T-shirt #352 - Cub Fan - Bart Man

TODAY'S COUNT: 13 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

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T-shirt #352 - Cub Fan - Bart Man

Baseball season is upon us, and I am making my nefarious plans for my Fantasy Baseball Empire with my first draft tonight.

Actually, I am going to wing it. I don't have time to prepare my own stats log and analysis, so I am going with the work of Baseball Forecaster and my own reasonable intuition for this league, in which I placed eighth of twelve last year. I think I can beat that record.

I did not win any of my leagues last year. The best I finished was second out of eight. I finished fourth in the league I run (TIGER TOWNE), third of eight in a league run by my friend Craig, and sixth of twelve in a New England league. I was kicked out of a rotisserie league run by a crazy madman, so I decided to reboot his league with the other players who may well be disgruntled.

Today, I am renewing the "hiatus shirt" mandate in order to possibly catch up by Monday on the seven incomplete blog entries found elsewhere via my main address. They are now sufficiently buried so as not be so persistent to my psyche's wellness, and yet, I know they are there.

Several gravitational anomalies aligned in the galaxy to produce this blog, which originally had been schedule as not one other but two other shirts.

And then I saw this: 365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 66: The Finkatronic Ray, which reminded me of my Cub Fan Bart Man T-shirt as a herald (get it? If you're a comic geek given my picture of Homer-Galactus below, you will get it.) of SPRING and BASEBALL SEASON.

I have given shouts to both the BULLY SAYS COMICS OUGHTA BE FUN and the wonderful Pencil Ink blog, and this morning I decided to let those bloggers know of my appreciation for their efforts with comments on their sites.

Bully is doing a 365 Days of Kirby Tech series, which, yesterday, manifested as tech from the Simpsons comic. Wonderful stuff. Here's one of the pics he shared from Panels from "Captain Cupcake and Pieboy!" in Simpsons Super Spectacular #5 (July 2007), script by Mike W. Barr, pencils by James Lloyd, inks by Andrew Pepoy, colors by Rick Reese, letters by Karen Bates.

Meanwhile, I decided to post -- pretty much -- just pictures today. So here, we go (with a little text in between, D'oh!!) Okay, Don't have a cow, man.

There are 21 entries (including today's) in my Baseball category, which is a sport name that -- as you may or may not know -- I like to deify with a capital letter.

I featured the shirt that goes with this hat in T-shirt #182.

Here's some text from that blog:

T-shirt #80: Detroit Tigers est. 1901 may be my best  Baseball post so far, though T-shirt #115: Chicago Cubs est. 1876 also shares a great deal of good Baseball stuff. I love the sense of history. I love the stats. I love my teams.

But it's all best summed up by this quote from the great Ernie Harwell:

"Baseball is a ballet without music. Drama without words. A carnival without kewpie dolls. Baseball is continuity. Pitch to pitch. Inning to inning. Season to season."

When I saw this T-shirt, I had to have one. I like the Simpsons, but I would not characterize myself as a massive Simpsons fan like some folks.

"Don't Have a Cow, Harry!" refers to Harry Caray, former announcer for the Chicago Cubs, who always used to say "Holy Cow!" and since Bart Simpson often says "Don't Have a Cow, Man" then this is a great joke connection.

Harry Caray died in 1998. Here's a little weird irony: in the 2003 playoffs, one of the Cubs few post-season appearances in the last 20 years. In October of 2003, the Cubs were playing in the National League Championship series against the Florida Marlins (who won the World Series that year), there's one incident that is defined as the losing moment for that Cubs team, preventing them from advancing to the World Series. It has come to be known as the STEVE BARTMAN INCIDENT.

Lifelong Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a catch by Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou. Had Alou caught that ball for the out, the Cubs would have been four outs from the National League title and the World Series. As it turned out, the Cubs lost the game and eventually the series.

Get it? The shirt is "Bart Man" and is from Cubs merchandise no later than 1998 and possibly earlier, and yet it foreshadows the infamous "villain" of the Cubs' 2003 loss. Really, it's a sad thing. Steve Bartman is a well meaning Cubs fan who got caught up in the excitement of a ball coming his way and made a mistake, like we all do (make mistakes that is). It just so happened to be a mistake that is believed to have cost the Cubs a National League title and a shot at winning the World Series.

Remember how in yesterday's blog I mentioned saving time for date night with my lovely wife? Well, here's our sashimi/sushi dinner from Friday the 7th of March using a gift certificate given to use for Christmas.

We love delicious sashimi/sushi at KUMO.

YUM.

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This is the shirt I am actually
wearing today

OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18:  I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.

My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 13 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1403.08 - 13:11

T-shirt #351: A Distant Soil

TODAY'S COUNT: 14 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

T-shirt #351: A Distant Soil

Greetings readers. Keeping things short today because it's date night with the wife, a bi-monthly tradition, and I have been working hard lately, so I want to devote maximum time to us, which seems fitting given the romantic nature of today's subject matter.

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OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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Easy to dredge up content for today's blog. I used to write a weekly comic book column for The Kalamazoo Gazette in 1994-1995. I am sad that I am no longer publishing this column (though my blog work is better!!) because it was one of the best and most fun freelance projects I have ever done.

In many ways, my subject matter for the column, like my subject matter for this blog, was driven by my interests. In the 1990s, Colleen Doran was a rising star, and I felt that she deserved more exposure if only in the small way I could provide. What follows is my column about her, redacted from a telephone interview.

Doran has worked for many of the big companies. Look above to see her work on The Legion of Superheroes.

UPDATE on 1403.13: I did not do any research on Colleen Doran when I posted this entry last week as I was planning to reprint my article about her from 20 years ago! However, I knew I had not heard of her doing much lately. And then last night, Warren Ellis resent a Twitter message from Colleen sharing that her comic (written by Ellis) is still hosted on the Internet. It's pretty damn good, too. Find it at the link following.

SUPER IDOL ON ART BOMB 
written by Warren Ellis with art by Colleen Doran

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The following is my comic book column originally published in The Kalamazoo Gazette in August of 1994 after my interview with Colleen Doran.

If you were a comic artist, would you withdraw from BIG paychecks and national distribution with a major company?

That's just what 30-year-old artist Colleen Doran has done.  She quit her job as regular penciller on DC Comics' "Valor" and guest stints on such things as "Sandman" and "The Legion of Superheroes" to write, draw, and produce her own comic book: "A Distant Soil."

This is not so strange.  Many creators are doing the same thing.  The problem with working for a company like DC is that when you finish drawing a 22-page comic, you don't own any of it: DC owns it.  So many creators have left big companies like DC and Marvel to create and publish their own comics, their own property.

Colleen Doran began publishing "A Distant Soil" (ADS) under the umbrella of Aria Press--her own publishing company--in 1991, but the enticements a big company can offer--steady paychecks and drawing favorite characters--lured her away from her own book.  Now, she's back on ADS full time.  She plans to publish monthly through the end of 1994 ("to catch up") and then return to a bi-monthly schedule in 1995.

"A Distant Soil" features two stories. "Immigrant's Song" tells the story of teenagers Jason and Liana Scott, brother and sister, who are on the run from a government that imprisoned them to study their psychic abilities.  "Seasons of Spring" takes place prior to "Immigrant's Song."  It's a story of the Scott family, Jason and Liana as children, their father Aeren--who is a fugitive from the world Ovanan--their mother Jessica, and their brothers and sisters, twins Cari and Tiar.  Also, for Arthurian fans, Avalon made an appearance in issue #5, featuring Galahad, Lancelot, and Percival.

Beyond a simple plot summary, ADS is impossible to describe because it's not like anything else.  Sure, other people do comics in black and white, but ADS possesses an elegance of both art and story that's incomparable.  Doran's book focuses on family relationships, the minutiae of life, the beauty of love.  But it's not sappy.  And it doesn't lack action: there's action scenes, personal relationships, conflicts, schemes, aliens, and psychic powers, too.  But even these scenes are not like the fight scenes in other comics.  Doran's work is thoughtful and elegant.

Doran's ADS is a pretty big hit with comics readers, too.  The first issue sold out three printings, and Doran is about to do a fourth printing of 20,000 copies.  The other issues have sold well, too.  ADS's sales increase 14% with each issue.

One element about which Doran spoke ardently during an interview was characters in ADS who are androgynous or obviously gay.  "I am interested in gender issues and gender roles.  When people say that they don't approve of how other people behave in the privacy of their own bedrooms, this inherent homophobia is a kind of misogyny.  These attitudes persist even among gay men who are hostile to transsexuals and transvestites: they incur my ire, too.  There's never an excuse for bigotry.  We're born with our sexual orientation.  We don't ask what makes someone heterosexual.  Why do we ask what makes someone homosexual?"

These attitudes come through in Doran's depiction of her characters.  Her "gay" aliens Rieken and D'mer are androgynous, and when they do exhibit their feelings for one another, Doran understates the scene, makes it natural, simple.  The result is beautiful and elegant like everything else Colleen Doran does.

HOT COMICS: "A Distant Soil" # 8 is at comic shops now, and #9 is due in September.  If you can't find it, request that your comic shop proprietor order one for you, or order it directly from Aria Press 12638-28 Jefferson Ave. Suite 173, Newport News, VA 23602-4316.

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WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LIST

Originally, I had Moonknight (the new launch written by Warren Ellis) first with Velvet a very close second but since Afterlife with Archie is such a quick read, it takes top spot. Afterlife with Archie did not disappoint. I plan to share reviews of all of at least all of the first six issues in the list below (which I have already read) in a future blog. For now, this is it.

Though I have to mention that I am happy I have read back far enough to get Detective Comics and Green Lantern out of the back log.

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COMICS FOR 1403.05

Afterlife with Archie #4
Moonknight #001
Velvet #4
Starlight #1
Green Arrow #29
Forever Evil #6
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New Warriors #002
Clone #15
Jupiter's Legacy #4
Nova #014
Uncanny X-Men #018
Captain America #018
Iron Man #022
The Punisher #003
Avengers AI #010
Batman: Detetctive Comics: GOTHTOPIA #29
Green Lantern #29
Earth 2 #21
God is Dead #8

BACK LOG
Superman - Action Comics # 29
Fairest #24
Trillium #7

SPECIAL PURCHASES

Atomic Robo - Real Science Adventures - Volume 2

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HIATUS TEXT: REVISED 1402.18:  I have been trying to maintain a hiatus from large or over involved blog posts beginning with the start date of my hiatus on January 20th (almost a month ago) during which time I logged 21 posts, which I consider "Hiatus Shirts." By this term, Hiatus Shirt, I mean the shirt is not one that would cause me to write a great deal on the subject it features. These are shirts about which I can write anything, either a lot or a very little. The hiatus will continue, though as it has for the last few weeks, not consecutively as I will continue to mix Hiatus and Non-Hiatus shirts. The blog's year (365 shirts) draws close to a close. (I like the double word use in that previous sentence.) I hope to finish strong with some good entries with high quality content and imagery on some beloved subjects. To earn this time, I will need to intersperse shirts of little consequence, what I have come to call Hiatus Shirts.

My original goal of working ahead remains. I need time to write the enormously lengthy text to complete the extensive love letter to certain beloved popular culture icons featured on my many special shirts. Even with "Hiatus Shirts," I will try to share some worthy content as I have either an idea, a new suggestion of something to read/look at/listen to, or another installment of my various features, such as the WHY T-SHIRTS item, the WEEKLY COMIC BOOK LISTS, and the SHIRT I AM ACTUALLY WEARING TODAY among others. BTW, this is the standard HIATUS TEXT that I will include in every "hiatus shirt" entry.

Thanks for reading. I am always honored that people have taken some of their valuable time to look at my ongoing web writing project. Keep checking this address. I promise to make it worthwhile.
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COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 14 shirts remaining


- chris tower - 1403.07 - 12:05

T-shirt #350 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden #2

TODAY'S COUNT: 15 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

T-shirt #350 - 10,000 Maniacs - Our Time in Eden #2

Greetings reader. Thank you for checking out my blog.

This is my third 10,000 Maniacs shirt, and I think I have shared everything I want to share about this wonderful band in these previous entries:

T-SHIRT #257: 10,000 MANIACS - BLIND MAN'S ZOO

T-SHIRT #289: 10,000 MANIACS - OUR TIME IN EDEN

And so, I thought I would try something a bit different today. A battle of the bands, in which I share videos of various bands in mock competition for your attention. I will share one 10,000 Maniacs song and then my choices will be based on bands for which I do not own T-shirts, and so they would not be otherwise featured, which means no videos by the Who, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Dead Can Dance, King Crimson, the Jam, The Pixies, the Clash, Sigur Rós, Kraftwerk, Sterolab, Steely Dan, U2, Cocteau Twins, Everything But the Girl, Joy Division, New Order, and a few others I am not thinking of off hand or that I am planning to feature later. As you can see, this is just bands that I am including not individual musical artists.

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WARNING: DISCLAIMER OF BROKEN VIDEO LINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. In reviewing some of my former posts which contain music videos, I have found that the videos are no longer loading on many of the pages. My preliminary investigations reveal that the more recent videos are still embedded, but older pages are missing their video widgets. After some research, I discovered that this is a known issue. It appears that it is an issue with Chrome.

GOOGLE FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC ONE

GOOGLE FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC TWO

I checked, and the videos work fine in Internet Explorer, which is the only other browser to which I have access. But they probably work fine in other browsers, too. This may finally get me to download FireFox, which I gave up on years ago because of its massive memory leak! Just FYI, if you have trouble seeing videos on any of my pages, try another browser. I may or may not try to reload them all in all the past pages. This could take a lot of work, and if they are still embedded and just not visible from every instance of Google Chrome, then I am not sure I want to do the extra work. I am sure you understand. :-)

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OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUNTDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013. I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks. After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT. I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02
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TODAY'S VIDEOS

Presenting here kind of a mock "Battle of the Bands" with what I think are some of the greatest "rock" band songs in all of modern music (not counting ones I have already presented, so this is an edited list). See explanation farther above. I will try to restrict myself to TEN, which is going to be difficult.

1. We start off with 10,000 Maniacs because of the shirt, but also because this is a GREAT song.

10,000 Maniacs - These are Days (Live MTV Unplugged 1993)

2. I think one could make the argument that this next song is the single greatest rock and roll song of all time.

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - the best version ever.

3. I know, I know... this next one is such a standard pick and so over selected, and yet, how can I not select it?

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven Live (HD)

4. There can be no battle of great bands without this one from CSN&Y. Amazing.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu (video)

5. I am somewhat restricted by You Tube's restrictions with Beatles content. However, this is just one of my favorites if not my single favorite Beatles song. I would not argue that it's the best Beatles song, but I adore it.

Beatles- Let It Be

6. I am sure that people who view my list will note that I am leaving out many great bands and that I am selecting with my own personal preferences. Well.... uh... yeah, DUH. I love Talking Heads, and when I decided to do this battle of the bands, this was the song that popped into my head. When I found this love version: kismet!

Talking Heads - Live in Rome 1980 - 11 The Great Curve

7. Before I get accused of just sharing videos by white people, one of the greatest African-American groups of all time. FANTASTIC stuff.

Arrested Development - United Front (Video)

8. Time for a little SKA, but it's SKA that transcends SKA. A band that should be known as simply "The Beat." I could have picked so many other bands and songs, I know. But this is such a beautiful song and one of my all time favorites, and it's my band battle, so there.

English Beat "End of the Party" (Live) June 5, 2009

9. This next one is all my all-time top song to make DJs play on college radio. This video may not be the best (though it is the best of the lot that are out there), but I wanted a live one, so here it is.

Roxy Music..........Prairie Rose live in Newcastle

10. So many bands and songs that I could select for the last one, and I KNOW I am leaving out so many bands, but this next song has always meant a lot to me, and it makes me happy. It's what I wish you, too. HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY. :-)

Haircut 100 - Fantastic Day

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 15 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1403.06 - 19:19
final publication - 1403.07 - 11:22

T-shirt #349 - Josie and the Pussycats

TODAY'S COUNT: 16 blog posts remaining in the T-shirt year!!

T-shirt #349 - Josie and the Pussycats

I confess. I have not seen the movie. I know, I know. If I am such a fan of the 1970s cartoons, why have I not seen the movie. I don't know. I intend to watch it at some point.

My bets memory of Josie and the Pussycats comes to me via Kellogg's cereal.

BOX TOPS.

Did you save them? I know I did.





As a result of saving my box tops and redeeming them with Kellogg's, I managed to receive 45 RPM records in mail of Josie and the Pussycats songs, which were among my favorite tunes as a young boy in the early 1970s.

Okay, late me back up. Josie and the Pussycats is a creation of the Archie Comics line. Originally, Archie Comics published a comic called She's Josie and Josie, starting in 1963.

With the hit success of the Archies' single "Sugar, Sugar" in 1969, which claimed the number one spot on the Billboard 100 Pop Singles as fueled by the CBS Saturday morning cartoon The Archie Show, the Chicago-based Archie Comics wanted to further capitalize on its success.

In December of 1969, the Josie comic was renamed Josie and the Pussycats as Josie and Melody decide to form a band, and after a failed attempt to have Alexandra in the band, they select Valerie Smith (though in some descriptions she is called Valerie Brown) to be the third member of the band.

Riding the wave of the success of the Archie TV show, CBS produced a show called Josie and the Pussycats that ran from 1970-1971 for sixteen episodes. The show was re-imagined as Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space for the 1972-73 season for another sixteen episodes. The original series appeared in reruns on all three networks (CBS, ABC, and NBC) from 1974-1976. This is important as the total time that Josie and the Pussycats was part of my weekly TV viewing was six years.

Hanna-Barbera created a "real life" band to sing the songs and even produce an album. Cheryl Ladd was one of the members of this trio, who released the Josie and the Pussycats album in 1970. On the Wiki page for the band, there's a list of the Kellogg's mail order singled from 1970. I know for certain that I own "Inside, Outside, Upside Down." But I am fairly certain I had at least one of the others as there are four in all. I included videos for two of the four Kellogg's singles among the six songs I feature below, including the theme song from the TV show. The videos to the TV show are hilarious because Hanna-Barbera only created one animation clip for the band playing a song. It may have fit one song, but it does not fit any of the other sings, and yet the clip is repeated as the song plays. There are some obvious editing attempts to try to match the song's rhythm, beat, or get the mouth movements in some synced to the lyrics, but these attempts fail in every video I watched.

Still, "Inside, Outside, Upside Down" is one of my favorite songs from the 1970s. I also included another favorite, "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies.

Also, I was lucky enough to find a full episode of Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space in case you want to check that out.

 The Josie and the Pussycats comic continued monthly publication until 1982, at which point Archie Comics published occasional one shots with no schedule. But lately, Archie Comics has been doing interesting things as I noted in my reviews of Afterlife With Archie as found elsewhere on my blog (search reviews or comic books categories if interested). In both 2010 and 2012, Archie Comics further shook up the comics world with some innovative story lines.
 
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WIKI-LINKS

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS - COMIC

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS - MUSIC GROUP

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS - TV SHOW
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ARCHIE AND VALERIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about comic books. But I either missed this entirely or simply forgot about it. In 2010, Archie Comics launched a story in which Archie develops a romance with Valerie Smith of Josie and the Pussycats.

This is a pretty big deal, and Archie Comics made a big deal of it with a huge marketing push and mock up covers, like the Rolling Stone one I included in today's COVER GALLERY.

From its roots in 1941, Archie was strictly a white bread cast. It was radical enough when the comics line introduced Valerie Smith for Josie and the Pussycats in 1969. In fact, there was a fight with Hanna Barbera to include her in TV show. In the end, she was included and became the first black cartoon character.

Now, forty years later (2010), Valerie is shown KISSING Archie in the comic book series. Two years later, in 2012, longtime writer of Archie Dan Parent constructs an imaginary tale of the couple's future as they get married and have a child.

Check out the links if you want to read more.

Three last things.

One, Archie Comics also has a comic featuring Kevin Keller, Riverdale's openly gay student. The character was immediately popular enough to warrant his own series.

Two, I love this twist with Archie and Val and the busting of the Betty-Veronica-Archie triangle. As a young boy, I think Veronica Lodge was part of the foundation for why I prefer dark-haired women, as I always preferred Veronica over Betty, even though she was kind of the bitchier of the two (maybe I prefer that, too). But Valerie Smith surely beats out Veronica in the sex appeal department, especially with the new long haired look seen in this frame from the recent comics. It's great to see a company that butters its bread with endless output of the same old same old has abandoned that model for some innovative, fresh stories aimed at 21st century audiences.

Three, I last included my TOP TEN HANNA BARBERA cartoons list in T-shirt #303. Josie and the Pussycats was not in the top ten and only received an honorable mention. I may need to re-think this position.

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LINKS TO ARTICLES ON ARCHIE AND VAL

FABRICATED NEWS

COMICS ALLIANCE

TIMEOUT CHICAGO

ARCHIE BLOG

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Just cheating by copying the list of links from WIKIPEDIA. It's easier this way. Trust me. I'm a doctor.

External links[edit]

• http://www.dandecarlo.com Creator Dan Decarlos Website
• Josie and the Pussycats at the Internet Movie Database
• Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space at the Internet Movie Database
• Archie Comics' Josie and the Pussycats homepage
• Josie and the Pussycats at TV.com
• Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space at TV.com
• Josie and the Pussycats at Toonopedia
• JOZINE: unofficial Josie/DeCarlo fan site
• Big Cartoon DataBase (BCDb): Josie and the Pussycats
• Big Cartoon DataBase (BCDb): Josie and the Pussycats In Outer Space

ALSO
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS ON TV TROPES

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This blog has some great stuff, and many of the following videos come from this blog, but sadly it has not been updated in almost four years.

OFF RAMP TO NOWHERE

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VIDEO GALLERY

Josie and the Pussycats (1970) - Intro (Opening)

Josie And The Pussycats - Inside, Outside, Upside Down 1970

Josie And The Pussycats- Voodoo 1970

Josie And The Pussycats - Stop, Look, And Listen 1970

Josie And The Pussycats - Lie, Lie, Lie 1970

Josie And The Pussycats - You've Come A Long Way Baby (Single Version) 1970

Josie and the Pussycats in OUTER SPACE

Episode 01 - "Where's Josie?" - Full

I know this next one is not Josie and the Pussycats, but I don't own an Archie shirt and this song is too classic to not post.

The Archies - Sugar, Sugar (Original 1969 Music Video)

OFFICIAL BOILERPLATE TEXT OF THE LAST TWENTY POSTS COUTNDOWN: Hi. Thanks for reading. I am posting this "boilerplate" text everyday for the last TWENTY posts in the T-SHIRT blog year, which started on March 22, 2013.

I will close out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. I will give myself a short hiatus of total non-transmission or  publication for an as yet undetermined period of time, though I am estimating about two weeks.

After my blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year.

At some point, once I feel I am rolling along nicely, I will begin regular posting through my main blog: SENSE OF DOUBT. T-shirt posts will direct to the T-shirt blog from SENSE OF DOUBT.

I will continue to post THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS.

Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently.

SENSE OF DOUBT will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here.

I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider.

Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year.
I am humbled and blessed by your readership.
- chris tower, blogger, originated 1403.02

COVER GALLERY

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 16 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1403.05 - 10:15