[jimmm kelly]

I'm trying my hand at doing an ongoing blog--using wordpress--although I don't know just how ongoing it will be yet. Mainly just to see if and how I can do it. It's a learning experience.

Here's "issue no. 1":

"My Favourite Funnies"--
http://myfavouritefunnies.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/here-there-be-giants/


Any suggestions, helpful hints, corrections, comments would be welcome here. And I mean here on this thread. I've tried to turn off the comment box on the site, because I just don't want to have to deal with moderating comments--and comment boxes tend to get messy from what I've seen. But I see that the comment box still comes up on the site--not sure what I'm doing wrong. But just so you guys know that it's not worth using it, because I won't put comments up there.

I will hopefully be adding to the site in the next few weeks, with whatever funny book related things happen to strike my fancy. And tweaking the site as I get more familiar with using wordpress and its weird eccentricities. And crossing my fingers that the whole thing doesn't crash into the sea.

[profh0011]

Interesting (if slightly disturbing) story about how you got your first comic.  Sometime around that age, I jumped off the third step coming down the stairs in the living room, and accidentally tripped and hit my head against the door frame.  It was the ONLY spot where a bit of metal was sticking out (where the latch was).  Blood running down my face, it wouldn't stop, they had to take me to the emergency room (just a few blocks away!!) and for the first of only 2 times in my life, I needed stitches. The scar is still there, but mostly hidden under my hair.

I'd completely forgotten THE FRIENDLY GIANT.  One more of an endless number of TV shows I watched as a kid in the 60's I haven't seen since.  He was a sort of host for cartoons, wasn't he?

The blog looks okay.  I got ONE single criticism of my own blog since starting it up 2 years ago, which was, the background was black, and the text was purple, which made it difficult for one person to read.  My own reading glasses are several years overdue for a new subscription, but since I had no trouble reading my site, I figured it was okay.  The nice thing was, the guy who complained said he copied the text of an article to WORD so he could read it, something he normally wouldn't do except he found it interesting enough that he really wanted to read it!  I've done that myself with some websites that were FAR more difficult to read.  ("Who designs this stuff???") Black text on white background should be no problem...

I must be the only one left online these days who's still using a "regular" computer monitor, instead of WIDESCREEN one.  Fortunately, Firefox has this cool add-on, "NoSquint", which allows me to SHRINK a web page and at the same time BLOW UP the text (so the text is the same size, but the page is thinner). After a recent "upgrade", the "NoSquint" got ALL F***ed up!!  But a more recent upgrade seems to have fixed it.  (I did write in to them to complain 3 times.)  Just wondering if you know offhand how wide your screen is?  When I post images, I find 700 pixels is perfect for the width of MY screen.  (If you go to the MASTERWORKS message board, the IDIOTS there love to post tons of images within messages which make it IMPOSSIBLE to read the messages without constantly scrolling horizontally left-right-left-right...  or, using a different add-on to SHUT OFF all the images so the text actually fits in my screen.

This is why, when I do threads on message boards, I prefer links to images, rather than embedded images.

Anyway, for me to look at your blog without horizontal scrolling, my "NoSquint" settings are 80% for the page and 115% for the text.  As it happens, the settings for the Comic Book Plus site are 115% and 20%.  The thing is smart enough to save settings separately for EVERY site you use them on.  (That's what got messed up for a couple months back there... settings from one site would be carried to another, so you'd have to manually adjust every time you'd go to a site.)

Is this any help?   

[profh0011]

When I started my own blog, the most important thing about design was setting up the "widths" so everything would fit on MY screen.  I have 3 blogs now, and when I start a new one, I have an older one open so I can copy the settings from one to another.

The same goes for the colors, and, the colors of LINKS.  I've seen guys with BLACK backgrounds, and DARK GRAY links that turn BLACK after you click on them.  So, if you want to click the link again, YOU CAN'T SEE IT!!! (Yes, I'm talking about Steve Thompson-- alias "Booksteve"-- heehee.) On mine, with the black background, the links start out RED, go YELLOW when you hover over them or click them, and turn ORANGE after you click them.  So you can tell if you've been there or not, but still read them.

One thing I love doing is adding links.  Sometimes I'll include links to articles and the link within an article, or in the middle of a page, but mostly, I like to pile up all the links to related stuff at the bottom of the page.  In the case of my TIM HOLT restorations, I've begun adding links to EACH complete issue (AT THIS SITE!!)  Of course, at the moment, this means going from a bright, pristene clean cover to a dark, dirty old cover when you jump from my blog to the CBP site.  Maybe I can do something about that (if I can figure out how to upload stuff to HERE!).

[narfstar]

Interesting stories and insights guys. My older cousin did not collect comics so she passed them on to me. She got all the Harvey titles. I was not a big fan of Casper and Wendy or Little Audrey but the more mischievous characters I liked. The Ghostly Trio, Spooky and Hot Stuff were cooler than the lame Friendly Ghost. With Hot Stuff I also got Stumbo who was also a favorite of mine.

BTW: I share a scar on my head. I came from a logging truck. Several years ago n the way to work a 10 pound half a leaf spring bounced off the road, off my hood, through the windshield, off my head, off the roof and landed in the back seat. I had to drive a stick shift car 4 miles to the medical center. God was looking out for me. The truck never stopped. Don't know if he knew or not but the leaf spring had been welded together so it would have been a big problem for him.

[jimmm kelly]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Keep it coming. I've tried to figure out how to change the fonts and sizes on Wordpress, but it always goes to the default settings. I think I have to upgrade to custom design to use other fonts, but you have to pay for that and I'm not ready to do that yet. But maybe there's another way to import settings--I'll keep working on it. Maybe by fiddling with html I can make it better . . .

It looks okay on my laptop (and even bigger on my desktop)--but I'll look at it on other screens--to see how it looks for other people. I share the same problem--although it's not so bad now that I have progressive lenses--I used to zoom the screen to read tiny type--or sometimes I'll take off my glasses and hold the screen to my face.

I'll consider what to do about hot links. I'm debating it with myself. I want to give other people and other sites their due and it seems like using hot links is a way to do that. I don't always trust that people are going to look at the footnotes.

My older brother (before I was born) also got a crack in his head around that same age as I was when I got mine. My parents were living in an apartment in a house and another kid was in the backyard and hit my brother on the head with a tricycle. I think my brother's injury was even more severe--at least from the way my mother tells the story.

I don't know just how bad my injury was, but I remember when they operated on my head, they put a cloth over my face and I believed I might be dying.

I was happy that not long after I got my scar, the Beatles came along. It gave me a good excuse to comb my hair over my forehead. Nowadays you can hardly see it except when I'm really mad.

Tarzan had the same thing--but I think his scar was more pronounced.

Again, thanks for the replies.

[jimmm kelly]

Issue no. 2 is now up.
http://myfavouritefunnies.wordpress.com/2013/05/26/the-last-days-of-the-dynamic-duo/

The subject will continue into the next issue--it was just too much to cover in one blog. I'm taking a certain perspective here that might not be the popular one.

I've tried to figure out how to change font sizes, by going into html, but Wordpress just reverts back to the default. I did find I could use headings to change the font sizes but this throws off the formatting on everything else--and even going through html line by line doesn't help much. So I'm using headings for specific portions of the blog, but not the whole thing.

Wordpress is a weird duck--I've found other blog builders that are less restrictive. But I notice that a lot of people use Wordpress, so learning how to use it might be a skill i can use in the future for something completely different.

[profh0011]

I just had to post this...
http://www.comics.org/issue/244959/cover/4/

[profh0011]

Would you believe, it's only been a few weeks since I realized the extent of the upgrade to this site, with regard to being able to read comics now without downloading them first?

I think it's cool to have that link to the BATMANIA page.  I read about those quite a lot a few years ago, but never had the chance to read the zines themselve.  There's SO much material at this site now, posting direct links to the magazine can really help cut down time.  At my blog, I not only posted a link to the TIM HOLT section, I also began posting DIRECT links to each individual issue from each related cover restoration.

[narfstar]

Lots here to enjoy

[jimmm kelly]

Yes it was pretty cool that i could link to BATMANIA on this site. When I was doing a search I found that someone else also linked their blog to BATMANIA on this site.

I read many of those BATMANIA issues around last Christmas and it put a bee in my bonnet about that transition period of Batman.

There's really a lot of material on this site--impossible to get to it all. Kind of like being a kid in a candy store.

[narfstar]

I loved 80pg Giants. I could get more for my money. It did not matter that they were reprints since I never saw the originals. What may have been the first I saw was #11 at the dentist office.

[jimmm kelly]

I know the first actual 80 page Giant that I bought--SUPERMAN 197 (June-July '67)--but it's hard to say exactly which is the first one I saw.

Before I was old enough to go out and buy my own comics, I was depending on others for a lot of the comics I saw. I have memories of my brother reading Superman comics to me, but my older siblings didn't get a lot of super-hero comics--there weren't a lot around the house that I could steal. They preferred the Archie Giants. But I do remember being at my cousins and going through their stack of comics, which reflected completely different tastes.

I distinctly recall reading the "Superman and Robin" story at my cousins--the Giant Guide on Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics tells me that this was BATMAN ANNUAL 7 (Summer '64). I remember thinking how cool it was to have Superman and Robin as a team--they seemed to fit visually, because of their costume colours.

I also remember reading many of the stories in the 80 page Giant WORLD'S FINEST COMICS 161 (October '66)--in particular "The Caveman from Krypton" and "The Super-Batwoman." Probably while visiting the same cousins--and maybe on the same day.

[paw broon]

Sorry it's taken me so long to add something to this. I've been missing out. You're doing a good job jimmm - better than anything I could do.  The Harvey item made me feel all nostalgic because I remember with fondness many of those comics. I also preferred Spooky and Hot Stuff to Casper. 
Not long after I got married, so this would be mid '70's, I started reading comics again following a gap of about 8 years and I was finding Giants in newspaper shops, on the racks and spinners.  I still feel a bit of the excitement I felt when I saw and bought the Challengers issue but it was the Batman and Flash Giants which tipped me over the edge into buying lots more comics.  At that time, most newsagents had distributed American comics and some of them werel old having come over as ballast, and there still were some second hand shops where you could find a pile or two of old American comics.  Bliss.  All changed now with specialist shops and hardly anything in newsagents. 
The one place I could be guaranteed to find free comics to read when I was a wee boy, was at the barbers but they would be British ones, being pre-distribution - Beano; Dandy etc. but, occasionally, something a bit more exotic would find it's way into the pile.  A newspaper funnies section that some relation in Canada sent over, or an Aus. comic, or a real American comic - a Dell usually.

[narfstar]

My Uncle had comics in his barber shop. He would allow me to trade one for one. When his shop closed I had to go to the other barber in town. He had different comics for me to read.

[jimmm kelly]

I remember in the early '70s, our family started going to a new dentist (who wasn't very good--thus my crooked teeth now). The only comic books he had in his waiting room were Jack Kirby's fourth world comics. I wasn't a fan of Jack Kirby at the time, but there was nothing else to read and that's how I was introduced to the New Gods. With feelings of dread.

***

Latest issue is up, concluding the "Finals Days of the Gotham Gangbusters."
http://myfavouritefunnies.wordpress.com

[mr_goldenage]

There was a barber shop in Norwalk Cali, where my Dad's realty office was, and on some Saturday's we'd go get our haircuts there. This is where I found the Flyman and the Mighty Crusaders. Never saw such a motley crew such as these. Loved them on site. What a hot summer I remember well and what great comics they were. Not the somewhat downer Marvel or the straight laced DC (I was 12 at the time and soon to leave comics behind in a few years), and not realizing that Jerry S was the great Superman creator. Sigh... those were the days......

RB scanning away @ home

[Osgood Peabody]

Hey India Ink/Jimmm

I agree that there are some great Batman tales to be found in the late "Old Look" period.  Clayface and Cat-Man are both favorites of mine.  By coincidence, I'm going to be reviewing "The Cat-Man Strikes Back" in our DC Time Capsule this very month.

Love the blog - one technical glitch I see is for some reason your posting dates seem to be off by about 2 weeks for some reason.

Do you mind if I post a link to My Favorite Funnies back at the DC Archive Form?  I'm sure a lot of people there would appreciate it.

And if you ever need some story scans to reference any of your entries, just look me up.

Best of luck with it.

[jimmm kelly]

The reason that posting dates are off is because they reflect when I started to draft and publish the post privately so I could test out the links and make sure that everything else works the way I intended before they go public.

Even then it's not a guarantee. This particular wordpress design likes to make curly quotes out of straight quotes, but too often it gets it wrong and close quotes appear where they should be open quotes. I've found no work around for that--essentially I have to predict what the "brain" of wordpress is thinking by using punctuation or words before the quote that it will read correctly.

Doesn't always work. I do find that anything between square brackets has straight quotes--so maybe I should put every quote between ["brackets"]. But that would be silly.

Everyone is welcome to share links. I certainly do.

[jimmm kelly]

There was a barber shop in Norwalk Cali, where my Dad's realty office was, and on some Saturday's we'd go get our haircuts there. This is where I found the Flyman and the Mighty Crusaders. Never saw such a motley crew such as these. Loved them on site. What a hot summer I remember well and what great comics they were. Not the somewhat downer Marvel or the straight laced DC (I was 12 at the time and soon to leave comics behind in a few years), and not realizing that Jerry S was the great Superman creator. Sigh... those were the days......

RB scanning away @ home

SUPER HEROES VERSUS SUPER VILLAINS was my introduction to that motley team (as I mentioned on my first blog--and will again soon). Like you, I could not guess that the writer was the same guy who had written so many other great comics.

[Osgood Peabody]

The reason that posting dates are off is because they reflect when I started to draft and publish the post privately so I could test out the links and make sure that everything else works the way I intended before they go public.

Yeah, wordpress can be quite finicky.  I worked with it briefly when I collaborated with Nightwing over at his late lamented Superman blog and I remember he had to guide me through some of the finer points to using it.

By the way, we miss you around the old Time Capsule.  Anytime you want to drop in for a visit, you're more than welcome.

I don't suppose I could twist your arm to review "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" for us, by any chance? 

[jimmm kelly]

I'm focused on my blog these days and I might "steal" SUPERMAN 164 for that at some point in the future--as it is one of "my favourite funnies."

[Osgood Peabody]

I know it is... that's why I had you in mind.

Maybe we could do a joint simulcast to celebrate its 50th birthday in August?  I don't know how far in advance you've planned your blog entries.

[jimmm kelly]

So far my blog seems a bit scatter shot, but there is a developing theme, I think. It would be too easy to just do DC comics, so I'm trying to expand my range. Hard to guess what direction I will go in the future or what schedule I'll be able to maintain.

[narfstar]

It really shows how how much of an impact comics have had when we can remember the first time we saw a particular comic book. The mention of Flyman reminds me of being at my cousins who also read comics. He really was not as into collecting them and had other friends he traded around with. I remember finding Jaguar for the first time in the stack of comics in his closet. I also found a curiosity that neither of us understood in an Adventures of The Fly where he was a kid who became the Fly. I remember thinking the art was really good but I did not understand what had happened. My first experience with a GA character called Dollman was in his tree cabin. I think it may have been issue 40, I am pretty sure Doll Girl was on the cover.

[profh0011]

I got my 1st Superman comic-- an issue of ACTION-- at a coffee shop in the Philadelphia Airport!  I don't remember who was flying in or out (nobody in my family, I'm sure).  But I remember what the shop looked like.  Also, it was one of the few DCs from that period I got with a full cover, so I know we got it new.  "Lex Luthor's First Victory Over Superman!"  Lex (& Brainiac) team up and taunt Superman using a flying "satellite" that hovers over him and blasts Lex's amplified voice at him.  As this is going on, Supes is "practicing" by (I'm not kidding) punching holes in cardboard cut-out "dummies" of Luthor & Brainiac.

The thing I CAN'T remember is... WHICH version of Superman did I see FIRST?  The ACTION comic?  His cameo in the BATMAN newspaper strip?  (Doubtful)  His guest-appearance (played by Milton Berle) on THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE ?  The George Reeves show?  Or Filmation's THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ?  (Actually, the latter is the most likely... I think.)

It was decades before I discovered that the voices in the Filmation cartoon were by Bud Colyer & Joan Alexander-- from the RADIO show and Fleischer cartoons!  They were actually the ORIGINAL actors, the first to ever play the parts.  Wasn't it so cool for Filmation to have specificaly hired THEM?  (Kinda like when Hanna-Barbera FINALLY decided to get Adam West for the last 2 seasons of SUPER POWERS.)