The Fabuleous Fifties

First post.

I am still trying to decide if I am going to do this in Dutch or English.

Heck, I am still trying to decide what I am going to use the blog for. I wanted to secure the name, but in fact writing about my life as a sitcom writer here in Holland is just one of the things I could make this about. I have written sitcoms for almost twenty years now, so that would qualify as a subject or at least a title. In which case, it probably should be in Dutch, because I don't see why it would be of interest to anyone abroad.

On the other hand, I also write about television and humor for several magazines here in Holland and I could use this blog to give all my writings a permanent home. Again, Dutch would be the main language used.I could also use it to publish some of the interviews I did with some of the American sitcom writers I have not yet sold or had to bring down to their absolute minimum for publication. Last year I talked to Ken Levine, Jim Burrows, Rob Long, Lee Ahronson and Ian Gurvitz. Here's Ian, by the way. I also have an earlier interview with Phoef Suttton about his Cheers career and more.

But I also collect American comics and newspaper strips from the fifties and write about comics for the Dutch fanzine Stripschrift. I have been writing about comics (from all over the world) for more than 30 years now and have interviewed such greats as Will Eisner, Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jeff Jones. I have found rare war material from Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, which I could share. Or long runs of Stan Lee's comic strip work. I regulary send stuff to Roy Thomas to use for his excellent publication Alter Ego (a fanzine from Twomorrows about comics and comic creators from any period Roy likes or worked in). And I collect and scan rare art from various artists, which I could share here as well. All this would be in english, of course.

But... the main reason for me to pick this up right now is because I did my spring cleaning early this year and need a place to sell my surplus stuff. I will be listing all my double Timely books here to sell. You will have to add postage, but so had I when I bought them. It's usually best to buy a few at the time. I'll list the possibillities when I get back to post the list.

So, to lure all you potential buyers in, I will start by writing about the comic books and newspaper strips I like or have something interesting to say about. I'll start with Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo's forgotten early sixties newspaper strip Willy Lumpkin. Which, due to the bloggers tradition of having the last post first, you will already have seen.