THE RETURN OF JACK MYSTERY: Childhood Imagination and the Creative Process (A mix of truths and white lies)

This was originally written as the concluding section of a three-part look back at a comic-book superhero I created as a child. It's slightly tweaked here to stand on its own, possibly as part of my eventual short story collection Guitars Vs. Rayguns!!

The original post has been unpublished for bookkeeping purposes. It can be seen as a chapter in my book Guitars Vs Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies.

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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.

POP-A-LOOZA: The Comic Book Telephone Pitches, Part 1

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is the first of two reminiscences about the times I dialed up comic book companies and tried to get work, "The Comic Book Telephone Pitches, Part 1."

Although I've sold prose fiction to the good folks at AHOY Comics, I never did get around to writing comics professionally. Some of my abortive attempts to do so have been examined on this blog: DC Comics, Marvel Comics, The Green Hornet (a teaser blurb and some initial script pages), and my own character Jack Mystery. Getting back to prose, I wrote a Batman short story, the start of a Wonder Woman short story, a DC Comics Crisis fantasy called "The Loveable Lunkhead Returns," and the first five chapters of an original novel, Eternity Man! And, of course, there are the connected short stories I've sold to AHOY: "The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid," "The Copperhead Strikes!," and "The Copperhead Affair," plus the recently-published "Chaos At The Copperhead Club," discussed here but not yet available to share on the blog. For humor, there's also my foul-mouthed sci-fi rock 'n' roll farce "Guitars Vs. Rayguns," and a bunch of unsold stories: "Home Of The Hits," "Pop Friction," "Sword Of The Chosen One," "Montie Pylon Finds His Holy Grail," "The Greatest Thud Never Heard," and "Dreaming Deadly."

"Chaos At The Copperhead Club," illustration by Ed Catto

For now, we turn the clock back a few decades to the first of a couple of stories about me calling comic book people and saying, "HIRE ME!" "The Comic Book Telephone Pitches, Part 1" is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

POP-A-LOOZA: Comic Strip Club

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is my reminiscence about reading newspaper comics, "Comic Strip Club."'

While a look at this blog's comics label reveals well over 200 times I've written about comic books, I've never written very much about newspaper comic strips. Other than "Comic Strip Club," some passing mention in my Everlasting First recollections of discovering Flash Gordon and Tarzan, and the history of my own creation Jack Mystery, the only other notable comic strip connection here is 2018's "Dick Tracy Meets The Green Hornet!," my enthusiastic reaction to the news that those two pop culture icons would be meeting in the Dick Tracy strip.

(As a tangent to that, it's worth noting that my prevailing interest in the Green Hornet and Kato has also manifested in an Everlasting First piece, a Greatest Record Ever Made! piece about "The Green Hornet Theme," an abortive attempt at a 1966-set Green Hornet rock 'n' roll comic book called The Beat And The Sting (represented in a teaser and in some introductory pages), and--of course!--radio commercials starring the Green Hornet and Kato and (separately) the Beatles for a fast-food taco restaurant. Another challenge for the Green Hornet!)

But right now, we talk about the serious subject of the funny pages. "Comic Strip Club" is the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.

POP-A-LOOZA: Captain Marvel Adventures?

With one magic word--SHAZAM!--young Billy Batson is transformed into the World's Mightiest Mortal: CAPTAIN MARVEL!

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a wish for what I'd like to see in comic book (and other) stories starring the original Captain Marvel: "Captain Marvel Adventures?"

As a comic book fan and a would-be writer, I've often imagined how I might like to see new heroic adventures play out. Some of the notions involved existing characters like Captain Marvel, Batman, Spider-Man, The Green Hornet, The Justice Society of America, and others featured my own creations. Here are a few notions (and one complete Batman story) that made their way to my blog:

Aquaman and Batman by DC Comics great Jim Aparo

BATMAN AND AQUAMAN: The Undersea World Of Mr. Freeze [complete]

BATMAN AND WONDER WOMAN: Paradise Does Not Believe In Tears [introductory scene only, without the heroes]

BATMAN MEETS THE MONKEES

SPIDER-MAN: Marvel Comics Try-Out

THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA: The Movie

THE GREEN HORNET '66: The Beat And The Sting teaser and introductory pages

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD: A 12-issue series of Batman team-ups [teaser and blueprint]

MY FAILED ATTEMPTS TO WRITE FOR DC COMICS

THE TELEPHONE PITCHES: Harvey Comics and The Mighty Crusaders, and The Monkees

And my own people:

The JACK MYSTERY Story

ETERNITY MAN! chapters 1 through 5

The Last Ride Of The Copperhead Kid

The Copperhead Strikes!

My pulp hero The Copperhead, depicted by artist Shane White

(There's also my secret agent story "The Copperhead Affair," discussed here when it hit comic book stores in 2020. The introductory paragraphs of a follow-up story "Chaos At The Copperhead Club" were posted here.)

And what the hell, some attempts to write and draw:

THE SNOWMAN

AGENT 690: Man Of ACTION!

HERO

ADVENTURE!! And my idea of the Captain Marvel adventures I'd like to see provides the subject for the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

CAPTAIN MARVEL SAVES THE DAY! Art by Alex Ross

TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

The Game Of The Name

Can you name, name, name, name them today?

When you write fiction, you generally have to come up with names for your characters. Even in short fiction, you may find that referring to your players just as "He," "She," "That Dude," or "Designated Pronoun" can grow tiresome over the course of your narrative. The expectation of names isn't absolute, and I think I've done some effective short pieces where individuals are not given specific handles. More often that not, though, your baby needs a name.

Where do our fictional names come from? Well, that can be answered the same way we reply when someone asks us where we get our ideas: I dunno. The creative process is enigmatic, elusive, mysterious, and stubborn, and it tends to drool a lot. And it never picks up the damned bill at diners. It's a right bastard, that creative process. Rather than risk our sanity trying to make sense of That Dude behind the curtain, maybe it's best to just look at the results.




My first character creations were superheroes, scrawled on construction paper, notebook pages, and loose-leaf sheets when I was in elementary school. Skipping past some of the maybe less-than-entirely-original names I gave to a few of my characters--Batman, Kid Colt, The Avengers--I recall coming up with various good guys and bad guys named Rain-Hat Sam, Jem, The Power, The Bolshevik Bat, Gloppy, The Scarlet Redman, and Jack Mystery. (I re-visited Jack Mystery as an adult, and he coulda been a contender: The Jack Mystery Story.)

Eternity Man and Jenny Woo

I continued to create and name more superheroes as the years passed, from Captain Infinity, The Trident, and Lawman through the more recent Eternity Man (with his co-star Jenny Woo). But let's move past superheroes; most writers probably aren't going to be using superheroes in their stories anyway. What are some of the more...civilian names I've concocted?

In sixth or seventh grade, I created a baseball player named Skip Keller. Ol' Skip would have been the star of a series of sports comics, absolutely none of which I ever got around to writing. Slacker, thy name is CC. In 2019, I resurrected the Skip Keller name for an entirely different character, a former pop star turned songwriter and producer, in a short story called "Hitcore." That story didn't sell, but I like it a lot, so its day ain't done yet. For "Hitcore," I also named two other new characters: Mephisto Records receptionist Amber (no last name designated), and successful rock auteur Willington Blue. They're all going back to the drawing board for some tweaking (maybe even in pursuit of a novel-length story), but the names will remain.

Amber? No, it's The Green Hornet's trusted confidante Casey

The Beat And The Sting was me pulling at the threads of an idea for a Green Hornet '66 story. To The Green Hornet's familiar supporting cast of Kato, Lenore "Casey" Case, and District Attorney Frank Scanlon, I added the rock group Ben Arnold & the Turncoats (with the lead singer's real name Arnie Bennett, plus guitarist Roger Hartwell, bassist James Thomas, keyboardist Steve Davis, and drummer Tommy Hammond) and Century City crime boss Samuel "Sammy" Vincenzo. This story has potential, but no plausible path to publication at this time.

Terry Legend and Malice were names I gave to detective creations in the '70s. Terry Legend was a parody character I used once in my high school literary magazine, and Malice (first name undecided) would have been the deadly-serious lead in an unwritten story called "The Children Of Malice." I may yet use both names, but if Terry Legend does return, he won't be a parody character anymore (his comic-booky name notwithstanding).

One of my favorite blog pieces here is Jukebox Express, a wholly fabricated account of a make-believe 1950s rock 'n' roll B-movie made by various fictional people we've seen in film, TV, comic books, etc. The players, from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Sophie Lennon and Gilligan's Island's Ginger Grant through That Thing You Do!'s Troy Chesterfield and My Favorite Year's Stan "King" Kaiser, all came with their names pre-attached. But I came up with the names of their characters: Rose "Mama" Mammamia, Kirby Lee, Archibald Toby, and Rocco "Death" Manzetti, respectively. My favorite among the names I slapped together here is Rocco's moll Cupcake O'Hara, played by The Rocketeer's Jenny Blake. Yeah, I put a lot of work into this trifle.


                                       Kirby Lee, Cupcake O'Hara
The short stories I completed in 2019 contained but a few named characters. Of the unsold batch (in addition to "Hitcore"): "Dreaming Deadly" starred Sam and Billy, and an unnamed girl; "Sword Of The Chosen One" starred Flora and Anna; "Montie Pylon Finds His Holy Grail" starred Montgomery Pylon and Louise; and "The Greatest Thud Never Heard" included no named characters at all. The first story I sold last year, "Guitars Vs. Rayguns," included no named characters. "The Picture Of Amontillado" starred Dorian Gray and Wild Edgar Poe, and I don't think I'd get away with a claim of creating either of those names. 



That leaves my loosely-connected Copperhead stories, two of which sold, one of which is pending, and a fourth is in its early stages of this-ain't-ready-yet! Each of these feature a lead character--The Copperhead Kid, The Copperhead, Codename: Copperhead, and Copper--and not many other names: a Sheriff, a Deputy, Ma and Pa, an unnamed sister, Cody, a Director, a Director's Wife, a family in peril, various goons and no-goodniks, and some assorted pronouns. Those were all the names needed to tell the story. For now.



TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!

You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby! 

This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:

Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio:  CD or download

Hey, Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) will contain 127 essays about 127 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1).