Continuing ballad of The Someday Funnies

'The Someday Funnies' ballad veered into present writer's Beat generation Ballads blogged at this spot few times since printed bookwork publication a year ago. See here, here & here.

This ballad was written originally as poetic hommaġe to a 'lost' book of the 1970s. As legendary among sci-fi and comic fans as HP Lovecraft's 'lost' Necronomicon among fans of horror fantasy.

The Someday Funnies as book-myth became topic of study in an article by Bob Levin for an issue of American Comics Journal in 2009. (The Comics Journal considers comic-book and cartoon-strips as art and literary form through serious and scholarly analysis. There is nothing comparable UK where milieu writers have arguably veered to medium of radio and television. And comic-book artists still seem to be perceived as part of some creepy swivel-eyed male geekdom.)

My own understanding adapting beat generation ballads from blog to Veer bookwork at the time was that Levin's lavishly illustrated essay on The Someday Funnies in The Comics Journal was something of a revelation.

What I didn't know was Comics Journal had stimulated interest, not only in Michel Choquette and his lost comic book, but a will to finally publish the hidden hoard of submissions which included a full page contribution from Mike Weller when he was living as alter-ego '70s underground cartoonist, Captain Stelling. Over the years Weller and his 20th century pulp experience has been fictionalized by present author as both historical object and personal subject in Mike's own visual bookwork Space Opera and entry opening decade 21st century worked as prose-fed Michael John home'baked Slow Fiction.

Like olden days when great beat generation US 45rpm singles couldn't make the British hit parade because Tin Pan Alley ruled the charts - The Someday Funnies has not yet hit radar UK - neither comics fandom nor liberal arts media.

And the tombstone of a book is causing a stir on the other side of the pond. Puffed and hyped-up in North America during fall 2011 - conflicting reviews of Choquette's book have since appeared at The Comics Journal website itself where one editor Tim Holder describes his own journal's response as a house divided. This is because original discoverer Bob Levin celebrates publication while Journal co-editor Dan Nadel's disses the book's arrival, backed up by several posts acquiescing with his critique in the comment thread. R. Fiore's later post at the Journal
provides a detailed, much wider critique of selection and content - followed by a long thread with several knowledgeable comments.

Choquette responds to reviews of his book by taking it out of a generic house of comics to wider blogosphere online @ Huffington Post.

Present author composed 'The Someday Funnies' ballad when believed lost. He wouldn't change one visual or written aspect now it's been found.