UNTIL last night, 2024 had been reasonably accommodating on night-ride road conditions. I was out there pretty consistently for a while.
We’ve had just two snowfalls in the new year so far. It’s mostly been build-the-ark rains that should have been snow. All the rivers are up. Lots of roads have been closed off-and-on due to flooding.
The wetlands on the other side of that drop-off are inundated. It’s a Pawtuxet River flood zone down there.
I’ve had Jenna and Jonny’s travel van here since the last work weekend in Vermont. Can’t even remember when that was. They haven’t missed it, they’ve been mostly in the air. They were in Scotland a few months ago, in Mexico last week. Last month Jenna was in Buenos Aires on business.
Daughter #3 was in Vegas last week, and Daughter #1 changed jobs, so from time to time she’ll be off to the head office in Denmark instead of London.
I don’t go anywhere anymore, not since the Arctic four years ago. That’ll come back or it won’t, it’s all good. I get more reading done sitting around here. Been reading Umberto Eco and Kurt Vonnegut lately.
Sunday I was out riding during the day, did a driveway oil change when I got back. Finished up just as a snow squall moved in.
Here on the left, the primary drive drains aft while the pan up front drains the oil galley behind the filter.
It started to snow just as I poured a quart of oil into the primary case and put the cover back on. It was a head fake; the snow let up half an hour later and got here last night.
Robyn sent this pic from the Lode Ranch in Montana yesterday. A chilly day with the wind, she said, -40F.
On Phantom matters (which I’m always ambivalent writing about here), the dual-timeline Wrack and Ruin series came to a close last Saturday, after seven chapters and 32 months. It ended with Jeff Weigel’s Phantom reflecting for a week on various journeys the characters had walked in both the Mozz prophecy and the present.
In the tale’s closing panel, the Phantom wonders what his actions in the present may have changed, if anything. He may be bound for the unmarked grave Mozz foresaw no matter what, we don’t know. In the prophecy timeline, his lost son’s militia killed him in a fight in the Himalayas.
I might write about the series here at some point. This isn’t a fan site and I don’t want it to become that, but I don’t mind writing about the Phantom now and again if I can make it interesting to readers who don’t follow the strip, those who might appreciate a novel peek into this unique little corner of popular culture.
That said, condensing the Wrack and Ruin series, 465 pages of script, more than 1,500 images, packaging that in a way a non-Phantom fan (most readers here) might appreciate, that’s a heavy lift. It would easily take a week of daily posts, a chapter per day, an introduction, a continuity primer, nine posts…? no, no, the chemo gods are going to have to sideline me again before I sit still long enough for that. They’re going to have to catch me first.
Here’s a Phantom thing worth mentioning before I close, surely of interest to Jermayn, Steve and Dan, the Chronicle Chamber blokes Down Under (there’s a fan site for you), they’re sometimes here: The Wrack and Ruin chapters, and every Phantom story published before the series and those to come, are about to get a whole lot easier to read. Next month, King Features expects to unveil the next generation Comics Kingdom site. I’m told readers will be able to scroll through stories seamlessly, from 1936 through the present day. No more of this clunky click-reload-click-reload-click-reload from one day to the next.
That would certainly solve the space limitations we labor under. In his heyday, Lee Falk had four big panels a day, acres of storytelling room. We have two; two small panels that get even smaller on the days where we sacrifice art to stretch for three.
As things are now, we squeeze in half a storytelling beat per day. But if all of a sudden the reader can scroll seamlessly through the days, weeks, months and years, that changes everything.
Here you see what I mean by half a storytelling beat. This is yesterday strip and today’s.
In the wide open spaces of yesteryear these four panels would have appeared together on the same day. Published half now, half tomorrow, they seem awfully disjointed. With just two panels a day, the narrative rolls with the beat of a flat tire: buh-BUMP, buh-BUMP, buh-BUMP…
In this new story that started yesterday, Bret Blevins and I are revisiting a Lee Falk/Wilson McCoy tale from 1953. Our story shares the title of the original yarn, a conspicuous outlier in the canon. Falk wrote the Phantom as a boor, a manbaby, selfish, cranky, petulant, obnoxious (who does that sound like?). This 1953 Phantom is someone we don’t recognize. He’s wrong on personality, maturity, character, moral compass, how he talks to his wife—the works.
The story’s so off some think Falk didn’t write it, that he had someone ghost it for him. There’s no way to know that. From my point of view it doesn’t matter whose hands were on the keys, Falk’s name is on the story, he owns it.
Bret and I are going to deconstruct the original story, put a different lens on it, create a different way of thinking about it.
That’s about it for now. Back at you one of these days, maybe a night-ride video when the snow goes.
My first 2024 night on the road was January 1. I had taken the obligatory pass on December 31. On that night, as you know, the caution advisory flashes with a particular intensity.
For a few nights I was out there testing a camera mount I had rigged to the side of the top box, see whether it might simulate the view from a sidecar. Didn’t work. There’s too much rocking and rolling around on the ass end of a twin cam Harley; it overcame the GoPro’s image stabilization software. With the bike laden for distance it would have been fine; empty, no. I might yet figure out a solution, but until then I’ll be using the mount up front on the headlight nacelle. That works no matter what.
Ol’ CCjon down in Houston would have gotten a chuckle out of the sidecar view. He’s been trying to convert me to three wheels ever since we struck up a friendship in Haines, Alaska, in 2012. Great days…
We were a motley knot of motorcycle hobos on the docks that night, looking to stow our bikes on the Alaska Marine Highway for a three-day sail down to the Pacific Northwest. If you haven’t seen that post, it’s not the worst time-waster I ever scribbled.
Cheers to all.
Tony DePaul, January 16, 2024, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
First of all, I really enjoy your run on The Phantom. Second of all, is it really necessary to undo a 70 year old storyline? In any series that has lasted this long, there are bound to be a few stinkers. Can’t we just collectively acknowledge that and move on?
Thanks and have a great day.
That would be my preference, Bob, then was then, now is now, but you might be surprised how much defense we play behind the scenes at the syndicate with those who judge us by the old tales and can’t see anything positive between the Falk/Barry era and the present day. I’ve got some thoughts on this, will get around to writing about it here. Thanks for following the strip.
Hi Tony.
Use to own a HD 74 incher. I’m 77 now and retired.
I read The Phantom regularly in the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and really liked it.
Just finished reading a nine year old interview with Sy Barry and was surprised Barry did not like Lee Falk as a person. Acknowledged Falk as a good writer and how he brilliantly invented two successful comic strips. But Barry found Falk to be often irritating as a man.
One occurrence which really got to Barry was Falk referencing Barry as “his assistant” in an interview.
I didn’t know writers and artists had those kind of relationships.
I bet you and Mike Manley get along well and I hope Manley’s medical situation is resolved successfully.
Good luck and happy trails to you with that bike!!
Bob Lackey
Thanks for writing, Bob.
I was surprised, too, when I first heard that Sy Barry and Lee Falk had such a poor working relationship, constantly going at it. Sy was hardly Falk’s assistant. It’s hard to imagine why a writer might want to belittle the artist he relies on to bring the strip to life.
It’s made me unpopular among fans who keep Falk up on a pedestal, the hero-worship treatment, but I’ve always said Sy’s art did more than the writing ever did to flesh out the Phantom as a character, to make him seem a living personality behind the mask.
I’ll bet you miss the 74ci. Shovelhead was it, or earlier?
I smoked the factory 88 on the Road King running across the Canadian prairie one ungodly hot summer. You might get a chuckle out of that. The link’s below. Thanks again for writing.
https://www.tonydepaul.net/west-to-seattle-july-29-to-august-6/
Love the Phantom posts – it would be amazing if one day you published your insights into your strips, you’d definitely have a buyer here!
Thanks. The blog’s supposed to be about motorcycling but the Phantom pops up now & again since I haven’t been anywhere for distance in four years. I’m never sure when to write about a story: before, during or after.
After means it probably won’t get done at all, because I’m on to something else and the previous story’s out of sight, out of mind. And before always gives me a moment’s pause because anything I say can interfere with a reader experiencing their own reading.
That’s why I never read the introduction to a book until I’ve read the book; I don’t want someone else’s thoughts in my head until I’ve got my own to weigh them against.
I was thinking R.I. was bad, with two storms and 25 degree weather, til I read that it’s 40 below in Montana. No idea how people cope with that.
It must be fun for you to hear of and keep track of your daughters exciting lives, looks like it could become a fulltime job.
Thanks for reading, Ellie. It is nice to have the girls nearby. For years, two of them were working in New York and we saw them much less frequently.
We still have D1D2 with us on Mondays but that’ll end when she goes to kindergarten in September. She grew half an inch in the not-quite-six weeks between November 27 and January 8.
Happy New Year, Tony & P! – Love that the PNW is part of your story.
Much love.
Hugo! Our friends the Mundays and the Nelsons often spring to mind around here. Hope to see you all again before too much time goes by.
Dear Tony,
Happy New Year!
Frankly my experience with the KF site has not been great. It just doesn’t work seamlessly so I hope the new one has taken care of all the old glitches.
I have switched to other much better sites to read Phantom.
Happy that the Wrack and Ruin saga has finally ended with mostly positive reviews after all the controversy it courted in visiting some of the ‘forbidden’ issues of the lore.
But now we have a new artist on the dailies so I guess we should prepare for another round of backlash!!
lol… Oh, absolutely, Amir, a new artist is bound to be harshly critiqued, often by readers who hated the previous artist, not to mention the previous previous artist. Bret’s a real pro, a little abuse won’t faze him.
Thanks for the good word on Wrack and Ruin. It was easy for readers to lose the thread, given the space issues, the user-unfriendly aspects of CK, all that, but when it gets ironed out (we hope) maybe they’ll give the story another chance.
Happy New Year my friend.-37 here a few days ago,snowing now.See you next summer.
I’ve been wondering whether you’ve found a new bike yet, Bob. Almost dropped you a line about it the other day.
Happy New Year to you and Janey.
Hi Tony – any blab is better than no blab, eh? Keep ’em coming.
Thanks, Chris. Here’s hoping it’s reasonably high & dry in your part of the delmarva. I heard something about wind & seas down your way recently.
I imagine I would be up at the front waving my handkerchief as the Comic Kingdom site sails away from what I can only assume is Port Geocities. A very welcome update.
lol… good one.
It was a dark and stormy night we three met… Keith from Oregon, you from little Rhody, me from Texas. Three wet, dirty, smelly motorcyclists huddled together, staring into the cold dark night, waiting, hoping we find empty lounge chairs onboard for sleeping. Too cheap to pay for a cabin, we shared the open air solarium with twenty other wet travelers. Strangers who befriended strangers as the ship sailed south for three days and three nights. Unforgetable experiences that enrich our lives…
Thanks for keeping us up to date with your life and ongoings…
Will send you a few photos from that trip. Could not figure out how to post them here.
Thanks, amigo, I’ll watch the inbox. I haven’t heard from Keith in a while, will have to reach out and catch up.
Happy New Year, Tony!! Good health in 2024 and beyond! E
Thanks, Ellen. Come see us again soon. Hi to Jerome.
Happy 2024! Solid scribble. Thanks for the updates. I’d suggest coming South and warm up. But ATL is about to be frozen solid. Still heading to Savannah/Tybee the first weekend of March. When the azaleas bloom, come visit! And go light her fire!
Lit the one in the woodstove, anyway. She’s sitting by it reading a book and eating popcorn as we speak.
Azaleas, you say? Everybody’s got spring on the brain. This morning she said to me: Don’t forget, we have to trim the lilacs right after they bloom this year. I told her I appreciate the 4-1/2 month heads-up.
Hey Tony, Happy New Year! I always look forward to your “scribble”. I must confess that I haven’t followed the Phantom in many years (or any other of the comic-strip characters I used to read back when I delivered the Sunday Bulletin, Philadelphia, 1968-69).
As for your driveway oil-changes, I kind of envy the fact your Harley has a separate primary/trans case so you can use an oil different from the engine. And I admire your hardiness to ride at this time of the year; I was out a few weeks ago, but then got sidetracked replacing the engine in my Ranger pickup–the old motor gave up the ghost at 206,000+. I can send you some photos of that engine replacement if you like:>)
Take care, ride safe, stay healthy, in any order you care to.
Kind regards,
Will
I run gear lube in the transmission, 75w90 Red Line, 80w90 Lucas… have run 75w90 Mobil 1. They say motor oil’s enough and maybe it is but I like gear lube for lubing gears.
You got your money’s worth on the Ranger motor, Will. I would like a look at the pics.
Happy New Year Tony and thank you for dropping some words on arc thoughts here. I have been reading Phantom since my childhood and wrack and ruin has made the characters more current and realistic without rebooting them.
I came here now to check if Mozz’s astonishment about the date and time Kit junior decided to return home was explained further. Another was about Kit’s and Savarna’s ages – somehow I had assumed she was senior’s contemporary.
Anyways, long twisted but satisfying wrack and ruin.
Blevin’s Diana looks a bit different from Weigel’s.
Thanks for writing, James (Jim?)
When Mozz learned that Kit’s sudden inspiration to journey home had coincided with the Phantom agreeing to hear the prophecy, Mozz knew he had succeeded in changing the course of events: the Phantom would not be the one to reveal to Savarna the whereabouts of Jampa.
If the Phantom had refused to hear the prophecy, had continued on his way to Gravelines, his fate and that of his son would have remained entangled with Savarna’s and Jampa’s. (Think Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance” :-)). With Kit home in Bangalla, unavailable to witness Jampa’s killing in India, events proceed along a different course.
That said, who can say whether fate might not double back and come for the Phantom and Kit anyway? Mozz’s definition of success might not be ours. For all we know, he might see a 50/50 chance of avoiding the Phantom’s death—and Kit’s a year later—as a win for now. As readers, of course, we want the nightmare avoided entirely, ruled out forever.
On the characters’ ages, I think of Kit as 17 going on 18, and Savarna as 30ish.
I’m going to keep the characters here for quite some time, maybe for whatever’s left of my run. Every time a comic character is linked to real time they tend to get used up a bit. To avoid that, an eternal present really does have to be the default timeline. The twins have aged 17 years in, what? 45 years? That’s waaaay faster than I’d care to proceed from here.
Thanks for writing. I appreciate your interest and your long-time loyalty to the strip.
Glad to have an explanation and extended musings. Thank you so much.
James
First of all – Happy New Year. With all the physical issues going on between you and Mike Manley, I was very happy to read your post. Count me among those who enjoyed the Wrack and Ruin story. But I must admit the strips of last week seemed more like a coda than a story conclusion. I began to wonder if the strip was ending. I mean Kit riding Hero and shielding his eyes as if to create a mask was significant foreshadowing. That said, I’m glad you and the strip are continuing.
Thanks, Bill. Mike’s not nearly out of the woods. I’m very concerned. He sounds good, though. We texted back & forth a bit this morning.
I love the mask thing on that December 15, 2023 strip. That was Jeff, it wasn’t scripted.
Sidecars are a niche market. I have had a rig for 14 years and it has almost 15,000 miles on it. In the same time frame I have put about 150,000 miles on V Stroms. The rig is fun and a real attention getter but it’s not a touring choice for me. I do enjoy the challenge of making a sidecar run straight and smooth but a Can Am Spyder or a HD Trike is a much more comfortable ride. Hope this doesn’t generates irate responses from sidecar fans. I plan to keep mine until I die and I am a loyal USCA member.
Cool. Do you ever get to the national meets? CCjon has organized a few. He’s good at it so they keep drafting him.
Keep up The Phantom updates… very enjoyable. Happy New Year to you all. Sending love from Houston.
Thank you, Brad. I’m told it’s Montana-like frosty down your way.
Hey!
Glad you’ve got the good sense to stay put while it’s cold and instead get second-hand adventures with the younguns. Bet your mind changes in the spring.
Though frustrated at times, I’ve truly enjoyed all the surprise twists and turns in “Wrack and Ruin”. Even more I debated with others your portrayal of fate, predestination.
Rewriting a problematic old arc can be equally troublesome: is history the actual events that occurred and that shape people, or is history merely what is written down and remembered? Changing only the narrative is false–as are attempts in last 60 years to right native abuses, slavery, and German atrocities out of history. OTOH, there’s nothing wrong with giving old events a fresh look to obtain clearer vision with new details.
Sorry for over-long comment. We’re snowed in too, so I’m baking a cake. So glad you are well, strong, and able to be as mobile as you want!
In my next life I’ll know how to bake a cake.
Snow days are nice. The bride just walked into my lair and gave me a line from The Doors: Come on, baby, light my fire. She meant to light it in the woodstove, but still.
I was getting concerned about the silence this year. Happy New Year Tony! Great hearing from you. I remember you doing an oil change in my driveway long ago. There’s no need to travel right now. Up here it’s close to -40° and at that temperature it doesn’t matter which thermometer you’re looking at. Stay warm!
Bill! Good to hear from you. If I leave today I’ll be at your place when it’s time for fresh oil again, can’t be more than 3,000 miles. No, less, I think, especially on the over-the-Great-Lakes route I typically go for. It’s been a while.
Hi Tony, Happy New Year! j
You too, Jody. Say hi to Mike for me.
I really enjoy your Phantom writing. I don’t take the paper so I don’t see the comic.
Thank you!
Hi, Stephanie. We were thinking about you just this morning. Pam was telling me how good you are at the Connections word game she plays every day.