Category: True Stories

Frank Frazetta 1928-2010

By MARYCLAIRE DALE (AP)

PHILADELPHIA — Pioneering fantasy artist Frank Frazetta died Monday in a Fort Myers, Fla., hospital, a manager said. He was 82.

Frazetta had been out to dinner with his daughters Sunday but suffered a stroke at his Boca Grande home later that night and was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital, manager Rob Pistella said. A hospital spokeswoman confirmed the death, as did his daughter Heidi Frazetta Grabin.

“He’s going to be remembered as the most renowned fantasy illustrator of the 20th Century,” Pistella said.

Frazetta created covers and illustrations for more than 150 books and comic books, along with album covers, movie posters and original paintings. His illustrations of Conan the Barbarian, Tarzan, Vampirella and other characters influenced many later artists.
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Frazetta had many imitators, but there was only one Frazetta.

The image above was one of my favorites in the 1970s, but my girlfriend wasn’t impressed when I projected it and copied it onto my dorm room wall with water-color marker, so I broke up with her. I was like that back then.

[Image from here, news blurb from here. Crossposted here and here.]

Roadtrip 1976


I was back from college on Easter break. The Weasel and I were cruising the southwestern Ohio sticks with a 12-pack, talking trash and listening to 8-track tapes when nature called. I pulled my ‘57 Chevy into a dark parking lot behind an elementary school and stopped.

Before we were out of the car, headlights flashed from the other end of the parking lot and rushed toward us as another car skidded to a stop just behind, blocking us in. The police ordered us out of the car at gunpoint.

Suddenly we didn’t have to pee so bad — we had to pee worse.

Shining a flashlight around the inside of the car (and spotting only the beer) the cop remarked that there were no rocks or baseball bats. Seems that there had been some vandalism at the school, and the police were staking it out.

We explained why we were there, that we’d just stopped to take a leak. The officer said something I’ll never forget: “To go driving around with a friend and having a few beers is okay.”

And with that, he let us go.

[Image from here.]

Latawnya, the Naughty Horse

What a children’s classic, complete with illustrations of horses drinking and smoking. The plot summary of this 29 page work of excellence follows [spoiler alert]:

Latawnya the Naughty Horse comes from a large family, and she and her sisters Daisy and Latoya go out to play where they meet up with some horses that are smoking drugs and drinking alcohol, so Latawnya the Naughty Horse joins them and gets sick. Her sister horses rat her out to her parents. Her father, James, tells her about one of his horse friends who died from an overdose, Latawnya the Naughty Horse says that drugs and and alcohol are bad, and her parent horses kiss and hug her. The End.

There are many questions left unresolved in this pressure cooker, like where do horses get drugs and alcohol and how do they pay for it?  Who in their right mind gives horses lighters and matches? How do horses hug?  Why did  Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, have to try out smoking and drinking first before she came to her own conclusions? Guess we’ll have to wait for the sequel.

[Fully illustrated novel may be reviewed in its entirety here.  Found here.]

Now More Than Ever, The New and Improved Cutting Edge Wave of the Future Tacky Raccoons Store is Officially Open!


This is blogwhoring at its worst, but it’s blogwhoring in the good sense of the word, and just in time for the Holidays. A simple click on either image will take you to the Official Cutting Edge Wave of the Future New and Improved Now More Than Ever Tacky Raccoons Store for almost all your clothing and caffeine container needs. After all, it’s for the children, and the awesome design is awesome.

With Practice, You Too Can Administer Popular Posterior Vaccinations In Your Spare Time.

Yep. That’s  a simulated buttcheek for hypodermic needle training practice, and it tells you if you’ve done it right. That’s right, THIS HALF-ASS SPEAKS.

This strap-on simulator is a lifelike model of a right buttock with anatomical landmarks needed for injections. Correctly administered injections produce audiovisual feedback.

Just think how much fun this could be at frat parties, what with the anatomical landmarks and all… give a shot, take a shot. I hope they come up with a left-handed model.

[Found via here. I won’t link directly as the original source has graphic images for other medical training products that are NSFW/NSFK and kinda nasty otherwise.]

35 Years Ago Today

[Image from here.]

The Original Pointer Sisters

Plastic face protection from snowstorms. Canada, Montreal, 1939, and they were apparently available in two sizes, regular and deluxe. For some reason, this comes to mind. G’head. Click it.

[Found here, via here.]

This Is Only A Test.

Fellow Netizens, my friend Cbullitt of Soylent Green alerted me to an internet-wide blog protest in response to the Censorship of the cable cartoon show “South Park.” The image above, with permission from the designer Chris Muir, is scheduled to show up throughout the blogosphere at midnight tonight. Cbullitt wrote:

“I’m not an artist or Cartoonist, but Chris Muir is and Trey Parker and Matt Stone are. And Theo Van Gough was. Muir, whose work you see above, obviously does not ascribe to the dictum displayed in the cowardice of Comedy Central, the EU, and the U.S. Government under the last four administrations, namely: Feeding the crocodile in hopes that it will eat you last.”

To be truthful, I’ve never seen an episode of “South Park” although I understand its popularity due to its irreverent humor. The recent imposition of domestic sharia law on the writers of “South Park” for a joke involving the Prophet Muhammed is inexcusable in the Land of the Free and the Home of the First Amendment.

Let’s celebrate our First Amendment Rights before we lose them. Continue reading “This Is Only A Test.”

A Tortoise in Paris

This is Beyond the Valley of Awesome, 26 Gigapixels worth.

That’s a panoramic view of Paris above,  the Eiffel Tower is on the horizon at far left. The black donut in middle left is where we’re going. I didn’t believe it at first, until I zoomed in. Below are screen shots from the same image.

We zoom in a little, the Eiffel Tower is still there, skewed by the lens.

Ignore the yellow “I’s” here. On the website linked above you can use them to click for zoomed images of historical sites.

That image by itself would be worth copying and framing, IMO.

The orange dealies scattered around are clay chimney pots, vents for the flats below.

It’s likely the tortoise was photoshopped in as a prank/copyright by the professional zoomers since there is no barrier to keep it from falling off of the sheet metal roof, but I don’t care… the photo detail is still awesome. After all, look where we came from:

[Link found here. Zoom Archive here.]

Giant Isopod! Yay!

These pups live in the deep, scrounging around in the darkness for rotted detritus, and occasionally they are captured on trawling lines. The one in the picture is about 2-1/2 feet long  and was found clinging to a submarine returning from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re related to common pillbugs, wood lice and lawn shrimp. Wikipiddlia has this:

“In northern Taiwan and other areas, they are common at seaside restaurants, served boiled and bisected with a clean lateral slice. The white meat, similar to crab or lobster in texture, is then easily removed.”

I’d eat it.

[Image with story found here. Crossposted here.]