Amnesia: The Lost Films Of Francis D. Longfellow #2

by Al Columbia

What do we know about Francis D. Longfellow? Not much we should say. Not even his close friend Freddy Marciano or his voice actors knew much about Francis as he was a very private person by all accounts. Some say this was due to his abnormally long legs. He was freakishly tall and this caused him some embarrassment compounded by the fact that as a child his grandmother brought him to the local carnivals where he was displayed in the oddities tent. He spent his whole life in his grandmother’s house where he worked feverishly on his animations in his grandmother’s low ceilinged basement, crawling around on all fours like a spider. What do we know about him? We know he liked bananas. Loved them. Upon hearing his grandmother, Marguerite, call out “Francis! Bananas!” he would stop whatever he was doing and run home, trampling children and a few old ladies with his long strange legs as he galloped along at top speed to the sound of her shrill voice.

There were the usual rumors of drug addiction and occultism, but in addition to those stories, Francis was also charged with forgery but found innocent and not convicted. He was accused of making counterfeit bills, 100’s specifically, and let go due to lack of evidence. The details of the court proceedings were sealed, but his arrest was listed in the Merryville Examiner on May 5th, 1933. After this incident Francis kept as much to himself as he could and rarely came out of his basement to see anyone. His friends and voice actors were forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement with him the same year and getting any information out of them has proven difficult. We know that in 1947, he was invited to sell his entire backlog of animations to Warburg pictures but owing to an unfortunate accident upon his arrival to the studio, his life was cut short at the age of 47. The prevailing story is that the very tall Francis, upon entering Warburg’s office, had the top of his head sliced off by a ceiling fan. He collapsed onto the floor in a puddle of blood and brains and he was never heard from again.

We here at Hot Moon Press are proud to present 24 fully restored lost movie posters in supplementary newsletter number two.

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2024

About the author

At the age of 19, he was hired by Bill Sienkiewicz to be his assistant on Alan Moore’s, Big Numbers.

Since then you may have seen some of his numerous other works such as Pim & Francie, Doghead, and The Biologic Show.

He is also a musician and artist.

Reviews

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al Columbia fans will surely want more comics from the most twisted creator in the medium, but we'll take what we get. Following up from the previous entry, Columbia is back making more fictional movie posters for fictional animated movies directed by fictional director Francis D. Longfellow. It's an utterly bizarre project from Columbia, but it allows him to flex some intriguing creative muscle here. Design is at the forefront of making a great movie poster, and cues are taken from some of the best in the business here. Columbia's work has always come off as Fleischer Studios meets Chris Ware which to no surprise, is still very apparent here. Despite this, nobody makes artwork like Al Columbia does, and so you're really getting nearly two dozen new pieces from the mastermind himself. Like the first issue, Amnesia #2 features plenty of references to previous characters from pieces like "The Trumpets They Play!" and "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", so long time fans are definitely the primary audience here.

Twisted, perverse and pure nightmare fuel - that's the Al Columbia experience in a nutshell.