Giving thanks..... for the memories!

Well, since most of us are carving up a turkey tomorrow, I think I should give some thanks. As this is my blog where I write about my artistic endeavors and such, I'd like to give a big 'Muchas Gracias' to the universe of inspiration I grew up with. I was born in the 60s, but really was a consumer of 1970s television, cartoons and comic books. In the 70s, we would have no shortage of reruns on the tube. Lots of shows from the 60s, as well as movies, would be readily available for us. Who says you need 500 channels to catch some good stuff on the telly?

The following images represent only a fraction of the things I wanted to share with you, but no need to fill up the page with hundreds of images and icons of what made my creative mind tingle in my personal Golden Age. Suffice to say that the images I've posted here represent an assortment of comics, cartoons, television shows, movies and other larger-than-life characters that in so many ways left an impression on me to later create my own stories and characters. Instead of showing all the artists, storytellers, etc who made this stuff, I think the eye candy speaks for itself!



There's one particular person I have to thank in regards to all the creative paths I've pursued all these years. My older brother Albert, shown here with me back a couple of years ago:



Albert, in case you hadn't heard me mention this before, was a collector of comic books, and something of an artist himself, back in the early 70s. I guess he came to a point where he wanted to do other things as he became a teenager, so one day when I was about 9 yrs old or so, he gave me his small stack of comic books. These were a goldmine of treasures! Most of the books were from around 1970, when he bought comics for about a year or so. I got the creme of the crop of Marvel books: John Romita SPIDER-MAN (as well as Steve Ditko Spidey reprints in MARVEL TALES), Jack Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR and THOR, Herb Trimpe HULK, Gene Colan DAREDEVIL, IRON MAN & CAPTAIN AMERICA, and on and on. There was even some DC Comics in the mix, BATMAN, SUPERMAN and others. To my young mind, these were just the most amazing thing ever. Larger than life heroes, decked out in colorful costumes, with some of the most imaginative artists creating thrilling pages and pages of action-packed stories.

Albert was also drawing quite a bit back in those days, mainly some stylized cartoon baseball and football players. Funny thing is, I never took to sports at all, but I sure as heck wanted to draw like big brother Al. So the comics and the drawing came from him, which no doubt led to searching out for my own comics, which at that time cost 25 cents a piece. I think the leap from comic books to the Six Million Dollar Man and tons of other shows was a natural progression.

I sometimes wonder what would I have been like if my brother never collected comics himself, or never filled up a sketchbook with his own creations?

I shudder to think I would be writing a sports blog or something else today!!

Thanks Albert...couldn't have done it without you.

And thanks to all them characters and creators who filled my hours with cracking good entertainment!