While at the Comicon I got my copy of Dean Yeagle's new Mandy book, The Mandy Portrait Gallery. Dean was an excellent animator, who came to his senses and began a second career as a cartoonist for Playboy Magazine. Many agree that Mandy has the most character and personality seen since Kurtzman's Little Annie Fanny.
WARNING: These cartoons are not for children, strickly ADULTS ONLY.



What makes this book different was Dean asked a bunch of us cartoonists to do our own versions of Mandy. Tony White, Stephen Silver, Nancy Beiman, Sergio Aragones,Patrick Mate, Bill Stout and Yours Truly all contributed our best variations on the buxom beauty.

Thanks again Dean, for including me in such august company! It was great fun.

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Quiz: What language was A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, first written in?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: Who created the first comic book?
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History for 7/29/2008
Birthdays: Alex de Tocqueville, Benito Mussolini, Grigori Rasputin The Mad Monk, Clara Bow, Dag Hammarskjold, Peter Jennings, Michael Spinks, Ken Burns is 55, Booth Tarkington, Professor Irwin Corey, David Warner, Steven Dorff,Tony Sirico- Paulie Walnuts is 66

1014- Battle of Bala Thistau- Byzantine Emperor Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer defeated an entire Bulgar horde, and had all the thousands of captured warriors blinded. They left one man in a hundred with one eye to lead them all home. When the Bulgar Khan Samuel beheld his mutilated army, he supposedly dropped dead of grief.

1030- Battle of Stiklestaad- One of the largest Viking battles ever- King Olaf the White went down fighting the still pagan Norsemen of Demmark and Sweden and became St. Olaf the Martyr. Olaf's method of converting Vikings to Christianity was similar to his uncle King Olaf Tryggvason, which was to sail a big fleet of dragon ships up and down the coast and slay anybody who refused baptism. But while Tryggvason's death in battle at Svoldr spawned some great epic poems and music by Edvard Grieg, Olaf the Saint's death spawned miracles and shrines. Anxious vikings who wanted to fence-sit in this struggle over religion took to wearing an amulet that turned one side resembled the Cross, while turned over became the Hammer of Thor.

1588- The SPANISH ARMADA DEFEATED. The great armada was sent originally to ferry the Prince of Parma's army from Holland over to England. Elizabeth didn't have much in the way of militia so the crack Spanish troops once landed probably could have taken London without too much difficulty. The admiral in charge of the fleet, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia was a replacement for the late famous captain Don John of Austria and the equally late Marquis of Santa Cruz, and he admitted he knew nothing about ships. This day was the BATTLE OF GRAVELINES, largest engagement of the Armada and the English navy under Francis Drake. They pounded one another and after Medina Sidonia discovered he could not pick up Parma’s army he resolved to sail home. The bulk of the Armada was destroyed by a North Sea storm off Ireland. When Medina-Sidonia appeared before King Phillip II, he allegedly replied: “I told Your Majesty I knew nothing about ships!”Among the Spanish sailors was famed poet and playwrght Lope De Vega.
Although this great victory of the British Navy saved England, Queen Elizabeth's budget for them was amazingly stingy. More British sailors died from rancid food than Spanish gunfire. The English fleet had to break off it's attack when they ran out of their meager supply of cannonballs. Spain sent other armadas at England over the next few years but this was the most famous.

1890- Near the Chateau de Auvers, Vincent Van Gogh went behind a hay bale and shot himself. He managed to miss any thing important but died of blood infection.

1900- King Umberto Ist of Italy was shot and killed by anarchists. The assassin was Angelo Bresci, a silk merchant from Patterson New Jersey who had returned to the old country to rid her of monarchs. Umberto’s Queen Margherita is the person for whom the basic pizza pie is named for –Pizza Margherita. While traveling through Naples local chefs wanted to present her with a dish with the colors of the Italy’s flag on it. So the pizza is tomatoes-red, mozzarella cheese-white and oregano- green.

1927-Dr Phillip Drinker and Dr Louis Shaw installed the first Iron Lung breathing apparatus at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

1936 - RCA shows the first true TV show: dancing, a film on locomotives,a Bonwit
Teller fashion show & a monologue from the Tobacco Road radio hour.

1938- Three Missing Links- a Three Stooges comedy with the boys as cave men and Ray Crash Corrigan in a gorilla suit. Nyyyaaahahhhhahhhhh!

1942- Orson Welles left Rio De Janiero after RKO fired him, fired the producer who hired him, and stopped production of "It's All True". They also had “the Magnificent Ambersons” re-cut from three hours to a more acceptable 90 minutes.

1946- In Los Angeles Jazz great Charlie Parker had learned of the death of his baby daughter back in New York. He showed up for a recording session so drunk and high his producer had to hold him up in front of the mike. Later that night he fell completely apart, ran naked down the street, set fire to his hotel room smoking in bed. The cops had to shake him violently to wake him, he fought with them and they beat him up and threw him in jail. He was committed to the Camarillo Mental Hospital.

1948- Former Disney animator Hank Ketcham was trying to sell comic panels to the New Yorker while his baby son Dennis drove his wife crazy. One day after the child smeared the contents of his diaper around the room Mrs. Ketcham exclaimed: YOUR SON IS A MENACE! This gave Ketcham an idea. Today the comic strip "Dennis the Menace," 1st appeared.

1952 - 1st nonstop transpacific flight by a jet.

1957-Happy Birthday NASA! President Eisenhower signed the bill creating the National Aeronautics and Space Agency or NASA to oversee the space program separate from the military.

1962- The film “Dr No” premiered, introducing the world to the suave spy James Bond 007 played by actor Sean Connery.

1965 - Beatles movie "Help" premiered, Queen Elizabeth attended.

1972- Mamas and the Papa's lead singer Mama Cass Eliot dies of a stroke, not as was widely believed from choking on a sandwich.

1976 -SON OF SAM- Demented postman David Berkowitz committed his first murder in the Bronx. Berkowitz believed his neighbor’s dog Sam was Satan and was telling him to go out and kill. He would point his 44 cal. gun at random at a young couple on the street or in a car and shoot them. As the year went on and he was undetected he wrote letters taunting the police and New York newspaper columnist Pete Hamill. See next entry.

1977- THE DAY OF HATE- Son of Sam Killer David Berkowitz announced in the press that he would kill again on the one year anniversary of his first shooting- the Day of Hate. By now New York City was thoroughly in a panic. The seeming randomness of the killings got under the skin of the usually blasé’ New Yorkers. Nightclubs and discos closed ,women clipped and dyed their hair because Sam liked to shoot long haired brunettes. Even the Godfather John Gotti pledged the services of the Mafia to catch the lunatic. After a tense night nothing happened. Berkowitz was caught two days later.

1981- Prince Charles of England married Lady Diana Spencer. The ill fated fairy tale wedding was seen around the world on live television. The only European royalty not present was King Juan Carlos of Spain, who was mad about Britain keeping Gibraltar. Unknown to Di Prince Charles at this time was already romantically involved with Camilla Parker-Bowles but she was married.

1987- Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry announce the flavor Cherry Garcia, named for rock singer Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.

2007- The I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the river killing 14 people.
The collapse is symbolic of America's decaying infrastructure. While everyone wants to cut taxes and balance the budget by cutting domestic spending, next year over 50% of US bridges and tunnels will be over 50 years old.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who created the first comic book?

Answer: To trace the idea of storytelling with pictures, you can go back to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Trajan’s Column and the Bayeux Tapestry among others. The modern American comic book was begun 75 years ago in 1933. Print salesman Max C. Gaines was intrigued watching people read the comic strips in a newspaper by folding the paper in half, then in quarters. He reprinted collections of comicstrips in an 8X10 format and called it Funnies on Parade. He stuck a ten cent sticker on each one and dropped them off at newsstands round New York City. They sold out almost immediately. The following year Major Malcom Wheeler-Nicholson founded New Fun, a comic book that featured original adventure stories written for the new format. Max Gaines’ son was Bill Gaines, the publisher of EC Comics and Mad Magazine.

Gaines second comic book