Bill Blackbeard!

I was sorry to read that the great, pioneering - and visionary, I would say! - comic strip archivist and expert Bill Blackbeard passed away. Here is an excerpt from his obituary in THE COMICS REPORTER: "In 1977, with Martin Williams, Blackbeard co-authored The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics. In doing so, Blackbeard changed the direction of comics and the direction of many lives of those that choose to read them. It is one of the ten most influential and important publications in comics history." I'll say! That book (along with Reader's Digest's STRANGE STORIES, AMAZING FACTS, of course) was one of the most formative of my young (at the time) life. Throw in the mid-70s LP box set THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF CLASSIC JAZZ (my first encounter with jazz - a sweeping experience "selected and annotated by" the VERY SAME Martin Williams [it must be, right?], who wrote a big, amazing booklet of educational liner notes) and you have the portrait of a young nerd, now an old nerd. Thanks for everything, Martin Williams and Bill Blackbeard! (Pictured, a panel (found at COMICS REPORTER) from Crockett Johnson's BARNABY AND MR. O'MALLEY, one of the many great pieces of American art I first learned about from Mr. Blackbeard's collection.) Now I need to look up Martin Williams, who it turns out is responsible for 2/3 of my personality.

Dr. "M.'s" Palimpsest Korner

Today's "bloggery" is turning into A Salute to Dr. "M.," and we couldn't be happier. For those of you who assumed "Dr, 'M.'s' Palimpsest Korner" was a one-shot deal, shame! As we like to remind you from time to time, Dr. "M." doesn't ONLY watch television. She is also a fancy lady with a doctorate degree who does research at the Smithsonian and other classy things! So in her class the other day, she laid this particular palimpsest (pictured) on the kids and blew their minds!

Ring King Junior

Dr. "M." responds quickly to McNeil's request, providing a "link" with details on the 16.5 cubic feet of Krispy Kreme corporate documents she waded through at the Smithsonian, as well as a photograph (left) of the "Ring King Junior" itself.

Holes

Dear Dr. "M.," McNeil would like to know more about your encounter with the donut machine in the Smithsonian. McNeil is curious! Speaking of round things with holes in the middle, I am bewildered that I have not received any outside communications regarding Mickey Rooney's invention of "The Weenie Whirl," mentioned here recently. Back in the olden times, Mr. Ward and I were astonished to discover that we shared vivid memories of an episode of the Johnny Carson Show on which Mr. Rooney came out and plugged his new product "Puppy Pop," a refreshing carbonated beverage for dogs. THE STAR MACHINE (the Jeanine Basinger book from which I extracted the Weenie Whirl information) explains how Mr. Rooney found himself needing to invent and sell these sorts of products, your Weenie Whirls, your Puppy Pops. It made me ashamed for giggling. Though Basinger does not refer to Puppy Pop in her text, she does mention Mr. Rooney's spray-on hair for bald men.

The Center for Advanced Donut Studies

Dr. "M." has some information to add about the experience of writing the definitive monograph on Krispy Kreme: Her research took her to the Smithsonian, where, as Dr. "M." reports, "they have the original donut (or doughnut) machine in storage. Sweet, no? (Pun intended.) I wanted to also say thank you for 'putting up' (not to be confused with canning) one of my favorite paintings," Dr. "M." goes on. "The other night I walked into a party and found that painting was the image on the hostess's coffeetable. I gasped, 'Hieronymous Bosch is your coffee table!'" Dr. "M.'s" communique here takes a turn into a third, equally lively subject, very much in the Larry King tradition we have been striving to foster. "Today is Country Music Day in my class," she writes, "and I could not resist bringing in a number of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton songs. BUT I really could not resist bringing in Jeannie C. Reilly's (not to be confused with John C. Reilly) song HARPER VALLEY PTA. Remember the made for TV movie of the same name starring Barbara Eden?! I wish they would remake it." A brief editorial note, Dr. "M.": The film was a theatrical release, not a TV movie, but it was "remade," in a sense, as a sitcom, also starring Barbara Eden, a few years later. (Pictured, John C. Reilly.)

Mr. Ward's Presidential Korner 3

Last night, chagrined over the ugly turn taken by his ongoing feature on the "blog," Mr. Ward determined to think up some presidential tidbits that won't make everyone gag for a change. Some of them came forth unbidden, from that spot in Mr. Ward's brain where he hoards presidential trivia. "But in perusing my library last night," writes Mr. Ward, "I picked up a few more items from Wackiest White House Pets by Gibbs Davis (2004), Smithsonian Presidents and First Ladies by Barbera James and Amy Pastan (2002)... and the holy grail of useless presidential info... Facts about the Presidents from Washington to Johnson by Joseph Nathan Kane (1964)." Here, then, the fruits of Mr. Ward's labors: "James Monroe was the first president to ride a steamboat. William Howard Taft liked milk so much that he brought his own cow to the White House. The cow's name was Mooly Wolly. James Buchanan liked to give sauerkraut and mashed potato parties. Gerald R. Ford once worked as a fashion model. Ford was a model for Cosmopolitan and Look magazines in the 1940's. Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed painting pictures but wasn't able to draw, so he had someone else draw the pictures he painted. Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed. James Madison was the first President to regularly wear trousers instead of knee breeches. Ulysses S. Grant favorite breakfast was a cucumber soaked in vinegar. Warren Harding had the largest feet of any President. He wore size 14 shoes. Richard Nixon once worked at a game booth at the Slippery Gulch Rodeo. Andrew Jackson had a pet parrot named Poll. The parrot screamed curse words at his funeral." Easy, Mr. Ward! Save some tidbits for next time!

Blondie

It has been a goodly amount of time since we have discussed writers and the favored comic strips and comic books of their tender young lives. We have held back, mainly, because of the fears and anxieties of our sensitive publisher, who finds that talk of such low matters is inappropriate when trying to ensnare readers of a certain lofty caliber and gender. To which we reply, "Huh?" In any case, we must share the fact that the novelist Ashley Warlick, as a young lady, enjoyed reading BLONDIE. She found the title character fetchingly designed and drawn. She was fascinated by the classiness of such a beautiful woman who seemed able to laugh off the foibles (Ms. Warlick used another word, indeed a saucy and unprintable one, in place of "foibles") of a husband such as Dagwood. I was able to inform Ms. Warlick, thanks to my obsessive reading and rereading, as a teenager, of the 1977 edition of THE SMITHSONIAN COLLECTION OF NEWSPAPER COMICS, that Blondie had started out in the late twenties or early thirties of the last century as a kind of showgirl or flapper, and that Dagwood had been, early on, a rich young beau whose family disowned him over his love of Blondie. Ms. Warlick appeared to absorb this news with relish! We were able to confirm the facts of Blondie's early life, upon returning home, via the always valuable Toonopedia of Mr. Don Markstein.