Todd Klein's Blog, page 140

Rereading: DOCTOR DOLITTLE’S RETURN by Hugh Lofting

As i work my way through my collection of the Doctor Dolittle series, I found I hadn’t remembered much about this one. I may have only read it once before. Lofting had published a book in the series nearly every year from 1920 to 1928. “Doctor Dolittle in the Moon” of 1928 was meant to be the final book, but as often happens with popular series, Lofting resumed with this one in 1933 either due to popular demand, because he missed writing them, or perhaps financial or other reasons.

The doctor’s animal family in his home in Puddleby-on-the-Marsh miss him greatly, though Dolittle’s assistant Tommy Stubbins continues to keep everything running as best he can by doing some odd jobs to pay the bills. Everyone is waiting for the signal from the moon that the doctor is on his way back, and it finally comes during an eclipse when everyone is watching, a huge puff of white smoke. A few days later, a giant locust arrives with Dolittle on his back, along with his animal companions Chee-Chee the monkey and Polynesia the parrot. Everyone is shocked to see how large the doctor has grown due to the diet on the moon, even though Tommy Stubbins had grown there before he was sent back a year earlier. Dolittle is much bigger, far too big to fit into his own house! Once he has recovered his senses, he begins an exercise regimen that will reduce his size back to normal in a month or two. Another traveler has come with them, Itty the Moon Cat. She is mostly an ordinary cat who has agreed not to harm or frighten the rest of the animals living in and around the Dolittle home. The other animals fear and shun her despite the doctor’s insistence she be welcomed. Surprisingly, this is the first house cat ever to appear in the series. Lofting was clearly not a cat person.

Once the doctor has recovered, he is anxious to begin work on a book about his discoveries on the moon, but is soon swamped with animal patients who take all his time. A plan is hatched to get the doctor into a place where no one will bother him: jail. It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to achieve. Tommy Stubbins begins to take up the slack in the animal doctoring business. He has no medical training, but has been assisting Dolittle for some years, and the animals soon come to accept his treatments.

Many more interesting episodes and stories fill this volume, including the tale of Doctor Dolittle’s final months on the moon, and how he came to return. I’d place it near the top of my favorites now, perhaps third behind “The Voyages” and “Post Office.” Three more to go, but this one is certainly recommended.

LETTERER APPRECIATION DAY 2018

This annual event was begun last year by Nate Piekos and others. I had nothing to do with its creation, but I’m all for it. If we can have such silly things as National Trail Mix Day (yesterday) or National Chicken Boy Day (today), why not this one? The date was chosen because it was the birthday of Gaspar Saladino, one of comics’ best and most prolific letterers, and my role model and friend.

I suggest you celebrate by sending appreciative messages to letterers you like. I’m celebrating by linking to some of the many articles I’ve written about letterers on this blog, and posting them on Facebook as well. Here are a few:

ABE KANEGSON, Letterer for Will Eisner

THE DANNY CRESPI FILES, Part 1 of 14 (so far)

GASPAR SALADINO featured in The DC Comics Offices Part 4

EARLY IRA SCHNAPP DC COMICS HOUSE ADS

MORE EARLY IRA SCHNAPP DC COMICS HOUSE ADS

GASPAR SALADINO, an obituary and appreciation

GASPAR SALADINO COVER LETTERING Part 1 of 4

HOWARD FERGUSON, letterer for Simon & Kirby

IRA SCHNAPP, His Life, Work and Family Part 4 of 6

IRA SCHNAPP IN ACTION COMICS Part 1  (Many other Schnapp studies on my blog)

JOHN WORKMAN AND TODD KLEIN Part 1 of 2

LEROY LETTERING BY JIM AND MARGARET WROTEN

TODD KLEIN, My Work, by the Numbers

THE RISE OF DIGITAL LETTERING, Part 1 of 7

VISITING DC COMICS IN THE 1960S Part 2 of 3 (Includes Ira Schnapp and other letterers)

TODD KLEIN letters covers by hand

And Then I Read: DANNY’S LUCK by Lavinia R. Davis

I’ve been collecting books by favorite authors since my childhood. My main goal is to find and enjoy reading books by authors I like, and there are a lot of those. Many of the authors have been favorites from my childhood, like Lavinia R. Davis.

Davis is little known today except as the author of two Caldecott Honor Books illustrated by Hildegard Woodward, as is this one. The Caldecott Medal is for the illustrator. Those are “Roger and the Fox,” and “The Wild Birthday Cake.” These three and a few others are for young readers, with illustrations on nearly every page, and about 50 pages.

“Danny’s Luck” is a simple but charming story of a boy turning seven on Halloween who has been told he’s getting a very special birthday present that begins with the letter B. As he walks home from school he wonders what it could be, and comes to the conclusion it’s a new bike. This does not please him, as he’s not a good bike rider. But, perhaps it’s something else. Davis is at her best with animals, as with the cat Inky seen here, and it was no surprise to me that the birthday surprise was one, though I didn’t guess it until nearly the end. it’s a heart-warming and beautifully illustrated book that I found at a used book store this week (one of the few survivors) for $6.00. On Amazon you can find it for about $30, more that I would pay.

My favorite Davis books are about children and horses, ponies and donkeys, all riding animals, with the top title being “Hobby Horse Hill.” There are eight of them, published between 1939 and 1955 in hardcover, though there was a 1963 paperback of “Hobby Horse Hill” from Scholastic Books in 1963. That was my introduction to Davis’s wonderful horse books, and I’ve collected the rest over the years. She wrote over 40 books in all, including adult mysteries, teen romance stories, and several children’s novels under the pen name “Wendell Farmer.” I’m still looking for a few of those. She was a fine writer, and I recommend all her books, but especially the animal ones.

 

And Then I Read: DRAGON’S BLOOD by Jane Yolen

Cover illustration © Dominick Domingo.

There have been a lot of dragon-centric fantasy books since Tolkien and C.S. Lewis brought them to fame. Of the ones I’ve read, this one seems most similar to the Pern novels of Anne McCaffrey, except that the dragons of this particular distant planet are mainly used as fighting animals in arenas, similar to what the Romans did with lions and other wild beasts.

Jakkin is fifteen and works for a Dragon Master, cleaning dragon stalls and giving the huge beasts mud baths. He is a bond servant, meaning he must work for his master, Sarkkhan until he has earned enough coins to buy his own freedom. Jakkin longs to be a dragon master himself, and he steals a young hatchling dragon from the master’s dragon birthing stalls and takes him to an oasis in the desert outside the compound, hoping to raise and train the baby dragon on his own, secretly. Back in the compound, Jakkin has friends among the other bond servants, and one enemy, an older man named Likkarn, in charge of the young bonders, who seems to have it in for Jakkin and even causes him to be badly wounded by an angry dragon. Jakkin’s plan seems hopeless, but somehow, with help from a few others in the compound, he manages to raise and train the young dragon, forming a mental bond with the creature that only the best trainers can. But how can he possibly get his secret dragon into the fighting pits to win gold for his own freedom?

Jane Yolen writes a fast-paced and exciting story with great characters and enough plot surprises to keep the story fresh. This is the first book of a trilogy, and I will look for the others. Recommended.

Sand Sculpting with Tim, 2018

All images © Todd Klein.

My friend Tim is visiting for a few days, and that means it’s sand sculpture time! You can see many of our past efforts at the Sand Sculpture category on the right column of this blog. We were at the beach Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and each did a sculpture each day. Above is my pyramid, with Tim’s rather indescribable piece in the background. Most of our sculptures the last few years have been inspired by the incredible ones of Calvin Seibert, examples HERE. 

Tim’s work has several abstract elements, and to me has a Steve Ditko feel. The hardest part is getting a smooth finish on the flat surfaces, which Tim is better at than me.

As the tide came in, Tim had to stop working on the cubes at bottom and he signed the top.

We were able to see the complete watery dissolution of our carvings on Friday, as high tide was before we left. The other two days we had to leave before that happened. Here it’s near the end.

On Saturday I made a sculpture with hexagonal towers, and added hemispheres created with a tool for that around the outside. I think this was more interesting than my Friday one, but I didn’t have the time or talent to get much of it finished smooth.

There were clouds some of the day, but the sun came out long enough for a few pictures. It’s hard to judge size from the photos, this was about three feet high. That’s about what you have time to do in four to six hours, depending on how complex it is.

Here are both Saturday sculptures.

Tim’s more finished work is like a pile of thick disks atop buttress-like legs. We don’t know what it is, but it seems like it wants to walk off like a spider.

Another view of Tim’s creation. The undercutting is tricky work, but Tim did well with it here.

Tim’s Sunday work included a very exact pyramid created with the help of wooden dowels that left a nice groove along the edges, and a small arch.

I call mine a crazy castle, with each level at a diagonal to the ones above and below, and the top layer is wider at the top than the bottom.

This is less abstract than the rest, but still very stylized. The crenellations are made from small cubes of sand cut and placed around the top edges.

This shot brings out the crazy angles, I think. I’m quite pleased with it.

Here’s another view of Tim’s work showing the textured area below the arch, a mix of dripped sand and cutting.

A better look at the pyramid. I tried using the dowels for my Friday pyramid, but couldn’t get it to work. Tim has more patience.

One final picture of my crazy castle from above. We had fun with these, but three days of sculpting is a lot, and we’re taking a rest day today. There may be more later in the week.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #50

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Robert Venditti, art by Rafa Sandoval and Jordi Tarragona, colors by Tomeu Morey, letters by Dave Sharpe.

I believe this is the last issue of this title, and it’s a fine finish. The Corps are battling the Darkstars on two fronts: on Mogo, their headquarters, and the planet that’s headquarters for the Darkstars. There Hal Jordan and Tomar-Tu, leader of the Darkstars, are fighting one on one, while Hal tries to convince Tomar-Tu to change his ways before it’s too late. The GL Corps stand for justice and the right to a trial, the Darkstars simply want to murder criminals, or anyone who gets in their way. Elsewhere, huge clashes continue. Some of the allies recruited to help have different ideas about Justice, to say the least.

Writer Robert Venditti has done a fine job on this book, keeping my interest even when serving the fight-lovers. I know there’s a new GL title in the works to replace this one with a new creative team, which I will certainly be trying, but hats off to Robert and the many fine artists who have kept me entertained here for some time.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: HAL JORDAN & THE GL CORPS #48

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Robert Venditti, art by Rafa Sandoval and Jordi Tarragona, colors by Tomeu Morey, letters by Dave Sharpe.

Having gathered as many allies as they can, and rescued Guy Gardner from being a Darkstar himself, the GL Corps is ready to take on the Darkstars. The main battle front is in the skies of Mogo, where Tomar-Tu, former Green Lantern and now leader of the Darkstars, is leading their killing force. Elsewhere, on the Darkstar homeworld, others are fighting the home guard in an effort to penetrate the planet’s defenses for well-planned reasons. Yes, this issue is mainly fighting, but I did find it interesting and clever.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: THE FLASH #49

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Joshua Williamson, art by Howard Porter, colors by Hi-Fi, letters by Steve Wands.

Part 3 of “Flash War” is mostly about Barry Allen and Wally West racing around and around Earth at incredible speeds while arguing. Wally wants to break through the Speed Force, whatever that means, to rescue the children he’s been told are trapped inside it. His own children from a previously wiped-away timeline. Barry is trying to argue him out of it. The rest of the world is watching this speed show with great alarm. Military forces are helpless. Superman and the Justice League are brought in to try and stop things, but even Superman can’t catch up to them. What will happen if Wally succeeds? The signs are ominous.

This appealed to me in a way that an issue-long fight would not, and the back-and-forth between the two speedsters was interesting. Recommended. Big things expected for issue #50 next.

And Then I Read: FRENCH LESSONS by Peter Mayle

Cover illustration by Ruth Marten.

Like the other two Mayle books I’ve read recently, this is a collection of essays on a theme. The theme here is food and drink, and the connecting thread is the author’s treks around France to various festivals, activities and events celebrating some of the more unusual items on the French menu. Accompanied by French gourmet friends, and occasionally his wife, Mayle investigates frogs and their edible legs, chickens with blue feet, very smelly cheese, snails, French Riviera bistros, a marathon through wine vineyards, an intoxicating wine auction in Burgundy, a gourmet health spa and more. All the adventures are told in Mayle’s very entertaining and witty style with plenty of humor directed at himself as well as those he meets. I have now decided that Mayle’s writing will please and delight me no matter what topic he tackles, as in a few here that normally I would not want to read about! I will look for more Mayle books at future book sales.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: MISTER MIRACLE #10

Image © DC Entertainment. Written by Tom King, art and coloring by Mitch Gerads, lettering by Clayton Cowles.

Unlike the last few issues, this one takes place mainly on Earth, in the continuity where Scott Free, Barda and their infant son Jacob are living a mundane existence in a nondescript apartment in an anywhere, USA neighborhood. Scott continues to be torn apart by the decision he’s been asked to make: he can halt the current war between Apokolips and New Genesis, thereby saving millions of lives, if he is willing to give his son Jack to Darkseid. Scott and Barda grew up on Apokolips, so they know full well what that would mean for Jack. Barda is understandably against it, but Scott is wavering, haunted by the choice. Not much happens physically this issue, but a great deal happens emotionally and between the characters. It’s an issue that shows how powerful good comics writing can be. Oh, and how did I not notice before that the baby has the same first name as his parents’ creator?

Recommended.