…I just don’t have it in me today. Be good to yourselves, watch out for each other, and I’ll see you Friday.
Mikester
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.
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.
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.
So I found this diggin’ around through some boxes in the backroom, trying to track something else down:
…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:
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:
Oh, Jim, someday you will:
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:
As a California native, I wholeheartedly agree with the bow-laden centaur:
This, however, seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited:
And just think, as old as they were then, they’re about 36 years older now! Have some respect for the elderly, Marvel, geez.
Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization.
Get ready to cast your vote…for the End of Civilization, as represented by this, the November 2016 edition of Diamond Previews. Get out your copy, along with your sample ballots, and follow along, why don’cha. WARNING: contains one (1) reference to a plot development in a 30-year-old DC mini-series, and at least one (1) thing I’m going to get a drive-by “um, actually” over:
p. 59 – Will Eisner The Centennial Celebration 1917-2017:
Sure was nice of them to homage the classic scene from Frank Miller’s The Spirit on the cover:
p. 70 – The Manara Library Volume 1 Indian Summer and Other Stories TP:
Wait ’til you see the full-body portrait of Milo Manara that Frank Cho is providing for the variant!
p. 73 – Game of Thrones Hand of the Queen Pin:
“What will we do with all these leftover Wolverine keychains?”
“Here, let me see ’em.” [snaps off two claws] “There you are.”
“Brilliant!”
p. 76 – Kamandi Challenge #1:
Looking forward to Albert Einstein’s appearance in issue #6 to get the story straightened out and back on track.
p. 115 – Batman ’66 Meets Wonder Woman ’77 #1:
…MEETS L.E.G.I.O.N. ’89 MEETS CAGED HEAT 3000 MEETS BLAZIN’ ’93….
p. 149 – DCTV Supergirl Action Figure:
Nice of them to include the “Pippi Longstocking” variant head.
p. 230 – A Land Called Tarot HC:
“You have to get our of here! Your land is haunted!”
…
Hmmm…nope, not quite the same feel, is it?
p. 309 – Belladonna #4 Costume Change 3 Cvr Set:
Well, um…you’re not shy, are you?
p. 311 – Jungle Fantasy Ivory #6 Luscious Variant:
I’m sensing a theme, here.
p. 454 – Tale As Old As Time: The Art and Making of Beauty and the Beast Updated Edition HC:
“As old as time” — or at least as old as the year 1740, when the original “Beauty and the Beast” story was first written and published. ALSO AS OLD AS TIME: pedants like me pointing that out.
p. 456 – Elvira Mistress of the Dark Photo Biography HC:
NOTICE: NOT A POP-UP BOOK.
p. 474 – Batman “Skull Art” Black T-Shirt:
1980s Gotham kids had their own weird variant of the homemade “Suicidal Tendencies” t-shirt, didn’t they.
p. 481 – Watchmen Nite Owl Vinimate Vinyl Figure:
You know, the way the leg joints are done on these things, they might be able to do a nekkid Dr. Manhattan and just claim ignorance. “No, that’s not supposed to look like…you know, that’s just where the legs connect! We swear!”
p. 486 – Batman Classic TV Series Batphone Vinyl Bank:
No joke (other than having an actual bat-shaped phone might have raised questions in the Wayne household), but let’s just enjoy Alfred answering the actual non-bat-shaped batphone from the show:
EDIT: I’ve been informed that this is the phone from the Batmobile, which still seems wildly impractical. You know, as opposed to all the practical stuff from the Batman TV show.
p. 492 – Aliens Fossilized Space Jockey Foam Replica:
Not included: the vague disappointment upon finding out in Prometheus that this guy was probably just a big ol’ human-looking fella.
p. 492 – Predator Accessory Pack:
Also may be used to liven up the Barbie Dreamhouse. “What secret is Skipper keeping in her private room?”
p. 504 – Pop! The Walking Dead Vinyl Figure – Carl (Zombie Guts):
So eventually they’re going to do the “Carl (Shot in the Face)” variant, but will they just do the bandage over the eye, or will they just bore a hole right through one of those black shiny orbs?
p. 532 – Child Play’s Chucky Bishoujo Statue:
Why, this is the second-sexiest version of Chucky that I’ve ever seen.
p. 544 – The Bonsai 1 Plastic Model Kit:
“A 1/12 scale model of a bonsai tree. Well, sure, why not…even I can’t screw this up.”
[10 hours later, glue and plastic pieces everywhere]
“SON OF A BITCH, YOU F’ING–”
p. 564 – Namco Arcade Machine Collection:
I’m ashamed to admit how long I looked into these things trying to find out if they were working mini-replicas. (I’m still not sure.)
p. 568 – DC Heroes “For Darkseid” Decal:
This is a great accompaniment to the New Gods line of “family sticker” window decals, with silhouetted images of Orion, Kalibak, Highfather…um, this sounded funnier in my head. A sticker featuring the outline of Metron in his chair just by himself in the rear window of a station wagon is still a good gag, right? …Right?
p. 575 – Suicide Squad Lapel Pin Sets:
“I’d like to buy the Ghost Rider pin, please.”
“But that’s not….”
“Boy, I sure do love Ghost Rider. Here, please take my money.”
“…Okay, thanks for shopping.”
Marvel Previews p. 5 – Monsters Unleashed #1 Teaser Variant Cover by Geof Darrow:
TWO YOUTUBE JOKES:
1. Have this playing along while you read this comic:
2. At long last, Marvel has finally adapted Bambi Meets Godzilla:
Marvel Previews p. 39 – Amazing Spider-Man #23:
“Peter, seriously, do you ever trim your nose hair?”
Your mom was probably a woman.
I intended to have more of this week’s comics read for an end-of-week reviews post, but I’ve only managed to read a couple from this week’s rather sizable haul. Part of the reason is that I’ve been distracted by this massive tome that details Atari’s artistic history, from the covers of the Atari 2600 game cartridge boxes, to ad campaigns, to designs of their arcade cabinets. Not just pretty pictures, but also includes a history of the company and commentary from the artists. For a guy like me, who still thinks of the original Nintendo system as “that newfangled video gaming machine,” and still has his original, working Atari hooked up to the big ol’ widescreen, this hits pretty much all my nostalgia triggers.
Just so there is at least a tangential relation to comics, the various Superman games are briefly covered. For you longtime ProgRuin readers, you may remember the 2600 Superman was used for the image on my 404 “file not found” page:
I did manage to read a few comics…Flash #9 pushes ahead the whole “Watchmen? In the DC Universe? WHA–!?” metaplot by an inch or two; Swamp Thing is still in The Hellblazer as of issue #3, which also brings back another character from the title’s Vertigo days; and then there’s this comic:
…which still remains fresh and entertaining with each issue. This is a solid done-in-one story in case you wanted to sample the book, in which the Surfer and his pal Dawn get stuck on a gambling planet and have to bet their way to freedom. It’s a lot of fun, and is topped off by a great cover gag:
One other comic I read was the digital-only release of the new BOO! Halloween Stories anthology:
…available right here from Comixology. A bunch of my pals are involved, including Ken Lowery, Matt Digges, Andrew Weiss, Dave Lartigue, Joe Hunter, Dan Butler (who drew my Twitter icon!), Andrew Ihla, Dylan Todd, Josh Krach, Matthew Allen Smith, Pete Toms, and some other folks I haven’t really interacted with but are swell creators anyway. C’mon, it’s only $2…it’s really good, I promise.
Speaking of money, here are a couple of worthy and/or interesting causes you may consider contributing to:
First, Matt Brady, proprietor of the “Warren-Peace Sings the Blues” comics blog that I’ve linked to a few times, is currently seeking some assistance paying legal fees for a difficult divorce proceeding that’s already drained many of his resources. If you can spare a little, please help him out.
Second, not that this particular endeavor needs my help given the coverage it’s received, but there’s a Kickstarter for a game based on the infamous and voluminous works of Chuck Tingle. If you know who that is, well, you can guess the link is perhaps just slightly Not Safe for Work, if your job can’t handle the idea of butts and what may or may not be done to them. The primary reason I’m linking to it is that one of the game’s writers is pal Karla Pacheco, she of Inspector Pancakes fame, and frankly I can think of no better match for a project of this majesty. The other reason I’m linking is that the write-up on that Kickstarter page is hilarious. Even the dollar amount the Kickstarter is seeking is hilarious. Chuck Tingle, this world hardly deserves you.
One final note, given what’s happened in the comics industry this week: certain dudes out there, stop being jerks to women. C’mon, nobody needs this.
I did it for the Chicks, man.
So, about Jack Chick. On one hand, he seemed to be an always-present part of the weirdo comics landscape …his little religious funnybook pamphlets were just some strange thing we’d come across once in a while, in a variety of circumstances. I’d get them with Halloween candy as a kid. I’d see ’em at the local church neighbors attended. A neighbor of another friend “witnessing” to me (at me?) would press one into my hands. Some years back, my old high school friend and former coworker Rob would actively collect them, and a couple of his spares he’d pass along to me.
Nobody I knew took them very seriously. Well, maybe that one friend’s neighbor. But they were all amusing in some dark fashion…little morality tales of horror and death, all footnoted with Bible verses, where “bad” people were punished for doing shitty things to their fellow humans, and for not accepting the tenets of Chick’s particular interpretation of Christianity. That one booklet about the dangers of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons is a highlight, much parodied and mocked over the years.
Some of the images still stick with me…the “lake of fire” that I’m pretty sure was used and reused in many of Chick’s comics. The construction worker trapped in hell, wondering if he’d get to see his friends again, and being told he’d be alone forever. The dead fella being forced to watch all the sins he committed in life, aghast that he’d have to watch himself tell the filthiest joke. “No, not that joke, not here!” Usually the comics were crudely arranged and drawn, but there was that occasional moment of frisson achieved, sometimes more by accident than by design, but still there.
On the other hand, beyond the amusement value, mixed in with the sporadic positive religious message, were messages that were anti-gay, anti-science, anti-Catholic, anti-anything Jack Chick personally didn’t care for. That undermines the pop-culture jocularity a bit. True, these were in the usual ham-fisted style and thus hard to treat seriously at face value (though I know some folks did), but it still revealed the ugly undercurrent of ignorance. Even saying that would make me one of those sinners in these comics, shouting and sweating and exclaiming my bad points of view, while the even-tempered hero calmly explains why I’m wrong and surely going to hell.
Still, I felt that I should note Jack Chick’s passing. Something…unique, shall we say, has gone from the comics world, what could be described as an odd sort of “outsider” art aside from the fact that Chick’s tracts are probably some of the most widely-read pieces of the comics artform ever.
In other news: pal Tim, who wrote this lengthy essay that you should read if you haven’t already, has published his follow-up which I think you should read as well. Tim’s gettin’ back into the old blogging game somethin’ fierce, and if you’d like to help him out, he’s got one of those Patreons that you can throw some simoleons at if you’ve got a couple to spare.
I’ll be contributing myself in the next couple of weeks, as soon as I get through a month with the quarterly sales tax payment, car stuff, plus other big expenses, and by total coincidence here’s a link to my own Patreon.
That time Steve Dillon drew Swamp Thing growing some…herbiage for John Constantine’s 40th birthday party.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, Steve Dillon, artist of Punisher and Hellblazer, as well as the co-creator of Preacher, passed away over the weekend at the much-too-young age of 54. I’m sure I’d come across his work before this, but it was his run on Hellblazer (with writer Garth Ennis) that I really began to notice and appreciate his work. As I said on my post about his passing on the store site (where I scanned and posted a Preacher sequence that I particularly like), he had a very clean, uncomplicated style that managed to convey huge amounts of detail and wide ranges of emotion. In a way, his style reminds me a bit of Jaime Hernandez’s, particularly in his later work (as opposed to that slightly rougher-edged, but still wonderfully expressive, artwork on view in those panels above).
He was a wonderful artist, and judging by some of the tributes I’ve seen on Twitter, he seemed to be a pretty darn good guy as well. I mean, look at this swell Scarecrow he drew for a little kid.
My most sincere condolences to his family, friends and fans. So long, Steve.
image from Hellblazer #63 (March 1993)
More quotation marks than a comic dialogued by Kirby.
So I love oddball promotional materials sent to retailers by comic book companies. My favorite is probably the bottle of Armstrong Ale that Valiant Comics sent to promote Archer & Armstrong back in the ’90s. (In fact, I’m pretty sure my old boss still has that bottle in the back room somewhere.)
This week, the weird promo item was an honest-to-Philips audio cassette tape to tie into this week’s release of Cave Carson Has A Cybernetic Eye (which is one hell of a title, one must admit). It has a brief playing time, with a song (“Into the Cave We Wander”) on one side and an alleged documentary excerpt from Carson’s investigation of Poggy’s Cavern on the other, essentially making it a “cassingle” in the parlance of Ye Olden Times. (As opposed to a C-Dingle in the parlance of Slightly Less Olden Times.) Anyway, it’s weird, since I doubt too many stores nowadays have an in-store cassette player to pipe the tunes/spoken word track to their customers’ ears, but, you know, maybe some do. Or it can be used as a contest giveaway (buy a copy of the comic, get entered in the drawing…er, depending on your state’s lottery rules, maybe, I’m no lawyer), or if you like obscure-ish recordings, like I do, it’s yet another goodie to add to the collection. …A little investigation reveals that this was also given away at a “Young Animal” panel at a recent convention, and I suspect these tracks will be made available in wider release, probably as digital downloads, at some point, if they’re not already.
In case you’re wondering, the comic itself is fine…probably the most “traditional,” I suppose, of the three titles so far released under the Young Animal imprint. If you thought Doom Patrol and Shade the Changing Girl were a little too “out there” for you, this feels more like a simple updating of a Silver Age character that might be a little more accessible. But overall I think I like the aesthetic of the imprint…dense and complicated but mostly clearly told and enjoyable comics that don’t necessarily feel beholden to whatever related comics preceded them. This has me wondering about what Mother Panic, the first entirely original character (I believe), will be like, but if it’s presented in the same fashion as the others, I’m looking forward to it.
I had no idea how much I missed Love and Rockets in its magazine format until I was finally holding a new issue in my hands. Not to say I didn’t appreciate L&R or related works in whatever format I could get my mitts on, but there’s a bit of a nostalgic “going home again” sense in seeing it like this. In fact, I think I prefer the magazine format to the previous annual format, particularly since if the magazine comes out on a regular basis that means more Los Bros Hernandez pages per year, and who can say no to that? Also, it’s a bit easier to sell something at $4.99 a few times a year than it is to sell a $14.99 book even just once a year, which probably sounds strange but that’s just been my experience. Anyway, I’m glad Love and Rockets is still around in any configuration.
Come to think of it, it’s been quite a while since someone’s claimed to have a copy of the very first Superman at home.
So the general consensus to Monday’s post, in which I talk about not wanting to spend my time grading and pricing other people’s comics for free, is “good on you.” And a lot of “you shouldn’t feel bad,” and honestly, I don’t. My comment near the end of that post about seeming “terribly selfish” was my half-attempt at trying to balance just how negative I was sounding. It was all “I won’t do this” and “I won’t do that” and, despite being entirely justified, I felt like I was coming across like a real sorehead. Thus, I assure you, I am perfectly happy saying “no” when I feel like someone’s trying to take advantage of me (even if they don’t realize they are, which most of the time is the case).
Thom H. had a question about what was goin’ on:
“It sounds like it’s happening to you more frequently lately. Is that true? And is there a reason for it? Has something suggested to your community that this is a service local comic shop owners provide?”
I’m not sure, frankly. In fact, my first phone call at the shop that Monday was someone else asking if I’d price their comics for them. Now, part of it may simply be the local populace becoming increasingly aware that there’s now a comic book store lurking in their midst, and that’s enough for people to dig out their backpacks and milk crates filled with full runs of Youngblood: Strikefile out of the storage units and haul ’em into my shop. Also pointed out is that you can expect a flurry of this sort of behavior whenever there’s a widespread puff piece in the news about “first Batman sells for a billion dollars.” I don’t think there’s been a widely disseminated story along these lines lately (well, there’s this, but I doubt that’s putting dollar signs in the eyes of people in Southern California), but they’re easy enough to find online, so those stories never really go away.
Also, it seems to me that any collectibles store probably gets a lot of this sort of request. I can only speak for comic shops, since that’s where I’ve been imprisoned employed for all this time, but I’ve been hearing “can you tell me what this is worth?” for decades now. Usually, it’s someone calling on the phone (as one may infer from the title to Monday’s post) with a book or two or a dozen that they rattle off to me and expect me to price and grade on the spot, which I can’t do because I have no idea what condition the item is in, and it never does any good to ask because the person on the phone never knows. Sometimes I can’t even get the title out of ’em. The running gag is that if I’m told it’s a mint X-Men from the 1960s, it’ll ultimately turn out to be a Cyber Force from the ’90s that might actually still be on fire.
In person, it works about the same. Someone has a comic at home, they want me to nail down a price on it, and I really can’t, not without seeing it. Now, I’m not a complete jerk about it…on the off chance that they know the actual title and issue number, and I’m not otherwise occupied, I can pop open the price guide and give them the range of values the book might fall under, emphasizing that “condition is everything.” And like I said last time, if they want to poke through the store copy of the price guide, so long as I’m not using it, no problem. I just can’t price books without seeing them, because if I do so and then they bring in the comics to sell, and they’re not in the condition promised, then any prices based on that condition are out the window and nobody’s happy.
Anyway, that’s Day Two of “Mike’s Comic Buying Philosophy” and my thanks to my two remaining readers for sticking with this.