Thursday, July 28, 2016

SOMEDAY A WOMAN WILL BE PRESIDENT!



Sometimes fact is stranger (and funnier) than fiction! This was in the news a few days ago:

Hillary Clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major American political party, but just 21 years ago — when she served as First Lady — Wal-Mart wouldn’t even sell T-shirts promoting the idea.
In August 1995, a Wal-Mart store in Florida sold T-shirts showing Margaret, a character in the comic strip “Dennis the Menace,” proclaiming that “Someday a woman will be president.”
A customer spotted the T-shirts and complained, reported The Associated Press, and the store removed them.
We've come a long way since then, baby!

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

¡SANTOS CÓMICS! TV Interview

I had lots of fun as the guest of Martín Arceo's TV show "¡SANTOS CÓMICS!" which aired Tuesday, July 19, 2016   at www.rompeviento.tv 
He proved to be a wonderful and knowledgeable host.
We talked about comic books, The Pink Panther, The Road Runner, Laurel and Hardy and editorial cartoons among many other topics and the time just flew by! Thank you for the invite, Martín!
The show can be seen and downloaded now at 
https://vimeo.com/175449818









Friday, July 8, 2016

SONS OF THE DESERT


According to the entry in Wikipedia, THE SONS OF THE DESERT is:
"an international fraternal organization devoted to the lives and films of comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The group takes its name from a lodge that Laurel and Hardy belonged to in the 1933 movie Sons of the Desert.   In 1964, a few years after the book, Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy, was published, author John McCabe formed a small group of Laurel and Hardy admirers, including Orson Bean, cartoonist Al Kilgore, Chuck McCann, and John Municino. McCabe created a mock-serious “constitution” that satirized the formalities of many social organizations. Stan Laurel endorsed and humorously revised the document; he suggested that members might wear a fez or blazer patch with the motto "Two Minds Without a Single Thought." Founding member Kilgore created a logo with the motto in Latin (in the spirit of Laurel’s dictum that the organization should have “a half-assed dignity” about it) as Duae tabulae rasae in quibus nihil scriptum est (literally: 'Two blank slates on which nothing has been written')."

These are the wonderful caricatures of Stan and Ollie masterfully rendered by the late great Al Kilgore, better known for drawing the Bullwinkle daily comic strip in the 60s.


I joined the club in 1976 and had the great fortune of being able to attend the First International Sons of the Desert Convention in Chicago the following year!





A lot of time has passed since then. Most of the celebrities we met at those first SOD conventions are no longer with us but great memories were left behind and as long as there are Laurel and Hardy fans in the world, their legacy will remain with us for a long while!



Long live Laurel and Hardy!