I picked up both Elements of Journalism and The Hollow Reed from the library Sunday. Thanks.
MEM

There could be some effect from Ritalin or some
other "chemical straitjacket". That could do more
harm even than an unjust spanking. (Of course, I
am not against corporal punishment, judiciously
administered, but control by chemicals seems to
me to be dystopian).

No, I don't buy very much. I don't have very much
money.
I don't see that China is "the worlds [sic]num-
ber one capitalist country; I've read a lot about
China. Although the USA is definitely deteriorating.

I teach Composition I & II at a community college. I was shocked the first semester at the lack of knowledge of today's students. Granted, I am not teaching the upper crust, but still, I had some level of expectation. Nope; only a few can write an intelligent sentence. I do the best I can, but I can't make up for years of students getting an A just for showing up in class.

There was my son, myself and Debbie who was our secretary, bookkeeper, and factotum. We all went to lunch together every day unless we had a business meeting, which was usually in L.A. (We were in San Diego).

At our peak, we were putting out 5 books a month with a 3 person staff and a dozen or so contractors.

I had one article of mine turned into a graphic short. I wrote about "Levi Loomis and the Bank of Singapore" a story about wildcat banking in the days of the Michigan frontier, circa 1835. I wrote it for the state history museum magazine, and they rejected it. Rejections happen. Then, a publisher asked me if I had any fiction. "Well, no, but I do have a story." I was impressed with the way the artist did exactly as you said, integrating the action, narrative, and dialog, panel by panel.

That is ambiguous. Do you have a citation. I found many links to Spencerian Script, and eventually got to Edmund Spencer of the 16th century, and The Faerie Queen. You do not mean Herbert Spencer? His writing is clear, but not paradigmatic.

As to Classics Illustrated: Who didn't?
In our case, we primarily did biographies which required research as well as writing ability. Writing a comic book or graphic novel is very akin to writing a play, or a screenplay. Each panel must carry forth the narrative, the actual words spoken if any and a description of the panel. The panel descriptions are often altered by the artists whose imagination in terms of visuals is in most cases, superior to the writer's.

I got it. That's my feeble attempt to carry the humor one step further before I changed the subject.
Run- ons are one of the plagues of the poor writings that I was referring to. I was startled in a sad way to note supposed sentences without subjects and subjects sans predicates. The easiest time we had was when we decided to do a horror comic book and put previously published stories into graphic form. We were able to use the author's actual copy which had already been edited.

Whew! That's a relief.

The run-on sentence was meant to be humorous. You implied that you have a sense of humor, but that I do not. I was mimicking a young person. Posts like that are easy to find online all over.

It seems that in talking past each other, we have made a mountain out of a mole hill.

Mrs. Swatts?
Good lord, she'd need to change her name in my high school. Although we had an English teacher named Miss Wilson and I got the kids to call her Woodrow. No doubt you realize by now that I was in the principal's office regularly.

LOLOL
I have a Belgian friend named Guy. He is almost as cucu as us. I should get him involved, but he is probably smart enough to avoid the entire conversation.

Are you trying to be the king of the run-on sentence? I have never put anyone down here in the Gulch, but, I often I need to defend myself. I think for a guy my age, I'm pretty much with it and not stuck in the past. But it is true that my past experiences have helped shape my present. Isn't that pretty much true of everyone? By the way, It might surprise you to find that I have a life, and while I enjoy the Gulch, it is only a small part of it. Since I'm not a gamer or a blogger, the most time I spend is answering or deleting my e-mail. I communicate with people all over the world but rarely spend more than 3 hours a day at the computer unless I'm doing research or writing an article. I must admit to getting 100+ e-mails a day but 1/3 of them are quickly deleted. Since my grandchildren are all adults I no longer am required as a baby-sitter, that is until the sluggards get productively multiplying.
And Mike -- I like you, or should I say as you represent yourself since we've never met. You're quite erudite, and a sharp mind. You might be aware, however, that at my age, I have accumulated enough insults and clever put-downs to fill a pocket dictionary, but I never use them here.

You don't know? Sounds like a waffling reply -- the present wafflecipul form of 'to waffle'.

Don't know. I never had a stale Belgian Waffle, but I bet I'd know one if I ever encountered one.