Alex Toth Rides With Paul Revere

My patriotic spirit was rejuvenated by Alex Toth's depiction of the story of Paul Revere and the American Revolution, which I read for the first time today. Every panel is framed and executed with his expert eye for detail. His masterful use of negative space, taken by itself, is enough to make a fan like me drool. Had Toth not been a graphic artist, he would have been one hell of a movie director or cinematographer.

"Paul Revere's Ride" is from Four Color #822 (August 1957, Dell). It may have been scripted by Del Connell, the same guy who wrote the first Super Goof story, if you find those sort of connections fascinating.











When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. ~Adlai Stevenson


Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him. ~Giuseppe Mazzini


There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream. ~Archibald MacLeish

It's Faqoogles!

Today I'm launching Faqoogles, a fun new feature here at Easily Mused. It has to do with a tool you use every day if Google is your search engine of choice.

When you perform a search on Google, Google Suggest attempts to find relevant matches as you type. These matches are based on the most popular recent searches that share the same wording as your search. Sometimes the matches can be pretty humorous. Occasionally, they are a little disturbing. Most importantly, they reveal what many people ( at least the ones who use the internet) are thinking and wondering.

For example, if you did a search for "can go," this is what you would see:


I've taken this phenomenon and added a little eye candy, in the form of comic panels, to create the first installment of Faqoogles, and if you enjoy it, I'll do more. Today's Faqoogle Starter ( which produced ten usable matches) was:



Why do I...?

Note: All of today's illustrations first appeared in the classic anthology series Arcade, The Comics Revue (Print Mint). Credits from top to bottom:

Bill Griffith, Bob Armstrong, George Kuchar, Jay Lynch, Kim Deitch, Aline Kominsky, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Willy Murphy, and Rory Hayes