Due to recent, extended absence, let’s cover six months of archive TV (and some classic film) viewing at Chez Chrissie! The previous entry is here…
The Rifleman seasons 2-5 (DVD)
Law of the Plainsman season 1 (download)
Naked City seasons 3-4 (DVD)
Johnny Ringo season 1 (download)
Branded seasons 1-2 (DVD)
Mike Hammer (1958) season 1 (download)
Doctor Who serials “The Space Museum” and “The Chase” (DVD)
For a while, we’d been letting Tikki go on ‘dates’ with other Westies. Finally, early in May this year she met a lad named Ollie and there was a successful pairing. We just wanted Tikki to have the experience of motherhood the one time, and intended to keep at least two of the litter so she’d have a couple of companions.
Tikki & Ollie, May 2022.
LOL, as they say. This is my third try at this Marie Portrait concept, done last December… I think I’ll leave it at that now! Please! No fourth tries!!
(NOTE: Marie is one of my characters, late of Club Vamporama [RIP], and, forthcomingly, Adventures of M.)
Previous attempts below, from 2019 and 2011 respectively…
This is a portrait of one of Tikki’s Westie Twitter friends from Ireland, who sadly passed away recently, a month or so after his 14th birthday.
Really, really sad to hear about the passing of Neal Adams. I think most of us can agree that he’s a highly significant figure in comics history.
I thought Neal was sure to be around for another 10-15 years, and producing decent art more or less till the day he died. The latter is virtually true—he was working on commissions as recently as ten days ago—but sadly, he had been fighting the effects of a sepsis infection for the past 11 months. That’s a tough battle at any age.
His later work is probably the stuff that will come to mind for some folks, and that’s… well, a small part of the story!! Neal’s art, for the past 30-35 years, has been generally solid and consistent, sometimes quite beautiful, if seldom a match for his peak stuff from the late ’60s through mid-’70s. But, it might be his increasingly eccentric writing that’s gained the most attention in recent years.
Batman: Odyssey, from 2010-11, which ran for 13 issues over two mini-series, had a lot of people scratching their heads. The distinctive and occasionally stunning visuals were a given, but Neal’s writing—barely flirting with conventional structure or internal logic—made the series something of a cult item. His writing only got weirder and more esoteric later on!
OK, so it’s 2022’s first-quarter viewings… Q4 of 2021 can be viewed here.
Have Gun Will Travel seasons 5-6 (DVD)
The Rifleman season 1 (DVD)
Batman and Robin 1949 serial (DVD)
Atom Man vs Superman 1950 serial (DVD)
Radar Men from the Moon 1952 serial (DVD)
A bit low on completed season viewings, but a very fond farewell to Have Gun Will Travel—things won’t seem the same without Paladin on the screen several times a week. On the other hand, Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain in Rifleman is a great stand-in… currently two-thirds through season 2, whilst also working through the spin-off series starring the excellent Michael Ansara, as Marshal Sam Buckhart—Law of the Plainsman. (You can view both series in their entirety on YouTube, if you’re so inclined.)
Chuck Connors with co-star Johnny Crawford—publicity still for THE RIFLEMAN (1958).
And movies! We’ve watched some movies.
As mentioned here, finally the post about Ray Harryhausen—not before time, as his work loomed large in my childhood!
(I’m assuming everyone knows who Ray is, and what stop-motion animation is…)
Stop-motion is, of course, long since deprecated, especially since the wonders of CGI took over everything and made the world of cinema so much more entertaining and lovely. Maybe I’m being a little facetious. Maybe I just prefer the human touch and don’t feel shiny perfection is the be-all and end-all of everything. How old-fashioned!!
Ray, like everyone else who saw it as a kid, became absolutely obsessed with the original King Kong (1933) when he got to see it during its original run. The ground-breaking visuals in Kong (especially the stop-motion work) inspired Ray to pursue the field himself. Unlike everyone else, he actually got to meet FX pioneer Willis O’Brien, who became his mentor.
Kong was my absolute fave as a little kid (still is, really). Well, how could you not love this fella?
It’s another quickie just to say, the Tickster is celebrating her fifth birthday today.
