In the comments to Time Log #0, Kaylie McDougal asked:
does Pittsburgh really have a Stephen Foster monument?
Which made me realize that I should do a bit of explaining when it comes to the context in which Pete and I came up with Time Log.
First off, here was my response to Kaylie:
@Kaylie: specifically, Time Log involves the Stephen Foster statue, which is prominently placed on a popular road AND right in front of the city's largest public library (right across the street from the Memorial building Neal posted about).
for more, check out this opinion piece by Tony Norman, who's a huge comic book fan (and Wednesday comic shop regular at my local shop, Phantom). oddly enough, he put out his opinion column about the Foster statue the same week that the Time Log one-shot was released.
Still with me? Now let me add just a bit more to that. First off, you can learn more about the songwriting career of Stephen Foster AND minstrel shows, which is where Foster's songs gained popularity.
There's a lot more to it, including the idea of ownership as it applies to popular music, as well as the songwriting business and its own interesting history. But I'll let you find those links on your own.
What is vital to Time Log is that the real Stephen Foster statue stands on the corner of Forbes Ave and Schenley Drive Extension in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, right between the campuses of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (and a couple blocks away from Phantom of the Attic Comics, my local shop and a place where you can buy a copy of the Time Log one-shot comic).
Also, if you haven't read the Time Log one-shot, it's worth taking a quick peak at this PDF preview, which includes Pete's opening rant about the Foster statue. That'll give you even more context, as it applies directly to the inciting incident of the entire Time Log adventure.
So with that said, I'd like to finish in Pete's own words about the Foster statue:
And, for the record, I've been ranting about that statue since no later than 1999, though I'm sure many people come upon it and similarly can't believe that it exists in such a prominent spot (it used to be tucked away in a graveyard somewhere, I think, in Homestead). Hopefully Time Log gives proper outlet to all those folks like me that have shaken their fists in fury at it.
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