the end of Life in our Solar System

There was Life all over our Solar System when I was quite young. By the time I had learned to read though, things were changing. Buck Rogers went on to adventures out among other stars. And so did Brick Bradford with his Time Top. Others continued finding Life back home, which is how Dick Tracy came to make First Contact with a beautiful race of humanoids living in deep gorges of the Moon. And Jacques Tempête made friends and enemies among the inhabitants of Venus and Mars, and met many a mystery beyond Saturn, all the way to Pluto.

The above are the SF I was first introduced to as the Mercury astronauts were taking Humankind's first steps Out There, to Reality’s more austere mysteries and beauty of the Home Star.

But I never forgot my roots. Not long ago, after much hesitation, I decided to look up Tempête on the internet. I had never read any reference to him, not even in French publications, after the abrupt end of the strip’s publication in Quebec City's local paper, which is why I never found out why a camera with a timer had taken photos of grass, the Milky Way and bacteria after disappearing within a forcefield. I hesitated because I didn’t want to lose the fond memories of my youth, but I went ahead anyway. I thought it might have been an Italian comic-strip, but it turned out to have been the creation of Dutchman J. Henk Sprenger, originally title “Piloot Storm”. That being said, the art turned out to be more clumsy than I remembered, which isn’t surprising after nearly 50 years. Also, I'm fairly certain our newspaper used text balloons, not heavy-duty narration. But I had not forgotten the sequence reprinted below.





My friend Abi now lives in Amsterdam. I wonder if any of her co-workers have ever heard of the character.

"The Tall Target"

Tomorrow morning, Turner Classic Movies is showing Anthony Mann's seldom seen "The Tall Target", a 1951 film about a detective who uncovers a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the way to his inauguration. The name of the detective - played by Dick Powell - is John Kennedy.

some more equal than others

Today was my every-once-in-while one-on-one meeting with the boss. I calmly mentionned - at least I think I was calm - that, with the return of our other Subject Matter Expert, I have gone back to being the Second Best. The two of us are supposed to be on he same level within the hierarchy, but, when he asks people to do something, they do it promptly, and when I ask, it almost takes an Act of Congress for anything to happen. I don't really expect the boss to actually solve this in my favor, but who knows? He might pleasantly surprise me.