Bits of Bully Business

Please excuse a mildly truncated post tonight: your little stuffed host's bean-filled back is straining under the weight of the triple-threat of the Real World—no, not Judd Winick, Pamela Ling, and Puck, but the three-pronged timesucker that is travel (generally fun, but it can get tedious when you can hardly lay your own head on your own pillow for more than a couple nights in a row), a summer cold (I'm trying to suck it up, but it's not as much fun as sucking up a chocolate malt...ah-choo!), and work (running about a publishing company stacking books in tidy attractive piles by size, color, and sometimes ISBN can really wear you down!). I hope to be up to full running speed again by this weekend, but I'll have posts for you all week long.

In the meantime, how about a couple links for you P. G. Wodehouse fans? First, BBC7 has finished its rebroadcast of the radio dramatization of Joy in the Morning, one of the finest Jeeves books, but shed no tears in your hot sweet milky tea: beginning this week BBC7 starts the serialization of the radio version of The Inimitable Jeeves, also starring Michael Hordern (Gandalf in the radio version of The Lord of the Rings) as Jeeves, and as Bertie, Richard Briers (the lucky, lucky man who got to share a bed with the lovely, lovely Felicity Kendal in The Good Life/Good Neighbors, depending on which side of the pond you're on). You may remember The Inimitable Jeeves as the very first entry in A Wodehouse a Week, and trust me, this is wonderful Wodehouse and jovial Jeeves. But Bully (you may be saying), I do not live in the UK and therefore do not have access to all the wonderful wireless programmes on Auntie Beeb that you recommend! Never fear, chums, because if you're reading this blog, you've got a way to listen to BBC7! Simply skip on over to the BBC7 website "Listen Again" page, click on "Monday" at the top of the page, and scroll down until you find The Inimitable Jeeves. The Monday page and hence the show is available starting every Tuesday for the next six days, so you'll find episode 1 there now, and episode 2 will pop up like clockwork next Tuesday. While you're there, stroll about the other days of the week to find some more excellent BBC comedy and drama programming. I highly recommend the final episode of The Harpoon (running on Mondays), a witty and outrageous "Boy's Own" sketch comedy show in the vein of Ripping Yarns, and Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off (Fridays).

But what if, like boisterous Bully backer Eric notes in a comment on my most recent "A Wodehouse a Week," ("If I had to choose between comic books and Wooster and Jeeves, I would be sorely tempted to choose the latter."), you have to make the Solomon-like decision of picking either Wodehouse or comics? But, as I often decide when trying to choose between apple pie and ice cream for dessert, why not choose both, by checking out "Summer Moonshine," what may be the world's only Wodehouse comic! It's brilliantly realized in comic strip form by John Lustig (you know and love him as the creator of "Last Kiss"). Beautiful stuff, and you can be sure this li'l stuffed bull is gonna order a signed print of the strip and hang it proudly on my apartment wall next to all the photos of Felicity Kendal! (A tip o' the nose ring to Bookseller Chick for pointing me to the strip, and to Jaunty Jonathan Miller for alerting me of it in the comments!)

And finally, because, after all, this is Comics Oughta Be Fun, we proudly bashfully present:

The Unsettling Slang of Mister Steve Rogers

Panel from Captain America and the Falcon #201 (September 1976), written and pencilled by Jack Kirby, inked by Frank Giacoia, colored by Phil Rache