Friday, March 6, 2015

Retro-Mule: Comic Strip Film Viewer, Pt. 2

Last week, you learned about the Comic Strip Film Viewer invention that went nowhere once I created it.  Yay!!  Even as a kid I knew a bad idea after I wasted time on it.



The third item of interest in all this was the creation of a story called Ghost of the Galisteins.  It appeared in two versions (as far as I know, I thought for a long time, until I found this receipt tape artwork, that there was only this one version of the story).  We'll share the second version of the story later; but, let's visit this for now:



(Keep in mind:  this is pencil artwork from 1983, so it is HARD to read.)


Unlike last week's post, these you read normally: LEFT to RIGHT!


Here is the second telling of the story, apparently also from 1983:




You see that little zig-zag on the top of the pages?  In the 80's I titled everything under Williams-Mule Productions.  That was the mix of a W and M to create that zig-zag.  I also like that I gave this a Collector Item indication, and that "from now on there will be a special comic strip."



Everyone knows how I love for stories to tie-in.  In Holly Springs, MS, where I grew up, there was a plantation called Strawberry Plains.  As a kid, I thought it was named that after a family, so I added a rich family to the MuleyVerse whose last names were Strawberry.  The eldest of the bunch hated sitting still, so Ms. Strawberry would work and do odd jobs around town.  You may remember her name appearing in the "Buford Adopts a Kitty" story in part 6 and part 7.



A final note:  Though I grew up in Holly Springs, MS, and that was the home base of operations for all the characters in the MuleyVerse, a few years ago I changed the name of their city.  I felt that giving the city a state would make some folks feel 'not at home' while reading it, and struggled with what to do for years.  Then, riding home from Kentucky and Lexington Comic and Toy Convention, we passed a sign that read Bonnieville!  That was the new name, because I could use that to also name the city after my mom.  And, so it was that Holly Springs, MS, in the stories became Bonnieville, USA.