The Acme Optometric Library

    So... I was reading about these Battlestar Galactica eyeglasses at the National Museum of American History's blog, and while scrolling down through the comment section, I ran across a painful-but-amusing anecdote about the writer's adolescence in Omaha, Nebraska. As it turned out, that miserable eighth-grader was none other than Mr. Franklin Christenson Ware, himself! Here, go see for yourself! A short follow-up may be found here. For the record, my comment on the posting was this: 

    "Those same spring-hinged glasses had been offered previously with a "BIONIC" nameplate (which I had, not because of the Six Million Dollar Man's implied endorsement, but because I was breaking my frames 3 or 4 times a year, and the springs made them slightly less destructible). Both shows were made by Universal Pictures, so it was presumably an easy transition between licenses.For the record, mine definitely came from Pearle Vision Center."

    I went hunting to see if I could find the patent for the spring hinge, but without success. There were a fair number of similar ones, but none that matched well enough that I felt certain they were the origin of these. Sorry... I tried!

Frank Hampson Draws Dan Dare

DAN DARE

    Here's a short clip from a 1956 British Pathé newsreel featiuring Frank Hampson in his studio with  some nice shots of his models and the elaborate costumes and props used, as well as dubious footage of him drawing a page:

    I'm not that familiar with his studio's elaborate process, but I question the likelihood of an already inked and partly-colored page still needing pencils on any part of it (not to mention that he's apparently drawing on an overlay!)*. Still, phony "action shots" constitute a large percentage of the photographic record of cartooning, so it's not too surprising. Still cool, though.

*The one possible legitimate reason would be if he were making a last-minute correction to be pasted up, but I don't believe that's what's happening here.