WILLIAM IRA

Son of

W.I. & I.R. ROSS

Feb. 25, 1922

Mar. 1, 1922

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Perry, Kentucky Township, Jefferson County, Kansas

Bart the General

My least favorite episode of the first season, "Bart the General", graces today's #ElevenSeasons. The problem I have with "Bart the General" is mainly the plot overall. I'm not a fan of all the war movie references because when I first saw the episode, I was too young to see any of them. Now that I'm older, I know the references but this episode was really the first that went over my head and I think was the first episode where the writers knew that they could be more than just a cartoon but an animated series.*

We open "Bart the General" on the Simpson house where Marge is baking cupcakes for Lisa to take to school. Bart reaches into the oven to grab one but is scolded by Marge. Bart becomes upset that Lisa isn't sharing with the family. The bus pulls up and Bart tells Otto the bus driver that Lisa won't share her cupcakes. Otto, initially on Bart's side, is swayed when Lisa gives a cupcake to Otto, saying that there's an extra one. A question I have now that I am in my 30s is why are the cupcakes brown with brown frosting? They look more like muffins than cupcakes. I don't care that the cake part is brown but shouldn't the top be a different color than brown?

Anyway, Bart calls Lisa names like apple polisher, butt kisser and honor student while Lisa makes a deal with Bart. Say something nice about her and she'll give him something. Bart comments on her generosity and ability to give. The bus makes an abrupt stop and one of the cupcakes falls onto the floor. Lisa picks it up and give it to Bart who gladly eats it.

Now at school, one of Nelson's toadies takes the box from Lisa and begins taking one bite out of each cupcake before throwing it away behind him. Bart comes to Lisa's rescue but Nelson comes to the toady's rescue. After a brief fight where Nelson is just holding Bart while Bart flails his arms, Bart is able to land a punch causing Nelson to have a nosebleed.

"I am bleeding. You made me bleed my own blood."

Nelson threatens to get Bart after school when Principal Skinner shows up. The school bell rings and Nelson threatens again. Skinner just brushes off the threat with "Oh, he'll get you all right" and ushers Bart off to class because "there's learning afoot." Bart begins to have daydreams about Nelson including one where arrows and missile launchers have no impact on him.

It's here we first learn about the code of the schoolyard where essentially you can't tattle on anybody no matter what and you have to fight your own battles. Bart also imagines his own funeral complete with his eyes sown into Xs.

I also like that he's being buried with his Krusty lunchbox.

During this dream, close friends and family pay their respects. Otto remarks at how lifelike he is while Skinner admits that Bart was right: "All that homework was a waster of your time." Milhouse and Lewis thank Bart for giving them a day off from school. Homer also thanks Bart for giving him the day off from work. Lisa gives Bart a cupcake, setting it on his forehead and Nelson comes up and then eats the cupcake before punching Bart in the stomach.

After school, Bart attempts to get away but runs right into Nelson. Bart gives up and is repeatedly punched right in the face by Nelson.

He actually takes the punches pretty good.

After Bart is knocked down, Nelson and his toadies throw Bart in a trash can, threaten to get him tomorrow and then roll the trash can down a hill which conveniently stops rolling right in front of the Simpson house. When Bart goes inside, he gets advice from Homer who tells Bart to fight dirty and especially go for the "family jewels" which was the first time I had ever heard that area of the human body referred as. Marge's advice is bit more practical--tell Principal Skinner but after Homer reveals the code of the schoolyard, she suggests Bart befriend Nelson. Bart tries everything the next day but still ends up getting beat up, shoved in a trash can and rolled down a hill.

Lisa suggests to Bart that he go see the toughest Simpson alive. Grandpa. When Bart arrives, Grandpa is writing one of his famous letters, this one to advertisers where he informs them that he is "disgusted with the way old people are depicted on television. We are not all vibrant, fun-loving, sex maniacs. Many of us are bitter, resentful individuals who remember the good old days when entertainment was bland." Bart then asks Grandpa to teach him to fight but after losing a newspaper tug-of-war with Jasper...

...Grandpa takes Bart to Herman's where you can buy Hitler's teeth for $25. Herman helps Bart draft a declaration of war so that everything he does is perfectly legal and then we get a long montage of Bart training the schoolyard kids in water balloon offensive tactics.

"I got a B in arithmetic.
Would've got an A but I was sick."

The day finally comes as the kids have tracked Nelson and his toadies to the Kwik-E-Mart and are walking home after buying Squishees ("What flavor did you get?" "Blue."). The kids attack and Nelson is easily defeated and captured. Unfortunately, Nelson threatens Bart if he is ever released. Knowing that he can't keep Nelson forever, Herman helps them draft a peace treaty where Nelson has no real power is still considered a threat to the neighborhood.

The treaty is approved and lasts for the remainder of the series, Nelson is untied and everyone celebrates with one of Marge's cupcakes. At the end, Bart tells the audience that war is neither glamorous nor fun and that in war there are no winners only losers with three exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars trilogy.

Peace, man.




*Interestingly, in The Complete Directory to Primetime Television Series, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh lists The Simpsons as a cartoon while "plagarisimo" Family Guy is classified as an animated situation comedy.

W. TOM BROWN

BORN COLUMBIA, TENN.

JULY 11, 1854

DIED TOPEKA, KAN.

FEB. 21, 1927

Rochester Cemetery, Topeka, Soldier Township, Shawnee County, Kansas

Valorous Brown was born in Butler, Ohio to Matthew and Aurelia (Buell) Brown. He married Olive Willey on December 15, 1844 and they had nine children: Ellen Louisa, Isaac Bitler, Maryette, Matthew, Richard Fletcher, Valorous Fremont, Wade, Aurelia, and Olive Bell. The couple came to Kansas in March of 1870 and settled in the Thompsonville area. Olive died after a short illness in 1887.

Valorous remarried to Miriam A. Blackman and had two more children: Miriam Alta and Ruth. Valorous died in 1899. Miriam would pass in 1912.

VALORUS BROWN

BORN APRIL 11, 1825

DIED AUG. 6, 1899.

------

OLIVE BROWN

BORN JUNE 2, 1825

DIED MARCH 1, 1887

Mamma

MIRIAM BROWN

1865 - 1912

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Perry, Kentucky Township, Jefferson County, Kansas

Sunday Comics #14: Captain Thunder

In the early 1940s, Captain Marvel was the best selling superhero in America. The comics had it all not only just from a superhero standpoint but it had humor, down-to-earth but whimsical stories, funny animals and, probably the most important aspect, a young boy was the star of the magazine. Given the gift of supernatural powers by a ancient wizard, young Billy Batson could become the powerful mortal Captain Marvel with the utterance of one simple word...

"S  H  A  Z  A  M!"

Captain Marvel began as any other superhero at that time. Fawcett Publications saw how popular comic books were becoming and decided to open a comic book division. Bill Parker, who had written all the other features to appear in Flash Comics #1, created a story about a team of six people who were each given a mystical power. Fawcett executive director Ralph Daigh suggested merging the heroes together into just one hero. Parker agreed and created Captain Thunder, along with C.C. Beck who created the design. Flash Comics was sent to the printer and published in order to obtain a trademark along with another comic called Thrill Comics with the same content. Fawcett failed to secure the trademark on either title and Captain Thunder. They renamed the comic Whiz Comics with #2, renamed Captain Thunder Captain Marvel and introduced their new hero in almost the same way that DC did with Superman.

They even copied the guy in the green pants.

The look of Captain Marvel was inspired by Fred MacMurray while everything else was added in tribute to Fawcett and its founders. Billy Batson was named for founder Wilford Fawcett, who went by "Billy", Captain came from Fawcett's rank in the military and even Whiz Comics came from Fawcett's first magazine Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang. Parker and Beck even took the more familiar aspects of Superman (alter ego, reporter, most of the powers) and put them into the character. The major difference was that all of this was put into a 10- to 12-year-old boy.

Captain Marvel was an immediate success and became the best-selling character of the 1940s spawning a whole franchise of ancillary characters known as The Marvel Family. By 1944, every Fawcett comic featured one of the Marvels and several solo titles were created. In 1944, National Publications (now known as DC Comics) sued Fawcett over copyright infringement. The two companies tried to settle the conflict out of court but in 1948, the case went to trial. The judge ruled that National had failed to properly register the Superman copyright so there was no infringement involved. National appealed and another ruled that while the Superman copyright was valid, no infringement could be seen on the character itself but on certain aspects and stories of the character. The judge sent the case back down to a lower court but by this time, comic books had fallen out of favor, especially superhero comic books. Fawcett agreed to an out-of-court settlement. They ceased publishing comics by 1954, paid National $400,000 in damages, and agreed never to publish the character again.

In 1972, looking for new characters that they could publish, DC bought the rights to Captain Marvel from Fawcett and a new series called Shazam!, due to being unable to use the name Captain Marvel because of another character named that who was owned by Marvel Comics, began the next year.

The following year, in 1974, Superman #276 went on the shelves introducing a new villain for Superman--Captain Thunder. Everything about Captain Thunder was similar to Captain Marvel except for one crucial detail: Instead of a yellow lightning bolt on his chest, there was a yellow sun burst.

Make Way for Captain Thunder
Originally published in Superman #276 (June 1974)
Written by Elliot S! Maggin
Penciled by Curt Swan
Inked by Bob Oksner
Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
All characters and stories (C)1974 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

"In a dingy Metropolis alleyway appears a brilliant flash of light that suddenly becomes a bewildered Willie Fawcett" is how the story starts out. Willie looks exactly like Billy Batson except for his crew cut. The narration box tells us immediately that Willie has strange and enormous powers. Willie catches a glimpse of Superman flying through the air and wonders out loud who it is. A drunk man says that it's Superman which confuses Willie even more. He takes a bus (35 cents!!) to where he thinks some place called WHAM-TV is but instead finds Galaxy Broadcasting. Once again, Superman flies by in pursuit of a weird, see-through flying lizard. While Superman is tangling with the lizard, Willie notices a helicopter closing in on an armored car. With a rub of his belt buckle and saying the word "T H U N D E R" Willie transforms into Captain Thunder. But as Captain Thunder flies off, something strange comes over him as if he mustn't stop those crooks. Captain Thunder arrives to help the criminals (!) and takes off with the armored car with the crooks in the helicopter close behind.

Superman finally disposes of the flying lizard who was apparently a menace to the city despite being just an illusion and discovers another costumed person helping the crooks escape. Superman tells Captain Thunder to surrender but is instead kicked in the face. Captain Thunder throws the armored car at Superman and returns to his alter ego of Willie Fawcett, who doesn't know what the heck is going on. Willie decides to return to the Galaxy Building to see if someone can help him get a word to Superman. He is directed to Clark Kent who listens to Willie tell the story of Captain Thunder's origin.

Turns out that Willie is an orphan and every year the orphan kids were sent to summer camp which I imagine was just an excuse to get the kids out of the orphanage so they could bug bomb it and one summer, while everyone else was asleep, Willie followed an owl into a mystical cave where he meets Merokee, a Mohegan medicine man. Merokee reveals that legends foretold that Willie Fawcett would be given great powers. With Captain Thunder here, Merokee goes to "a far better place" leaving Captain Thunder to fight evil. We get glimpses of Captain Thunder battling bank robbers, not-Doctor Sivana, and rescuing ships from storms.

The last thing that Willie remembers is battling the Monster League of Evil which consists of the Universal Studios Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the Wolfman).

Thunder traps them in another dimension but Dracula laughs that they did something to him and that he will never be the same. Willie thinks that he has arrived in the future but Clark tells him that Captain Thunder has never existed on his Earth. Clark agrees to help Willie but thinks that the boy is delusional. Soon, Clark, Lois and Willie are walking to the police station to see if anyone has reported Willie Fawcett missing. Clark notices that a criminal is breaking out of jail and runs off to grab a hamburger for Willie but instead turns into Superman to stop the vehicle that helped the criminal escape. As a reflex, Willie rubs his belt and shouts "Thunder!" turning into Captain Thunder who slams into Superman causing the criminals to escape.

A battle ensues as Superman flies high into the air and uses storm clouds, mountains, static electricity to stop Captain Thunder. Superman is finally able to get a hold of Thunder and trick him into rubbing his belt buckle while saying

This kid has said "Creepies" 16
times in this comic. Superman
should snap him in half.

"Thunder" which turns him back into Willie. Superman puts Willie into a body lock and convinces Willie to say "Thunder" again. With Captain Thunder unable to move,
soon, Thunder is able to break whatever spell the Monster League of Evil had on him and knows how to get him. He rubs his belt buckle again, says "Thunder" and is gone to whichever planet Captain Thunder calls home.

In the epilogue, Lois convinces Clark to take her to lunch at a fancy restaurant and Clark opines in his head that he's glad that somewhere Captain Thunder is fighting for the weak and helpless for no other reason than because it is right. Clark's prime sirloin arrives and he promptly pours ketchup all over it, baffling Lois, because God forbid Clark not act like a doofus for once in these stories.

Why Topeka?

Since September, everything I've written has been published in Topeka, Kansas after 13 years in Lawrence. I figured that it's about time to discuss the move and why it happened. The short answer is that my wife and I found a house that we liked and bought it. The long answer is that this was a move several years in the making. I lived in Lawrence from 1983 until 1996 and again from 2002 to 2015--26 years--and one thing that really aggravated me especially during my latter 13 years, is that Lawrence is expensive. This isn't unique to Lawrence but to most college towns that I know of. They are typically more expensive and we, as people, have come to just accept it. As much as I loved Lawrence, it always baffled me why a city in Kansas was so expensive. It got even more expensive when the state raised the sales tax making the sales tax in Lawrence nearly 10%. So we went looking for houses in Topeka. In one day we saw about 10 houses and found one we really liked. Instead of thinking of leaving Lawrence as the end of a chapter, I thought of moving to Topeka as the start of a new chapter.

For years, I had been trying to get on as some sort of go-to-person on the history of Lawrence and Douglas County. I've spent roughly 10 years studying and writing about the history and essentially got nowhere. No matter what I wrote, what I knew, what I tweeted, no one seemed to care or take notice. I tried to join programs or public get-togethers based on history to try to get my foot in the door. All attempts failed and since 2014, I've kind of slipped away from writing about history after I finished my research on the Douglas County Poor Farm opting to limit my research to short tweets or Instagram posts. With the move, I plan on turning my focus to Topeka and Shawnee County where they are many aspects of their history that has been nearly forgotten.

We also moved to be closer to my wife's job. She's a teacher in the Topeka school district and she had been wanting to be closer to work for a few years. The downside was that I had to quit my job as a paraeducator in Baldwin City but I got a job with Topeka as a para so it all worked out well for both of us.

I also think that Topeka is aiming for a resurgence in popularity. They are in the process of revitalizing their downtown, they are a more diverse community, smaller colleges, such as Topeka's Washburn University, are becoming more popular as larger schools get more expensive, it is within driving distance of Kansas City, Lawrence, Manhattan and Wichita, and the lower cost of living is more desirable for people in this not-quite-stable economy.

But the biggest reason that moving was so easy was that Lawrence was my hometown but it didn't feel like. I fell into that weird category of "not a college student" and "from here" and for some reason, that didn't mix well in a city where you are either there because of college or a transplant from somewhere else. Despite being born and raised in Lawrence, its people considered me a visitor.

So, as we enter a new year, fresh off a year that saw a lot of good, a lot of bad and some big changes, I am changing my focus to my writing. I have a couple books planned over the next couple of years, another book that I have been writing since 2004 that I need to finish, and several Story Series and short stories that I have planned and outlined. Here's hoping that I can get a lot of them done along with all my stuff that requires research.

Until next time, I remain...
~Brian

WILLIAM WALLACE

Died

Nov. 21, 1858

Aged

19 Yrs.&1M.

Rochester Cemetery, Topeka, Soldier Township, Shawnee County, Kansas

Sunday Comics #13: Cat-Man

Back when I first got into comics, I created my own comic book characters that I would use to act out stories using refrigerator magnets. Some of the characters I created I have rewritten into stories here and elsewhere. Most of my characters were cat-themed because I was apparently going through a cat phase at that time. What was weird is that sometimes they weren't cats so it was kind of like humans and anthropomorphic cats coexisting with each other. One of these examples was Catman, my Batman clone, who was a man who dressed as a cat. One would think that it would be the felis sapien equivalent of blackface but he always got along with the feline heroes.

My Catman was originally very similar to Batman but soon became more like Wildcat with a hint of Wolverine. In-universe, Catman died along with all the other heroes I created during the Crystal Mission, where a living crystalline alien spreads across the universe engulfing earth. Catman will be reintroduced next month in Incredible Comics #5 and I hope that he becomes a mainstay around here.

The Holyoke Publishing version of Cat-Man debuted in Crash Comics #4 in 1940. Cat-Man had a very Jungle Book-y origin as Cat-Man's secret identity, David Merrywether, is raised by a jungle cat. In India, David is just a baby being raised by his parents. One night, the Family Merrywether are attacked by racist caricatures and slaughtered, leaving only baby David alive.

So much racism.

Soon, a mother tiger arrives to pick at the corpses a bit and discovers David crying in his crib. Her motherly instincts kicking in, the tiger carries David off to raise him as her own.

"This white kid is going to get me in the door of a lot of countries."

According to a giant text box, David grows up with the mother tiger's cubs and learns the language of the jungle. He ends up saving one of his "brothers'" life and is rewarded from the tiger with being shown where a human city is. Because David was raised by tigers in the jungle, he has essentially become a cat so when he returns to civilazation, disappointed by how terrible humans are, he devotes his life combating evil as The Cat-Man!

While listening to a live broadcast of a radio show, David hears an S-O-S coming from the prop machine gun used on the program. Believing that something is wrong, David doffs his street clothes to reveal The Cat-Man!!

Gah! Put the street clothes back on!

When Cat-Man arrives at the studio, he sees the voice actors tied up and no sign of the hoodlums. The criminals have kidnapped Stella Richards because Bull Jackson wants to use her radio program for evil and she refuses to do it. It's not explained how he wants to use it for evil but I assume he wants to add more annoying drive-time deejays with names like "Rockin' Randy and the Clit". Cat-Man busts in, and shows off his skills of leaping tall ceilings in a single bound and his glowing, searchlight-like eyes, saving Ms. Richards. Unfortunately, one of Bull's henchmen pushes over a chimney knocking Cat-Man out cold.

Cat-Man and Stella awake in Bull's dungeon-like prison but are able to escape due to an air vent that was left open.Cat-Man drops Stella off at a police station and then makes another appearance at one of Bull's other hideouts. Cat-Man is immediately stabbed and killed, his body lying in a pool of blood. Bull then speeds off to the police station to recapture Stella.

As Cat-Man dies, the spirit of his feline guardian visits him and restores his life because, since he is a cat, David has nine lives. Bull has taken one life so David has eight lives left. Cat-Man arrives at the police station, picks up Bull and his men and just throws them in jail. The police chief, or whoever, offers Cat-Man a job with the force. Cat-Man turns him down.

"Ok, that's fine, but why are you yelling?"

Cat-Man continued to appear in Crash Comics until Crash was canceled with #5 but then received his own series the following years that lasted sporadically until 1946. As the series wore on, Cat-Man got a better costume and a sidekick in the form of Kitten, his orphaned eleven-year-old niece. So, yes, everyone was on board the child endangerment train.

The Cat-Man has since fallen into the public domain and has been used several times by other publishers. A different version of Catman is currently associated with Batman at DC Comics and there's another, a villain, over at Marvel so there is no shortage of the use of the name.

Did...did he slaughter his Tiger Mother for those gloves?

Sunday Comics #12: Marge's Tubby

Marjorie Henderson "Marge" Buell's Little Lulu first appeared as a replacement to the comic panel "Henry" in the February 23, 1935 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. "Little Lulu" ran in the Post from 1935 until 1944 and then as a nationally syndicated comic strip from 1944 until 1969. "Little Lulu" continued as a comic book series from 1948 until 1984, a theatrical short series lasting 26 shorts between 1943 and 1948, and two television series--one on ABC from 1976 to 1977 and HBO from 1995 to 1999. Introduced in 1941, Tubby Tompkins became Lulu's portly, misogynistic friend. Tubby was so popular that he got his own comic book series from 1952 to 1961.

Tubby can best be described as the 1950s version of Eric Cartman, less bigoted and murderous but equally misogynistic. Tubby, as leader of The Fellers, his neighborhood boy gang, routinely kept girls away from their clubhouse, insulted them, made them cry, made them feel less than people and was just basically a mean ol' jerk to them. Thankfully, Tubby usually got what was coming to him in the form of public embarrassment or child abuse (re: constant spanking).

Most stories featuring Tubby were about him trying to do something fun and having it backfire causing hijinks to ensue or being a lazy piece of crap. One of my favorite stories that I have read has him doing latter. Trying to keep from practicing his violin.