Long Time No See. I've been busy in the Entertainment Industry.

I haven't been around much because I've been helping to manage the local second-run Movie theater. Summer hours, with Matinees daily make for long workdays.

I thought I'd start using this blogspace as a place to brainstorm story ideas, to keep them on record, and perhaps to invite comment on the ideas from anybody who might read this.


How about a story about a man who has lucid dreams. He originally uses this power purely to indulge his fantasies, i.e., he imagines Heather Locklear naked, and POOF! she's in his dream, naked. Later the man learns that he is actually controlling her dreams, too. She's on Leno, talking about how she's been having these weird dreams lately where she's naked. "Oh, I've had those. I dream about you naked pretty Often," says Jay.
Our protagonist now tries to see if he can influence other people. He steers his dream toward the pretty girl at work that always ignores him. In his dream, he tells her that tulips are sexy.
The next day, she has tulips on her desk, and she seems to recognize him as he passes.

So. he has a power. What does he do with it? hmmm. Enter the dreams of the president? Try to Influence policy? Enter the dreams of Wall Street, and steer the market? What if his mind snaps, and he begins to emulate Freddy Kreuger?

I'll sleep on this one and see what happens.

Okay, where is that Yard full of 17-yr-old Nymphs I'm waiting for?

I expected they would be here by now, singing thru-out the evening to me and flitting all about my neighborhood, desperate to have sex!

Have they become too shy to come out of their shells?

I want my Cicadas, Dammit! Where are They? It's almost the end of May and they haven't surfaced yet around here. All of the Media have been blitzing us for two months now about the coming Cicada Invasion. Ocean City Md, has been using "get Away from The Cicadas" as a reason to go to the shore in their Ad campaigns. I bet they're upset that people aren't flocking to the beach yet.

Okay you Lazy Cicadas of Pennsylvania, wake the hell up already. If you continue to just loaf around underground, those more industrious Cicadas down in Maryland and Virginia that are already out there are going to get all the good jobs and the hottest looking Cicada babes. Get off you asses already! Don't make me get my shovel and dig up that playstation I buried for you. I didn't mean for you to sit around all Summer playing the damned thing.

Hello! I'm still alive.
I just haven't been in a mood to blog much.
That and I rediscovered SIMcity 2000 on my Playstation for a few days. That's a good way to waste many hours and make both your butt and your eyes sore.

Egad, so many things I do make my eyes sore. Watching movies, swimming in chlorinated pools, surfing the net, Playstation, reading, drawing. When i do eventually go blind, I don't know how I'll keep myself distracted. I guess I'll listen to music. I won't know which freaking record I'm putting on until it starts to play, but maybe I could finally get thru my collection in under a year.

Speaking of Music... The new Southern Culture on The Skids Album (MOJO BOX) is a hoot! Incredible! Big thanks to Steve Hager for surprising me with a free copy. He also passed on a copy of his mini-comic, Dutchy Digest. Pretty funny stuff if you've ever lived around Pennsylvania Dutch Country. A few choice double entendres among the Amish, and a recipe for Shoo Fly Pie.


I'm still waiting to hear on a new job., and trying to keep my meager monthly bills payed by selling my minis and my original art. The originals go okay on ebay if they have a popular subject matter , like Joey Ramone, the Freakies cereal, Screaming Jay Hawkins, etc. But my other stuff doesn't have enough buzz to garner many hits on an ebay search. So I've set up a new page at my site where I'll be offering my originals to you, my few fans who I keep entertained with this blog and stuff. Be sure and check out the Ben T. Steckler Original Art Store!

I'm not going to post today.






April Fools!
Oh boy. I really had you going there. You should have seen the look of disappointment on your face! Priceless!

Now go here and watch cartoon characters sell cigarettes.

I have a convention to pack for.

I came in to tell you about what a great Movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is.
Excellent. Another great Charlie Kauffman mind-blower script. Maybe all Hollywood needs to get Philip K. Dick done right for once is to have Charlie Kauffman do the treatment.

I offer this hint to people who have trouble following the scenes in the film. I know the non-linear storytelling with myriad multi-layered flashbacks and lucid dream reinterpretations of memories had my movie buddy Eric confused. Look at Kate Winslet's hair color in her scenes. It changes back and forth from Blue to orange to blue to green to orange to blue to green, etc. If you lay out the story chronologically, her hair color goes from green to orange to blue. This will help you figure out when you're in flashback and when you're in real time.

Now I have to address this problem of why my blog entries from the last two days have vanished, and why I'm missing many other days as i look back over the last six months or so. I swear that I've been writing in this blog every day, but now there are missing entries. And when I look at the photos on my walls, I get that feeling like when I forget to wear my watch, but still look at my bare wrist to check the time.

Yesterday, I'm at our local dead mall to check for money in my POB, and to my surprise there were other people in the place. Well, it was a Saturday afternoon, and maybe the $2 theater was actually showing something that somebody wanted to see. So as I'm walking past the gumball machines near the exit, there are two boys, around 13 or 14, hanging out on the bench there. They were dressed in current hip-hop fashion, with the shiny new sneakers, so we aren't talking destitute kids here.

As i walk by, one says "excuse, me," and even thoughI could smell his huge wad of gum from ten feet away as soon as he opened his mouth, I acknowledged him, because he at least said "excuse me".

"Do You have a quarter?"

I'm thinking. What is with kids today, if they will stoop to begging from a stranger, while wearing $100 sneakers? If they were truly poor kids, they were poor kids with parents with their priorities out of whack.

I felt like saying "Yes. I have a quarter. Do you have a Mother? Get a quarter from her."

I mean it's not like the kids were standing next to the payphone, looking distraught and needing to call home quickly. I'd gladly loan somebody money for a phonecall if it looked like an emergency, or a stranded kid. I'd even welcome them, perhaps, as a fellow soldier in the war against the pervasive presence of cell phones. But these kids were just lounging by the gumball machines, chewing away at their latex cuds.

I made a judgement call, and said, "No. You'll just throw it all away on Gum."

Somebody needs to teach these kids a lesson.

You don't hang around the dead mall and beg for stray quarters. You go across the highway to the busy mall, and get more volume!

Or you set yourself up a paypal site, and beg electronically.

Donations to help this struggling cartoonist pay off his car insurance this week can be sent to paypal ID: bsteckler@suscom.net

(I'm only wearing $30 sneakers, and they are the same Chuck Taylors I've been wearing for almost a year now. Please help.)

Aah! Spring!
What Have I hated most about this winter? My shampoo has had the consistency of Jell-O almost every morning. The Window sill in my Shower is one of the worst insulated areas of my House. I guess it's partly a side effect of venting all the humidity from the shower. As a result, my shampoo often congeals, as if it's been kept in the refrigerator all night. It doesn't help that this window is on the Northern face of the House, and thus never gets direct sunlight.

When the shampoo turns into this semi-solid, it's hard to squeeze out a proper dollop, and often the glops I get bounce or slide off my wet palm before I can get it up to my head.

Last week, we had a warm spell, and I was relieved the first morning when I could easily pour out a proper serving of shampoo. But this week, it's been cold again, and it's been back to washing my hair with Jell-O.

I suppose I might not have this problem if I went with a shampoo that cost more than a buck-twenty-five a bottle. But, other than the little problem of the consistency, I am very happy with my White Rain. And even though I shampoo at least six times a week, I rarely use more than one bottle a year. It's a good shampoo value.

I find it a tad ironic that a shampoo would have a brand name that is a homophone for the ultimate skinhead goal, though.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! The day we all get to pretend we're Irish. We go out, get drunk, and our neighbors get bombed.

But the hell with that Catholic Snake Charmer. Let's talk about what's really important.

Why don't they make Richie Rich comic books anymore?
Oh, the way he would go around buying all kinds of fantastic things, encrusted with jewels! And how he would invite his poor trailer trash friends, Freckles and Pee Wee, over to play with all of Professor Keenbean's inventions!
PeeWee never spoke, but if he did, I'm sure he would say, "Oh, Please, Richie Rich, can your stiff-lipped English Butler, Cadbury, bring us some tea and crumpets whilst we lounge in front of your 50-foot wide Television Device and see Our Mom beat up our Dad on the Jerry Springer show?"

Richie was also a very diplomatic Lover, too. He never said a thing to his girlfriend Gloria about her obscenely large head, big New Jersey hair, and thick ankles.

Richie was very kind and grateful to his parents. He was thankful they didn't abort him, like they had to do with his older brother, Casper.

Apparently Regina Rich's sister also had an abortion. it must have been a common thing in that family, for Hot Stuff The Little Devil was clearly the tormented soul of Reggie VanDough's older sibling. You will remember Reggie as Richie Rich's mean, jealous cousin.

I'm sure that if the Harvey Kids were still published today, Little Dot would be in therapy and drugged up to cure her obsession with polka dots, and Little Lotta would be on Atkins.

The real tragedy is that without a regularlt published comic, the multi-national staff of the various Rich Households has been forced into unemployment. Au Revoir, Chef Pierre!

I'm sure that if Richie Rich Comics were still published today, The World's leaders would still love the U.S., and John Kerry wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

I am saddened by the deaths in Madrid.

I hope, for the sake of any innocent Basque people, and for the sake of The cartoonists at NAPARTHEID, some of whom I've met at the ICAF and SPX shows, that the Basque Separatist terrorists of ETA are not found to be involved.

That being said, this cartoon, which is the gateway into NAPARTHEID's website, www.napartheid.org, has rather sinister implications today to somebody who cannot read the Basque language. Scroll over the chained figures, and they seem to be laughing.

I have sometimes wondered if there were any ties between NAPARTHEID and any radical separatist activities. I can't read most of what is printed in the few zines of theirs I've received, but their mascot seems to have a predilection for throwing cartoon bombs.

For all I know, they could be strong supporters, and perhaps sponsors of terrorist activities, or they could simply be politically active, and no more threatening physically than American punk kids who publish "Fight The Man" type zines.

But an outsider, unfamiliar with their language, and having to judge by the visuals in light of yesterday's tragedy, could be led to draw the wrong conclusion, couldn't he?

I was checking on my statistics for the different pages within my site, and I had a spike of 72 unique visitors last wednesday, with 45 on Thursday to my "Evil Dr. Palindrome" cartoon page.

i wonder if it got mentioned on some blog.

usually, if I check on the "referrers" tab, it will show a strong percentage of people coming in from a site that wasn't on the list before. But the list shows no spikes referring sites other than the usual, and i didn't promote the cartoon i posted last week.

Sure, the palindrome last week was about Jesus, and i'm not surprised that it got more attention than usual. But I wish i knew where the hits were coming from. If some radical Christian group has put a price on my head, I'm sure my "referrers" page would show their site. And i would be getting a few Hate e-mails, like I do whenever I publish or promote my chick parodies.

The weird thing, is My "Miscellaneous Gag" last week was also about Jesus, and it only got 3 hits. I guess I need to do better promotions about the "Miscellaneous gag of the week"

(No, I didn't post a Jesus "f-ARTjoke" last week. Even i will draw the line somewhere.)

I'm puzzled.

I've been away for awhile because I've been putting together a new comic.
PEEPS et BEANS is a sweet satire, suitable for all but the youngest of readers, and just in Time for Easter.
I put up a feature on my website that details the production of this new comic. Check it out.

I saw Hidalgo today. Great Film. Timely too, in how it looks at Arab Culture, and highlights some elements of that culture that had been around for centuries, and are still present over 100 years later, today. Plus I couldn't help noting that I was sitting in a theater watching an American race across Iraq on horseback about a year to the day after I was watching Americans on TV race across Iraq in Armored vehicles.

The theater next door to mine was showing The Passion of The Christ, and the theater lobby had several tables with various pieces of Christian Literature available. As I left my theater, some clergy members were also present, inviting discussion of Mel Gibson's film. I found myself wishing I had a couple of my Chick Tract parodies handy, to slip them onto the literature tables.

The movie I'd just seen had strong elements of both ISLAM and Native American Spiritualism. As i walked past those tables of literature, I wondered why so many people can accept the story of Christ, and other tales from the Bible as truth unquestioned, and in the same breath treat Islamic or native American, or Buddhist, Hindu, or whatever other beliefs as pure myth and falsehood.

Anyway, on the way out, i passed a group of folks waiting in line, and I pointed to the Hidalgo poster, and said to them, "That was a very good film. Part Indiana Jones, part Dances With Wolves, part Gunga Din, and all good. If you're here to see a great movie, go see Hidalgo, folks."

They looked at me with a look that said, "Get Thee Behind me, Foul Tempter!"

That was when I realized that I had my button on my jacket that says, in bold red letters, "DEVIL".

True Story, Swear to God.

It's March 1st, Ladies, Where The Hell are You?

Yes, another Leap Day has come and gone. Why am I still single? This makes ten leap days I've survived; It's six since I was of dating age. Where are all these love-crazy girls that should be beating down doors on every February 29th? The ones trying so desparately to find a Single Guy who's not gay, and propose to him on their one chance in every four years?

What? Am I some kind of Troll? I'm Tall, Broad Shouldered, and Kind of Handsome with my distinguished Gray. Apparently hookers and strippers like me, why don't love-crazy girls notice me?

Okay, i understand that with the Oscars last night, the kind of girl who'd probably go for me was holed up in front of the TV clutching her Broadsword and counting all the Thank Yous to the people in New Zealand. So I'm willing to extend a Grace period of a couple days, women.

Don't you want a guy who'd be happy to stay at home and cook for you while you pursue your career?
All i ask is room for my Art studio, and a Cable Modem connection.

So you have until tomorrow night. After that, I'm back to only looking for a Hump-buddy until Feb 29, 2008, do you Understand? So call now. But don't call between 8 and 10 PM, unless you can make it during a commercial. ( and if you can "make it" during a commercial, you must be easy to please. just my type!)

Aw Cool! I see that one of my favorite party bands, Southern Culture On The Skids has a new label, and a new album out; MOJO BOX.
I've listened to samples of about half the songs. Sounds like fun. These guys (and girl) put on one helluva live show. I gotta get a job now so I can afford to both pick up the new record, and go to see them when they come to my area again to promote it.

But in case any of my legion of fan is feeling generous, I've added the disc to my Amazon wish list, too.
I'll send original art as a thank you to anybody who sends me something off that list. The link is over there on the right margin of this blog.

You don't need to wait for my Birthday (which is July 10th, by the way).

I am going insane in this basement.
I just caught myself doing a bit of The Jerk to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I have to get out and see the sun or something today. I heard we're in for a warm spell for a couple days. good. I'm starting to appreciate Gene Pitney. I don't know if that's good, or what.

I found a two-record "Best of Gene Pitney" LP in decent shape at the Salvation Army Thrift store the other day. I may not be into their whole religious message, but I do appreciate the Salvation Army, at least locally, for being a good source for cheap used vinyl.

I also got an Esquivel album, a "best of Alan Parsons", a recording of JFK speeches, an album of Hawaiian Tourist trap music, and one of those albums from the 60s or 70s that Women's Auxiliary groups would do as fundraisers, where they'd form a chorus and record an album of their vocal stylings, talent not withstanding. Nowadays it's not the same. Now they just have bake sales, or pose tastefully nude for calendars. One way, Brownies and Pie are involved.

This time it's Warble 'N Whistle By The Larks. This is a group of Ladies from Baltimore's Junior League. They recorded this particular gem "for and with the children" back in 1979.
Apparently from the names listed in the credits, the "children" are all the sons and daughters of the Larks themselves. That's rather Omenous. I'm gonna put it on now. I hope i don't melt my ears.

Hmm... They actually hired professional studio musicians, and a real vocal coach, and a real arranger, and a real producer. The Junior League spent some bucks here. After a cheesy rendition of Boom Boom Ain't it Great To Be Crazy (I hope one of the charities they support isn't a Mental Health
Organization) they move into a really good version of Git On Board with a superb Hi-Hat re-creation of a train's pistons by drummer Steve Rosenheim.
But I'm anxious to hear the last track on this side...Hokey Pokey Disco. Whoop! here it is..... Aaaaah.... When they put their hip in, they really put their HIP in, ya dig? This is going on my next mixtape. That's what That's all about!

Gee. How can Side Two top that? Well it kicks off with Everybody Loves Saturday Night. (Yeah, sure, back in 1979 everybody still loved that show.) Boy, though, I really get the "fever" for "Saturday Night" when they sing it in all the different languages and world musical styles. Still, I'm a little hurt that they didn't mention John Belushi.
I wasn't going to mention the next track Something for You, because i wanted to save my wit for the third track, A Cow's Good Company. But how can I not comment on a line like "I wanted to something for you, Mom....but I can't 'cause I'm watching TV...." Brilliant! And the kid gets a hug at the end of the song, and not a slap. Yeah. The Larks are definitely all White. The Cow song just doesn't compare. Neither does the rest of the album. It's all downhill from side two, track three.

But, GodDamn! That was Five bucks well spent at the Salvation Army.

2004: The Year when Ben Stiller has to shoot a horse in every picture he does.

I think it's the new law. Yesterday i saw Eurotrip, which was great. We laughed our Asses off. I hope that this and several other upcoming "R" releases are a sign that Hollywood has realized that most of the children of the Baby Boomers are now over 17. I have a feeling that this film would have been cut back to a PG-13 if it were released last year. I'm glad it was a 2004 release. Funnier than Road Trip, Funnier than American Wedding, Funnier than Old School. Please, Hollywood, continue, give me a long wave of Comedies that aren't afraid of the "R".

But anyway, before the film, we saw trailers for two upcoming Ben Stiller movies. Starsky and Hutch, and Envy. The latter film, with Jack Black also starring, looks like fun, but I have a feeling that I saw all the funny bits of Starsky and Hutch in the trailer. But what struck me as strange is that Ben Stiller kills a horse in both movies, and both trailers show the scene where Stiller kills the horse.

Does Ben Stiller have a thing about killing horses? Did he spend his last hiatus at a Hollywood "Horse-Killing" camp, and now they have to write this into a few of his movies to justify the trip as a business expense? Is he doing it to impress his wife, Christine Taylor? Does she have some dark secret in her past involving a horse? When their kids have birthday parties and the pony arrives, will the kids run screaming because they think Daddy's going to kill it? Will the kids pin the tail on a real, live donkey?

I wonder if the PETA people have started harrassing Stiller yet.

Feeling Generous?
Send me something from my Amazon.com wish list!

Surprise me! Do it anonymously, or take credit for your generosity!
If you'd like perhaps I could send you a piece of my artwork in gratitude.
Then it's not so much like begging.

Sting of the Hornet!
So Kevin Smith is working on a Green Hornet Movie. The Internet is all abuzz with the news!
As somebody old enough to have watched Bruce Lee as Kato in the series original television run, I thought I'd share a little anecdote from my childhood... (this was previously posted over at slushfactory.com)

When I was little, we had one of those Aurora Model-motoring HO-scale slot car tracks (later became AFX), which only got set up around Christmas-time. Each year, "Santa" would put a new car in our stockings, and that would be the first thing us kids would open up. (we were allowed to open our stockings as soon as we woke up, but we had to wait for the whole family to wake up or arrive before we did any other gifts.)

In the weeks before Christmas, Mom and Dad would take us to Race-o-Rama hobby center, where they always had a window display with the new cars for the year running around a track.

I remember 1968, when they had Green Hornet's car, The Black Beauty, running around in the window. Dad asked me which one I liked. I pointed at The Black Beauty, "That One!"

"The Black One?" asked Dad, "Okay. Make sure you tell Santa."

On Christmas morning, i was disappointed. Apparently "The Black One" that Dad saw was a Batmobile.

I felt better in 1990, though, when i was able to sell that HO-Scale Batmobile for over $100 in a Comics Buyer's Guide ad.

Why? Really. Why?
I was strolling thru the supermarket aisle today, and I came across what is surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.
Or, if not the apocalypse, at least the next futile salvo in the Cola Wars.

Caffeine-Free Mt. Dew, and Caffeine-Free Dr. Pepper.

WHY? In what twisted California Shopping Mall are the marketing subjects so in-bred that they colored in the circle on their card next to "Hey, I'd buy this!".

Next to JOLT! Cola, these are the two Brands most recognized, and desired, for their Caffeine Content!

What? Did they talk to some Soccer-Mom waiting on the bench at the BMX track?

"Oh, My Boy Zachary can really kick out some Wild 360s, and he just learned how to pull off a Flying Wallie with a double Half-Doogie. But he tends to be jittery, and can't hold still enough to maintain a nose-stand. I wish I could put him on another kind of pill or something."

Mom, I got news for you. Get your boy laid, or give him some Pot. He'll calm down for you. Really. He won't get all paranoid like you and Dad used to if he knows the Pot comes from you. But whatever you do, don't try to Re-Do his Dew!


On another note, I'm really digging the White-Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I'm glad that they're going to be a regular item now.

Steckler Family History Update!
I recently got some crucial info out of my Uncle Eddie, who is the oldest surviving member of my Branch of the Steckler Tree. I post it here for two reasons. I wish to further bore any readers who aren't family members with more details of my ancestry. I also hope that one or more of my distant relatives will hit on this blog if they happen to do a google search for their family history. If you think you are related to me, please, link thru to my web site and email me.

The earliest ancestor Uncle Eddie could recall was my Great-Great-Grandfather,
John Steckler, who was a blacksmith in Marietta, PA in the middle-1800s.
John lost an eye as a blacksmith, and later was known to be a Hotel and Saloon Keeper in Marietta.
He married Anna Resch and they had four children: George Henry, Margurite, Anna, and a son whose name is unknown.
(I 'm curious to find if this "unknown son" could be the Max Steckler my father recalls, who had an argument with his brother, and took his family west, never to be heard from again. I'd also like to know if this "max" is connected to the Max Steckler that I've connected to the defunct "Steckler's" Clothing store in Ashland Kentucky.)

It is not known if John Steckler was the Immigrant from Germany. But if he was, I'd assume he came in thru the port of Philadelphia, and left Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm I, but dates of birth and or Immigration are not known at this time. We know that the Stecklers were Catholic.

George Henry Steckler was my Great-Grandfather.
He was a silk mill worker in Columbia, PA before moving across the Susquehanna River to York, PA with
his family in the 1880s.
He worked as a loom-fixer at a silk mill in West York and in 1898 bought the store at 1501 W. Market St., and opened a Hardware business. (Edward R. would continue to run the business until selling it in the 1950s.) George Henry was married to Anna May Reineberg, Daughter of Jacob Reineberg Sr., and they had four children: Edward R., Antoinette, Mary, and Catherine.
(It is known that the Reineberg family was in Philadelphia in the Early 1800s and had moved to the Susquehanna Valley before the 1860s. Anna May told her grandson Eddie in the 1930s about watching the Yankees burn down the Wrightsville bridge over the Susquehanna during the Civil War, to keep the rebel army from advancing toward Philadelphia. Jacob Sr.'s wife was from the Wyanberg family of shoemakers in Philadelphia. Jacob started his own Shoe business, and passed it on to his sons Jacob junior and Cletus. The Reineberg Shoe store in York, PA is still owned by the family, but is strictly a retail operation today.)

George Henry Steckler also was a violinist, and he played in the orchestra of the Al Hambra Theater in York, Pa (once located where the Colonial Hotel is today) providing accompaniment for silent films.


Edward R. Steckler was my Grand-father, but he died more than a decade before I was born. His last known residence was at 825 Florida Ave, York, PA
He married Hannah Louise Sanders, and had four children: Edward, James, George S, and Susan. Hannah was the daughter of Albertus Sanders and Sarah (Behler), who resided at 663 W. Princess St. in York. Albertus was from York, while Sarah was from nearby Seven Valleys, PA. Hannah passed away in 1988.

Edward (Uncle Eddie) married Wilda, and they had one son, Bill (deceased), they are retired and now reside near Rehoboth Beach, DE

James (Uncle Jimmy) was maried and divorced while I was a toddler. His One son, Scott, now lives in Erie, PA. After his divorce, Uncle Jimmy lived with his mother at Florida Ave, until around his 50th Birthday, when he went on walkabout, and was found dead of heatstroke near Jackson Hole, WY, in 1983

Susan (Aunt Susie) married Charles Burnside, and had three sons, Christopher, Damian, and Nathaniel. The entire Burnside family runs MAPLE DONUTS, a business which Charlie and Susie have built from a single shop in the early 1960s into the largest independently owned Donut manufacturer in the U.S.

George Sanders Steckler is my Father. born Nov 7, 1935.
he was briefly married to Arla Mae (Liebhart), daughter of Fannie and Roy Earl Liebhart, who had a 180-acre farm at Long level, PA, near East Prospect, and over looking the Susquehanna south of Wrightsville, PA. George and Arla had a son, Anthony, who died as an infant. Soon after their divorce in 1962, Arla gave birth to Tiffany, but Arla's Boyfriend claimed paternity, and George did not contest it. Tiffany, However, upon reaching adulthood, bears a strong resemblance to the Steckler family.

On Sept 28, 1962, George married Reba Jeanne (League-Miller) and adopted her three children from her previous marriage: Darrell Leslie (b. May 15, 1956), Twila Jean (b. May 17, 1959), and Tamara Jane (b. Aug 20, 1960).
On July 10, 1963, I was born, Benjamin Tyrone Steckler at Memorial Osteopathic Hospital, York.

Darrell married his high-school sweetheart Susan Eileen (Young), daughter of Ken and Doris Young (both now deceased), on Sept. 16, 1978. They have two children: Zachary Ryan (b. Jan 6, 1988 in Reston, VA), and Kelly Elaine (b. Aug 28, 1993, in York). They reside in York.

Twila was married to Reuben Sanchez of Omaha, NE from 1980 until 1984. On Sept 8, 2001, she was wed to Marty Chacon, of Salt Lake City, UT, in Pocatello, ID. They reside in Idaho Falls, ID.

Tamara (Tammy) married Brian Earl Krebs of York, PA in 1982. They had one Daughter, Jennifer Lauren (b. Oct 5, 1985 in Hampton, VA) They divorced in 1997. Tamara returned to York with Jennifer and settled in nearby Dover in 1998.

I currently have no children and few prospects or desire to create any. Here endeth a bloodline.

cool. those Two pieces of my work that I mentioned on my ebay post a couple days ago?
They have both sold for my Buy-It-Now price.
So, my portrait of Screaming Jay Hawkins from Get BenT! #7 is now on its way to a wall somewhere in California, and my tribute from Unshaven CHI #4, "Joey Ramone's Last Daze" will soon be going to a patron in British Columbia.
On top of my Pez Comic strip original selling last weekend, it's been a good week for me as an artist.

I've almost equalled what my unemployment check would have been for the week, if i was still eligible.

So. I've learned that dick and fartjokes sell good for me as mini-comics, but if i want to sell my originals, I should do one-page gags about Rock Stars and Collectibles.

I feel like a professional artist now, so I'm going to go get drunk and throw a tantrum.