together at my parents house, we’d gleefully go down into the basement and enthusiastically rifle through the piles and piles of comics, discussing, celebrating, and – the most fun of all – good naturedly mock them!! And there was this one story in particular I was near desperate to show him – it was this bizarre Jimmy Olsen story that ended with a snap ending, one that ALSO served to memorialize JFK!

There was only one problem – I had somehow gotten it into my head that it had appeared in an issue the latter day double-sized dollar comic, Superman Family, and thus spent several precious minutes pouring through issue after issue, looking for this story I’d excitedly expounded upon for my fellow funnybook fancier, all in vain. The reason that I was looking in that title? Well, I’d correctly remembered that Kurt Schaffenberger was the story’s artist, and though he’d drawn a few stray episodes in Olsen’s sixties series, most of the art during that era came from the drawing boards of Curt Swan, John Forte, and Pete Costanza. However, when Jimmy was demoted to sharing just a portion of the Superman Family anthology title, Schaffenberger became his regular illustrator – and Kurt, unlike most other cartoonists, never much changed his style once he’d mastered it, so the difference between Schaffenberger from the fifties and Schaffenberger from the eighties was, at best, minimal. Plus, I was sure this tribute had to’ve come a decade after the fact, and NOT so soon after the crime, so, foolishly, I didn’t even think to look in my earlier Olsen issues…

This sad scenario repeated itself over the years, again and again. When my pal Rocco first visited, I described to him what I remembered to be a particularly oddball Jimmy Olsen story, one containing an outrageous denouement, and then I’d proceed to page through issue after issue of Superman Family, always with the same frustrating result – no such story! I was beginning to doubt my own sanity! I hadn’t imagined everything – had I? Repeatedly, this would occur when I’d host any visitor with half an interest in comics – and if that weren’t bad enough, my memory of the tale in question began to strangely morph in my muddled mind.

While that final panel of a saintly John F. Kennedy hovering in the sky remained crystal clear in my mind’s eye, and the key plot element of everyone standing completely still in deference to the moment, thus outing the bad guys who, ignorant of the local’s customs, were running through the streets just as everyone else voluntarily freezes – THAT stayed with me, too. But, vaguely recalling how everyone was dressed, I had somewhere along the line decided that this adventure DIDN’T take place in a future version of Metropolis, a century after the assassination, but instead in the bottle city of Kandor!!

That’s right – the shrunken Kryptonian city that resided in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. In my mistakenly twisted version, I had Jimmy following a group of fleeing Earth crooks seeking refuge in the miniature metropolis, only to be exposed as the (present-day) Kandorians mark the passing of the American leader in this peculiar manner! Well, this only made the story all the more ridiculous to me, and in fact, was the very selling point I used in describing it to the various folks just before I’d inevitably fail to locate it: WHY the heck are the tiny Kryptonians making such a big deal out of commemorating the loss of an EARTH dignitary? Sure, they’re sad and such – I’m certain Superman had told ’em all about what a swell guy he was and all – but isn’t the whole city-wide statue imitation bit a tad much? C’mon, now – that’d be just plain silly! And I LOVED it all the more because it was…

I’d nursed that pivotal – but apparently mistaken – plot point for over three decades now, and you can’t begin to imagine how deflated I was the other day when I FINALLY located the story and sat down to read it. (How’d I find it? Simple enough – I wrote to my pal, the all-knowing, ever-helpful, Lou Mougin, describing pertinent plot details – including my inadvertent red herring – and he quickly emailed me back with its whereabouts, And soon after I thanked him, I ran downstairs and eagerly fished it out of its longbox home, where it had languished far too long.) Oh, it’s still an interesting little tale, but without the ludicrous Bottle City angle, it loses a hefty chunk of its inherent – or should that be, “invented”? – goofiness. Worse, it killed any chance I might’ve had for titling this essay something snappy like, “Ich Bin Kandorian!”, or “Ask Not What You Can Do For the Bottle City, Ask What The Bottle City Can Do For You!”

So Charlie? Rocco? And anybody else I may’ve once regaled with that crazy JFK/Kandor crossover, here it is. I, um, got a few of the details screwed up – hey, can you really BLAME me? Much as I dearly love Kurt Schaffenberger’s work – and I DO – the futuristic garb his characters are wearing look EXACTLY like the sort of fashions you’d likely find in mid-sixties (not-so-swinging) Kandor, giving me SOME small excuse for my confusion.

Lou informs me that this story’s never been reprinted, and frankly, I doubt it ever will be. Not to play fast and loose with someone else’s property, but when you add in the historical, ahem, importance of this unique entry with my above observation, I think we’re on reasonably solid ground offering this up for your perusal.

As for those OTHER two stories? Well, I’ve gotta save something for the next two November 22nds, don’t I?

And I do hope, that while you’ve been reading this, you’ve remained perfectly, absolutely, and totally still. It’d only be appropriate, don’tcha think?…

(But now you can go on over to Hembeck.com if you like – it’s okay!…)

-Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck