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My Music: GOIN' TO SEE HER - Todd's Blog
I started this song in March of 1980, but did not finish and record it until 2002. By that time it was very much about my wife Ellen, remembering our dating days in 1987-89. In 2002 I had gotten back into recording my songs after not doing any of that since the early 1980s, and […]
Rereading: THOMASINA by Paul Gallico - Todd's Blog
My copy does not have a dust jacket, I found this image online, so I don’t know who the artist is. Mary Ruadh MacDhui lives with her father Andrew, a veterinarian, in the small Scottish town of Inveranoch. Mary’s mother died a few years earlier when she was very small. The doctor employs a live-in […]
Rereading: BUTTONWOOD ISLAND by Lavinia R. Davis - Todd's Blog
Davis’s second book and my second favorite after “Hobby Horse Hill.” As you can see, I colored in some of the great Paul Brown line illustrations with crayons in my youth. Lyb and Sandy Hardwicke are having a great summer. Their mother is recovering from an illness, but home with them again at last, and […]
My Music: WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU - Todd's Blog
Written in December, 1979 and recorded soon after, this is one of several songs of mine with a similar theme of longing for love. I think it’s all there in the lyrics. I like the recording and the song, can’t sing or play it as well now, so I’m happy to have this version. Waiting […]
Rereading: THE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIONS by Dodie Smith - Todd's Blog
The Disney film based on this book is one of my favorites, but the book itself is also well worth reading, and different enough to keep one guessing even if you’ve seen the film. Pongo and Missis are a mated pair of Dalmations living with a mated pair of humans they own, Mr. and Mrs. […]
Rereading: THE LOTUS CUP by Jane Louise Curry - Todd's Blog
An interesting but specialized sort of story revolving around a particular setting and trade, pottery making in Ohio. Corry Tipson comes from a line of potters, her great grandfather owned a successful Ohio pottery, her grandfather was a talented artist and potter, but not a good businessman, and by Corry’s generation her family has fallen […]
My Music: LOVE - Todd's Blog
I wrote this in November, 1979 as a kind of parody of pop music hits that gained attention by repeating a short, catchy melody or lyric over and over. I didn’t record it at the time, didn’t really think much of it to be honest, but unlike many other songs in the same situation, the […]
Rereading: GALLANTRY by James Branch Cabell - Todd's Blog
The tenth book in Cabell’s epic “Biography of the Life of Manuel” was originally published in 1907, and revised in 1922 to add references to Manuel and Jurgen, making it part of his epic, just slightly. Unlike other short story collections from Cabell in this series, the ten stories in Gallantry are one continuous narrative […]
Rereading: THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ by Ruth Plumly Thompson - Todd's Blog
Thompson’s third Oz book, published in 1923, has Baum’s Cowardly Lion as a main character, but he doesn’t show up right away. The story begins in a desert-like corner of Oz’s Munchkin section, where Mustafa, an ill-tempered monarch, collects live lions, and he wants one more: the Cowardly Lion. The sudden arrival of two people […]
Rereading: RIDERS AND RAIDS by M. E. Atkinson - Todd's Blog
The fifth book in the Fricka series takes place, for a change, all at the country home, Combedene, of Fricka and her father the sculptor, who they call The Bear, and Fricka’s three cousins Hugo, Sugar, and Adrian, taken in by The Bear on the death of their parents. They are home from school after […]
My Music: EASTERN - Todd's Blog
I wrote this song in September of 1979, and it’s still one of my favorites. The recording is from around the same time in my living room in Highland Park, NJ. While I didn’t live in New York City, I commuted to work there every week day, and perhaps an urge to break away from […]
Rereading: PETER GRAVES by William Pène du Bois - Todd's Blog
Du Bois wrote a number of excellent fantasy novels/stories for young readers, this is my second favorite after “The 21 Balloons.” They are illustrated by him usually in black line with gray tones, as above. Peter Graves is a teenage boy in the town of Houndstooth in a rural area of the eastern United States. […]
My Music: AFTER THE OPERA - Todd's Blog
This song was written after my first trip to England with friends in June and July of 1979. It’s not based on an actual event, but suggested by one that did happen on the trip, though the song makes more of it than the reality. I never recorded it, and it’s one of the songs […]
Rereading: BLACK AND BLUE MAGIC by Zilpha Keatley Snyder - Todd's Blog
I’ve read dozens of books by Snyder, and this, her third, is my favorite. Harry Marco lives with his mother at her boarding house in San Francisco where he tries to help out, even though his clumsiness causes lots of accidents and bruises. His father was a stage magician who died too young, and Harry […]
Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION CHALLENGED by Walter Farley - Todd's Blog
For the previous book in his racing horse series, “The Black Stallion and Flame,” Farley brought The Black to the hidden island home of his other stallion, but while the two horses worked together to defeat a common enemy, a bat infected with rabies, their owners were not present and did not meet. Readers may […]
My Music: WEDDING DAY - Todd's Blog
This was written for a ceremony held at Rutgers Kirkpatrick Chapel, New Brunswick, in May of 1979 to celebrate the wedding of my friend Paul to his first wife Dorothy, they’re above. They lived in Baltimore, and were married there, but Paul had many friends in New Jersey, and wanted to have an event here […]
And Then I Read: INKWORLD, THE COLOR OF REVENGE by Cornelia Funke - Todd's Blog
Cornelia Funke wrote a trilogy of three Inkheart books some time ago, and has returned to it with this new title. The concept is that a few gifted people have the ability to bring fantasy stories to life simply by reading them aloud, and to put real people into those worlds as well. This story […]
My Music: A TALL TREE TALE - Todd's Blog
Another song I never recorded back in the day, and made a new recording of earlier this year. In addition to voice and guitar, it includes mountain dulcimer and tin whistle, above. The dulcimer was Ellen’s, I use it occasionally when it’s the right sound for a song. This is a tall tale as might […]
Rereading: THE LOST FARM by Jane Louise Curry - Todd's Blog
This book is connected to “Mindy’s Mysterious Miniature,” though it works fine on its own. Pete MacCubbin lives with his father and grandmother on a remote farm in Summit County, Pennsylvania. Pete is twelve as the story opens, and doing a lot of the farm chores, caring for their sheep, cows, mules, and chickens, while […]
Rereading: PLOW PENNY MYSTERY by Lavinia R. Davis - Todd's Blog
While America was getting involved in World War Two, Lavinia Davis was trying to keep America’s children entertained with stories of kids and horses (and other animals), and doing it well. Larry has recently come to stay with his uncle in rural Connecticut for the summer. Larry’s mother and new stepfather have gone off to […]
Rereading: THE SEA IS ALL AROUND by Elizabeth Enright - Todd's Blog
Elizabeth Enright is one of my favorite authors, but this is an early book of hers I hadn’t read in decades, and didn’t remember much about. Mab Kendall îs on her way to a remote New England coastal island, Pokenick. She’s traveling from Iowa, where she grew up. Her parents died when she was five, […]
Rereading: THE HIGH PLACE by James Branch Cabell - Todd's Blog
The ninth book in Cabell’s “Biography of the Life of Manuel” is set in 1698 France in and adjacent to the author’s imaginary province of Poictesme. Florian, whose ancestors include Manuel and Jurgen, has a strange encounter with beauty on a hill in the magical forest of Acaire next to his ancestral home, the “high […]
Rereading: KABUMPO IN OZ by Ruth Plumly Thompson - Todd's Blog
Thompson’s second Oz book, and the first one with her name under the title, features some familiar characters and some new ones. As it was so often done by Baum, the story starts in a remote part of Oz, the kingdom of Pumperdink. A birthday party in the royal castle for Prince Pompadore, also attended […]
Rereading: UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE by M. E. Atkinson - Todd's Blog
This is the fourth of Atkinson’s “Fricka” books, I don’t have the third one, “The Barnstormers.” Fricka and her three cousins, Hugo, Sugar, and Adrian, are boarding with elderly Mrs. Harcourt in the lodge of a large manor house while Fricka’s father is away in France. They had thought they’d be staying in the manor […]
Rereading: THE SUBTLE KNIFE by Philip Pullman - Todd's Blog
When I read this the first time I was disappointed, rereading it I was not. Perhaps I was so enamored of the world in the first book that to leave it behind for much of this one was disappointing, and perhaps I was also unhappy with the overall storyline that develops here, which I now […]
The Eisner Awards Hall of Fame - Todd's Blog
On Friday morning I was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Also inducted was one of my favorite letterers Ira Schnapp, and a few years ago they inducted my favorite letterer Gaspar Saladino. We are the only creators known mainly for lettering so far included. I am honored to be among many giants of the […]
My Music: NIGHTLIFE OF THE CAT - Todd's Blog
The other song I should have recorded back when but never did, it was written on January 28, 1979, my 28th birthday. Theodora, above, was my most recent kitty, I’d had her for about five years. She was an indoor cat, as all my cats have been, but not long after this photo was taken […]
Rereading: THE BLACK STALLION AND FLAME by Walter Farley - Todd's Blog
As the cover blurb says, a story requested by more than 3 million readers, this is almost fan fiction except that it’s written by Farley. In the previous book about Flame, “The Island Stallion Races,” he had to stretch credulity by using aliens to get the horse into a real race, here the stretch is […]
Rereading: THE MAGIC WORLD by E. Nesbit - Todd's Blog
First published in 1912, this book collects twelve Nesbit stories involving magic of some kind, though all but one of them have new characters and situations (one story has a returning character in a small role). The stories range from cautionary tales like “The Cat-Hood of Maurice,” in which a boy who torments his cat […]
My Music: HOPE - Todd's Blog
This song was written April 7, 1979. I don’t know of any particular reason, perhaps I was just feeling sorry for myself and needed cheering up. I quite like the way it came out on my recording from about the same time. The song: Hope Here’s a photo of my brother Russ and I performing […]
My 2025 Comic-Con International Schedule - Todd's Blog
Comic-Con International in San Diego, the largest comics and media convention in America (as far as I know) is coming up soon, Thursday July 24 to Sunday July 27. I’ve been invited as a special guest for the second time in my career, and I’m looking forward to it! My brother Doug will be accompanying […]
SUPERMAN 2025, THE CHEST SYMBOL - Todd's Blog
I’m looking forward to the new Superman movie opening tomorrow, I plan to see it this weekend. The first trailer, which included Krypto, sold me. Since the character’s new chest symbol has been a major feature of marketing and posters, I’ve seen it a lot, and I have some thoughts. Original Superman artist Joe Shuster’s […]
Rereading: THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF GLASTON by Eleanore M. Jewett - Todd's Blog
It’s the winter of 1170-71 on the western side of England, and a knight has arrived at the gates of Glastonbury Abbey with his young son, Hugh. The knight is about to flee the country after taking part in the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the King’s command, and he wants the Abbey […]
Rereading: SMELLER MARTIN by Robert Lawson - Todd's Blog
As in many of Lawson’s fantasy novels for children, the main character, Davey Martin, has a special ability: a remarkable sense of smell that allows him to identify a variety of scents even at a great distance. He impresses his boarding school friends by being able to tell them exactly what’s for dinner each night, […]
My Music: SOMETIMES - Todd's Blog
This is a song I missed until now, it belongs much earlier in the chronology. I think it was recorded around April, 1972 in Kansas City, MO. In THIS post I told the story of my on and off relationship with Karen, seen above in the only image I have of her from a grainy […]
Rereading: JOB, A COMEDY OF JUSTICE by Robert A. Heinlein - Todd's Blog
The third of five novels written by Heinlein in the 1980s near the end of his life, this one owes a debt to James Branch Cabell’s book Jurgen, including the subtitle. There are similar story elements, including visits to heaven and hell, though many differences too. And there are also many references to the Bible, […]
Rereading: MELODY, MUTTON BONE, AND SAM by Lavinia R. Davis - Todd's Blog
Davis wrote some of the best stories about kids and horses, and the ones illustrated with open line drawings by Paul Brown are the best of the best. Sam Hilton lives with his family in a rural area, probably in New Jersey, where many have horses, and Sam has Mutton Bone, an older horse that […]
Rereading: THE LINE OF LOVE by James Branch Cabell - Todd's Blog
This is the eighth book in Cabell’s epic work “The Biography of the Life of Manuel,” but like several others, it did not start out that way. It’s a series of stories in the historical romance genre following one family through many generations, and involving kings and queens of England and France as well as […]
Rereading: MINDY'S MYSTERIOUS MINIATURE by Jane Louise Curry - Todd's Blog
Mindy Hallam likes to attend estate auctions with her mother in their rural Pennsylvania neighborhood, and at one, she discovers what looks like a very well-made doll house left behind in a barn, and overlooked by the auctioneer. She brings it out and bids on it, enough to win and take it home. When there […]