Today in Comics History, April 20, 1966: Happy birthday, Mutator!

Please wish a happy bithday to porcupine impersonator and true inventor of the grunge look, Mutator!


from D.P. 7 #26 (Marvel/New Universe, December 1988), pencils by Paul Ryan

Today in Comics History, April 20, 1956: It Could Happen Here

from The Multiversity: Mastermen #1 one-shot (DC, April 2015); script by Grant Morrison; pencils by Jim Lee; inks by Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Mark Irwin, and Jonathan Glapion; colors by Alex Sinclair and Jeromy Cox; letters by Rob Leigh

Bully and His Pals: Wow! Shelly looks really smart today.

What's Bully Reading? 2024 #25: The Complete Wallace & Gromit Comic Strips Collection, Volume 2

(This is actually from a couple months ago on February 14, but I forgot to give it a proper number until now, so it goes in here! Gee, that's convenient.)


As seen in The Sun newspaper! So that's the sole decent thing worth reading in The Sun.

I was initially annoyed that there were no creator credits in the front of the book, and the strips themselves are credited as "by Aardman and Titan Comics"...


...but there were group credits at the very back of the book, at least.


Mostly anonymous comic strip creators, we salute you!

Bully Eats Food: Steak and potatoes

I guess you could say I'm a real meat 'n' potatoes bull. I mean eating them, not made of them.

Now Playing: The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

I am listening to a new LP, a birthday gift for John from his sister (my Aunt Lorrie!)...


...and Marshall and Shelly are watching the movie version.



Bully is listening to Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd (Harvest/Capitol, 1973),
and Marshall and Shelly are watching The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939), directed by Victor Fleming

Now Playing: Ogden Nash Reads Ogden Nash

...by...Ogden Nash, natch.

Aside from jazz labels like Blue Note or Verve, Caedmon always had the best essays on their record sleeves!




Bully is listening to Ogden Nash Reads Ogden Nash (Caedmon, 1953)

Now Playing: All I Know So Far: Setlist by Pink

A live double album by Pink! Sorry, publicists: I cannot in good conscience spell her name "P!nk."

Bully is listening to All I Know So Far: Setlist by Pink (RCA, 2021)

Now Playing and What's Bully Reading 2024 #24: Ingénue by k.d. lang

IMLSO, it's her finest album and certainly my favorite.

This new edition has a second disc with her MTV Unplugged presentation of the songs on the album, too!

Also: What's Bully Reading? 2024 #24: 33⅓: k.d. Lang's Ingenue, by Joanna McNamey Stein.


Randi got John a whole bunch of 33⅓ books for his birthday, so he bought the records for them and now we are listening and reading at the same time!


Bully is listening to Ingénue (Sire/Warner Bros., 1992), by k.d. lang
Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

What's Bully (Re*)Reading? 2024 #23: X-Men: The Hidden Years Omnibus by John Byrne

Probably the final Byrne project that I liked, altho' a lot of his little peccadillos are very obvious here.


He forces in retcons of characters that haven't yet appeared in the X-Men's history (Storm, Phoenix), and splits up the cast of characters in issue #1 whom we don't see them back all together until final issue #22 (a bit like his approach on Alpha Flight). Also, his tendency to cram his story into others' past stories (Fantastic Four #102-104) and creating characters (Aria) that have nothing to do, and manuevers characters into uniforms they don't wear anymore to explain why they wore them in an old Captain America story.

He also inelegantly shoehorns in his characters from Marvel: The Lost Generation. Plus, I remember how pissy he was about the book being cancelled because it wasn't bringing in the numbers.

In short, I like the concept and the treatment of the characters and Byrne's artwork. But. (shrug)

*I have read these stories previously in floppy comic format.