The Johnny Bacardi Show

Hello, boys and girls! I'm feeling better today, thanks for asking. Yesterday, I was at something like 50% capacity, today, 85%. Spent most of my day sleeping, when the dog wasn't barking, and my Mom and my kids weren't running in and out of the house.

Not much to report, really...but I did another foolish, impetuous thing today. On Tuesday, I had been Googling around looking for sites with artwork by Nestor Redondo, and some of what I found featured pages from the circa 1975 DC Comics extrapolation of the book/film Green Mansions, name of Rima The Jungle Girl, and it looked very good. Curiosity provoked, I went over to eBay to see what, if any, issues of Rima might be available...and wonder of wonders, there was a full run available with the "buy it now" option! Then when I noticed the minimum price, $24.99, I started to click away but then I noticed something I hadn't seen before at eBay, a "best offer" option...so I decided I'd watch that auction and see if it went to the end with nobody buying. Nobody did, so I shot them an offer of $10 for the set of 7, with s&h of $4.95, which I thought was reasonable, and they accepted! So I am soon to be the proud owner of a clutch of 70s Jungle Girl books!

And please. Those of you who run comics shops, don't post a comment here along the lines of "Well, hell, I would have sold a run to you for half of that!" I don't want to know.

Rima was part of a brief sword-and-sorcery and adventure-comics expansion that DC undertook in the mid-70's, bringing us such titles as Conan knockoff Claw the Unconquered (actually not-bad, with some pretty good Giffen art), Stalker: The Man With The Stolen Soul (art by Ditko with Wally Wood inks!), Beowulf: Dragon Slayer, a clever take on the old legendary character and a personal favorite series. and others, none of which made it past the subsequent DC explosion/implosion. I remember seeing Rima on the stands, with its Joe Kubert covers and Nestor Redondo interiors, and to be honest, I don't know why I didn't pick them up. Guess I'll make up for that now. I'm sure these aren't timeless classics, but they should be a good afternoon's read, I'm thinking. By the way, click on the cover at above left to see a bigger version. I'm kinda enamored of this, can't ya tell?