Pat Calhoun

here's a more expensive pet rock: 1-3/4" antique jade beast

I was thrilled to see Michael (aka 'art book' Flex) show some appreciation for 'pet rocks' (in 'the shadow side' of this thread), so I thought I'd post my newest here: 'snakehead', 3" find on Russian River flood plain last week.

here's a corner with 3 zones: some comics, some mushroom jungle UK PBs, and some old color-plate (well the Undine is B&W but still nice) books (between Odyssey and Hoffman is the great 'Peter Schlmiehl' by Albert Chamisso 1830 ed w/ Cruikshank illos -also b&w- and to right of Hoffman the awesome 'Three Tales' by Gustave Flaubert featuring his master fantasy novella 'The Legend of St Julian'. (Athene = NC Wyeth, Great Stag (Flaubert) = Robert Diaz de Soria, and Fountain Scene (Hoffman) = Mario Laboccetta.) + small comic & pb sample of ones shown...and (seen through glass at upper left 5" square Don Quixote tile...

Just reread PN40 (some decades in between) and I imagine that while Fowler Wright was pounding this out on his typewriter Dean Swift was smiling in the clouds.

I'm going to go with the 'Magic Shopping Cart' at Lanning's Books in downtown San Diego in the mid-1960s: it was filled with coverless precode comics for a penny apiece. And the highlight of that was the Wolverton SF; 'Brain Bats of Venus' and Swamp Monster' made a visual-verbal phantasmagoria that transcended the printed page: oozing around me in an all-encompassing universe of wonder. The cart always stayed full – new glories and infinite possibilities abounding. I would pull out foot-high stacks searching for the black spines of TrueVision. Also posting ‘Nightmare World’ splash (more BW ‘nuff said) and image of Trina Robbins that accompanied her memoir of diving for ducks, mice, Lulu, etc, maybe a few years after my PCH wallowing…

Cool - Mockingbird has another cover just inside the outer one...

Hawkman and the Spirit were both inspired by their own deaths...

Here's about a quarter of my office rug that I've lived on for over 40 years. I remember when I met my wife and saw this proud possession of hers...and thought 'if I marry this woman'... Just to the left of the center medallion is a very worn spot where my son Crane used to sit and play video games...

(from early on in the great novel 'Ali & Nino' by Kurban Said) more rug pictures and backstory if possible, please and thanks and cheers

1961 was a great year for Fantastic. I just bought a July 1961 so I could read the legendary early Simak story, and it was a sense-of-wonder extravaganza.

Nice - that early (no#) Panther logo is killer. Despite the cool sf trappings of the Ron Turner cover, save perhaps for a 'time travel' framing of the story, is prehistoric adventure, a sequel to 'Mammoth Man' (Feb 1952) by the redoubtable Brit writer and editor H J Campbell. Also showing Panther #67 by Campbell 1953.

Galaxy of Ghouls includes 'Desertion' by Clifford D. Simak, quite possibly the greatest story ever written (it's also included in 'City') gently guiding us past human boundaries in a most winning way.

I also have this volume of 'Tales from Jokai' with a nice long biography by the noted translator R. Nisbet Bain (who also translated from Russian and Norwegian). No date but 1908 gift inscription in front...

Finished reading 'The Tower of Dago', quite the yarn: excitement, depth, and lots of fun in a mildly fantastic fable. This also enabled me to find the 3 interior plates as the thick pages take some turning... Jokai is mostly known for his long historicals (my instinct says REH took inspiration from them) here's one of his most famous in a nicely compact 1898 edition (haven't read it - 262 dense small-type pages) first published in 1852 as 'The Golden Age of Transylvania'.

when I saw Jokai's birthday on the sf database I looked at his entry and saw this book, and once the search led to to an image of the BC I was hooked. 102 (nicely padded) pages, a long short story, which is just right as that fits it into my 'illustrated fantasy story in hardcover collection', which had only 2 others in it. The 2008 movie tie-in Benjamin Button is a lushly whimsical production, and the Benet (Devil and Daniel Webster 1937) is a fave for while he ballyhoos Daniel as one of the greats he has to admit that Calhoun was his equal. (Dago FC & BC mine, other images borrowed for convenience, though I store my BB without the curious half dj)

just wait till the shmoovie comes out...

I don't own this version...

I ordered what should be a real nice copy tonight - thanks OEric!