Original Art Friday 1/24/2020 - Mike Sekowsky!

Among the litany of things I don't understand, I REALLY don't understand the 24 hours cable news trope of cutting off interview segments with "we're out of time, we'll have to leave it there." Out of time? The channel is on 24 hours a day. They've got nothing BUT time. They can't slide a commercial down two minutes? Compress the time spent rolling out the usual gaggle of gabbers to discuss what was just discussed?

Well, today I've got nothing BUT time, because it's ORIGINAL ART FRIDAY, that singular day of the week when I share a piece of (mostly) pen and ink glory from the MV collection...

Today it's a page from the silver age, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #23, drawn by the prolific Mike Sekowsky. I must admit that while I appreciate his craft, I've never really warmed to Mr. Sekowsky's style. Still, he met the challenge of drawing these crowded panels with aplomb...

But that's not why I LOVE this page. It's the idea that the story could be slowed down for our very smiley heroes to gather and give Snapper Carr a birthday party, complete with dee-licious looking cake. Snapper gets choked up as he "goes ape" and gobbles cake with his "chow choppers", heroes send congratulatory telegrams, and all is swell.

Indeed, everyone here seems to be in an especially exuberant mood. And why shouldn't they be? They're superheroes with unbelievable powers AND cake. Green Lantern even sports a grin when he learns that "winged bee men" are attacking the "tower of jewels", which I admit is a pretty amusing concept, but still theoretically criminal. Just another day for the Justice League!

So enjoy this Friday's slice of joy... unfortunately I've run out of time and will have to leave it here...