This image tells the story of the mid-to-late-70s Marvel Bullpen perfectly. Alas, one does need to know some people involved for more than the surface humor to be revealed. Let me introduce our cast– Morrie Kuramoto, The Ancient One, he was a Production Worker, with decades of experience getting all manner of inadequate gray junk to print. Mike “Later” Higgins (he always said goodbye that way, even if he was just strolling down the hall) was also a Production Worker but a letterer too. In fact both Morrie and Mike just about did the same job—you can make out in all the pix that their desks face each other. A testament to their friendship. Me? I worked in the stat room, Brown is the same and stats is the game. Photostats. Sometimes a picture or two.
Morrie had been in the Bullpen for a long time. Because he had, indeed, seen and heard it all, it was no surprise for him to tell us to, “Shut Up!” A lot.
As you, casual reader, might assume, there is a lot more to tell about Morrie—but I’m letting this image say a few things. Happily, when I re-discovered this image I found two others.
The first image, at top, was a mystery made so because of the format of a 35mm slide. You see, the “slide” was a cardboard frame that held an individual frame of film. What that frame wound up doing was to cover up a sliver of the “full frame.” Where did the name “slide” come from? All I can hazard was that the slide would slide down into a slide projector. Such a contraption would allow many people to see the image.
But who was that hairy fellow? What was visible was the tip of a nose and a large hank of hair. Elvis sized. Threw me off for years. I had “lost” this sequence of pictures because of the penny-wise manner in which I used film in those days. I have to shake my buggy whip at you kids out there with 9 cameras in every phone—but back then, film came in rolls of … uh… film. And it cost plenty! So there were two other “events” that I attended all on one 36-shot roll of film. My first scan of the above was even more cut off than this version was. Morrie’s desk was the subject and I didn’t hardly note there was a person to one side. I was determined to see if there was more under the frame. Well, there was. Here is the “first” picture of the series, wherein I captured the perpetrator of this act.
One Mike Higgins, admiring his handiwork! For no known reason, Mike had become synonymous with rather long hair.
Then, I jumped into the shot. Rather rare for me was the use of a tripod—the use of which contributed to my lack of attention to what was going on in the picture.
Now! We take the image at the top of the page and claw and tear at the cardboard frame to reveal:
With the frame removed, enough of Head of Production Danny Crespi can be seen. That giant bouffant on Danny’s head was the perfect alignment of Mike’s own furry mass with the camera lens.
Further analysis:
That really looks like Danny had a towering pile of hair!
It was Mike Higgins who spotted that the source of “SHUT UP.” In Danny’s hand was a blur that I took to be merely a crumpled, left-over xerox copy. Turns out, it was a headline from The New York Daily News! And that was what was in Danny’s hands. Perfect—as if the Saints who watched over the media and those who watched over comic workers got together to tell Mike to use this headline!
One technical note: Morrie had a beautiful speaking voice and the very slightest of Japanese accent. When he intoned, shut up—he added a mildly guttural syllable just after. Shut up-uh. These images were taken in September of 1979 and every since then and quite some time after Morrie passed, I do tell anyone who needs it, to shut up-uh.
Of course no one knows what I am trying to do.