Bernard Boyce Bennington & The American Dream Read Online Free
Author: Peter Crowther
gives the counter a quick wipe and looks back at the man.
“My first job was as a computer operator, handling the mainframe for a small Savings and Loan outfit in Jersey City,” he says, taking a sip of Michelob that wouldn’t have quenched a fly’s thirst. “It was a machine whose numerous metal boxes and whirling tape- and disk-drives filled a room the size of an entire floor of a plush apartment out on Riverside Drive. Of course,” he says, turning to his audience, “this same long-ago machine had but a fraction of the processing capacity of the word processor that now sits on my cluttered desk but then that’s progress.”
Progress, the newcomer explains, moves life on with casual disregard for the Bernard Boyce Benningtons of the world but he didn’t let this bother him too much. He moved into programming, which meant he could spend his life even further away from other human beings…filling his days with printouts as tall as the small boy he once was, and which he would scrutinize for long hours to find the misplaced or juxtaposed numbers that had caused a particular program to fail, and his evenings surrounded by his beloved comicbooks.
And oh, how Bernard loved his comicbooks.
“I had full runs of most of the Marvel titles that had turned the industry on its head in the early 1960s, and I’d bought back and filled out DC titles such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets , all of which I just adored.” Here he stops for a few seconds and glances around the bar—which is still empty save for the man in the booth, still wearing his hat and coat and scarf—like he’s checking to make sure nobody sneaked in while he was talking. Apparently satisfied that he’s in control of the situation, the man called Daisy continues with his story…which even Jack, who has long held a secret fascination for the old comicbooks of his youth—things like Sad Sack and Mutt and Jeff and, his favorite, Archie —is beginning to enjoy.
“Trouble was, I found it annoying that, in order to protect my investment—because these things are damned expensive,” he says, frowning—”I was reduced to reading some of the books wearing a mouth mask and skin-tight gloves. And that took away much of the sensation of reading.
“To me, comicbook reading is a multi-sensory experience and full enjoyment can only truly be achieved with as many of the senses in contact with the actual book—the smell of the primitive ink mixes and the feel of the resilient paper stocks used in the old Sparta, Illinois printing plants coupled with the almost primal feeling of holding a genuine artifact were considered by many to be as important (and by some to be more important) than the occasionally infantile drawing techniques and frequently infantile plotting employed in the sweatshop creative bullpens of the 1930s and ‘40s.”
Edgar’s eyes are wide as saucers. This guy sure knows a lot of two-dollar words, he’s thinking, but Edgar is glued just the same.
“How does all this tie into the woman you’re looking for?” Jack asks.
“I’m getting to that,” the man says, and he takes another sip. McCoy gives Jack a sneaky frown to back off and let the guy talk…so Jack gives the counter another wipe and waits.
“Those were the days, the days before Frederick Wertham declared war on what he considered to be the sadistic and evil manipulation of kids’ minds carried out by the pre Comics Code Authority comicbooks, when horror truly was horror.” Bernard Boyce Bennington stops and his eyes go all dreamy. “My, but I loved them all, those ridiculous books, despite the predictable denouements and the scrawky pen- and pencil work. I loved the monsters and the dragons, adored the animated rotting corpses seeking vengeance; I delighted in the alien horrors stalking far-off worlds…but, most of all, I loved vampires, particularly those in the old EC comicbooks, before Bill Gaines fell foul of Doctor Wertham and was forced to
“My first job was as a computer operator, handling the mainframe for a small Savings and Loan outfit in Jersey City,” he says, taking a sip of Michelob that wouldn’t have quenched a fly’s thirst. “It was a machine whose numerous metal boxes and whirling tape- and disk-drives filled a room the size of an entire floor of a plush apartment out on Riverside Drive. Of course,” he says, turning to his audience, “this same long-ago machine had but a fraction of the processing capacity of the word processor that now sits on my cluttered desk but then that’s progress.”
Progress, the newcomer explains, moves life on with casual disregard for the Bernard Boyce Benningtons of the world but he didn’t let this bother him too much. He moved into programming, which meant he could spend his life even further away from other human beings…filling his days with printouts as tall as the small boy he once was, and which he would scrutinize for long hours to find the misplaced or juxtaposed numbers that had caused a particular program to fail, and his evenings surrounded by his beloved comicbooks.
And oh, how Bernard loved his comicbooks.
“I had full runs of most of the Marvel titles that had turned the industry on its head in the early 1960s, and I’d bought back and filled out DC titles such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets , all of which I just adored.” Here he stops for a few seconds and glances around the bar—which is still empty save for the man in the booth, still wearing his hat and coat and scarf—like he’s checking to make sure nobody sneaked in while he was talking. Apparently satisfied that he’s in control of the situation, the man called Daisy continues with his story…which even Jack, who has long held a secret fascination for the old comicbooks of his youth—things like Sad Sack and Mutt and Jeff and, his favorite, Archie —is beginning to enjoy.
“Trouble was, I found it annoying that, in order to protect my investment—because these things are damned expensive,” he says, frowning—”I was reduced to reading some of the books wearing a mouth mask and skin-tight gloves. And that took away much of the sensation of reading.
“To me, comicbook reading is a multi-sensory experience and full enjoyment can only truly be achieved with as many of the senses in contact with the actual book—the smell of the primitive ink mixes and the feel of the resilient paper stocks used in the old Sparta, Illinois printing plants coupled with the almost primal feeling of holding a genuine artifact were considered by many to be as important (and by some to be more important) than the occasionally infantile drawing techniques and frequently infantile plotting employed in the sweatshop creative bullpens of the 1930s and ‘40s.”
Edgar’s eyes are wide as saucers. This guy sure knows a lot of two-dollar words, he’s thinking, but Edgar is glued just the same.
“How does all this tie into the woman you’re looking for?” Jack asks.
“I’m getting to that,” the man says, and he takes another sip. McCoy gives Jack a sneaky frown to back off and let the guy talk…so Jack gives the counter another wipe and waits.
“Those were the days, the days before Frederick Wertham declared war on what he considered to be the sadistic and evil manipulation of kids’ minds carried out by the pre Comics Code Authority comicbooks, when horror truly was horror.” Bernard Boyce Bennington stops and his eyes go all dreamy. “My, but I loved them all, those ridiculous books, despite the predictable denouements and the scrawky pen- and pencil work. I loved the monsters and the dragons, adored the animated rotting corpses seeking vengeance; I delighted in the alien horrors stalking far-off worlds…but, most of all, I loved vampires, particularly those in the old EC comicbooks, before Bill Gaines fell foul of Doctor Wertham and was forced to
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