Sun 8 Jul 2018
RON GOULART – The Tijuana Bible. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1989. No paperback edition.
Picture this — a cartoonist working alone at night; a knock at the window; a dying man with a message; a sap on the head; a beautiful blonde hiding in the closet — then poof! — they both disappear. And then a map, the key to a treasure, well over $2,000,000 …
… worth of old comic books. My mouth waters. (*) This is a funny book, of the laugh-out-loud variety. It’s no more than lightweight entertainment, I admit, but it’s expertly done. (And it can’t really be that easy to do, or it’d be done more often, and a lot of authors try.)
(*) Confession time. It was my secret ambition as a kid — and I’ve never told anyone this before — to own a copy of every comic book ever published. (My second ambition was to grow up to own a newsstand.) I couldn’t afford it at the time, and the way things are, I could afford it even less today. (I don’t own a newsstand either.)
July 9th, 2018 at 6:58 pm
My secret ambition was to write as effortlessly as Ron Goulart master of every genre he tackled, and who,for EQMM, penned the best spoof of Ross Macdonald ever. He’s no mean comic book and pulp historian and anthologist either, as well as being to comic book and comic strip novelizations what Mike Avallone was to movie and television.
July 9th, 2018 at 8:21 pm
I remember reading that spoof of Macdonald, “The Peppermint-Striped Goodbye,” when it first appeared and it made me an instant Goulart fan.
July 9th, 2018 at 8:33 pm
I used to see Ron every month or so at a local comic book show, but after that one went defunct, he never came to the one that eventually took its place. But then again, he has to be in his eighties now. He’s still writing, though.
July 9th, 2018 at 9:15 pm
He’s not the only one who is in his eighties. I am that old as well.
July 9th, 2018 at 9:54 pm
I’m not there yet, but I will.
July 9th, 2018 at 9:55 pm
I hear from him once in a while on Facebook, but not as often as I used to.