Tag Archives: Heroes Your Mom Threw Out

What to Do on a Summer’s Day

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Sometime summer seems endless, but we know too well that it isn’t so. But what DO you do (especially if you’ve got kids!)? On a hot day… a rainy day… or just any day? There are simple things to do, and they’re not too far away.

*Play miniature golf. It’s an American tradition, and no two courses are alike! Windmills, spouts, and bridges abound, not to mention crazy slopes, and it’s all in fun, and if you don’t take it too seriously, everybody has a good time. The course at Harris Hill Amusement Park has entertained players for many years – there are also courses at Corning, Watkins Glen, and Ithaca Sciencenter.
*Visit the comic-book store. I personally patronize Heroes Your Mom Threw Out in Elmira Heights, where Jared Aiosa loves kids as well as grownups. (And yes, at his shop I HAVE found comics that my Mom threw out!)
*Attend a summer service at Garret Memorial Chapel, on Keuka Bluff. It’s a lovely stone chapel, built almost a hundred years ago in memory of an only son who died too young. It’s a quiet place, set in the woods, with services only in summers. You may find that you’re growing quiet too, in the best sense of the word.
*Amble along the Erie Canal. Fairport is known as “the crown jewel of the Erie Canal” – the towpath is a fine place to stroll, with restaurants and other amenities on the route or just a few steps away. The same is true in Pittsford, and many another canal town. For a quieter, more rural stretch, start in Brockport. Check ’em all out. Now two centuries old, the Canal still welcomes visitors. Nathaniel Hawthorne liked it! Why shouldn’t you?
*Shop at The Windmill, on 14A between Penn Yan and Dundee: Saturdays only, April through November, with an occasional added day for holidays. Wander in and out amongst 175 shops and stands – it’s one of the largest open-air farm and craft markets in the state of New York.
*Get an ice cream! It just isn’t summer if you don’t make at least one stop at an ice cream stand. I use Emmie’s near Lake Salubria in Bath! And also Hokey-Pokey on Corning Northside. Honestly, there’s ice cream stands just about everywhere, and I’ve never found one that disappointed me. The closing of the ice cream stands is a sure sad sign of the end of summer. Get into the season while the getting’s good!
*Get a hot dog, and eat it “al fresco.” Central Hots in Elmira is a good place. Jim’s Texas Hots is a good place on Market Street in Corning.
*Take a walk on the waterfront. Watkins Glen in particular gives you lots of waterline to stroll on, lots of boats to look at, lots of birds to watch. You can also see the schooner True Love (used in the movie High Society, with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly).
*Listen to a concert in the park. Wow! LOTS of our communities have free evening concerts every week through the summer – I know for a fact you can find them in Bath, Hammondsport, Penn Yan, Watkins Glen… plenty of others too! Sometimes there’s a sort of ongoing theme, more likely there’s a different “sound” every week, from rock-and-roll to folk to country to “band music.” Somebody makes fried chicken, somebody sells lemonade, little kids run in and out… pick out the music you like, bring your lawn chair, chat with your friends, and enjoy the summer’s eve. Maybe stars will come out. Maybe you’ll see fireflies. “Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low, and the flickering shadows softly come and go; though the heart be weary, sad the day and long, still to us at twilight comes Love’s old song – comes Love’s old, sweet song.”

The Lovely Month of May

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“It’s May! It’s May! The lusty month of May,” according to Queen Guinevere in Camelot. It’s the month when large showy May apple blossoms explode in shady spots.
It was already a quaint old custom when I was a boy, in the days of quaint old Eisenhower, but we still made May baskets of flowers, and hung them on the unsuspecting doors of loved ones.
That was on May Day, the first of May, a day fraught with multiple meanings through time and space. Going back to 1889, May Day is International Workers Day (the original “labor day”), a day for celebrating working people and their solidarity, persevering through violence and retribution.
In Catholicism, May Day begins a month of special devotion to the Virgin Mary. Half-way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, May Day was also Beltane in ancient Celtic societies. In addition to that, it’s the traditional date that European herds and flocks were taken up to the high pastures.
Dancing around the maypole is a very old custom is some German-speaking and English-speaking societies. “The Maypole of Merry Mount,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is based on an event in the days of the Pilgrims and Miles Standish, but as usual Hawthorne served his own purposes by rewriting the facts almost out of recognition.
May may have been named (scholars disagree) for the Greek and Roman goddess Maia, associated with growth, and certainly in our part of the world, May is the month that finally kills winter dead, and embarks on a riot of blossom, growth, and green.
Decoration Day, now Memorial Day, traditionally took place on May 30, nowadays falling on May’s last Monday. Our neighboring Waterloo is traditionally one of the birthplaces of Memorial Day.
May 8 is V.E. Day, for victory in Europe in 1945. It was an explosion of ecstatic celebration in Britain, which had lived under the gun for almost six years, and America celebrated wildly as well. But reaction in the Pacific Theater of Operations is summed up by the old tale of an officer who announced, “The war in Europe is over. There will now be a five-minute break.”
Free Comic Book Day comes on the first Saturday in May – maybe I’ll see you at Heroes Your Mom Threw out, in Elmira Heights! That’s also Kentucky Derby day, and the Preakness comes later in the month. May the Fourth is when the first lasting English settlement was established in today’s U.S. It’s also a special day for “Star Wars” fans (May the Fourth be with you – get it?). Cinco de Mayo, originally a minor observance in Mexico, has become a U.S. celebration of Mexican-American heritage. (Mexican-Americans have been citizens since back in the 1840s, WAY before the families of millions of other Americans, including Donald Trump, ever set foot on our shores.)
Apart from Memorial Day, Mother’s Day is May’s biggest celebration, and why not? The nurture we get from our mothers sets our course through all our lives.
Any observance will be grim this year, but with May’s last weekend comes Kyiv Day, celebrating the 1500 year-old Ukrainian capital.
My home state of Rhode Island beat everybody else by two months, declaring independence on May 4, 1776. (King George must have trembled.) Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in May, the Red Cross was founded, and the Golden Spike was driven. The unanimous Brown vs. Board of Education decision was announced in May, adding its weight to the wave of gigantic changes finally improving America.
Our own Glenn Curtiss was born in Hammondsport on May 21, 1878, and on his 30th birthday he piloted his first airplane flight, in Pleasant Valley. Other May births include Malcom X, Bob Dylan, Queen Victoria, Clint Eastwood, Stevie Wonder, John Wayne, Plato, Karl Marx, Mother Jones, and Harry S Truman. Happy May.

Where Will YOU Be on Free Comic Book Day?

The first Saturday in March is Derby Day, down in Louisville, Kentucky. It’s also Free Comic Book Day at comic shops from coast to coast. And this year it’s ALSO May 4, making it Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth be with you!”) even unto galaxies far, far away, making this Saturday a Triple Crown all by itself!

*So, anyhow… Free Comic Book Day. You dont find newsstands very much any more, supermarkets and drug stores usually don’t carry comic books these days, and comic book shops are suffering like all other small businesses beneath the weight of Internet sales.

*But even before the Internet, shops and publishers were collaborating on Free Comic Book Day… a way to reward established readers and invite new ones… and also, in many cases, introduce new titles, characters, and lines.

*In most cases, it’s pretty simple. You walk into the shop, look around and pick up a few of the specially-marked free items. You might think about making a purchase or two. The comics are free to the customer, but they still cost the dealer a quarter apiece.

*In case you’d been wondering, comics are not all superheroes, and the superheroes themselves are not all Dark Knights and Grim Crusaders. So it’s safe to take the kids! Archie and his gang are still hanging out. Mickey and Donald, Pluto and Goofy are still all over the stands. There are also romance comics, war stories, non-fiction, science fiction, and more – just about every genre under the sun.

*Most stores also lay on refreshments or entertainment, and sometimes artists or writers are on hand to sign their work.

*So, where can you go in our coverage area?

*I expect to be at my favorite comic book store, Heroes Your Mom Threw Out, in Elmira Heights. Jared Aiossa is our host, and I’ve been shopping there ever since my sharp-eyed wife spotted his ad on the Smallville TV show, many years agone. Being as I’m a regular, Jared knows what new titles to steer me toward, and which ones I probably wouldn’t care for. He also does a lot to promote art in the community.

*Comics for Collectors is in the Collegetown section of Ithaca, bouyed no doubt by the large local university propulation. (For a long time Tim also had a branch, of honored memory, on Market Street in Corning.) His selection is always good, and he’s right off the Ithaca Commons, so there’s plenty more to explore and shop at.

*Pulp Nouveau is on Main Street in Canandaigua. It’s fun to just keep walking deeper into the store, away from the street. Main Street also has a needlework store, and plenty of other businesses, just in case some members of your family are disposed in other directions. Domestic harmony!

*Two Kings in Victor (“where everybody is treated like royalty!”) is a great small shop that recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, making it about the youngest store on our list (most of them are decades old). Independent comic creator Joe Pangrazio (Heroclix Team World Champion) will be joining them.

*I was at Collector’s Choice in Brockport last year a couple of weeks before Free Comic Book Day – boy! Was that store packed with boxes waiting to be unloaded! Collector’s Choice is also an excellent donation if you plan to arrive via the Erie Canal.

*I recently made plans to visit Center Field Cards and Comics in Endicott, but got sidetracked by an out-of-state funeral. It’s still on my list to visit, though!

*It’s always a good idea to double-check with each individual store just to make sure they’re participating, to find out their hours (which may be different on FCBD), and to see what special events they might have laid on. Maybe I’ll see you! Happy reading!

A Database for Comics (and How to Get Comics for Free)

In my spare time – when I’m not crafting this blog – I volunteer as an indexer for the Grand Comics Database (www.comics.org), which just celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The goal is to index comics publications from any country, in any language. Since it’s an unusual effort, I thought that I might interview myself to find out more. So here goes…

Q. Well, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us.

A. Not at all, I’m happy to be here. I was thrilled to get your call.

Q. I’m glad. So… I understand you yourself have had just about 2000 entries approved.

A. That’s right. First one approved on September 15, 2012. For the very unfortunately named “RaceWarrior,” which sounds just ghastly but is actually about futuristic auto racers.

Q. How long does it take you to do an entry?

A. Well, entries are not all created equal. For instance, if I correct a typo of a single letter, that counts as one entry. And when I did “A People’s History of American Empire,” by Howard Zinn – with 75 detailed sub-entries – that also counts as one.

Q. Huh. So, auto racing, American empire – this doesn’t sound like typical comic books.

A. True enough. I figured that Superman and Spider-Man have plenty of people looking after them, so I decided to concentrate on oddballs and obscuros… especially educational and promotional comics… that wouldn’t get so much attention.

Q. Any interesting examples?

A. Well, there’s one called “The Legend of the Allegheny Traveler,” in which a young man comes to western Pennsylvania in the early 1800s and grows up with the country. It’s a tourism piece, and it gave me the pleasure of immortalizing President James Buchanan as a comic book character.
“Angela’s Dream” came from our own New York State Department of Health. Angela has a baby, but she’s reluctant for either of them to get a test for HIV/AIDS. She dreams about taking good care of her baby, and finally realizes that that includes the test.
Those are both educational comics. But there are also promotional comics like “Major Inapak.” Inapak was a packaged chocolate drink, and they put out a science fiction comic to push their product. The Big Boy restaurant chain did the same, but much more successfully.

Q. Don’t I understand that there are also religious comics?

A. Oh, sure. There’s a series called “Treasure Chest” that was distributed in Catholic schools. Plus characters like Archie and Dennis the Menace have occasionally been licensed by religious groups.

Q. Archie’s still around, then.

A. He’ll be around after both of us are dead and gone. The longest continuously-running American comic book character is Superman. Then Batman. Then Archie. Wonder Woman comes after that. Archie’s been incredibly stable, too. Three of the five main characters – Archie, Jughead, and Betty – appear on the first pages of the first story, back in 1940. Reggie and Veronica are in place within a year.

Q. I think when most people think of comic books, they think of superheroes, or else funny stuff – Archie, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny.

A. Those are the mainstays of the business, at least here in America. But the FORM is just a vehicle, and can carry ANY kind of story. Art Speigelman, for instance, won a Pulitzer Prize for “Maus,” the book-length story of his father’s experience in Auschwitz. And he made the characters mice. It sounds almost blasphemous, but it works. Stunningly.
And I’ve been using the SUNY library system to gather some forgotten pioneering works published 85 years ago by Lynd Ward – book-length spiritual or philosophical stories told in wordless woodcuts.

Q. They tell me you’ve also indexed books and stories with local connections.

A. Yeah, that’s been fun. For instance back in the fifties and sixties Classics Illustrated did stories about Glenn Curtiss, Marcus Whitman, and the Corning Glass Works. I indexed all of those.
Then there’s the local creators. Dick Ayers, who passed away last year just after his 90th birthday, got his first paying art job while he was a student at Curtiss Memorial School in Hammondsport. John McPherson does the “Close to Home” syndicated column in newspapers – I indexed one of his collections. And Chris Sale, who grew up in Elmira, does webcomics. I’ve added him to the database and indexed some of his collections, too, such as “Men in Hats,” very modern, edgy stuff with social commentary.

Q. So I guess you go for serious stuff rather than, say, superheroes?

A. Are you kidding? I love those guys! One of the characters in the “Funky Winkerbean” comic strip describes reading comics during a difficult childhood, and he says, “The superheroes did what they do best. They saved me.” Amen to that, brother. They saved me too.

Q. Wow. That’s something.

A. And it’s true.

Q. So – this Grand Comics Database. It’s not just comic books, right?

A. Oh, no. All those Peanuts paperbacks, for instance – they go in there too. Anything published along the lines of comic books, comic strips, cartoons, graphic novels – anything like that goes in.

Q. And how much have you got now?

A. Over a million issues. More than half a million cover scans. Nearly a quarter-million complete descriptions, or indexes, of the issues. Plus documenting publishers, brands, artists, writers, story synopses, and more.

Q. So we could go on-line and look at half a million comic book covers?

A. Sure, spot the ones you remember. Some of them are x-rated, though, so be aware of that.

Q. And this is a world-wide, multi-lingual effort?

A. After English, we have more issues published in Spanish than any other. Then German, and on down through Finnish, Turkish, Japanese, Serbo-Croatian, and many more. Even including Latin. The editor who usually checks my stuff is Dutch. I send him entries before work, and he’s reading them at the same time, after work.

Q. And it’s searchable?

A. It is indeed. You want a series, a character, a story, a publisher, an artist… there’s a search bar you can use.

Q. That’s really something. So what’s coming up in the world of comics?

A. Free Comic Book Day! First Saturday in May!

Q. People give away comic books?

A. Yep. The publishers and comic-book stores do this every year to introduce new series, and to welcome new readers. My son and I are going to Heroes Your Mom Threw Out, in Elmira Heights. Jared Aiosa there offers what he calls a handful of comics – four or five – for free. They’re dedicated issues, put out by the publishers for just this purpose.
Jared’s also having Mike Raicht there, creator of “The Stuff of Legend,” a multilevel series that’s at once touching, amusing, and challenging. I created the GCD record for the omnibus hardback.

Q. Well, maybe I’ll see you there.

A. I’ll be looking for you.

Q. One final question. The store’s called “Heroes Your Mom Threw Out.” Did your mom ever throw out any of your comic books?

A. Don’t get me started on that one.