Fletcher Hanks had a very short run in comics; he worked only from 1939 to 1941. In fact, this, the first volume of his comics,I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!, combined with the companion volume, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!, contains everything ever published by Hanks. Though his run may have been brief, he worked with Will Eisner’s studio. Will Eisner, though, didn’t remember much about him -- just that he did everything alone, but turned everything in on time. Granted, with the amount of work they were doing in that time to get complete comics packages out to various publishers and distributors, speed and timeliness was the most important thing, rather than quality. Formula was king, just because it allowed creators to churn out stories quickly -- though, unlike Hanks, most creators specialized in one or two parts of the process and passed the stories on -- getting multiple viewpoints in the creation. Hanks’ stories are all the product of his own mind and hand.
This was recorded for the Not Necessarily Beautiful But Mutated: Volume 9 DEVO tribute compilation that was distributed at DEVOtional 2010: A Decade of DEVOtion, a DEVO convention that occurred August 28, 2010. We still weren't there in person -- next time, Gadget, NEXT TIME -- but this is the third time in a row we've been on the CD! The song was recorded over about 2 weeks, give or take at Studio Kittysneezes; Dale was busy with about fifty other things, so he wasn't able to perform on it. But he gave the finished product a thumbs up.
Paul Collins is one of my favorite authors; he's got 5 books out (Banvard's Folly, a collection of essays on forgotten folks of history, like the guy who invented the Concord grape, or the titular Banvard, who created a gigantic rolling mural of the Mississippi Riverbanks; Sixpence House, a longer book about buying a house in Hay-On-Wye, the UK town known for its overabundance of bookstores; Not Even Wrong, a book about autism through history as well as coping with his son's own recently diagnosed autism, The Trouble With Tom about Thomas Paine's corpse, and The Book Of William about Shakespeare's First Folio), and he's also the editor of the CollinsLibrary, a McSweeney's imprint devoted to bringing back into print obscure but interesting books, mainly from the turn of the century and thereabouts. (The most popular is probably English As She Is Spoke, known as the worst phrasebook in the world.)
It's old news now, but Jack Horkheimer died last week; he's always been one of my favorites, just because he had this great energy in sort of a nerdy way -- but that ideal of "Here's something cool I want to share with you!" shined through every episode of Star Hustler/Star Gazer.
Who don't love Sparks? I suppose the folks who don't know who Sparks are might not love Sparks, but that's only because of plum ignorance. But REST EASY, reader -- we're here to set you straight by reviewing ALL the Sparks records -- and not just by one, but TWO (and maybe occasionally MORE!) Die-Hard Sparks Fan Reviewers. We shall be your guide into the wonderful world of Mael. Check it out!
It's old news now, but 
