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Image stolen from here, because the copy I saw of this I saw in a collection someone brought in to sell ended up not being ours because apparently we weren’t offering the immense fortune he thought he was going to get. But anyway, in conclusion, I’m a bad person.

But frankly, it’s still pretty disturbing even without the cropping and rotating.

So we received a small selection of promo stuff for the forthcoming Spirit film adaptation. Neatest of the items was this, a glow-in-the-dark shoe sticker:

Too bad we didn’t get a whole bunch of these, with both left and right shoes, so we could make a trail of them across the window or something.

We also received a few temporary tattoos:

The instructions on the backing for this tattoo say that, after wetting it and holding it against your skin, you must “wait 30 seconds (don’t hurry).” before peeling off the paper backing. “No, I can’t wait a whole thirty seconds! The tattoo of womanly lips around the Spirit logo must be placed on my bicep IMMEDIATELY.”

So Employee Aaron has been picking a pack here and there of the new Marvel Masterpieces cards, and these two were in the pack he opened yesterday:

I have to admit, that made me laugh. Also, it once again reminded me how ungainly that helmet of Mysterio’s looks. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth, frankly.

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CURRENTLY LISTENING:

Felt my nerd cred was slipping, so I had to point that I was listening to an album by a Star Trek: The Next Generation cast member.

Also, it seems it’s a rare-ish item, since copies of this CD tend to go for a pretty penny on the eBay. It’s not bad…Spiner croons pleasantly enough, and four fellow Trek veterans provide back up on one song (Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Patrick Stewart). This group of Trekkers is referred to in the liner notes by the group name “The Sunspots,” but surely “The Away Team” would have been better? If only they’d asked me about this when they were assembling the album 17 years ago.

Anyway, if you have a copy of this, you’re a nerd. You know, like me. Just saying.

(By the way, as I was writing this the Spiner album finished and the iTunes moved to the next album: “Peace Through Vandalism” by the Vandals. There’s some musical whiplash for you.)

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Speaking of Star Trek, we’ve lost Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and featured performer, guest star, or computer voice in just about every produced incarnation of the show. That includes the forthcoming Star Trek reboot/remake/relaunch, for which she’d just completed voiceover work earlier this month.

So long, Majel.

Fantastic.

Okay, it seems to do a good job reintroducing the basic Beanworld concepts to new readers, and, well, reminding older readers about where things were left standing at the end of the original Tales of the Beanworld series. (I’d forgotten that one character was hep to another character’s long-standing secret, for example.) I imagine, even as clearly told as this self-contained story is, some elements may be a tad baffling to newcomers, but hopefully it’s a bafflement of the “wow, this is very strange but compelling and I want to see more” variety and not the “what th–? Beans? I’m going to buy one of the seven monthly Wolverine titles instead” type. At any rate, there’s nothing quite like it, and am very happy to see it back.

There’s a brief preview on Dark Horse’s site, and of course you can always pop in on Beanworld creator Larry Marder’s weblog and give him a howdy-do. Plus, Mr. Marder just announced a fan-run Beanworld Wiki, so you can Read More About It if you’d like.

In conclusion: Beanworld – I have, won’t you?

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In other news:

• The new issue of Ex Machina is pretty swell, too. Yeah, it’s the old trope of “creators of the book writing themselves into the story,” but trust me, it’s worth the payoff. Artist of America’s finest comic shop webcomic The Rack, Benjamin Birdie, has some words to say about it in his glowing review.
• SPOILER for one of the three Avengers comics that came out this week, I forget which one…probably not Marvel Adventures: Avengers:

  So Hank Pym asks someone, this blond gal, whoever she might be, I don’t care, to explain to him what he’s missed since he was off fighting Skrulls or whatever, and what follows are several full-page (mostly) wordless splashes representing whatshername’s descriptions of the last few crossover events, like “House of M” and “Planet Hulk” and such. In the middle of this progression of pages is a full-page ad for the forthcoming “Spider-Man: Character Assassination” story arc and in context it looks all the world like Hank Pym is being told “oh, and then Spider-Man’s continuity was pretty soundly borked by editorial fiat in this awful story, even though pretty much everyone thought it was a bad idea except the guy in charge.”

  Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, and should just let it go. But it amused me, which is more of an impact than I usually get from the Avengers books.

• At long last, the DVD release we’ve been waiting for:
  
  HOWARD THE DUCK ON SPECIAL EDITION DVD.
  Not quite the special edition George Lucas was talking about here (zipped MP3, under 3/11/04), but it’s not a bare-bones edition either. According to this article, it looks like it’ll actually feature new material, covering the special effects and music, as well as looking back at the film’s release. It will also include the “news featurette” that I’ve talked about before, long ago, in which Howard is treated and talked about as if he were a real person making a film of his life…at least, I think that’s what the “news featurette” is. Or maybe it’s the teaser trailer. I have no idea.

  Alas, one of my wishes for a DVD release was commentary by Howard’s creator Steve Gerber, but perhaps it’s just as well. It probably would have been ninety minutes of Mr. Gerber just sort of sighing heavily at regular intervals.

  There doesn’t appear to be any commentary track at all, it seems, but I’m guessing these guys will pick up the slack.

  It’s due March 10th, just in time for my birthday, he hinted, and if you can’t wait to place your order…here you go:

  
  Anyway, be sure to read this article for more info…in particular, the shocking art alteration they’re making to the DVD cover! Shocking, I tell you. Start your surely-effective internet petitions now!

• So you may have heard about that Watchmen movie that’s coming out, maybe, barring legal hoohar. And you may have heard that they’re doing a tie-in video game. Well, Internet pal Dave has the first and last word on the subject, I think.

So one of the side effects of the Christmas season is that it actually gets me into toy stores looking for presents. I haven’t been in a toy store since…well, probably since last Christmas when I was busy buying myself something that pal Dorian was planning on buying me.

One of the things I saw that was new to me, but probably old hat to a bunch of you, I’m sure, is the Hot Wheels Mystery Car:

(Image totally stolen from an auction on the eBay, by the way.) I know this isn’t a new idea, particularly in the comic market where we’ve had several permutations of the “mystery item in the box” products. In this case, if it’s not clear from the image, a car is sealed in a solid black plastic bubble, and you have a chance of getting one of a series of twenty-four cars. Of course, in the stores I saw these in, the cars were racked out of sight of any consistent observation by employees and therefore most of the packages were cracked open, which shows just how much those customer bases love a mystery.

Something else I saw while I was out and about was the Malcolm McDowell “Linderman” figure from Heroes:

Just thought it was notable because, dude, MALCOLM MCDOWELL ACTION FIGURE. Comes with an alternate head, apparently, which I didn’t realize until I was, ahem, borrowing this image from the Toys R Us site:

I think (SPOILER, if you care) this is supposed to represent Linderman during his death scene. That…that’s kinda weird.

We’ve had McDowell action figures before, such as this one: Dr. Soran from Star Trek: Generations:

Not much on the likeness front, but the face comes pretty close in the “disturbing” category to the Linderman death mask:

“Why, Captain Picard! You surprise me!”

I also spotted in Toys R Us one lonely “Comics Collector Pack” holding two comics. It grabbed my attention because it contained a copy of Marvel’s Weird Wonder Tales #22 from 1973…flipping it over revealed the other book in the pack as Warlock and the Infinity Watch #13. Didn’t spot a price. Wonder which store’s closeout stock supplied these things?

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A couple of links of note:

Reader Monty, triggered by discussion of movie novelizations in recent months on this site, has refocused his movie weblog upon those very books. First out the gate: the Grease novelization. It’s as terrifying as you may imagine.

And I’ve been meaning to link to this for a while, but former employee Josh #2 has started a blog of his own, so go visit the boy and make him feel loved.

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SUDDENLY:

It was pal Dorian what made me do it, Your Honor.

So pal Cully gave me a few records…you know, actual vinyl records that used to be played on “turntables” by running “needles” through etched “grooves,” in case you kids are wondering what I’m talking about.

Anyway, one of the records was Power Records Presents the Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 2, featuring five exciting adventures of ol’ Webhead. On the back cover are five strips presenting synopses of a sort for the stories contained herein, which follow the pattern of “stuff goes down in the first couple of panels, Spider-Man swoops in and opens a can of whupass in the last couple of panels.” One of the strips from the back cover was used by reader Rob a few months back in a logo banner he made for my site…here’s the strip he used (which is a little small, I know, because I’m copy ‘n’ pasting this from the banner):

That’s kind of awesome, particularly that nonchalant “eh, whatever” hand gesture Spidey’s making in the last panel, there. But what’s also noticeable is that the action is very clear. Monster flips out, Spidey swoops in and saves the day. The story on the record may flesh this out a bit, but that’s pretty much the plot, I’m guessing.

Now, this strip has a different result:

So some guy likes to dress as a Conquistador and have a martini in the privacy of his own home…surely there’s nothing wrong with that. But oh, no…here comes Spider-Man and his irrational hatred of all things Spanish to turn out the lights of Professor Cosplayer. And again, I’m sure the story on the record fills in the gaps a bit, but I prefer to look at that strip and think that Spider-Man regularly busts into homes and beats up anyone he finds dressed in historical costume.

I’ve pointed this out before, that Dark Knight Returns #4 was so late that retailers were sent a little “hey, gang, look, it’s finally out!” mini-poster they could hang up:

I really need to find that thing again, so I can make a better scan of it.

Anyway, as I was going through the Surprise Stash of Promo Stuff I found in the back room, I came across another “remember this book? It’s finally out!” retailer poster. This time, it’s the nearly-a-year-overdue-at-the-time Camelot 3000 #12:

Clicking on that should bring up a slightly larger image.

I’m thinking Ronin had one of these kinds of posters, too, since that series had all kinds of delays as well. I do have a poster specifically advertising issues #3 through #6, but I don’t know if they put something out after #6’s excessive delay.

I wonder if we’ll get a “Hey, Kids! It’s Finally Out!” poster for the nearly-hypothetical, Mystery of Edwin Drood-esque Ultimate Wolverine Vs. Hulk #3. “Three Years in the Making! Surely Worth the 36+ Month Wait!” Could probably use posters like that for All Star Batman, too…well, except for the fact that each new issue of All Star Batman is like a beacon of beauty and wonder that calls directly to the minds of fans everywhere, so a poster would be pretty much redundant.

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How you people have put up with five years’ worth of me, I have no idea.

Okay, just to follow up a bit on yesterday’s post…I thought I’d bust out my copy of Heroes Against Hunger, DC Comics’s African benefit book from 1986, out of the Vast Mikester Comic Archives.

First thing I noticed is that, unlike the X-Men book, there aren’t any particular sequences that immediately leap out and grab your attention. This may simply be a structural problem: the DC book features Superman, Batman and Luthor (or some combination thereof) on nearly every page, giving a visual sameness to everything despite the number of artists, and the narrative thread flows (more or less) smoothly from beginning to end. In comparison, the X-Men book is more episodic, with several sequences focusing on individual characters in a variety of settings, giving a little more opportunity for visual diversity.

Not to say that there isn’t some nice work in the DC book…some Curt Swan, some Walt Simonson, some Carmine Infantino, the Neal Adams/Dick Giordano cover, and the following:

Gerry Conway, Barry Windsor-Smith and Jeff Jones (as noted by reader Matthew)

Ed Hannigan, Jack Kirby & Al Milgrom

…and, as reader Matthew also mentioned, this Bill Sienkiewicz back cover.

Of particular note is a two page sequence with Batman running the gauntlet at Luthor’s hideout, before facing Luthor himself, written by Robert Bloch and drawn by Bernie Wrightson and Mike Kaluta:

If only we could have had a whole comic by that team. Especially if it were Batman versus Luthor.

But overall, like I said, not as visually distinctive or interesting or just plain weird as Marvel’s effort. The story’s on pretty much the same level, though (another alien feeding on the starving people’s misery), so there’s that.

I was pleased that I correctly remembered this comic featuring the not-completely-evil Luthor of the pre-1980s revamp era…who’s genuinely moved by the plight of the suffering Africans when he’s not, you know, ranting about how he wants to kill Superman. Always thought that Luthor, the one who was occasionally capable of acting like a human being, was infinitely more interesting than the current Pure Evil Luthor inhabiting comics today.

One final bit: reader Cej speaks of a fellow he encountered at a con, collecting autographs of every member of the creative team for Marvel’s Heroes for Hope. Actually, I think that’s a neat idea…it’s certainly more interesting than collecting them all into a plain ol’ autograph book. And Cej says the guy only needed two more autographs at the time…and one of those was Stephen King’s. I wonder who the other was? Did the guy get Alan Moore to sign it, or was he the other holdout? We may never know.

A few reasons to check out Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men (1985):

This creepy Kitty Pryde segment written by Stephen King
and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson and Jeff Jones

This bit of business with Wolverine by Harlan Ellison, Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz

This little twisted scene by Chris Claremont, Brian Bolland and P. Craig Russell

And this Magneto nightmare by Alan Moore and Richard Corben.

Not saying these are the only reasons…there’s some nice work by Steve Rude, some Howard Chaykin inked by Walt Simonson…but these are the four bits I think of when I’m reminded of this comic.

Overall, the story is…well, the X-Men are fighting some “living embodiment of their worst nightmares” or something, which is feeding off of the misery of the starving Africans, and…well, yeah, it’s a little tacky. But “helping Africa” was in the air at the time, and their hearts were in the right place. I suppose this comic did raise at least a little money for the relief fund, and you got a nice collection of art to boot, with at least four outstanding sequences as noted above.

There was a similar project from DC a little later, Heroes Against Hunger, in which the heroes fight against some alien creature that…um, feeds off the misery of the starving Africans. Or maybe not…it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I know some nasty alien critter is involved. And unlike the X-Men book, I really can’t recall any specific sequences or creative teams involved that really stand out. I do seem to remember that this was one of the last “hurrahs” for the pre-revamp Not-A-Complete-Asshole Lex Luthor, who does try to help out (occasionally grudgingly, depending on who’s writing what sequence).

Back to Heroes for Hope: in my post from the other day, where I put up a small image of the cover, reader Steve Canadian had a question:

“Holy iconic Art Adams Wolverine pose on the cover! Am I right in thinking that they singled him out, popped his claws and made a poster out of that?”

This was, as Steve says, quite the iconic pose, and I’m pretty sure variations on it, all drawn by Adams, popped up on shirts and buttons and who knows what else. Here’s a version of it that was on a promo poster I, coincidentally, just happened upon in the backroom last week:

For more reading about Heroes for Hope, here’s Dr. Polite Scott with a few words.