Month: April 2007

from Wonder Woman #62 (Nov/Dec 1953 – 1977 reprint)

I think I’ve seen this particular sequence featured somewhere-or-other before, but I couldn’t Google it up, and, what the heck, it won’t kill anyone to see it again. Maybe.

I have no reason for posting these two Batman panels, aside from 1) they amused me, and 2) they’re good examples of how Batman generally isn’t presented anymore:

from World’s Finest #250 (May 1978) by Gerry Conway, George Tuska & Vince Colletta

You know, for my money, Batman doesn’t fight Panzers nearly enough nowadays.

In other news:

• A couple folks popped up in the comments section for this post, opining that perhaps the kids drawings were in fact by an adult attempting to mimic a childlike style. I’m inclined to disagree…something about the designs, and particularly the wording of the descriptions, just speaks of their authenticity to me. I also noted in the comments that, perhaps, any similarities in the artstyles could be attributed to an adult redrawing or tracing the originals due to reproduction/printing concerns.

  I don’t know, honestly…if any of you folks have better info, pass it along my way, if you could be so kind.

• “The Ignoble Death of Captain America.” BeaucoupKevin makes with the funny.
• I was talking with a customer of mine, a longtime Transformers fan, about how I have several friends and acquaintances, all about a year or two younger than me, who were big, big fans of the original Transformers TV show. I apparently had just fallen out of the TV cartoon habit, and thus missed catching the big Transformers wave that swept away those folks. I am really ignorant when it comes to Transformer stuff, and said as such to my customer.

  He said that this makes me the perfect test audience for the Transfomers movie, since all the old fans will probably be frustrated by one aspect of the film or other…the whole “that’s not what [character] looks like!” thing. I’d be going in with a fresh, open mind, unfettered by preconceived notions of what the Transformers are and/or should be.

  Then again, I would be attending this movie with my preconceived notions about director Michael Bay, who can blow things up real good, aaaaaand that’s about it, really. (And just to cut you off, World’s Biggest Michael Bay Fan, I’m exaggerating a tad. Relax.)

• We’ve lost a little something with all the upgrading in printing processes for funnybooks. Chris Karath shows us what.

So of course it’s on April Fool’s Day that I get linked to by Boing Boing, thus giving several presumably-new readers the idea that I’m obsessed with Kevin Church. Well, I’m not, honest! He’s just a pal. A sexy, sexy pal…er, anyway. I still do think there’s a market for those t-shirts, though.

That was kind of a last second thing…my initial plan was to parody a certain new comic book weblog, but I wasn’t sure enough of my readers would know to whom I was referring, and it may have come across as mean-spirited, which wouldn’t have been my intention, so I thought I’d better pass. Next year, though, watch out.

My second idea was to do yet another parody of the “Captain America’s dead!” media debacle, with “MIKE STERLING KILLED – FOUR DECADES OF NERDITY COME TO END,” but I’d already gone down that road with my “death of Batman” story. Plus, the only real joke I had was that the sole clues would have been a torn piece of a Wildcat t-shirt in my left hand, and a blood-splattered Dolly Parton CD near my body.

Speaking of Wildcat-loving Dolly Parton fans, I had some fun on Saturday helping pal Dorian set up his April Fool’s post. Yes, that’s really my arm in that picture. Look how strong and manly it is. Also, Dor and I putting together that image with the puppy wetting the Wolverine comic drew some odd glances at the shop — Dor trying to pose the puppy, gently pouring water onto the pages and smearing it just the right way. A couple times I had to tell customers “don’t try this at home!”

“What?!?” you may be crying out. “You…you poured water on a comic book? A Wolverine comic book? Oh, the humanity!” Don’t worry, oh delicate reader…let me tell you about where this comic book came from.

Well, actually, it’s not so exciting. It’s another typical example of someone calling the shop, excitedly telling us about his huge collection of comics from the ’60s to the ’90s, all in “very fine to near mint condition” and all “in the original bags.” Well, surprisingly, the collection did indeed have comics from the ’60s to the ’90s, and unsurprisingly, they were mostly in lousy condition. There was a small stack of stuff we could use, plus several boxes of stuff that ended up getting dumped on us. Most of those comics are destined for the dollar boxes, but there was a pile of coverless and otherwise unsellable books that we ended up with as well. It was that pile that the stunt comic used for Dor’s April Fool’s post came from. (It was one of the piles from that collection that Dor’s puppy is sitting on, as well.)

An interesting find in this collection were a handful of DC reprints produced for Pizza Hut in the late ’70s, such as this one:

Here’s a closer look at the Pizza Hut blurb across the top:

I can just see kids across the nation in ’78, reading this comic and asking “Mommy, why is Wonder Woman tied up…again?”

Some of the filler non-Wonder Woman material in that particular issue includes a couple pages on “Unlucky Brides” and “Lucky Brides” — wedding-related folklore, such as “If a girl is the least bit superstitious, she should not accept an engagement ring containing pearls, as it is fated to bring tears to a marriage.” (This message brought to you by De Beers, apparently.)

It also includes this bit of business, which is just slightly disturbing for some reason:

Gee, thanks for the stretchy comforting hand, Elongated Man!