R.I.P. Rowdy Roddy Piper

My wrestling phase was really back in the early seventies with Bob Brazil and the Stomper. But I did slip back in a little a decade or so later and always liked the over-the-top antics of Rowdy Roddy Piper, also later the star of the flop--but now classic--THEY LIVE from John Carpenter. Piper passed last evening of cardiac arrest. R.I.P. 

Ms. Molecule in Unusual Suspense

You won't find it at your local comic shops this week but the first issue of Charlton Neo's UNUSUAL SUSPENSE is now available! From Amazon! The title--which contains several of the previously online only comics from Pix-C, is highlighted by my lovely wife Rene's collaboration with artist Sandy Carruthers on the adventures of MS. MOLECULE!

All credit to Mort Todd for making it all happen and experimenting with this unique form of distribution. Act now and you can even save a little bit using the codes below! Go to http://morttodd.com/unusual.html 

and follow the Amazon links for either the actual comic book or the Kindle version!

Joseph-Beth and Booksteve

Longtime readers will recall that I began working for Waldenbooks in 1982. More than a decade before that, my 6th Grade self became the youngest manager of the bookstore in my grade school. I was fired for giving out the wrong change too often. I became a recess cookieseller instead.

I worked for Waldenbooks in downtown Cincinnati for one year, then moved to the Waldenbooks in Crestview Hills, KY for four years. From there, I spent nine years at the Florence Mall Waldenbooks before being promoted to return to the Crestview Hills store as manager for five years. 

In 2000, I transferred to the Eastgate Mall Waldenbooks on the outskirts of Cincinnati for three tumultuous years before jumping ship to Barnes and Noble at Cincinnati's Hyde Park location.

The Hyde Park location was near Joseph-Beth Booksellers, a large but independent bookstore based  out of Lexington, KY. I got one of my better ex-employees hired on there for a while. My B&N, however, closed after just a year and a half, and a sojourn at the Public Library didn't quite last that long.

Soon enough, I found myself back at Waldenbooks--although called Borders--at the Cincinnati Airport store where I bypassed assistant manager and finished up my bookstore career as manager once again when the concourse closed, followed by Borders going away completely soon afterwards.

Did I say "finished" my bookstore career?

After spending the past six years working with Craig Yoe, Martin Grams, Kathy Coleman, Greg Theakston, Dee Sutter, Jon B. Cooke, Roy Thomas, Shaun Clancy, Michael Eury, and Bhob Stewart--among others--on various books and other print projects, as of today I find myself once again working in a bookstore!

While I have no intention of giving up the successful writing career I'd always wanted, today was my first day at Joseph-Beth Booksellers! Ironically, I'm once again located at Crestview Hills, KY, where they took over the abandoned Borders location which replaced my former Waldenbooks!

I'm only part-time. It's all I wanted. And for now, I'm working in the stock room, but it's extra money, a reason to get out of the house, and hopefully the beginning of getting me back in shape and out of the funk that I've been in for a while now. 

Bookselling isn't just a job. It's a calling. I've told that to hundreds of people over the years and now I have once again answered that call.

Booksteve is BACK!

R.I.P. Peg Lynch

Pioneering radio and TV writer and comedic actress Peg Lynch has passed at 98. For several years, beginning in the mid-1990s, she was a fixture at the Cincinnati Old-Time Radio and Nostalgia Convention and even showed up one last time, aged 95 or so, for the final one, just a couple of years back. By that point, she was in a wheelchair and seemed a bit weak...until she got in front of a microphone.

 
Peg had begun her signature ETHEL & ALBERT series on radio. It was similar to the better-remembered program, THE BICKERSONS, only better. In THE BICKERSONS, Don Ameche and Francis Langford often fought like a married couple on the verge of a divorce...or murder. In the case of Ethel and Albert, it was bantering more than bickering. Sometimes at his expense, sometimes at hers. There was never any doubt that the pair adored each other

Peg not only retained all her own copyrights over the years but steadfastly refused to admit that old time radio was no longer a valid medium. To that end, she kept on writing new ETHEL & ALBERT scripts and performing them in public at various events.

Alan Bunce was her Albert on radio and TV but was long gone by that point. In Cincinnati, Parley Baer played opposite her in her early appearances and later Bob Hastings took on the role.

They used to auction off professionally recorded tapes of the convention shows every year and I would always try to win them since I was in some of the re-creations. As such, I also have a number of the latter-day ETHEL & ALBERT sketches.

I have to say I never found Peg Lynch to be as warm and friendly as other guests over the years but she was a thorough professional, a clever writer, a funny performer and an important, unsung person in broadcast history.

Rest in Peace.

Booksteve Reviews: Archie Vs. Sharknado

To be fair, I've never seen any of the SHARKNADO movies. I gather they're so over the top as to be of the "so bad they're good" variety...to some folks. And it's not like I haven't seen plenty of violent movies. There are several Troma flicks I quite enjoy! And as far as gory comics, I've done work on the HAUNTED HORROR comic book and its hardcover collections.

That said, John Goldwater is undoubtedly rolling over in his grave over this one. The Punisher thing worked. The GLEE and KISS tie-ins were well done. I even surprised myself by writing a good review of ARCHIE VS PREDATOR in ACE Magazine. But I can find no excuse nor justification of this one. ARCHIE VS SHARKNADO reads like nothing less than a late seventies NATIONAL LAMPOON style parody with its particularly unpleasant violence against well-loved characters.

The usually wonderful Dan Parent, who has done so much of the stuff that Archie has been rightly praised for in recent years, drew it and seems to have taken great morbid delight in moments of both sex and violence such as the above.

But Archie--AFTERLIFE and PREDATOR aside--is still a comic book franchise believed by the masses to still be safe for kids and teens...and if any kids get their hands on this comic book and their parents find out, it won't be pretty.

One of the WORST single issue comic books I have ever read. 

Booksteve does NOT recommend!

Lost Girl--The Audio Book: Coming Soon!

Thanks to Stu Shostak of the great STU'S SHOW, it looks like Kathy Coleman will actually have an audio version of our LOST GIRL relatively soon! We were all on Skype earlier today doing some test recordings from Stu's studio (The man is a whiz when it comes to editing on the fly!) and figuring out how to do things. It's happening! Thanks, Stu!

WW II Propaganda From Fawcett Comics

These very effective propaganda pages from early 1940s Fawcett Comics must have scared young readers half to death but they definitely got across the importance of the real world situations to kids who just wanted to watch Billy yell, "Shazam!"