Grampa's Got A Brand New Blog

Well, after months of posting comments in other people's comics blogs, I've finally gotten a Blogger account of my very own.

This is where Your Obedient Serpent will post his musings on comic books, cartoons, and on occasion, other mass media. Goodness knows, I prattle on about such things often enough; I should certainly be able to muster an occasional column on sundry circumstances.

The title might require some explanation. Almost anyone involved with this particular subculture is familiar with Kirby Dots, the psychadelic pop-art effect that the late, great Jack Kirby developed to indicate vast, incomprehensible cosmic forces that would beggar "Doc" Smith's vocabulary.

A less-celebrated stylistic affectation that I have always considered at least as significant are the swooping trails and pathways that wove through Steve Ditko's otherworldly tales -- not only those crafted for Marvel's Master of the Mystic Arts, but in his excursions into the arcane for the cereal-box presses of Charlton. The Dark Dimension, the Astral Realms, all were permeated by strangely-angled curvilinear ribbons. It is no accident that subsequent creators have invoked the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak as the most distinctive signature spell of the good doctor.

Thus, while my aesthetics and philosophical sentiments hew more closely toward Mr. Kirby's, I thought it fitting to also honor his Objectivist colleague.