The Johnny Bacardi Show

Random musings about nothing in particular and everything in general, just like it says in many of my blog descriptions.

First of all, go to Flat Earth for a very nice memorium for the late Warren Kremer, the Harvey artist par excellence who died on July 24. He was one of those creators who I never paid attention to until a recent Comic Book Artist issue devoted to Harvey Comics and realized how many Richie Riches and Hot Stuffs I read when I was a little kid. Steven Wintle doesn't update his site all that often, but when he does it's always worthwhile.

Went to the grocery yesterday, and while in the cereal aisle I was dismayed to note that not only is Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries now costing FOUR DOLLARS a box, but they're not even crunchberries anymore! Now those succulent little magenta sugar-and-oat bombs are now several alleged fruit flavors, and are not spherical in shape, but are in the form of whatever merchandising tie-in Quaker Oats is trying to push on its consumers. Feh. For four bucks I want CLASSIC MAGENTA, SPHERICAL crunch berries, or I don't buy.

I really wanted to add a Google search box to the Show, but those frigging Mac-phobes over at Google don't offer one. Bastards.

I have rearranged the blogroll at right somewhat, moving up a number of blogs I read more regularly than others and dropping others, who haven't reciprocated my linkage, altogether. If yours wasn't moved up please accept my sincere apologies, I still like you. Nothing personal was intended. I also added the Kinetix smiley, just as I said I would, now linked to a fansite devoted to the character. One little problem- the site hasn't been updated since 1997 and a lot has happened to that character since then- so if I find a better one I'll change the link. This will do for now. In the process, I have also somehow fucked up my template code, and have an extreme excess of white space at the bottom of this webpage. I went to Blogger.com to see if I could copy the original code for this design, but they don't offer it anymore! Gah! Is there anyone else out there who uses this template design and could send me the bottom section of your code? Help a brother out, whydoncha? If I had a job, I'd consider finding a nice webhost somewhere, download some other blogging application like Movable Type and forget Blogger altogether. I'm not that unhappy with Blogger, but little things keep popping up and driving me nuts. Update The excessive white space is gone, but I still have about a quarter inch of white at the bottom which I didn't have before. What's a poor boy to do.

Watched the mega-flop (both critically and at the box office) Eddie Murphy movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash Saturday night. And I guess I'm getting soft in my dotage because I didn't think it was all that bad. Labored and extremely silly, yes. Botched ending, oh my, yes. Retro-styled moon cars? Huh? But heck, Murphy was Murphy- rascally and appealing, Rosario Dawson was fine as the love interest, and even Randy Quaid as the son of Andy Kaufman in Heartbeeps gave me a chuckle or two. I'm sure I won't want to watch this again, but for a ninety-odd minute timewaster you could do worse.

I watched a generous portion of Minority Report earlier Saturday, not long after reading Evan Dorkin's little rant about the Spielberg-Cruise film. When I wrote about it back in March, I was quite impressed, and even though it might have been Oscarworthy. Problem is, Dorkin pointed out several things which I had overlooked or didn't notice, which always bugs me but I gotta admit he's right. The ending, after a second look, was cliched and it's true- the main villian's identity was easy to guess, because that type of character is always the villian in movies like this. Also, Evan asked how Cruise's psy-police intended to police the entire USA (or even, eventually, the world) with only three psychics? It's true that there may be more out there, but it was never mentioned. Oh well. Even with this, I stil thought it was a thought-provoking concept, with excellent and imaginative FX and I was still quite caught up in it until the end, which felt tacked-on. Oscar? Nah. But I still liked it better than Dorkin did.

Those of you who are longtime readers o'mine will be aware, I'm sure, of my intense admiration of the art of Vera Brosgol, she of the webcomic Return To Sender and the Pants Press Sketchblog. She recently announced over at RTS that she is...well, I'll just let her explain it:

No update this week. Or next week. Or for a while. Return to Sender is going on hiatus because I am running away from my life to join an animation studio, much like Steven Wolfhard did quite recently. In fact, he's getting me from the train station. And at the end of August I am moving into my new apartment and starting school. Sorry to do this to you but the comic isn't all that high on my list of priorities, and the whole animation thing looks a tad better on the old resume.

I'll miss reading RTS, it's fun even though it's not her best work...her illustration, design and pinup-type stuff is far, far stronger. She's always wanted to get into animation, and she'll be great at it, I'll bet, so best of luck to her. Boy I wish I'd done something like that when I was her age.

You know, actually I did look into attending the Joe Kubert School of Art when I was 18 and just getting out of high school, and all I wanted to be was a comic book artist. Problem was, the guidance conseling at our school left a lot to be desired and was nowhere near as developed as it is today, so I had no idea about how to get financial aid and I didn't think my parents would be able to afford the somewhat pricey Kubert school. So that never happened. I would have been attending at the same time as such later comics luminaries as Steve Bisette, John Totleben, Tom Yeates, and others...ce'st la vie. Sigh.

On the job hunt front (hee-I'm a poet and don't know it), I received an email last week from a recruiter from Printlink.com, who has had my resume on file for several years now, about an opportunity with the catalog production/marketing department of a outdoor gear & hunting/fishing equipment supplier called Cabelas, doing pretty much the same graphics/prepress work I did at Camping World! But...and there's always a "but", you know...this is in Sidney, Nebraska.

Nebraska. That's approximately 1200 miles away. Almost 80 miles north of Denver, closer to the Rockies than the plains, or so they tell me.

Still, it sounds like a great opportunity, they're willing to "relo" (recruiterspeak for relocate...wonder if I could get J-lo?) and I can't not check it out...so Printlink is supposed to set up a telephone interview with me after the 18th, when the hiring manager gets back from vacation. So stay tuned. I've got some other resumes out, but this is the most concrete thing right now. Nebraska. Geez. Here's a little irony for ya- when I was at CW, we used to refer often to Cabelas catalogs, to see what they were selling, for design ideas, prices, what have ya.

Ever since I saw a clever cameo appearance by the Michelin Man in a strip in Heavy Metal magazine, I've loved the character. You can go to the Michelin website, which you can visit by clicking here, and get a swellio bobblehead doll! I want one! I don't remember which HM story it was or who the artist was, either. Sorry. It was from around 1977 or '78, though, if that helps...

I'm thinking about creating a button for this site, so people can link to me with it. I think about a lot of things, including a website for my Pandora Arcana character (the synopsis for which I never did get around to submitting to Mike Carey...I'm sure he's lost a lot of sleep over it) and other things. I have a nifty logo which I created for my would-be cottage industry Psychic Martini Productions (TM, all you theives out there), but it's mighty big and even though it would be perfect for "Johnny Bacardi", when it's reduced as small as I would need it to be reduced, you can't tell what the hell it is...so back to the drawing board. Actually, I have a drawing board, given to me as a gift by Mrs. B back in 1980. I never got around to assembling it, and it's still in my basement some 23 years later. Sigh again.

All right, this is enough. Thanks for reading, now go out and live your lives and be happy and all that stuff. And come back soon.

Music this morning: Johnny Cash-American Recordings, Iris Dement-My Life, Alan Price-O Lucky Man! Soundtrack, The Mothers of Invention-Over-Nite Sensation, Status Quo-Rockin' All Over the World (a really great, forgotten record-bet your ass it will be in the upcoming Vinyl-O), Sandy Denny-Like An Old-Fashioned Waltz.