News - June Thru August 2005 Archives

News - June 2005

         Went to Madison to help Mom settle into her new assisted living facilities.  The apartment she shared with my father for five years was their last stand at independence.  One day, they were fine.  Then Dad had a seizure.  Mom found him on the floor of the den passed out.  It exacerbated his Alzheimer’s, and he was outta there.  Off to the piss ward with a tube up his dick.  Used to be nobody lived past forty so it wasn’t a problem.  Or they drifted off to sea on an ice floe.

                 The night before the folks’ sixtieth, Mom broke her hip, going for a cigarette on the porch.  They told her sixty years ago those cigs would kill her.  It may be they keep her going.  In any case, she fell trying to negotiate the quarter inch lip at the bottom of the door.  She’d been planning the sixtieth since the fiftieth.  A big megillah at the Black Hawk Country Club with all their old friends and family.  So they shot her full of drugs and let her out of the hospital in a wheelchair, and we had the party anyway.  The next day she was back in the hospital.  She broke her hip again in December and that was that.  At eighty-two, she has enjoyed a long run, raised three kids, went back to school, got a doctorate in Adult Education, and taught at the UW.  For the last thirty years it was my mother who brought home the bacon.  She had always worn the pants. My sisters E, J, and me showed up to help her pack and move into the new place.  Mom sat in her apartment looking around at the remaining stuff.  If you live long enough, life is a series of reductions.  You give up running.  You give up walking.  You give up a lot of shit for which you no longer have any use: golf clubs, suitcases, boats, cars.  Mom paid for a U-Haul for me to haul stuff back to Colorado, where J and I live.  A dresser, a bed, two end tables, lamps, glasses, pictures, mahogany shaman from Kenya, ebony elephants from India, tin demons from Burma, smoked glass from Helsinki.  Smoked herring from Helsinki.

             I spent the night in the apartment while Mom spent the night in her room on the Piss Ward.  She’s content, but since she broke her hip a second time, needs help getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, and getting out the front door for a smoke.

             I picked up E the next day.  Like J, E is a prominent scientist, a workaholic, a drudge, a grind, driven to succeed by time-release capsules Mom planted early.  E is a microbiologist at a prominent university, specializing in infection disease.  She began performing triage on Mom’s stuff, focusing on what Mom would need in the new place, down from five rooms to two.  Designed for wheelchair and walker.  Mom’s meds alone filled two large cardboard boxes.  Endless supplies of laundry detergent, floss, moisturizer, suppositories, towels.  I tried to reclaim the framed Rude, but she would have none of it.  It features Clonezone.

             Dad was happy to see us, but his happiness soon drifted into intermittent anger.  I was wheeling him down the corridor when we were passed by one of the center’s outstanding helpers, who happens to be broad of beam.  “Look at the ass on that one,” Dad said.  “You could sell advertising.”  He has been making such cracks all his life.  It may have hurt him in ladies’ retail, I don’t know.

             I dragged my father in law to see Bob Corbit at the Hemingway Lounge (every Thursday, in Fitchburg, WI.)  The doctor was mightily impressed, but had to beat it home after a half hour to look after his wife, my mother-in-law, who suffered a seizure last fall and has become very dependent on the doc.  As usual, Bob on tenor, Major Hamberlin on keys, and sub drummer Scott Stewart were world-class.  They played “Take the A Train,” “Satin Doll,” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” with James Eisele sitting in on guitar and vocals.  James has morphed from blues shouter into jazz crooner, and his guitar playing has become sleek, boomy, and unexpected.

             Filled the truck with Tommy’s help (nostomania.com!), took off at five-thirty Saturday morning.  By the time I got to Omaha, I was listening to Toby Keith, wearing a Gretchen Wilson hat and shouting, “Yeeee-HA!  We got us a convoy!”

             Pulled into Joe Comstock’s quiet suburban street.  Joe is a master artist with whom I’ve worked on several projects, including Badger.  He is a master portrait painter.  He is a master illustrator.  He is a master sculptor.  He’s been lifting recently and now resembles Vin Diesel.  Actually, with his shaved head, he looks like Mussolini.  Joe has the entire Whermacht in his basement, plus several companies of monsters, dinosaurs and aliens.  Joe believes that the family that paintballs together stays together.  Joe’s wife Meredith has also been hitting the gym and must endure sexual harassment from college kids.

             Arrived home Sunday and the dogs were happy to see me, the lovely Madeline was happy to see me, the lawn needed mowing and the trash needed emptying.  Such is life.  

THE EAMES CHAIRS

 

             Designers Charles and Ray Eames flourished during the sixties when their style of avante garde minimalism was de rigeur.  My father owned a furniture store in McKeesport, PA in the early sixties.  He brought home four Eames chairs.  The furniture store went south but the chairs went west with us to South Dakota, where they served as our standard dining room furniture for two decades.  At some point the folks had the chairs tastefully upholstered in orange naugahyde.

             Several years ago the folks gave the chairs to Madeline and me.  Sister E beseeched us, “Whatever you do, don’t sell the Eames chairs!  They’re very valuable.  If you ever feel you absolutely need the money, we’ll take the chairs.”  She followed her plea with articles attesting to the worth and dignity of the Eames chairs.  Comes Gabe to discuss the Hook.  Gabe’s a large fellow, frequently mistaken for a Caterpillar.  Gabe sat in the Eames chair.  The back snapped off.  “Uh-oh,” he said, bringing forth the back support like a holy wafer.  Now Gabe owes me six thousand bucks.

             ARGH!  The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft ugly!  That would be cartoon mice and comic book men.  I had it on the highest authority Night Club would ship on May 4.  ‘Twas not to be.  I now have it on the highest authority Night Club #2 will ship sometime before the Apocalypse.  Apologies to my six readers.  Norton got that Marvel gig, and they pay upfront.  I don’t fault Mike one bit.  But Mike.  Do you really need six hours of sleep a night?

News - July 2005

OBSIDIAN

 

             The redoubtable Nick Runge stepped in and finished off Detonator #4.  His pages will blow your mind, and are a mere taste of the new project we’ve got planned.  Obsidian is a heroic fantasy.  More I cannot say.  Well I could, but then I’d have to kill myself.                                                                   

Detonator #4

     Page 19

Detonator #4

     Page 21

NIGHT CLUB

 

             Apparently Mike Norton has been taken prisoner by Screwbarb, but fear not, help comes in the form of one K.R. Whalen, who caught our eye with his pin-up, which will appear in the back of Night Club #2.  Here are some of Karim’s pencils.

News - August 2005

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE BARON!

 

             As Webmaster, you would think that I would have known when Mike’s birthday was. But it wasn’t until I was perusing a comic forum today that I saw a post from Gabe about this. Out of discretion, I won’t give the exact day and age, but he is still as young and fresh as all his work over the past 24 years.

             So from all your fans, Happy Birthday Mike! May you get everything you wished for and may all your books be legendary!

                                                                                                                                                            Marcus Fusilier

Picture drawn by Gabe Eltaeb and Nick Runge, a birthday gift presented to Mike Baron