Recently on Facebook, a terrific human being named Burt Weisberg, who happens to be my longest lasting living friend – since junior high, or was it even earlier than that, Burt?) mentioned that he’d always known I was going to be a successful writer but never thought it would be on the Hollywood side of the Biz.
Knowing of my love for comic books, Burt expected me to make my mark – or at least become a professional – as a writer for Marvel or D.C. And the fact of the matter is that I tried to push myself into the comic book world but never got very far. (I did, however, win a Shazam award back in the 1960s for best amateur short story or some such, finishing ahead of another new writer, a guy named George R.R. Martin. Whatever happened to him?)
One of the reasons I didn’t pursue the comic book business with as much energy as I should have was that I found a terrific agent who sold that winning short story and several others to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and introduced me to a genuine Hollywood agent, who got me a film deal and a whole lot of other film and TV work when I was a mere pisher of twenty-three.
Over the years I became way too busy writing and spending the $$$ brought in by writing to read much of anything, let alone comic books, which I greatly regretted, but now that I’ve retired I’ve found another type of panel art that often just blow me away.
I’m talking about the often overlooked/taken for granted art form known as the Daily Comic Strip. (AKA, cartoon.)
In the last couple of weeks I’ve sampled a ton of daily strips and been absolutely stunned by the unexpected wisdom I’ve found in them.
Of course, my definition is along the lines of “Aha! Something I myself feel/am dealing with/have personally experienced, etc” but let’s not go there right now.
Instead, let’s go to the strips that have recently made the biggest impression on me.
Brace yourselves:
The other Coast by Adrian Raeside
Mannequin on the Moon by Ian Boothby & Pia Guerra
Man Overboard by man martin
I’ll have a few more tomorrow because I know, know, know that y’all can hardly wait. And y’all now of course now why you’ve been seeing so many daily comics in this blog since it began not that long ago.
LYMI,
LB
