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Hey, couldn’t hurt: “An Open Letter to Michael Bay: Please Direct Man of Steel”

“Michael, you and I both know Bryan is a better director than you, hell, I’d even say much better. […] But you are at the top of your game, doing the best work of your career. And you absolutely are the best at what you do. And what it is that you do so well was sorely missing from Superman Returns. The cinematography was great but no one shoots red, white, and blue like Bay. Supes lacked humour and the all important wow factor. Things you bring to the table in spades.”

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I was hoping something would come along to encourage more “real-life” superheroes: “Holy batcapes! The age of the superhero suit is upon us”

“Its rock-hard surface can take a full- on assault from a baseball bat, yet remains flexible enough to allow you to kick, leap and roll with perfect ease. Crafted from cutting-edge science, its unique molecular structure means that while providing armoured protection against crude concrete and even barbed wire, it remains light enough to allow you to run at high speed.

“It sounds like the stuff of Batman comics – but the superhero suit is here.”

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“Other superhero attire?” Oh, if only they’d explained what exactly that entailed: “Lucky 7s? These newlyweds hope so”

“‘Jeremy’s a Superman fan, so we went with a Superman theme,’ 32-year-old Kamryn Schill said of her husband, Jeremy Schill, 33.”

[…]

“After 12 years of marriage, Kamryn renewed her pledge to her ‘superman,’ who serves at Great Lakes Naval Station. Members of the extended family wore capes and other superhero attire.”

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Um, they may have a point, though “stop watching movies” would say the same thing: “ON SPEC’s Top Ten No-No’s”

“We would like to present our own Top (More Than) Ten List of ways we editors can guess if the manuscript we’re reading is a turkey. Bear in mind that for every rule, there is an exception.”

[…]

“9. Characters are cliches, and sound like they have been picked from ‘characters R us’. ‘The Landlord’, ‘The Soldier’, ‘The Salesman’, ‘The Wizard’, ‘The Princess’ etc.

“WHAT WE’D LIKE TO SAY: Stop reading comic books, or start writing for them, not us.”

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“Top five worst comic books ever written”

“I have read many comic books in my life. Sometimes I read some very good books, like the new ‘Justice League of America’ series and ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’. But for every good story, there are multiple bad stories. This is the list of the worst stories that I have read.

[List isn’t too bad, but accidentally includes Dark Knight Strikes Again, which, as I’m sure you all already know, is absolutely brilliant, and I’m certain no one out there would ever say otherwise.]

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In the “we should be so lucky” department: “What’s next for hungry young bookworms?”

“When ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ is released on July 21, it will mark the end of a remarkable run for writer J.K. Rowling.”

[…]

“Rowling’s determination to end the series will leave a vacuum. Another book, another series, undoubtedly will become the next must-read among the children’s set.”

[…]

“So it stands to reason that the next big thing ‘will be entirely different,’ says Lisa Dennis, the coordinator of the children’s collection for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.”

[…]

“‘I think we’re going to swing to some other sort of next big thing,’ Dennis says. ‘My only guess is that it will be something different and unexpected. If I had to guess, it might be something like a graphic novel.'”

Via Journalista, here’s a Comics Journal message board thread featuring very early, very pre-Popeye examples of E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre strip. Editor Kim Thompson doesn’t think much of them, but I think they’re kinda cute and amusing. Not a patch on the Popeye era, of course, but I wouldn’t say no to a collection of these.

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A follow-up to this morning’s post, regarding the 7-11-distributed Radioactive Man comic…according to information provided by Commenter Phill and Pal Nat, we now know that one of the three featured stories (“The True Origin of Radioactive Man!”) is new to this publication, while the others are reprints. “The Amazing Radioactive Spider” is from Radioactive Man “#4” and “Planet Of The Strange-Os” is from Simpsons Comics #50.

And Nat was able to find his copy today, so maybe you’ll still get lucky and find one on a shelf still, too.

from Mike Barnett Man Against Crime #2 (Feb. 1952)

(Get your fight on.)

“Should The Recording Industry Sue Superman?”

“I mean, with his super-hearing, he must be listening at any given moment to at least a few dozen songs he didn’t pay for. If he were real, the recording industry would demand some kind of compensation.”

“Its not against the law to listen to music. Its against the law (I suppose) to download a song you didn’t pay for. Its not like if I walked by some guy with a boombox (from the 80s I guess) and he was listening to Whodini I would have to pay him.”

“But Superman’s got an unfair advantage.”

“But it’s unlikely that Superman has good taste in music, either.”

“You don’t think one of his powers is super-taste?”

“Point taken. However, he grew up on a farm in Kansas, thereby nullifying, for life, his ability to pick and choose quality tunes.”

“Considering all the unlicensed songs about ‘Superman’ – maybe HE should sue ASCAP…”

“With Superman’s super-hearing, wouldn’t HE sue the recording companies for putting out crappy music?”

I just found out today that one of our longtime customers, one of our favorite customers, had passed away about a month ago. Bruce Cervon was a professional magician, with a long and fascinating career (which you can read about in his obituary – he was Johnny Carson’s personal choice for Tonight Show parties! How cool is that?). He was also a great lover of comic books, and we always enjoyed talking with him about his favorite artists, the industry, and otherwise just shooting the breeze about the hobby.

Bruce had an impressive funnybook collection as well. Once, he brought in a paper grocery sack filled with comics, telling us “oh, here’s just some junk I came across in the garage.” At the top of the sack: Sensation Comics #1. The rest of the bag was other Golden Age books…he didn’t bring them in to sell. He just brought them in so we could all have a good time looking through the books.

He’d also tell us about his adventures in the magic profession, about all the people he’s met, about performing for Elvis Presley and other famous folk. He once told me a story about how he’d performed for George Burns and friends at a party. After the act was over, Mr. Burns walked up to Bruce, thanked him for the show, and pressed a hundred dollar bill as a tip into his hand. Bruce, surprised, said “Oh, I couldn’t take this…after all the years of entertainment you’ve given me, you don’t owe me anything.” Mr. Burns replied: “Kid, trust me…take the money.”

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Here’s a sample from one of Bruce’s instructional videos:

…and here he is demonstrating “3 card monte” on an episode of That’s Incredible (there’s about a minute and half of 3 card monte “in the wild” before Bruce shows up):

So long, Bruce. I’m glad to have known you, and you’ll be much missed.

BRUCEPLOITATION – dedicated to the many, many Bruce Lee-a-likes that popped up after Lee’s death (via). Lots and lots of reviews, and it’s hard to not like a site with this disclaimer on the main page:

“I would appreciate any feedback on the site whether it be bad or good. Also if I messed up on the information or whatever.”

A quick glance at the DVD reviews reveals solid info re: video and sound quality and extras and such.

For a taste of true Bruceploitation…from Bruce Lee The Invincible, Bruce Li fights a kung-fu gorilla:

So I was flipping through a copy of Supermouse #27 (November 1953), and I saw an art school ad on the last page. Save for a single comma (I think, unless it’s an accidental spot of ink), the woman’s word balloon is devoid of punctuation, giving her dialogue a rant-ish, “I’ve totally had fourteen cups of coffee this morning” feel:

Well, nice guy that I am, I thought I’d help out:

And apparently that’s her horrible job in that panel, there; I don’t know what it entails, other than waiting on old ladies. “Oh, man, this kissing booth gig is just getting me down.”

— and it’s this one:

from Sub-Mariner Comics #35 (Aug. 1954) – reprinted in Human Torch #7 (Sept. 1975)

Toro’s battle cry is a little wordy, too.

* I don’t really think “Flame on!” is that bad…it’s just a joke, son!

• What I did on Saturday: for a customer who was confused about how Black Adam, who had lost his powers by the end of 52, suddenly had them back again in Countdown…I drew out a timeline on a piece of paper, showing how Infinity Crisis, 52, “One Year Later,” and Countdown all fit together, and where the forthcoming Black Adam mini-series takes place.

  I need a white board for the store for stuff like this. Except I’d probably use it all the time and annoy the hell out of everyone.

  “Hey, Mike, how come this copy of Tack Graphy, Two-Fisted Stenographer #2 is $50, while this one is only $20?”

  “Well — ” (pulls out the white board) “– let me draw you various types of comic book damage and wear and their influence on comic pricing….”

  “GROOOAAAN….”

• Our store is located on the main drag through town. On one side of us, around the corner, is about three hospitals. On the other side of us, at the end of said main drag, is the fairgrounds, where the Warped Tour has apparently touched down Saturday for an day of rocking and rolling and young folks carrying on.

  I lost count of the number of ambulances that have sped from the hospitals in the direction of the fairgrounds that day. During our typical day, it’s not unusual for the occasional ambulance to zip by, sirens blaring. Saturday, it was like the fairgrounds had been considered a disaster area. Heck, maybe it was, I don’t know.

  They must have been dropping like flies over at that concert. It’s all that mary-jane they’re injecting directly into their veins, I just know it.

  Also, the Warped Tour thing really fouled up freeway traffic for a while, so folks were pulling off the freeway and taking the road outside our store to get across town instead. Heard a lot of “Hey, look! A comic book store!” from people stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic. They shoulda jumped out and shopped…or maybe I could have taken comics to them, wandering through the sea of cars carrying my stock and calling out “COMICS! GETCHA COMICS HERE!”

• Not to belabor this point too much (and when do I ever do that?), a quick search through Newsarama’s forums only brought up one reference to the Superman/Wonder Woman thing as a “pieta.” And that person admitted that he was working on vague memories from college, and that he wasn’t entirely sure what the Pieta looked like.

  A cursory Google search didn’t dig anything up, either, but I only spent a little time looking until I realized I didn’t really care that much.

• Projects to do when I have the time, the inclination, and the lack of anyone telling me “what’re you, crazy?” – a breakdown of scenes in Watchmen, with estimated times for each one, because I have a sneaking suspicion that if you were to add it up, the actual length of the narrative may be normal movie length (2 1/2 hours or so, maybe), and not the “only an HBO mini-series can do it justice!” length some people seem to insist on.

  It’s all a moot point anyway, since I have a not-so-sneaking sensation that the movie we’re actually going to get will be more like “X-Men with different costumes” than “examination of the superhero genre and why it doesn’t work.”

• Actual discussion at work:

  Me: “Ooh, hey, I forgot about this copy of Super Mouse!”

  Employee Aaron: “Hey, who’s stronger? Super Mouse or Mighty Mouse?”

  Me: “Super Mouse is stronger.”

  EA: “Um…why?”

  Me: “Because he’s super, he’s not just mighty.”

  EA: “Your stupid hurts me.”

• For no good reason, other than I’ve been on a Dead Kennedys trip again lately…here’s a live performance of “Holiday in Cambodia” from back in the good ol’ days: