The Spaghetti Strand Murder is available for download

The book itself will be available for purchase in the Fall. But you can download it now at:

http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=4830

The Adventures of Polly and Handgraves: A Sinister Aura will be available on the site early this coming week.

Boomerang from Cartoon Network

I discovered yesterday that I have Boomerang from Cartoon Network.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, basically it's a channel cartoon network dedicated solely to all those cartoons of yester year that you can either remember waking up to on Saturday morning or on weekday afternoons after you get out of school. Or during the mornings if it was either a snow day, you were sick or it was Summer vacation.

However, most of the cartoons on this network consist of all the absolutely shitty cartoons Hanna-Barbera churned out from the late 1960's until the 1980's.

I always knew Hanna-Barbera was awful in the way it dumbed down animation, but I didn't know how awful it was until I watched The Perils of Penelope Pitstop this morning.

I was even more horrified to see the name Michael Maltese in the writing credits.

Michael Maltese wrote many of the great Chuck Jones animations in the heyday of Warner Brothers Animation such as the Duck Season/Rabbit Season cartoons with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, Bully for Bugs and Ali Baba Bunny just to name a few that make me tear up with laughter everytime I watch them.

What I have began to notice watching a great number of Hanna-Barbera cartoons is the way they would have the characters explain a scene. Like Scooby Doo chickening out when Daphne or Velma asks him to do something and hides himself in a room putting a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside of the door and Velma then proceeds to read aloud "Do Not Disturb". Like we didn't see that already.

Or if a villainous character is driving along in some contraption, and he suddenly states, "If I press this red button" Of course we see the red button like we didn't know it was a red button, "I will activate my jet-propelled, superfast rocket boosters and win the race. NAAAH!! HA HA HA HA HANAAAAA!!" or some crap.

Again, like we wouldn't have known that if you didn't explain that to us, Dick Dastardly.

I just feel like if I were to slowly and methodically dissect every joke I wrote in that manner and explain the scene away, the scene ceases to be funny.

But of course, they add the canned laughter into the mix just to make sure we know this is suppose to be a funny scene.

Companies like Hanna-Barbera and Filmation really helped in the cheapening and dumbing down of animation. They treated their audience, which was primarily children I suppose, like they were morons.

Honestly, kids aren't that stupid. I can remember watching Bug Bunny and Droopy cartoons when I was young and it didn't bother me that I didn't understand every single joke. The cartoons just made me laugh. And that's all that mattered.

Now, I'm just waiting for Hollywood at some point to release a Peril of Penelope Pitstop movie starring Jessica Simpson in the title role and Steve Carrell as the Hooded Claw. You know it's bound to happen.

Polly and Handgraves cover

I am very pleased to show everyone the cover for The Adventures of Polly and Handgraves: A Sinister Aura!!

More progress on Polly and Handgraves

Here's the first two pages of Polly and Handgraves lettered by Alterna Comics editor and chief Peter Simeti.

As much as I liked the old typewriter text for the lettering, I ultimately decided against it. I wanted to denote that this story is different from my past graphic novels and comic stories. So, I decided to go with the standard comic book lettering as opposed to something somewhat artsy fartsy.

The book itself should be out in the Fall sometime. And this coming after several years of research and gathering reference material for the story. I even used my room at the Bishopsgate Inn out in East Haddam as reference for the inn Polly and Handgraves stay in as well as Ryders Tavern out in Charlton as the exterior for the Inn. Getting the book together itself has been several months in the making. I started penciling and inking the pages last Fall and it's taken quite a while since then for everything to come together.

With all that said, I am so happy with the progress of the book and that Polly and Handgraves will finally see the light of day.

On the horizon for publication

Of course, I'm not looking forward to the Summer being over. I love the Summer and I love the warm weather. It's what makes living in New England worth it.

BUT I have a couple of books to look forward to sometime in the fall. Both The Spaghetti Strand Murder and The Adventures of Polly and Handgraves: A Sinister Aura should available for purchase. Hopefully, just in time for stART on the Street or the Boston Comic Con!!

These are two books I'm looking forward to seeing in print. Both I've worked (and reworked) very hard on. Polly and Handgraves especially which Rori did a marvelous job doing the grayscale.

She has a very busy schedule right now with finishing up a childrens book, a Sherlock Holmes novel and a follow up album to her fantastic Head Games.

So, I am very grateful that she was able to make time and work on my project as well.

I will let you all know when both books are being released once I get a definite release date.

The Adventures of Sally by P.G. Wodehouse

It was one of the P.G. Wodehouse books sitting on my bookshelf that I've both been meaning to read and trying to read for the longest time. I'm glad I finally decided to sit down and read it. I really love P.G. Wodehouse's humor. It's so light hearted and carefree.

Basically, his work is like watching a situation comedy with brains.

It also kind of disappoints me that like his book Laughing Gas, they have never adapted The Adventures of Sally for television or film the way they have adapted works like Piccadilly Jim, Heavy Weather, Blanding Castle and of course Jeeves and Wooster who have been played by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, Ian Carmichael and Dennis Price and David Niven and Arthur Treacher.

There was even a musical of Jeeves and Wooster by Andrew Lloyd Webber By Jeeves! which featured Jeeves and a banjo playing Bertie Wooster.

Yeah, I haven't seen that one either.

But it's a pity that The Adventures of Sally have not found it's way to becoming a screen adaptation. I'm finding it to be a very funny and enjoyable read.

Polly and Handgraves pages

Here's a sneak peek at three of the pages from Polly and Handgraves. I just got the pages back from Rori over the weekend and they've been scanned and sent off to my publisher.

It should be noted that most of the wording in the newspaper article was taken from the true crime this story was based on. I really must thank the Spencer Library for supplying me with old newspaper articles and other printed information on the case.