Amiga ahead of its time

Ars Technica has started a series on the history of the Amiga microcomputer, a personal computing alternative to the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh that emerged in the last half of the 1980s. I remember a couple of computer enthusiast friends having these, and the graphics and sounds the Amiga could produce were very impressive for its time.

Part 1: Genesis begins with a flashback to the final day at Commodore in 1994, then traces the roots of the computer back to the video game console craze of the late '70s.

Part 2: The Birth of the Amiga tells how the computer emerged from the early '80s crash of the video game market. It seems funny to think that there was a time when video games fell out of favor, but it happened. To make the investors happy, the original product was designed to look like a game console, but it had the capability to be expanded into a true computer. When the video game business collapsed, the investors asked the engineers to redirect their efforts to the personal computer market and were pleased to learn the engineers had had that in mind all along. Interesting, too, how the development team kept their plans below the computer industry radar, through the use of code names and a diversionary tactic -- a sideline of developing add-ons to the Atari gaming system.

Part 3: The First Prototype covers the creation of a working model and its introduction at electronics industry trade shows. The article also delves into the Amiga's technical innovations that later became standard: application programming interface, multitasking microcomputer, a true windowing system. The third installment ends with Amiga's acquisition by Commodore.

The stories aren't all technical, and they include insights into the people who created Amiga, their work habits, their backgrounds, the way they approach problems. Very interesting, and I look forward to future installments.

Disney dissed LBJ

One of those funny, improbable stories that turns out to be true: Walt Disney discreetly wore a Goldwater lapel pin when accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and it's believed he flashed it at the president during the ceremony. Link found at Mark Evanier's blog.

Jack Kirby honored

I'm a DC man myself, but I should at least acknowledge this Sunday New York Times piece about Jack Kirby, the mind behind so many of Marvel Comics' famous characters. This was interesting:

The frenetic action and the rooftop fighting so common on the superhero set did not just materialize out of nowhere. Mr. Kirby remembered much of it from his Depression-era youth on New York’s Lower East Side, where, he once told an interviewer, the incessant fights among rival gangs were often staged up and down fire escapes and during running battles across tenement rooftops.

The Times piece itself seems to have some pieces missing. The writer doesn't explain his description of Kirby as a "an abused and neglected genius" or provide any examples of this assertion: "Marvel took his talents for granted and denied him the credit and compensation he clearly deserved."

G. O. Fizzickle Pogo

Happy 94th birthday to Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo. Mark Evanier, webmaster of the official pogopossum.com website, writes about growing into an appreciation of the comic strip.

The dialogue was inaccessible to my toddler mind and even when I could decode what I could decode, I wasn't sure what they were all yelling about. In a way, it was frustrating the way it's frustrating to watch certain TV shows with the sound off. You can tell something interesting is being said but it drives you up the ever-lovin' wall to be denied it.

That was how I felt about Walt Kelly's swampland comic strip up until the age when I started to "get it." I knew it was funny. The characters were so alive and expressive. You could tell just from their poses that wonderful things happened in their world. You could also tell that the guy drawing all them amusing pics was a man of great humor and wit.

As Carolyn Kelly promised, the cover, table of contents, and first chapter of G. O. Fizzickle Pogo, has been posted, wherein we learn how pointless it is to tell a turtle that something is as plain as the nose on his face.

If you follow this link and scroll down, there is a synopsis of G. O. Fizzickle Pogo. I'd forgotten that this one included a Little Orphan Annie parody. Albert poses as Lulu Arfin' Nanny with his eyes "blunked out."

For Better, For Worse, For Ever

Not a big fan of the strip, but this is worth noting for its implications for the newspaper comics business. Lynn Johnston is retiring from writing For Better or For Worse, her long running strip that chronicles the Patterson family and which, unusually for comics, had the characters age almost on par with the real-world calendar. (Gasoline Alley is the only other strip I can think of where characters grew up, grew old, and spawned new generations of characters.)

Although Johnston won't be writing much new material, she will be producing some framing strips to introduce story lines from the first decade of the comic. And her characters will stop aging.

Q: Traditionally, cartoonists who wanted to retire from the daily grind of newspaper strips had two options: hand their creation over to another cartoonist [what’s called a “legacy strip”] or quit and take the strip down with you, the choice of Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes) and Gary Larson (The Far Side). Why not follow their lead?

A: Initially that was my plan, and I had sort of speculated on what type of work would fill that space, because that little piece of real estate in the newspaper is a pretty coveted one. Then when Universal Press [her syndicate] said that they felt there was real opportunity to run the older strips, I thought about it and decided that their argument was a good one. Because there were many, many papers that did not pick up the strip in the first 10 years, so in a lot of markets those first 10 years were never seen.

But then there were other editors, like at the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Sun, the Chicago Tribune, who have been wonderful supporters right from Day 1, and I didn’t want to sell those editors the same material without adding something new. So that was my thinking. It would not only give me the satisfaction of still being in touch with the characters, but I would also be providing some new material for the editors and readers.

This is an interesting compromise, and probably a good one from the perspective of Johnston, her syndicate, the newspapers, and her fans. Not so good for cartoonists looking for a chance to break into newsprint. There's only so much space for comics, and it's shrinking all the time.

Pogo on the radio

Tomorrow would have been the 94th birthday of Walt Kelly, creator of the classic comic strip Pogo. Today, Walt's daughter Carolyn Kelly will be interviewed on the pop culture / nostalgia radio program Time Travel. The show will air this afternoon from 4 to 5 p.m. Eastern time on WRNJ, and should be available on the Time Travel program archive page sometime soon.

That archive page has interviews with June Foray (the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha), Noel Blanc (son of voice artist Mel Blanc and a voice artist in his own right), Phil Vischer (creator of Veggie Tales), and Joan Ganz Cooney (creator of Sesame Street).

It also has an interview with Mark Evanier, whose years in the television and comics industries makes his news from me one of the best pop culture blogs I've found. Mark doesn't just appreciate the pop culture we grew up with, he worked alongside the people who created it. Mark is also the webmaster for the official PogoPossum.com website. Right now his homepage has several videos of Tom Lehrer performing "Werner von Braun," "Pollution," and "National Brotherhood Week." Mark's blog is a daily read for me, and that's how I found out about the Carolyn Kelly radio interview.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Carolyn Kelly released an exciting bit of news at the very end of the program. Starting this weekend she'll be posting pages from G. O. Fizzickle Pogo, the paperback compilation of strips from 1957-58. She says it's to tide us all over until the first volume of the Fantagraphics series is released in December. The Fantagraphics series will be a hardcover compilation of the complete daily and Sunday strips, starting at the beginning. Fantagraphics has been doing the same thing with Peanuts (they're now up to the 1964 strips) and Walt Kelly's Our Gang comic books.

(It's funny to think, as visually different as Peanuts and Pogo are, the age difference is only two years one year. They started in 1951 and 1949 1950 and 1949 respectively. I'm using syndication as the birthdate for the strips, although I know both strips had a "prehistory.")

G. O. Fizzickle Pogo gets its name from the International Geophysical Year, the 18-month period for the measurement and study of planet Earth. Pondering an 18-month year leads to speculations about one and a half birthdays and one and a half Christmases. Howland leads an expedition to map the world by skiff, equipped with a blank globe. The Sputnik launches are reflected in this book as well.

Playback singers

It's interesting to see how the same pop culture element evolves in two different countries. Take singing in the movies in Hollywood and Bollywood. Both the American and Indian film industries had to cope with the reality of beautiful actresses who couldn't carry a tune, a problem when it came time to cast a musical.

In Hollywood, such singers were rarely acknowledged publicly. Their names became answers to trivia questions. Marni Nixon, whose singing was dubbed in for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Deborah Kerr in The King and I, is probably the best known.

In Bollywood, there's a name for the job: playback singer. These singers are credited, compete for awards, and have fans in their own right. This very catchy song, "Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu," is acted by Helen, but sung by playback singer Geeta Dutt.

Growing up Freberg

Remember the Encyclopedia Brittanica ads featuring a teenage boy with glasses, long blond hair and a somewhat smug attitude?




Turns out the writer and voiceover for the commercial was comedian Stan Freberg, and that's his son Donavan Freberg pitching the benefits of Brittanica.

Donavan has a blog. A couple of blogs actually, one of which is NSFWHOAE*, so I won't link to it. The other is a fascinating and funny memoir of his very unusual childhood, growing up in the Spanish-style mansion he calls "Stan Simeon," 911 North Beverly Drive. He explains in one entry why at a young age he had "bags under my eyes the size of Louis Vuitton steamer trunks".

I cannot ever remember, from the age of 1-6, ever going to bed before midnight.

My parents were night people, so it would follow suit that I would be too.

If I wasn't playing Asteroids with Blondie in the recording studio lounge, or in bed with mom watching Starsky & Hutch while eating Cap'n Crunch and half and half, or swimming with my sister in Sean Cassidy's pool, I was with my best friend.

Daddy.

My father picked me up when I was born and did not put me down until I was thirty.

We had endless adventures together.

And
they
all
took
place
at
night.

He writes about showing up for school at 10 a.m., his daily morning present from his parents, and how, at age five, he was given his new name. His old name had been "Baby Boy" until then. (Bad case of writer's block.)


* Not Safe For Work, Home, Or Anywhere Else