"His codpiece contains equipment…."
So I was poking through the latest edition of the Comics Buyer’s Guide Comic Book Checklist & Price Guide, and I noticed an amusing feature: every other page has a strip of photos of five comic covers, each with a very brief description beneath.
Some have trivia (for Street Poet Ray: “Marvel’s worst-selling comic book ever”), some have funny yet accurate descriptions (Sub-Mariner: “Angry Atlantean has control issues,” and Fatale: “Over-endowed heroine absorbs energy”), criticism (Ghost Rider 2099: “Depressing character in depressing future” and Hee Haw: “Doom, Despair, Agony, Oh Me…”), attempted gags (Wheel of Worlds: “Reversed title sounds like car show”), brief history lessons (Harbinger: “Valiant series got very hot, then very cold”), and possibly my favorite one of the bunch, for the Howard the Duck movie adaptation: “Movie ruined all that was good in the world.” Oh, now, it wasn’t as bad as all that, was it?
Okay, one more: Super-Villain Team-Up: “Doom, Red Skull kept trying to make friends.”
Alas, some titles I wanted to see described in this fashion were skipped over by the guide’s writers, forcing me to make up my own for All-Star Batman (“Genius comic, unappreciated in its own time”), Skateman (“AHHH! MY EYES!”), Purgatori (“Masturbation tool for lesbian devil fetishists”), Hawk & The Dove 2nd series (“Believe it or not, Liefeld’s art was okay, once”), J’emm Son of Saturn (“Definitely not the Martian Manhunter”), Double Impact (“This comic starred two pairs of breasts”)…you know, like that.
And I know you jokers have some of your own, so go ahead, throw ’em in the comments section.
In other news:
Via Portal of Evil, the Great Batman Equipment Archive:
“This is an attempt to catalog everything Batman has ever pulled from his suit or belt. His utility belt is a wide, goldish yellow belt with a dozen pockets separated by hollow cylindrical studs, which also contain equipment. Most of his equipment is hidden here. His codpiece contains equipment, as well as his boots, cape, cowl, and gauntlets. It is held firmly that only the dark blue on his costume contains things, never the gray. Sources are Games (Role-Playing and Computer), Movies, Books, Websites (Official only), Television (the 60’s series and modern cartoons), Comics, Scripts, and Newspapers. I only follow the Bruce Wayne Batman, or those that sat in for him. Near the end are gadgets that should have been Batman’s, and last a comprehensive description of his ensemble, what it does, and where he keeps it.”
“…Only the dark blue on his costume contains things, never the gray.” Uh, okay.
YES! Weekly has a 10 Best Comic Book Movies list, where they misspell Spider-Man and accidentally include The Crow. Including Alien Vs. Predator on the list was a nice touch, though, acknowledging the comic book origins of that particular teaming. Calling it one of the “best” is kinda pushing it…it was fun, but really, really stupid, which is okay for what it was.
“Reprints not so shocking as in the ’50s” – review of the EC Comics archive editions, praising the art while knocking the writing:
“For every genuinely nail-biting tale there’s one that seems like a third-rate ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. A bear hunter IS TURNED INTO A RUG! A furrier from the future visits a planet WHERE THE ANIMALS WEAR PELTS MADE OUT OF PEOPLE! An effeminate man marries solely for business reasons because HE’S A ROBOT! (Actually, that last one’s kinda good.)”
I don’t know…the hokiness of some the stories is part of the charm, I always thought. Plus, the comics poke fun at themselves, usually via one of the “horror hosts.” It was like, “yeah, we know this story was kinda goofy, but wasn’t it sorta fun anyway?” It let readers in on the, well, “gag” I guess, inviting them to take the stories about as seriously as they deserved…an aspect of EC Comics that their many imitators of the time didn’t understand.
And, once seen, it cannot be unseen, from Landofthelost.com:
Ssssssssssssss-sexy!
I wanted to post you one tiny observation so as to say thank you yet again for those striking concepts you have contributed above.