Taylor Towne
The Diogenes Club
Monday, December 30, 2013
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Morty Comix # 2683
Morty Comix # 2683 was placed inside a broken soft drink storage unit that had been exiled out of doors at a gas station/minimart in McCleary, Washington.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
The Mysterious Brownies: Calling All Comic Art Historians!
This Christmas I was given an unusual gift by my Brother's partner, Lauren. It was a framed color drawing of odd little people helping children learn how to read. A fitting gift for a librarian! Apparently it had been in Lauren's family for awhile, and she said her Mother told her those little people were Brownies.
I saw that some backing tape was eating at the paper, and could tell the drawing was from out of a book. So I removed the frame and found on the reverse side that the little guys were indeed Brownies, just like Lauren said:
When to the seaside off you go
The Brownies will come too, I know;
They'll take you in the sea, no doubt,
And laugh to see you splash about.
On the color page, note that two Brownies have numbers attached to their hats.
I'd love to know the source book for this. Is this by Palmer Cox? Somehow it looks too primitive to be his work, but I could be wrong. One could argue that the two images are by different illustrators, the line drawing being much less polished.
Hopefully I am giving you comic art scholars out there a nice mystery to solve.
Brownies, along with elves, trolls, and fairies, were part of the mythology I grew up hearing stories about. But we knew it was all make believe. Sasquatch, however, was another matter.
The McDowell Family Album
The McDowell Family Album is something of a mystery. This family has never been real big on recording their history. In fact, during the 20th century family members were unable to name their grandparents for official documents like death certificates.
To illustrate this point, my Mom's cousin gave me this album when we visited him in Centralia, Washington over 30 years ago. "Here kid," he said, "Take it. I'm not into this gynecology crap."
Though the photos are mostly unmarked, they are interesting portraits of a colorful family who were part of the history of Colorado in the era of the silver boom in the 1880s-1890s. And obviously, they didn't look back.
The album was curated by my great grandmother, Ellen McDowell. She was born Ellen Snyder in Casey, Illinois, Apr. 17, 1862. She married Benjamin F. McDowell in 1879 and the young family moved to Ouray, Colorado in the 1880s. Ben deserted the family in 1896 and Ellen supported her four sons and two daughters by running a laundry-- by hand-- for the silver prospectors. She followed her sons to Centralia, Washington in the 1920s, where she died Feb. 15, 1949.
Morty Comix # 2682
Morty Comix # 2682 was tucked under a couch cushion in the restaurant/lounge lobby of a hotel in Ocean Shores, Washington.
The Bill Clinton Song
Bill Clinton was a rogue
But we love him just the same
It's not for public policy
That we give him that name
He was really good at speeches
And survived all the impeaches
But not keeping his pants zipped
Was where he found his fame
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