Wolves

I had nightmares about wolves the other night... and let's leave aside for a moment that the very first dreams I recall from childhood are nightmares of wolves... so naturally I was telling my ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE coworkers about my nightmares of wolves, and believe me, they are always thrilled to hear my descriptions of my inner turmoil. Anyhow, Adam wisely asked whether I had read something about wolves before going to bed. I said yes! In fact, I had read an old comic book in which Dr. Doom plunges to certain death, having been attacked by a pack of wolves. Adam reacted to this news with surprise: "Dr. Doom was defeated by WOLVES? He fights the Fantastic Four!" If I paraphrase, it is only slightly. I did not get into this part, but Dr. Doom had removed his chest shield for reasons too dull to explain. I will (and did) say that he was fighting a character called the Shroud, of whom I had never heard, despite the fact that the comic book in question came out in 1976, possibly the peak of my comic-reading years. The Shroud, by the way, is a shockingly blatant Batman rip-off. Shockingly! However, that need not concern us here. It is much more important that I use the excuse of wolves to mention something loosely related. I was in Square Books the other day, poking around, and I opened up a book called THE SLAVIC MYTHS by Noah Charney and the delightfully named Svetlana Slapsak. In it, I read "Count Jan Potocki was one of Poland's most revered writers and Enlightenment intellectuals. His masterpiece, THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA..." blah, blah, blah. I knew that already. BUT! "On 23 December 1815, this brilliant, worldly man absconded with one of his mother's silver teapots, made out of it a bullet, had this silver bullet blessed by a priest and then shot himself in the head with it... because Jan Potocki believed he was a werewolf." That's something I didn't know! This revelation caused me to purchase the book. As you know, I consider standing in a bookstore and reading no better than being a sneak thief. As long as I have you here, let's tidy up some "blog" business. I see that this will be my ninth "post" in April. I have not "blogged" with such frequency since October 2020, troubled times during which, as you know, I was required to revive this most decisively defunct "blog" in order to cheer a grateful nation with my wry reflections on the foibles of humanity. I need to reemphasize here that the combo of quitting social media and forced recuperation have left me with little else to do. I told Tom Franklin, "Hey, I've been 'blogging' about those old comic books you gave me," and he was like, "I didn't know 'blogs' existed anymore." And they don't.