MID-SOUTH MEMORIES
25 years ago — 1996
The big news in funny bookland this week is ”Amalgam Comics,” wherein Marvel and DC, the two biggest comic companies in America, will put all their characters in a blender, hit ”puree,” and publish the results. Think of it as two networks coming together to produce something like Beverly Hill Street Blues 90210. If you’re confused, you’re not alone. Numerous loyal readers have written to Captain Comics with pensive questions. Here’s the scoop: The current Marvel vs. DC miniseries will last four issues, with the last one in March. However, events in the third issue will ”merge” the two companies together for exactly one week, beginning Feb. 28. Marvel will publish six one-shot Amalgam titles, as will DC, and then the fourth issue of the Marvel vs. DC miniseries will snap everything back to “normal.” Whew. Anyway, those 12 oneshots promise to be a lot of fun, if for no other reason than trying to puzzle out which parts belong to whom.
50 years ago — 1971
Hark, ye “revolutionaries.” There is, it seems, a time to “trip” and a time to abstain. Or so decides the one-time priest of the American drug culture, Dr. Timothy Leary, from his lair in Algeria. This revelation was made yesterday as Leary, appearing side-by-side with Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, was shown in a video tape interview in San Francisco. Leary said he has settled his differences with the Panthers and now agrees “tripping” on drugs is incorrect behavior for a revolutionary.
75 years ago — 1946
The walkout of 210 workers at the Bemis Bros. Bag Co. at 134 East Carolina, originally scheduled for this morning, was called off early last night and the employees were asked by the union to be at work today, Grant Williams, national representative for Local 606, Textile Workers Union of America (C.I.O.) here reported. The sudden change in union plans was the result of “new developments which make it appear that further negotiations might brink a settlement,” Mr. Williams said. 100 years ago — 1921 PHILADELPHIA – Captain of Detectives Souder said tonight three persons, including a well-known man and woman of Philadelphia and a man living in New York, were connected with the transfer of the bank note paid out in Memphis on stolen bonds at the local Federal Reserve Bank. The woman, he said, deposited it for collection today in the Franklin Trust Company. When interrogated she explained a friend had given it to her with the understanding it was to be cashed for him. The police located this friend, who named the New York man. “It looks like a big gambling proposition,” Capt. Souder said. “H2A,” a $10,000 bill easily identified as one of the 18 which made up an $180,000 payment on stolen Liberty bonds in Memphis four weeks ago, turned up in Philadelphia yesterday morning.