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§ October 18th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Hold on…I almost forgot about these….
To think you almost missed the delights of…Swamp Thing Puffy Stickers:
Produced by Noteworthy during that golden age for Swamp Thing merchandise, 1991, each package contains six stickers each. As far as I know, only two assortments were ever released. Here’s the other one:
If you’ve been following along with my previous Swamp Thing merchandise posts, you’ll notice that the licensors got a lot a mileage out of the same art (particularly if you look at the Presto Magix set). For example, the piece used in the bottom right of the first sticker sheet appeared to be the standard Swamp Thing image used to represent the entire line.
If I were a crude man, I’d say that this sticker makes Swampy look like he’s…um, doing his business:
Giant Swamp Thing threatens to crush the Earth if you don’t do rhyming things:
§ October 17th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
1. Pal Bugfish has gone and got himself one of those weblog type things that’s popular with all the kids these days…it’s Nat Pike’s Wired for Sound, where he discusses music. So go take a look, you.
2. (Here be SPOILERS) Finished Marvel’s Essential Monster of Frankenstein volume, finally…the earlier chapters, drawn by the always-excellent Mike Ploog, are the highlight of the book, though later chapters get points just for sheer weirdness (the Monster teams up with a robot and they wander off to find peace? Wha–?). The transformation of the Monster from being fairly erudite to being a Hulk-esque “AARRRR! Fire…hate fire!” type of fellow is a little disappointing. Well, it makes sense within the context of the story, but the novelty of a monster that can speak and express itself clearly was welcomed. Also disappointing the brief mention, and discarding, of the idea of attempting to determine just whose brain Dr. Frankenstein ended up using in the Monster. Maybe someone more familiar with Frankenstein lore can correct me, but I think that’s a unique idea, and it’s a shame no one followed up on it. I mean, that brain had to come from somewhere…is any trace of the old personality still in that brain? What if the old mind attempted to reestablish itself over the new mind in residence? Well, I think that’s compelling, anyway.
The book is wrapped up with several stories from Marvel’s black and white magazine line…and boy, those are plenty weird as well. The “mind-transference” storyline involving the scientist, the trapeze artist(!), the Monster, and a mouse, with the end result of the mouse’s mind getting control of the Monster’s body, is really something else. There’s also an odd continuity glitch in this storyline…the mouse with the scientist’s brain survives being destroyed by the mouse-brained Monster at the end of one chapter, but a flashback in the very next chapter shows the Monster most definitely killing the mouse. Suppose it’s too late for a No-Prize.
Anyway, like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I hope Marvel continues to reprint their horror titles in this format…as well as other titles from their black and white magazine line. Wouldn’t you like to see a Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu Essentials volume? I know I would.
3. Speaking of which, the next volume of Essential Tomb of Dracula is due this week, wrapping up the reprints of the color series, and including stories from the first four issues of the Tomb of Dracula magazine. The first two volumes were great stuff for good value, and the third should be more of the same. This new volume kicks off with issue #50, guest-starring, oddly enough, the Silver Surfer. I’ve come across this issue several times over the years, and each time I flip through it and just sorta shake my head. It’ll be interesting to see how the story now fits in context, now that I’ve read the majority of the series.
§ October 16th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
I hear tell from a little bird that it’s AiT/Planetlar head honcho Larry Young’s birthday today…so to help him celebrate the big 8-7*, let’s dip back into that long-neglected box of review copies Big Larry sent me way back when and take a look at a book Larry himself wrote: True Facts: Comics’ Righteous Anger.
Well, it would be kind of a crummy birthday present if I didn’t like this book, so I’m glad to say that I enjoyed it a great deal. It’s a collection of columns Larry wrote for the now defunct Savant website describing, in great detail, just what it takes to get a comic book published and put into the hands of potential readers. The volume is a slim 120 pages, but don’t let that fool you — it’s stuffed with lots of good information for the aspiring comics creator/publisher. It’s written in a casual and friendly tone…this isn’t Mr. Young shoving numbers and addresses and instructions at you. This is Larry writing you a letter, telling you about his day, his friends, and, oh, yeah, how to decide on a printer for your comic, how to promote your material and yourself, how to run your business like a business, and so on. Also, it’s not just hard numbers being discussed, but mindsets as well, particularly the kind of singleminded dedication you need to work in comics.
The information comes in a variety of forms, from straightforward instructions on how to put together and distribute a press release, from a San Diego panel interview, from an observation of a person in a bunny costume at a wedding (yes, that does have something to do with comics), and from his own days working at a comic store. All these methods of delivery keep your interest, and though some may not have an explicit connection to the main theme of getting your comic book published, some of Larry’s stories (particularly the one about the person trying to sell his “valuable” comic book collection) go a long way to giving hopeful self-publishers a sense of perspective regarding their work and the industry they’re in.
The columns originally date from 2000, so for this 2002 edition Larry thoughtfully adds updates when necessary, sometimes correcting some outdated information, or occasionally just adding a tad more discussion borne of an extra couple years of hindsight.
This is a nicely done book, and a valuable resource to anyone thinking about entering the industry. I would even recommend it to comic fans who have no intention of publishing their own books, because 1) who knows, maybe it’ll spark some interest, and 2) maybe it’ll give them a little more empathy towards the people who actually have to work to provide them with a little entertainment. Anyway, file this with Scott McCloud‘s Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, as well as Will Eisner‘s Comics and Sequential Art…it’s a nice supplement to the material presented in those highly-regarded volumes.
My only real quibble…please, no more use of the term “cha-cha” — Dennis Miller has ruined it for everybody!
In other news:
Smallville‘s latest episode says “so long” to Lois, at least for the time being, and puts an end to the Lex/Clark rift, also for the time being. About the latter…that’s too bad, because as the story was working out, it seemed very much to me that Lex’s eventual enmity with Superman would have its roots in Clark treating Lex like absolute crap. I suppose that would be going a little too far off model, even for the producers of Smallville. The less said about this week’s adversaries (cheerleaders with mind-control Kryptonite punch? Wha–?) the better, though I did like Lois’ confused reaction to Clark’s reference to “meteor rock.” Really, it’s the appealing cast that make this show fun to watch…goodness knows it’s not plots like this episode’s.
Pal Ian discusses Howard Chaykin’s Scorpion. I really liked most Atlas Comics…yes, even Morlock 2001.
The Shatner totally name-checks the city of Ventura in “That’s Me Trying,” a track off his new album Has Been (listen for free here). Therefore, for no more reason than that, I hereby dub the Shatner an honorary member of the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs**, with all rights and privileges thereof.
* Please don’t kill me, Larry.
** As always, IDIC for short.
§ October 15th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Ghostly Tales #108 (November 1973) – art by Tom Sutton
§ October 15th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
My totally unfair thought, after going through a whole bunch of Chaos Comics today:
If they had just gone ahead and published outright porn, instead of being coy about it, maybe Chaos Comics would still be in business.
§ October 14th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
From Movie Poop Shoot (found via Johanna):
I was lucky in that my mother bought me a steady diet of Claremont/Byrne X-MEN and MARVEL TEAM-UP. I wasn’t stuck reading SHAZAM reprints from the ‘40s.
§ October 14th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
What stinks about being sick is that I suddenly have more time to read, but I’m not able to easily concentrate on what it is I’m reading, which makes things a little difficult. So, of course, both the new issues of The Comics Journal and Alter Ego come out. I’m feeling a little better now, but there was no way I was going to be able to read these last night. Oy. TCJ contains a series of articles about Cerebus and its creator, Dave Sim, plus an interview with Ed Brubaker and reprints from George Carlson’s Jingle Jangle Tales. I own a handful of Jingle Jangle Tales, and they’re all demented and brilliant…if you’ve not seen this comic before, you have to take a peek at the new TCJ. Anyway, this new issue looks interesting, but I haven’t been able to do more than just skim it, unfortunately.
The new Alter Ego has more stuff about Frankenstein’s Monster in comic books than you’d ever want to see, ever…it does has a short Frankie-focused interview with Bernie Wrightson, plus a look at a comic I haven’t read enough of, Dick Briefer’s version of Frankenstein. This issue includes 25 daily strips by Briefer for a proposed Frankenstein daily, and they’re really something else.
Other new arrivals (possible SPOILERS):
Mad Magazine #447 – Sergio Aragones brings us “A Mad Look at Politicians,” which is great, as Aragones always is. The mag also includes a pull-out Alfred E. Neuman for President poster. Look for the Mort Drucker George W. Bush as the Cat in The Hat cover.
Punisher #12 – okay, okay, the story’s finally over, for all you people who got tired of it. I enjoyed it, myself. Sometimes I need a little morally-abhorrent mayhem in my comics reading, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
Astro City – A Visitor’s Guide – eek, $5.95? But there’s a lot of material packed into this comic…lots of text pages that I’ll have to read later when I’m not so sick, a short comic by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Ben Oliver) and an extensive gallery of Astro City’s inhabitants by a variety of artists (including Howard Chaykin, Kelley Jones, Dave Gibbons, and Bruce Timm). I think you’ll get your money’s worth out of this funnybook.
Fallen Angel #16 – good as usual, and equally good is the news that Fallen Angel sales have bumped up a bit, with the possibility of a second collection. The promo comic helped, but I’d like to think a little online word-of-mouth (via comics weblogs and elsewhere) helped a bit, too.
Action Comics #820 – I read Superman comics, so you don’t have to…the art on this issue by Carlos D’Anda is nicely done, reminding me a bit of Art Adams (appropriate, given Adams’ work on the covers lately). But, really, the story didn’t really do anything for me…the villain’s M.O. seemed different from what I remembered, and the sudden focus on the guest-hero near the end of the book was admittedly interesting, but out of nowhere and out of place, I think.
Also: JSA #66 (a happy ending all around, I guess, as one of the “mistakes” of Zero Hour is corrected), Fables #30 (Snow White finally gives birth, and the winner of the Fabletown election discovers the cloud in his silver lining…very amusing issue), Ex Machina #5 (really, you need to be reading this comic), Challengers of The Unknown #5 (there’s nothing quite like a Howard Chaykin comic), and Tom Strong #29 (it’s an “everything you know is wrong” story, but at least for once there’s no pretense at trying to fool the reader that really everything we know is wrong).
Other arrivals: the SPX 2004 Anthology (the War issue, which has an alarming cover by Steve Lieber, featuring a tank rolling over the remains of comic characters, Charlie Brown’s shirt fluttering on the barrel), Secret War #3 (just took a brief glace through it…is it really half “S.H.I.E.L.D.” files?), and X-Force #3 (…I’m just still amazed this is actually happening).
We also received our incentive packs for our orders on the Dreadstar reprint volumes. Fortunately, we were going to order quite a few of the Dreadstar books anyway, so it’s not like we had to bump up our orders a lot to reach the incentive plateaus (like we had to on that most recent issue of Wolverine in order to get the variant…which arrived this week, finally). And it’s a good thing we didn’t, because we would have been pissed…included in the packs were four copies of the Battle of the Planets paperbacks that reprinted the Gold Key comic book series. You remember, the books that featured such terrible black and white reproductions of the comics that the publisher had to take returns on them? This is apparently how the publisher is getting rid of them again. Well, crud.
§ October 13th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
Due to illness, I’m not going to be doing my usual new-comics-Wednesday round-up…I’m shooting for tomorrow. However, so you don’t leave empty-handed, here are some unusual internet search referrals that I’ve received over the last week or so:
kryp+tuck – You have no idea how many searches I got for this.
funny+spiderman+dancing+on+street+corner – Uh, what?
Reasons+to+visit+Saturn – Why, to get away from the funny Spider-Man dancing on a street corner, of course.
explain+superman+209 – No one can explain.
progressive+ruin+chalk+swamp – It just amuses me that someone who wasn’t me was looking for this. God bless that person.
print+runs+for+marvel+masterworks – Actually, I’m kind of interested in that, myself.
ruin+marvel – I can only take partial credit for ruining Marvel, thank you.
I’ve+got+a+handful+of+vertebrae+and+a+headful+of+mad – Someone’s looking for the Doom comic, I betcha.
femforce+slash – Sigh.
necronomicon+warning+in+front+cover – “WARNING: Not a real historical volume. Created only to part gullible people from their money.”
Green+Lantern+181+Spoilers – SPOILER WARNING: It stinks.
green+lantern+racial+sensitivity – “I been readin’ about you…how you work for the blue skins…and how on a planet someplace you helped out the orange skins…and you done considerable for the purple skins! Only there’s skins you never bothered with –! …The black skins! I want to know…how come? Answer me that, Mr. Green Lantern!” – from Green Lantern #76 (April 1970) by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams
werewolves+nazis – …Make for great comics.
hitler+logo – I really should stop mentioning Hitler in my weblog. I don’t even like the guy.
monsieur+mallah+loves+the+brain – Yes…yes he does.
Comics+Slave – Aren’t we all?
vixen+comic+fabio – I’m sure there’s an explanation…but keep it to yourself.
killed+sue+dibny – No I didn’t!
And because some of you are dirty, dirty people:
bubble+gum+fetish – I wish I could say this surprises me, but alas, it doesn’t.
animated+toplessness – Because static toplessness is so boring.
erotic+elfquest – Isn’t that redundant?
naked+adrienne+barbeau – At last, a nekkid web search I can get behind.
betty+and+veronica+nude – Ah, the eternal quest continues….
kerry+washington+goes+topless & erica+durance+topless & Erica+Durance+nude+pictures – Pretty much any time you mention any actress or female athlete on your webpage, you’re gonna get hits from people looking for nekkid pictures of them. So, let’s run a test: Carole Lombard Carole Lombard Carole Lombard
jessica+alba+latest+pictures+with+blond+hair – Oh, God, not this again.
§ October 13th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Charlton Comics and the art of subtlety.
Ghost Manor #33 (Sept. 1977)
§ October 12th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on
1. Congratulations to The Comic Treadmill for reaching the one year mark. H and Mag are a couple of swell cats, in my own unbiased opinion.
2. Oh, for God’s sake, does nothing go right for Walt Wallet?
3. Just added View from The Cheap Seats and Irresponsible Pictures to the weblogroll. I’ve also made other adjustments to the ‘roll over the last week or so, but was too lazy to note them at the time.
4. Pal Andy has been posting a lot of comic-related links lately…instead of stealing them for my own, like I usually do, I suggest you check them out for your own self.
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