Poppensparkle invited Twinklebottom to enter the upper room of Pippen’s Tower in the castle known as Cair Tellos. Poppy’s face revealed great concern as she led Twinkle to the coffee table in what her young husband constantly called Poppy’s Worry Spot.
“So, what’s on your mind today? Why did you so urgently need to see me?” Twinkle said.
“It’s the creator. He’s not been well. And that’s concerning at his advanced age.”
“You mean the Slow One who writes our story? The one our existence depends on? How old is he?”
“He says he is 568 years old, but he writes fiction, so he lies a lot. In faery years he’s 138, so I guess he is probably almost 70 in human years.”
“Goodness, Poppy! If he dies, we all disappear into nothingness.”
“Yes, that’s the way being a faery works. We depend on the fools who believe in us.”
“So, what is wrong with him?”
“In January, one of those two crowns on his molar teeth that broke off during the pandemic got seriously infected. He had both teeth yanked out by a psycho lady dentist who nearly pulled his skeleton out of his body during the extraction of the stubborn infected tooth. He had to take lots of antibiotics and was in a lot of pain. He had trouble eating.”
“That sounds horrible, but survivable. Old Slow Ones go through that sort of thing routinely. The old lady who has dementia and talks to me all the time had all her upper teeth pulled out and something called a denichurr put in its place.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t the end of his health troubles. In the middle of January, he had to pee out four small kidney stones. That hurt an awful lot, and he got seriously infected somehow. He has this weird colon problem called diverticulosis, a condition where the large intestine is full of unexpected pockets that collect extra feces that stops moving and can become infected too.”
“So, he was also full of shit.”
“Um, yes. He had to get a shot of a super-powerful antibiotic in his behind, given to him by a lady nurse. He also needed an antibacterial powder that he had to stir into water, drinking 80 ounces of water or more a day. And he had to take lots and lots of laxatives too. At least seven days worth.”
“So, he got to know the household porcelain well.”
“It makes me glad that faeries are differently made and never have to poop.”
“You and me both, Poppy. So, is he dying?”
“I don’t think so. But I wish I knew how to help. He’s a weird old guy, but likable and funny. And we need him to stay alive and tell our story.”
“I know a dark faery I can consult,” said Twinkle stupidly.”
“Oh, that’s a truly terrible idea!”
An hour later, Twinklebottom sat in Dangerheart’s underground tea room.
“…So, that’s what is wrong with Mickey the creator. Is there anything you can do to help?”
Dangerheart grinned evilly. “I was watching through my crystal ball as the old hag stuck the needle in his butt. I laughed long and hard about that.”
“It isn’t really a crystal ball. It’s a Slow One child’s shooting marble.”
“It lets me scry on foolish mortals like the creator though. And I love seeing him get embarrassed or put through pain. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to see the psycho dentist yank the infected molar out. That would’ve been a hoot.”
“Isn’t there something you can do to help?”
“Well, he already went to the emergency room on Friday and after they scanned him and poked him and took his blood, they found out the infection was gone. They couldn’t do anything more for him with their science stuff. The pee doctor gave him some expensive pills that turn your pee blue. Surely there is no evil magic that I could apply that would be any funnier than that.”
“You think we don’t need to worry about him anymore?”
“I wouldn’t say that. President Pumpkinhead Trump will probably take away his Medicare and that will probably kill him. That should be funny to watch.”
“So, you think we are all doomed? The world will not remember us after our storyteller dies, and we will all fade away into nothingness?”
“Of course, we’re doomed. And you sure use the word So a lot. Or was that sew?”
Lynn Johnston’s For Better or Worse is also an old friend. I used to read it in the newspaper practically every day. I watched those kids grow up and have adventures almost as if they were members of my own family. So the mashed potatoes part of the meal is easy to digest too.
Catch a Falling Star 
Milt Caniff
My 1967 Captain Action Steve Canyon action figure.
I have always been a deeply devoted fan of the Sunday funnies. And one of the reasons I read the comics religiously was the work of Milt Caniff. His comic strips, Terry and the Pirates, Male Call, and Steve Canyon set a standard for the age of action comics and adventure strips.
I read his comics in the 1960’s and 1970’s and always it was Steve Canyon. But this, of course, was not his first strip. I would discover in my college years the wonders of Terry and the Pirates. When Caniff started the strip before World War II, he set it in China, but actually knew nothing about China. So he did research. He learned about people who became oriental hereditary pirate families and organizations. He learned to draw authentic Chinese settings. His comedy relief characters, Connie and the Big Stoop, were rather racist parodies of Chinamen and were among the reasons that the original strip had to mature into his later work in Steve Canyon. But perhaps the most enduring character from the strip was the mysterious pirate leader known as the Dragon Lady.
Steve Canyon is a fascinating study in the comic arts. When he left the Terry and the Pirates strip in 1946, it went on without him. It was owned by the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News distribution syndicate, not Caniff himself. Steve Canyon would change that. He created it and owned it himself, making Caniff one of only two or three comics artists who actually owned their own creations. Canyon started out as a civilian pilot, but enlisted in the Air Force for the Korean War and would remain in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip. Some of the characters in the strip were based on real people. His long-time friend Charlie Russhon, a former photographer and Lieutenant in the Air Force who went on to be a technical adviser for James Bond films was the model for the character Charlie Vanilla, the man with the ice cream cone. Madame Lynx was based on the femme fatale spy character played by Illona Massey in the 1949 Marx Brothers’ movie Love Happy. Caniff designed Pipper the Piper after John Kennedy and Miss Mizzou after Marilyn Monroe.
I am not the only cartoonist who was taken with the work of Milt Caniff. The effects of his ground-breaking work can be seen to influence the works of comic artists like Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, John Romita Sr., and Doug Wildey. If you are anything like the comic book nut I am, than you are impressed by that list, even more so if I listed everyone he influenced. Milt Caniff was a cartoonists’ cartoonist. He was one of the founders of the National Cartoonists’ Society and served two terms as its president in 1948 and 1949. He is also a member of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.
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