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"Not only can she steal a million, she also looks like one."
The Comic Reader #46 (February 1966) – art by Alan Hutchinson
Some of the featured news items (all spellings are as they appear in the magazine):
“BATTLING BEINGS OF MARVEL. You’ll find Sgt. Fury blowing up half of Italy with a young Italian girl helping. And soon there will be a traitor in the ranks of the Howling Commandos. Iron Man defeats Ultimo only to come back to battle the U.S.A. itself. And Captain America finally meets Nick Fury. The Behemoth won’t keep Submariner busy very long because there are other dangers to overcome waiting for him.”
“THE SAGAS OF SCHWARTZ. How does a man fight a mask? It’s all part of the puzzle that faces the Atom when he selects sides to battle The Man In The Iron Mask. And if one Green Lantern can’t solve a problem, you can always call up another. The GL’s of Earths 1 and 2 meet again to battle Prince Peril’s Power Play. Horrendous Horrors challenge the Flash when he enters the Corridor of Chills. CAW creeps again and the Winged Wonders find themselves trying to gain possession of the Treasure of the Talking Head. And you will find most of them teamed-up in the pages of the Justice League where they face the Shaggy Man and come a hair’s breathe away from defeat.”
“MENACES FOR THE MASKED MANHUNTER! Shades of the Thorn! Batman finds himself facing an itchy problem when he meets a new female villain, Poison Ivy. Not only can she steal a million, she also looks like one. And in Batman for that month, he gains a power that turns the underworld inside out. It is all part of Batman’s Crime Hunt A-Go-Go!”
“MARVEL MAYHEM. Stan’s stories get wilder and wilder. Spidey faces robots galore in a book entitled Once Upon a Time There Was A Robot! The X-Men find themselves in the West where Lucifer uses robots to battle them and the provessor. And somewhere in Earth a few thousand miles away the Hulk finds his hands full of Tyrannus and the minions of the Mole Man.”
“COMIC FANDOM IN TOYLAND. Loads of toys are being planned for the market that will be based on Comic Heroes. There probably will be a BATMAN villains kit with masks the kids will wear to look like the Joker and other foes of Batty. It also looks like you’ll be able to print up your own copies of The Daily Planet when the Clark Kent Newspaper Kit reaches the stores. Aurora of course is releasing the Wonder Woman kit now and they are working on four figures from the Marvel line. They had tentatively chosen Spidey, Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America. I don’t know when they will be on sale but you can start looking around sometime in the Summer. Right now you can buy a number of items based on DC’s big two. Ideal is selling hand puppets of Batman and Superman at $1.00. Hasbro has a flying Superman selling for $1.00 also. Superman also appears in a colorform kit and you can create two pictures of Supey in the new Stardust series.”
“SEIGAL AND SHUSTER AND SUPERMAN. The full rights return into the hands of the creators sometime in the late Spring. National is waiting to see what the pair will ask of them and how they will want their brain child treated in the future.”
6-6-06: Blogging about blogging is even more of a sin today.
I apologize for the quick ‘n’ sloppy weblogging for the last couple of days…my time has not been my own lately, and this “having a life” thing tends to get in the way of the important stuff: the funnybooks.
Anyway, you may have noticed that the sidebar links on my site and pal Dorian‘s has been sporadically up and down over the last couple of days. As I write this, Sideblog appears to be having some expired domain name issues which I certainly hope will be resolved soon.
So, um, anyway…how are you all doing?
A conversation I had with a good customer of ours over the weekend:
CUSTOMER: “Hey Mike…how do you like this All-Star Batman and Robin comic? I’ve seen on the internet that people don’t seem to like it.”
ME: “All those people are wrong. The comic’s absolutely fantastic.”
And as some of you longtime readers will remember, I wasn’t lying to make a sale (something I never do anyway)…I genuinely enjoy this comic. HISTORY WILL VINDICATE ME.
(I’m also so tired of hearing about that “I’m the gosh-danged Batman” panel. IT’S EXPLAINED ON THE VERY NEXT PAGE. AAAAARGH!)
Anyway, that was a good customer. If you want to hear about a few bad ones, I talk about them in my new “Behind the Counter” column for Comic Book Galaxy.
This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but I was Googling up some info for something I was working on, and found myself on the old Journalista weblog. I ended up rereading a few of the entries there, which made me really miss that site. Man, Dirk Deppey did some good work there. Plus, he plugged my site here a handful of times, helping it blossom from the tiny seed into the obnoxious weed-infested shrubbery that it is today. So now you know who you can thank/blame for my still doing the daily weblogging thing after 2 1/2 years.
2 1/2 years of doing this every day. There must be something wrong with me.
As Mr. Spurgeon would say, “Not Comics:” the trailer for The Wicker Man remake is out. It looks like they took the original, brilliant film, flipped the lid up, poured in a whole boxload of stupid, closed the lid, shook it a bit, and are about to put it into theatres.
Employee Nathan: “So are all comic book writers heavy-set guys with beards?”
Me: “Yes. It was either write comics or program computers.”
Oh, relax, I was joking…some are scary bald guys. And I hear tell that there are (gasp) wimmen who do comics…I’m pretty sure that’s just a rumor, though.
Anyway, for some reason that started a discussion of Doom Patrol #45 (July 1991), featuring a story entitled “The Beard Hunter” by Grant Morrison (look, another bald guy), Vince Giarrano, and Malcolm Jones III.
The Beard Hunter is a Punisher parody who, as is probably obvious, kills people with beards. He’s hired by a high-ranking official of The Bearded Gentlemen’s Club of Metropolis, despite the club’s mission being at odds with the Beard Hunter’s own goals. However, this official believes B.H. has the necessary skills to kill Niles Caulder, the leader of the Doom Patrol, and bring back his beard, as punishment for Caulder’s refusal to sell his beard to the organization.
Yes, it’s all completely nuts, but there’s a specific panel I wanted to point out:
That panel has stuck in my mind all these years (particularly the evident futility of his attempts at criticizing Caulder), and of late, it’s morphed into a weblogging gag between me and Dorian. Any slight against us, our sites, or even other folks could be met with “I’m going to write a poem about this on my blog,” said in our best Comic Book Guy voices.
Yeah, I know.
Batman with Unix commands animated gif. “#!BASH”
"Jest as cute, an’ jest as lovable!"
Li’l Abner looks on as Unwashable Jones interacts with some Shmoos (or “Shmoon”):
This was the strip from the side of the box for the recently-released Dark Horse vinyl Shmoo figure. Al Capp was a profoundly strange person, wasn’t he?
Denis Kitchen tells you all about Shmoos, with a nice pic of lots of Shmoo merchandise.
Mr. Kitchen also has a Shmoo button for sale.
The official L’il Abner site has a Shmoo profile as well, with a couple disturbing pictures. (Are there any non-disturbing pictures of the Shmoo?)
Episode guides for The New Shmoo cartoon from the Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo TV show.
From this page comes this animation cel from the Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo bumpers:
The Shmoo was also a trainee cop paired with Fred and Barney on Bedrock Cops. Yes, Bedrock Cops. Kids will watch damn near anything.
This page has a pic of a couple Shmoo clocks, if you scroll down a tad. And EVERYTHING’S ANIMATED.
The Visible Shmoo. (I always pictured the Shmoo as being gel-filled, rather than having a skeletal structure.)
A photo gallery from the MoCCA “Shmoo Schmooze” — a launch party for the book The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo. (Get the book cheap from Bud Plant.)
It’s not on the interweb, near as I can tell, but issue #147 of The Comics Journal (from Dec. ’91) had an essay by Martin Williams called “The Hidden World of ‘Li’l Abner,” which discussed the hidden (and not-so-hidden) sexual content of Al Capp’s strips…including the phallic imagery of the Shmoos.
“‘The Shmoo Sings’ Vintage Children’s Record” – it’s an auction on the eBay, so I’m saving the pic here for posterity:
Blogging about blogging is a sin.
So it only took Tom Spurgeon doing 78 of his “Five for Friday” columns for me to finally get off my duff and contribute an entry to one of them…I’m in the latest one, “Name Your Favorite Sound Effects.” Yes, I manage to squeeze in a Swamp Thing sound effect, in case you were wondering.
Er, sorry about yesterday’s post…pal Sean, Employee Nathan, and I were goofing on the Smurf life cycle topic a while back, and I’d forgotten about it until last Thursday, when pal Corey and I got into an unrelated Smurf debate (“Smurfolution versus Intelligent Smurfing”). So, anyway, I thought I’d share that with you.
Man, Smurfs come up an awful lot in conversation at the store. Nearly as often as Robocop does.
I am inordinately proud of introducing the phrase “Smurf-blown corpse” to the internet, however.
Pal Dorian may be one of my best friends ‘n’ all, but he’s gonna pay for this, oh yes.
The Smurfs life cycle.
The Smurfs are a relatively uncommon woodland animal, found mostly in heavy underbrush in moderately temperate zones. A typical grouping looks similar to this:
Smurfs are small, and are often preyed upon by larger animals, but their sheer numbers often dissuade predators, causing them to look for easier kills.
The exception to this rule are Gargamels, solitary creatures often found in close proximity to Smurf nests:
Gargamels can often be found making their lairs in old, rundown buildings, and are usually accompanied by Azraels, feline creatures that live in symbiotic relationships with Gargarmels. These creatures are the only known natural enemies of Smurfs, as it appears they lack the cognitive abilities to recognize the numbers of the Smurfs as a threat to their well-being. They prefer Smurfs to all other foods, but their lack of hunting ability often results in Gargamels and any accompanying Azraels being weak and sickly.
Gargamels generally find themselves as prey for Bigmouths:
Like the Gargamels, Bigmouths are solitary creatures, as their voracious appetites and highly competitive behavior require large grazing areas away from any other Bigmouths that may impact the food supply.
Bigmouths have no natural predators, and usually only die from 1) old age, or 2) overeating. Dead Bigmouths do not go to waste, however; within hours of a Bigmouth’s demise, the body can be found swarming with Smurfs, gorging themselves on the decaying flesh.
Not all of the meat is devoured. The Smurf Queen, or “Smurfette” as she is known colloquially, will deposit her eggs into the remnants of the Bigmouth’s body.
Within 24-48 hours, the eggs hatch, and the wormlike Smurf larvae feed upon what’s left of the Bigmouth. The Smurf-blown corpse of the Bigmouth serves yet another purpose, as the remains also serve as fertilizer, feeding the unusually large mushrooms that are native to Smurf forests. The engorged Smurf larvae burrow into these mushrooms, hollowing them out as they grow, and continue to use the excavated mushrooms as nests upon reaching maturity:
The cycle of life is truly a smurfy thing. I trust you found this informative.
(special thanks to pal Sean and Employee Nathan for helping me smurf this out)
Cheery ol’ me.
Someone at the store: “I read in the newspaper today that comic book sales are up 15%!”
Me: “Yeah, but around ten years ago they fell about 1000%.”
(I suspect the percentages on both sides of this exchange are of the “pulled out of our butts” variety, but you get the idea.)
Also, for the first time in the nearly 2 1/2 years of doing this weblog, I got a note from my webhoster telling me that I’m using an unusual amount of bandwidth for this site. I’m hoping it’s just the combination of the increased traffic I’ve been getting lately, along with the large amount of images I’ve been posting. There had better not be any shenanigans afoot.
Something I saw on the eBay today, while researching something at work (yes, I was really researching something, shut up): a set of the mid-’80s Man of Steel mini-series…wait, let me amend that, an incomplete set of the Man of Steel mini-series, missing #4. Minimum bid: $50. Shipping fees, for priority mail: $18.80. Shockingly, there were no bids.
A while back I spotted someone trying to sell a run of Infinity Crusade for $50. Hey, it just takes that one guy who has to have it right this second, I guess.
New comics day.
So a couple weeks ago I received from our distributor a reorder of Jonah Hex #1, and most of the copies had an orange ink mark in the corner (as pictured to the right). I know, it’s no big deal, but I think our customers would rather have copies with no ink mark, so I called them in as damaged copies, and replacements turned up in short order.
This week I received our order of the second printing of Fell #4…and one of those had a green ink mark, about the same size and in the same place as on the Jonah Hex cover.
So, hey, whoever’s waving the markers around at the warehouse…watch where you’re puttin’ those things!
A few notes about this week’s comics:
Punisher: The Tyger: John Severin can still draw like nobody’s business, and Garth Ennis’ look at Frank’s childhood is both fascinating and unnerving. There was something wrong with that kid from the get-go, wasn’t there?
Hero Squared #1 – After a one-shot and a mini-series, the regular series finally launches, by creators Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Joe Abraham. Like I’ve said before, the combination of the humorous dialogue and the unique premise really drives this title’s success. The climatic battle of the book, involving Milo and Captain Valor (parallel universe versions of each other) and their girlfriends/arch-enemies Stephie and Caliginous (also paralled versions of each other), doesn’t involve a single punch being thrown, a single caped person being tossed through a building. It’s all in the dialogue, with witty jabs and sudden revelations, that’s far more involving and dynamic than any superpowered fistfight.
Second Wave: War of the Worlds #3 – Miles and the group of folks he’s joined up with try to escape a city under siege by Martian invaders…only to run smack dab into more Martians in the countryside. It’s a fast read, as once we leave the city the panels suddenly become large and spacious and dialogue-light…but that only enhances the feeling of immensity of the huge Martian ships/creatures. It’s a fun action movie of a comic, with leaves you wondering what’s going to happen next, as good serial fiction should.
Superman/Batman #26 – This is the Sam Loeb tribute issue, plotted by writer Jeph Loeb’s late son, and featuring contributions from folks like Brad Meltzer, Jim Lee, Joss Whedon, and others. The back-up story is a tie-in of sorts to Loeb and Tim Sale’s Superman: For All Seasons, related the story of young Clark and his pal Sam, obviously based on Sam Loeb. That story is a real heartbreaker, particularly when you think about how Jeph Loeb must have felt as he was writing it. I’m not going to be critical of this book…heck, I’ll even give Rob Liefeld a pass…as regardless of what you might think of the execution of this funnybook, you can’t deny that it’s certainly a nice gesture in honor of a young man who left this world too soon.
Mouse Guard #3 – Primarily being purchased by people looking for the new hot thing to invest in. Yeah, that is a shame.
Mona Lisa Eve Of All Saints #1 – I suppose the involvement of Tim Vigil should have indicated that this was an Adults Only title…but I was so busy breaking down the order and pulling for the comic savers that I never even checked. So there it was, right on the rack next to Metal Gear Solid, for most of the day. Hey, kids, comics! Luckily I didn’t sell any of these on Thursday…”luckily” being relative, of course.
So, are you folks finding the “Links Pal Dorian and I Found” sidebar link-log useful? Interesting? Can you tell who’s posting what? (I bet in at least a couple cases you’d guess wrong!)
