Month: November 2016

There may be some minor spoilers for the two or three of you who didn’t already see this weeks before I got my copy.

filed under Categories adam west, cartoons 2 Comments

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So I watched the new direct-to-home-video Batman: The Return of the Caped Crusaders animated movie, starring those stalwarts of superhero snazziness Adam (Batman) West and Burt (Robin) Ward, with special guest villainess Julie (Catwoman) Newmar. And…yeah, that was pretty fun. My very mild apprehension re: West’s voice work from the trailer was thankfully not the problem I feared…no, not about the aging of his voice, but rather the way he seemed to play up the humor as opposed to essentially being the straight (Bat)man of the TV show. It wasn’t quite so bad when the entire project was taken as a whole, and it was nice to hear him Batting it up once again. I’ll have to say that Burt Ward’s voice didn’t sound like it aged a day, which was pretty amazing.

Nearly all the stuff you remember from the show is here, and more besides: you kinda/sorta see what happens as Bruce and Dick slide down what appear to be miles-long Bat-poles as their costumes are donned, and the Batmobile’s exit from the Batcave is now long and winding with an array of sliding doors. The ever-present dinosaur from the Batcave of the comics is here as well! The replacement voices for the other featured fiendish foes (Joker, Riddler and Penguin) do well enough, though I imagined briefly what it would have been like to get John Astin, who filled in as the Riddler for Gorshin on the TV show (and is still with us!) to reprise that role. Many of the other ’66 series villains put in brief appearances as well…even Shame is in there, somewhere.

The animation is serviceable, capturing the 1960s look-and-feel, the plot is silly but when were they not, and overall it was a good ol’ time returning to this classic iteration of the Batman. Interestingly, they didn’t go with the TV show’s narration, though someone is doing their best William Dozier impression for the sequences featuring the announcer on a TV show Bruce and Dick are watching. One voice acting moment that was particularly affecting was West’s portrayal of a Batman under the influence of a drug designed to make him…well, evil. Yes, it’s been noted here and there the humor of ’60s Batman quoting Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns in one scene, but overall it was a little uncomfortable hearing Best Batman just being so mean. Kudos to West and the producers for making that bit of business work as well as it did.

I said in that last post that I figured this would be the one-and-only return of West ‘n’ Ward in animated form, but I was wrong. Boy, was I ever wrong. William Shatner as Two-Face is the classic TV crossover I never expected, but now can’t wait to experience. Alas, that we waited too long to get Ricardo Montalbán as animated Batman ’66 Bane.

She ain’t wrong about the Phantom Stranger.

filed under Categories collecting, gaming, marvel, pal plugging 5 Comments

So longtime internet pal PTOR reminded me that he did a pretty thorough job a few years back covering that Dr. Strange calendar I featured in Wednesday’s post. He’s an huge Dr. Strange fan — you know, one of those guys! — and I of course recommend that you check out his post about that great old calendar.

And what better day than today, opening day (more or less) for the new Doctor Strange movie, starring that one person and co-starring that other lady! Anyway, word is that it’s pretty good, if very Marvel-formulaic…I saw someone on Twitter (I forget who) say something along the lines of “don’t worry about any spoilers…at this point, what about these films will surprise you?” But if you enjoy Marvel movies, and I generally do, here’s another one to watch.

And with that stirring endorsement, let’s move on to some other topics:

  • Tomorrow, November 5th, will be the second anniversary of the opening of Sterling Silver Comics, my little comic shop that could, located in the heart of Camarillo, CA. I’m still here! I’m still selling comics! They haven’t run me out of town yet! Thanks to all you folks out there for your support, financial, emotional, and otherwise. I’m still growing the business, but things have been going fairly well so far. Not filthy rich yet, but I’m sure that’ll happen at some point in the next four to six months.

  • You may remember my discussion of a recently acquired iPad and my particular strategy vis-à-vis personal back issue collecting. Well, when I went to purchase the recent Boo! anthology (which I’m linking to again because in the first version of this post I stupidly left out the link), I also decided to grab the first issue of Kamandi, which has been a ridiculously giant hole in my Jack Kirby reading for far too long. They had the first couple of dozen issues up there for 99 cents a throw, and with the upcoming Kamandi Challenge being a must-buy (since I adored the previous DC Challenge), I figured it wouldn’t hurt to grab an issue every other week or so. It’s not like I wasn’t familiar with the concept, but “knowing about a Jack Kirby comic” and “having a Jack Kirby comic straight-up just punch you in the face” are two different things. It’s a fun read, as I’m sure most of you know already, and the suicidal despair felt by Kamandi, as he’d rather die and take everyone with him instead of living as a pet in a world of intelligent animals, was a much darker turn than I was expecting. That Kirby fella, he knows how to get your attention. Looks like I’ll be picking more up in the future…and trying very hard not just to buy them all at once.

  • And no, they don’t have the ’60s Metal Men up there yet. That I probably would buy all at once.

  • Another thing I downloaded just last evening was the new DC Legends game. Ah, what the heck, it was free, and I guess Swamp Thing is in it, so hell, why not. I mostly avoid mobile games because I have this terrible fear that I’ll inadvertently make in-app purchases and suddenly I’m in for $500 of, I don’t know, Swamp Thing tuber upgrades and extra power rings. That actually doesn’t appear to be an issue here, though after playing through the introductory screens I’m still not 100% certain what’s going on and what everything means, since I’m old. But some of the animations are pretty neat, and the “cut-scene” dialogue is amusing (“You only show up when we’re all screwed!” Zatanna says to the Phantom Stranger at one point), and it’s fun to touch the screen and watch things explode, in case you’re wondering where my brain is at right about now.

Seriously, I’m thinking about blowing up that Ernie Chan one and putting it up as a poster in the store.

filed under Categories marvel 3 Comments

So I found this diggin’ around through some boxes in the backroom, trying to track something else down:

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…the 1980 Occult World of Dr. Strange calendar. Marvel put out several calendars in this format, with a nice piece of full-color art for each month, while the days for each month are filled with art, photos, gags, creator birthdays, and other bits of trivia and silliness:

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These old Marvel calendars are great, and I spent a few minutes Tuesday morning whilst waiting for the UPS truck and the weekly funnybook delivery taking a few photos of some of this calendar’s details. For example, I think I laughed out loud at this particular entry from July 27th:

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Oh, Jim, someday you will:

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I don’t think I noticed the gag in this one ’til I scanned it and blew it up real big. That may be more an indictment of my eyesight than of the calendar’s print job:

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As a California native, I wholeheartedly agree with the bow-laden centaur:

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This, however, seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited:

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And just think, as old as they were then, they’re about 36 years older now! Have some respect for the elderly, Marvel, geez.