Saturday, April 12, 2008But why was he haunted by the ghost that wasn't there?
Ghost Stories #7 (July-Sept. 1964)The terrible secret of the man's curse, of why he is haunted by this apparition, is revealed in a child's scrawl on the cover of this particular copy from our shop: "Rememmmmmber to bruuuuuush every daaaaaay...or Dental Health Cat will get you! WoooOOOOoooo!" Friday, April 11, 2008Don't lick Galactus.
Things I forgot to mention about stuff that came in this week:
First, I'm a sucker for all things Galactus, and guess which Classic Marvel Figurine Collection magazine made it into the shop this week? You can see the full sized ad at the official site, and if you're in the UK...order one up for yourself! It's a nice looking statue. They even gave him the little square eyeballs. The price of this package in what remains of the American dollar: $38. Can't quite fit that into the budget at the moment, but I made sure to get my dirty, dirty eyetracks all over this lead figurine and the accompanying literature at the store. The mag does include an extensive and fully-illustrated history of the character, both within the Marvel Universe and behind-the-scenes. It's written in just this side of a little too jokey a manner, but then, this is a guy in a big purple helmet who eats planets, so what was I expecting, really. Second, and this was pointed out to me by customer Jess, is that the regular cover of Amazing Spider-Girl #19 is misnumbered as #17...but the Skrull variant for this issue has the correct numbering. That's a little amusing, I think. Hey, I'll take my amusement where I can find it. Third...well, this isn't a new release or anything, but it is something I found this week in that huge sci-fi book collection we purchased a few weeks back: Yes, that would be Gerry Conway, longtime comics writer, creator of Firestorm, original writer on Atari Force, later TV producer 'n' writer, who wrote this book back in '74. He was twenty-two at the time. He had written a previous novel at 19. What have you done lately? (The cover artist is Kelly Freas, in case you were wondering.) You know, I always realized "Gerry" was short for another name, but it still looks weird to me, seeing his full name like that. Just too many years seeing him credited as "Gerry" in the funnybooks, I guess. Speaking of which, when I was pokin' around on the internet to see if this was indeed the same Mr. Conway, I found a reference on the Wikipedia page stating that his last comics work was for Topps in '93. Is that right? Has it really been that long? Goodness. In other news:
Thursday, April 10, 2008Sometimes I'll even talk about the new comics.
So to tie in to the whole "Secret Invasion" company-wide crossover thing, Marvel has been sneaking "stealth" Skrull variants into a book or two each week, where a character on the cover is recolored and otherwise altered to resemble a Skrull. I talked about this a few days ago.
And wouldn't you just know it? DC Comics just has to go and horn in on the action. So there I am, counting the new arrivals Wednesday morning, checking for shortages and damages to call in to the distributor, and what do I find? A stealth Durlan variant. I was shocked, shocked I tell you, at DC's blatant mimicry of Marvel's groundbreaking promotional gimmick. And look at it...it looks like they just got, I don't know, some blogger with too much time on his hands to poorly paste in Chameleon Boy's face using a freeware graphics program. Shameful. In other slightly less spurious comic news:
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Finishing watching The Shadow, which I spoke about yesterday.
... Really, The Shadow movie? That's your climactic battle? (SPOILER maybe) Some gunplay in a room full of mirrors and some bad bluescreen? But I'll forgive you, since 1) I like the bad guy's ultimate fate (and the reveal of one more agent of the Shadow), and 2) you finally got Jonathan Winters out from behind that table at the club. Commenter Lurkerwithout correctly notes my omission of Tim Curry in yesterday's rundown of the sheer star power at work in this film's supporting cast. Really, I should have mentioned him...just slipped my mind, I guess. But he feels a bit wasted in this film...Curry shouldn't be an obsequious toady, he should be the chief bad guy, if you're gonna have some Curry in your flick. All things considered, he does oil quite nicely across the screen, at first, as a character you can't wait to see to come to an unpleasant end. As Mr. Bacardi says, however, Mr. Curry does leave no scenery unchewed, particularly during his final battle with the Shadow. Presumably he's trying to get across that his character has been driven into drooling madness, but, geez. Also, there may have been a disparaging remark or two in yesterday's comment section about the fine cinematic achievement that is the first Darkman film. PLEASE NOTE: There will be NO speaking ill of Darkman here, friends. This is a Darkman-friendly site. And there was a mention in the comments of the Phantom film starring Billy Zane. That would be another fine '90s superhero franchise-that-never-was that I never got around to seeing, and is also on my Netflix queue. All I remember about the film is that 1) there were some swank Phantom skull rings being given out as promos for this movie, and I never got one, dammit, and 2) "SLAM EVIL" was the remarkably dumb promo slogan for the film. But I've heard some good things about the film, so I'm looking forward to it. In one more follow-up to yesterday's post, again gleaned from the comments section, commenter Ed points us to his review of the Sam & Max DVD, as well as his interview with creator Steve Purcell about the show. Good reading -- go check it out. Okay, enough with the movies. Let's get back to the funnybooks:
Tuesday, April 08, 2008Mike's DVD Round-up.
So the other day, I was listening to some old timey radio on the MP3 player, which is kind of an incongruous thing in and of itself, if you think about it, but that's beside the point...anyway, one of the old timey radio shows I was listening to was The Shadow, which got me to thinking that I'd never seen the '90s film adaptation starring Alec Baldwin as the Nosed Avenger of the Night. To wit:
Okay, not the most flattering shot. He looks pretty good when he's doing stuff like this, though: ...which, honestly, if you're gonna see a Shadow movie, that's what you want...two hours of the Shadow shooting the holy bejeebers out of the bad guys. Oh, okay, some "clouding of men's minds" and stuff, too, I guess, if you're gonna be picky. Overall, the movie's...okay, with a level of cheese present pretty much through the whole film. But it's an acceptable cheese, and it's a painlessly fun way to spend a couple hours. Well, I'm assuming so, anyway, because I'm only an hour into the film, since I had to stop watching the movie and, oh, feed the daily weblog beast. See what I do for you people? In exchange, I only ask you that you not tell me if the film goes horribly south in the last forty minutes. Let me find that out for myself. Now, I really didn't know anything about the movie aside from its Baldwin content, so it was a nice surprise to see the star-studded cast. And by "star-studded," I mean "Max Wright, the dad from Alf." Oh, and Peter Boyle is the Shadow's taxi driver, Sir Ian McKellen as Margo Lane's scientist dad, Jonathan Winters -- Jonathan Winters -- as the guy who, so far into the film, only sits at a table in a nightclub and is allegedly the police commissioner. And then there's the guy who played Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager: NEELIX NO A less happy surprise is that the DVD, which I rented from the Netflix, is only in fullscreen. Fullscreen! PTUI! I spit on you, vile fullscreen version of a widescreen film. A real shame, because there are lots of nice sets and cinematography and such that you're missing about 1/3 of. Maybe someday we'll get a deluxe widescreen transfer with special features and deleted scenes and commentary and comes with the Shadow's hat 'n' scarf 'n' guns, but I'm not holding my breath. Or maybe I am. How would you know? Anyway, as long as I'm being Mr. Screencap McCoy, here's something that came as a bit of a shock as I was watching the first disc in the Sam & Max Freelance Police DVD set. So Sam, Max, and Sam's grandma are at a prison spreading some Christmas cheer, when things go horribly awry and the trio are on the run from some particularly dangerous prisoners. They find themselves in the prison showers, and Max decides he's gonna set a trap using bars of soap. He hesitates, the soap looming menacingly in the foreground: ...But then he bends over to pick up the soap, and this sign magically appears on his bottom: Did...did I just see a prison rape joke in a cartoon? Meant for kids? In the Christmas episode? Good gravy. Nothing to do with comics, really, but everything to do with greatness: JAMES BROLIN. THE CAR. Think about it, won't you? Monday, April 07, 2008DOOM WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS EFFRONTERY.
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