Artistic commentary

I've been reading X-Men comics lately, starting with #1 and working my way to my goal of whatever is the last published in the original series. I've also been keeping up with the new Valiant comics which are rebooting my all time favorite comics from my younger days.
 I've found that since beginning to read comics in the late '80s up to today the artistic styles have definitely evolved over time. From the early Jack Kirby drawings of the 60's to my personal faves of McFarlane and the other big names of the 90's.
 Before getting into X-Men comics, I'm going to go out on a limb here and voice my opinion that as much as I liked Jack Kirby's drawing style I prefer Werner Roth to Kirby's X-Men. Kirby was a spectacular artist who had a way of drawing characters and expressing their emotions in his art, but I found his work (at least in X-Men) to be rather 2 dimensional. Roth on the other hand has a drawing style that I find reminiscent of many modern artists, not to mention a more refined look that looks more realistic. I guess I should say that Roth has a look that many modern artists emulate. McFarlane broke the mold and went his own way with Spider-man back in the '90s, much like Tim Burton's look when he directs a film is rather different from anything else out there. I guess I'm a product of my own youth in that I prefer the art style that is similar to what I grew up on.
 If your looking for some great reads I would highly recommend any of the early Marvel comics like Spider-man, X-Men, Avengers, etc. There are some great stories out there.

...And now for something completely different

It's amazing how you take a break or get caught up in life then realize that your goal of writing on a blog each day hasn't happened in quite a while. I thought it had been a few days since I was here last and just noticed its been close to a week.
 In a deviation from my normal course of comics and groovy old ads, I decided to talk about my experience buying a new(er) car this week. I was fortunate to find a pretty honest (shocking I know) and pleasant to deal with car salesman. We decided it is time to upgrade the family truckster to something with more room but didn't want to break the bank. After searching for a reasonable vehicle with miles that don't look like the space shuttle's altimeter we finally found one close to home at a local dealership. At the initial test drive, the wiper motor went out and of course it was raining like it was about to flood that day. The wife decided that she kind of liked the car but wasn't comfortable with the wiper problem. We decided to look around and then went back to test drive it after the wipers were fixed. To make a long story short we ended up buying the vehicle that we first looked at.
 Well this brings me to the subject of today's post. We currently find ourselves with 3 vehicles, 2 drivers and no car payments. Both of our older cars have had the engines replaced about 4 and 5 years ago and have been running great. Buying a newer car has really made me question the "value" of buying a new or newer car unless you really need to. My car had 212k miles on it when I got it 4 years ago, at 214k the head gasket blew out and the option was repair it or for a couple of hundred more replace the engine with a remanufactured engine. That was a pretty no brainer option to deal with. The total investment in repairs for my car was a whopping $1900, add to that the purchase price (I did get a great deal from a friend who practically gave me the car) and I'm sitting at close to $2000. I've put about 20k miles on my car in the past 4 years and even though the odometer reads 236k it still runs and handles great.
 My point is when it comes time for a major repair take a long hard look at the cost of a new(er) vehicle versus the repair costs of the existing one. Back several years I traded my car in because the repair bill was about $1500 and it was only worth about $500, resulting in a fat payday for the car salesman and a car loan of $15,000 for me. Not to mention the increased cost of insuring my car on top of the montly car payment. Just because your car may not look as nice as some of those out there, keep in mind how much you can save on car payments, interest and insurance costs over the life of the loan for a new vehicle rather than repairing a reliable trusty car.
 In the case of having vehicles you no longer need, consider someone you know who may need the help that a reliable vehicle can make for them. It may make the difference between getting to work or taking care of their family and not being able. I would love to sell my car and recoup the investment I have in the engine repairs, but hanging onto it for a bit longer may be more sensible. After all it won't be that much longer that my 2 year old will be asking to borrow my keys and 20 bucks to go out.

Back from a short break to find some more interesting ads from back in the day. Pretty soon I think I'm going to switch gears and start reviewing and commenting on some classic comics.
 Short plug, for anyone interested in comics or pop culture, Comic Book Men on AMC is a great series. I must admit even though I'm all grown up the idea of spending my days working and hanging out in a comic shop sound quite appealing. It would be like my younger days except getting paid for it. Not to mention not getting thrown out the door for hanging out too long. Last week's episode involved a charity auction of a collection that spanned 75 long boxes (each of my long boxes held in the neighborhood of 300+ comics, depending on how much I felt like cramming in) that was from a collection starting in the mid 50's. I don't think I could find enough time to read all of those comics. My old collection spanned about 8 long boxes which each weighed....well it felt like I was moving an elephant....and took up a whole lot of space in my closet.
 Back from the break I would love to find a place like this to buy a car. I've been out car shopping and am amazed at what is considered a "cheap car" these days. Not that I'm dating myself, but when I last bought a new car in '02 I paid near to what a decent 5 year old minivan is going for these days. Even with decent miles and a few years older the "budget lots" are going around 5-8 thousand. I'm sorry but to my mind that is more than enough for a decent car and should not have any major issues for that kind of price.
 Still looking at the prices in this ad from 1967 I'm amazed at how much cars cost back then. I was recently talking to some guys who were looking for some classic cars in the range of whats in this ad and were talking about dropping 15-20k for one of these mid 60's beauts. Makes me wonder what else I should have hung onto from my youth. Someday that Yugo I saw on the side of the street may be a collectors item and worth its weight in gold. Then again, maybe people in the future will still want a car that runs.
 Until next time, if only cars worked like in the Flintstones. Cars and gas would be cheaper, but I'm sure shoes would cost a lot more.

Well, no good ads today. I'm still reading through some back X-Men issues to find some more interesting ads. Eventually I'm going to switch to Spider-Man and the other classic Marvel books but can't decide if I should read through the entire series or switch between series just like it would have been reading them back in the day. I would appreciate any thoughts on this if there are any comments out there.
 Reading through the classic X-Men comics has really made me realize how the writing has changed over the years. I remember growing up on Spider-Man and X-Men and such which were pretty amazing books back in the 80's and 90's on their own. Going back to the 60's it is interesting to see that the stories were just as compelling though the writing had a different "feel" to it. I can't really explain as I've been trying to figure it out myself. It's almost as if the style of writing was more descriptive. Definitely more soliloquy's (there's the $5 word of the day) and more expressive in writing. I think I prefer the more modern style but it is still fun to go back to the classics.
 I'll see what kind of kooky things I can come up with for the next post.

Continuing the ads from back in the day, this one is from X-Men #2 and continued for a good many years. This one really got me thinking - "Dang, that would be cool to walk down the street with a monkey on my shoulder while we both eat a lollipop." I mean how cool would that be a freakin monkey eating a freakin lollipop on my shoulder. That's kind of like being a pirate minus the peg leg and eye patch. Not that I condone the selling of wild animals or anything like that but I still think it would be cool. Though thinking about, it why would you feed a monkey a lollipop other than the looks you would get on the street?
 I meant to write about the monkey ad until I pulled this up and saw the hamster and sea horse ad too. Hamsters, ok I get it. You can get one at the pet store and they are pretty normal everyday pets. Seahorses? really this is like the monkey for a pet I mean who actually does this? I can see the kid who begged his parents for the money to buy the monkey or saves up for it then sends away for it. When the box comes, what happens? You open the box and what the monkey is happy to see you? No way, its probably pissed about being in the box not to mention the "gentle handling" I'm sure it got from the mailman. Oh and don't forget that it probably hasn't eaten in a few days, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. You know like a screeching upset monkey flying around the house trying to take off anyone's face that gets near it. As cool as it sounds, I think I like the idea of my face being intact more.
 Back to the hamsters, they come with a Ferris Wheel and trapeze so you can have your own circus at home. Hmm, gives me some ideas - "Sunday, Sunday  Sunday  one day only come to my house and see the amazing hamster circus. The amazing dog faced girl, no it really is a girl not my dog in a dress." Yeah the possibilities are endless.
 And the seahorses that also come with a trapeze. Put the fishbowl in my home circus so everyone can see the amazing seahorses hanging right side up on the trapeze. What do you mean those are not real seahorses, they sure are the ad says so. Well that is until you read further and see that your being sent brine shrimp to go with your miniature seahorses. Yeah all those sea monkey ads that had mom and dad reading the paper and playing games but then you get them and you can barely see them and they don't do much other than swim around in the bowl. Last thought - Ummm don't seahorses live in saltwater? Call me crazy but I don't think brine shrimp in a fishbowl with seahorses are going to last the average kid very long not that a kids attention span is much longer.
 Maybe on second thought I should skip the seahorses and the face chewing monkey. If these ads are that shady I'm not sure that I would get a real hamster. I think I'll stick to dressing my dog up and charging a quarter to see the dog faced girl.
 Until next time, watch out for cheap monkeys in a box

For those of you who may be wondering, here is the original ad for Grog. This was found in X-Men #1 published in 1963. Hang on for our next installment - Flying Monkeys

Hi all,
 I decided to start this blog to share my thoughts about whatever comes to mind. This should be an interesting adventure into the world at large. We'll see where we end up with no particular agenda other than whatever sounds good at the time.
 Now that that is out of the way, I'm sure the title has you wondering. It comes from an ad for a...well I don't really know what the heck it is. It showed a dinosaur with a tail that grows into a tree or something according to the ad. Of course these old school ads were before my time but there is something kind of cool about these outrageous ads.
 I'd like to invite you to stick around and see where we end up from here.

 Enjoy!
 Corey