This is a program for the 1980 Festival of Children’s Television convention, run as a benefit for the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. It features an introduction by Mark Evanier, lots of black and white photos of the guests wth brief bios (such as Walter Lantz, “Grandpa” Al Lewis, Billy Barty, Walker Edminston*, Daws Butler, Dr. Demento, Henry Winkler, Betty Boop’s Grim Natwick, “this nation’s most celebrated peanut vendor” Roger Owens, and many more), and that great cover by Sergio Aragones. Click that pic to make it larger.

I particularly like this detail, with the adult fellow at the left shedding a happy tear at the sight of (yet another guest) Bob Clampett and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent:

And dig Tweety giving us the Tweety Strut at the bottom of that image. That’s one badass bird.

* That would be Land of the Lost‘s Enik, much beloved by a young Mikester…and an old Mikester, too, when you get right down to it.

COMIC BOOK #1 – Green Lantern #55: The Green Lantern books still remain some of my favorite currently-running superhero serial adventures, though the addition of a third GL title (Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors) smacks of Too Much of a Good Thing. I like Guy Gardner and all, but I think maybe running this new storyline in the already-running Green Lantern Corps rather than starting up yet another series in a marketplace already overstuffed with too many titles devoted to the same character/franchise.

Well, okay, that doesn’t say anything about the actual comic that’s coming out this week. …Hey, it’s Lobo versus Atrocitus! And Hector Hammond is in it! Awesome!

COMIC BOOK #2 – Action Comics #890: The initial installment of Paul Cornell’s run, focusing on Lex Luthor, with Pete Woods on art chores. I’m quite looking forward to this. Of course, this is Modern DC Universe Lex Luthor, not the completely objectively-fantastic Silver Age Prison Grays Luthor, but regardless of how the current version of Luthor requires a…smoothing over of some of the continuity-reshuffles of the character over the last few years, his pure Luthorness tends to still shine through. He’s one of those characters, like the Thing or Dr. Doom, who seems to come through unscathed regardless of the storytelling abuses he endures. Er, not that I’m saying that he’s going to be taking said abuse in this current storyline, which from all appearances should be very good.

Also, Action Comics is almost to issue #900. Far out.

COMIC BOOK #3 – Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain #1: Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and Peter Snejbjerg present the latest mini-series set in the Hellboy universe…not much to say about this, aside from the Hellboy ‘n’ friends comics are always entertaining.

A comic I think I’m not going to buy is Flash #3, in that I’ve been reading the Flash comics for over a quarter of a century, and while I enjoyed the Flash: Rebirth mini well enough (despite the occasional artistic oddity), the actual Flash comic itself hasn’t really grabbed me. I know, I know, we’re only two issues in, but I read this comic with a sense of “okay, y’all made a big deal about Barry Allen coming back…now what?” It may just be too many years of Barry being offstage, his new status quo of “departed legend” too solidly established, but this new series just doesn’t feel right to me yet. Now, I did feel the same way about the post-Rebirth Green Lantern series, which took me an issue or four to really get into, and now it’s one of my favorite regular reads. I honestly don’t know if I’m going to stick around long enough on Flash to find out if it’ll do the same.

Now, that’s just me. It’s a perfectly fine comic, aside from the historical baggage it may carry for some fans, and plenty of people are buying it and asking me about it at the shop. I may have just reached my Flash Limit, is all. Your mileage may vary, as people fond of saying that sort of thing like to say.

Oh, and the Herbie Vinyl Figure is coming out this week, too. Thaaaaat…may make up for my lack of comic spending this Wednesday.

…is flipping through some old comic or magazine and looking at the ads, seeing some ridiculously cool thing for what seems to modern eyes an incredibly cheap price, and wishing, even for just a moment, that access was had to a time machine that we may whisk away to the past and, say, not rescue President Kennedy or kill Hitler, but instead obtain said item for such a paltry and affordable sum:

This ad in a Famous Monsters of Filmland from 1966 triggered that response in me, even though 1) I’d never shown much skill or enthusiasm for model making; 2) while I did enjoy The Munsters, I can’t say I’m enough of a fan to collect Munsters ephemera; and 3) seriously, I don’t need any more crap cluttering up the house, obtained via time travel or not. (Except more Swamp Thing stuff…that’s not crap.) But..darned if that’s not a pretty neat-looking model kit,

Of course, if one were to travel through time to buy collectible merchandise, you’d better have era-appropriate money. Don’t know that I could find a whole lot of 1966 paper money floating around, but I could probably scrape together two bucks’ worth of 1966 quarters right quick. Or I could write a check, I guess, but that’d be one hell of a post-date on it if I’d want it to clear. I wouldn’t want to write a bad check, because what kind of time traveler bounces a bad check written on a non-yet-existing account on some unsuspecting merchant in the past? The dick kind, that’s who.

But perhaps I digress.

This particular model kit has been reissuedbut alas, now priced in the $20 range. Though I suppose nerds of the future may look back through ancient Internet archives via the chip directly implanted into their highly-evolved supersized brains and espy the Amazon listing, causing them to also wistfully wish for access to a time machine and a way to convert their Mercurian Space Credits to PayPal. (Actually, the family time machine is out in the garage, but I suspect our theoretical Future Nerd has been grounded for wasting too much time on his Internet brain chip looking at old Amazon listings and naughty pictures of Future-Mankind’s tiny-headed ancestors.)

But perhaps I digress again.

Here are some shots of the original model kit, which notes that one collectible guide lists the item at $1,200. Well, that $20 sounds a little better to me already.

I like the detail in one of the photos there (and obscured in the ad above) that Herman is actually on the TV, implying they’re watching a show about themselves. Well, it’s a little early for the “reality TV” craze, but I suspect, perhaps Herman turned up in the local news often enough that odds were you turned on the TV, there he was.

Anyway, the Munsters Hobby Kit. Pretty neat. Probably coveted by time travelers. Think about it, won’t you?

So pal Tom F. dropped off another load of books at the shop, and in this particular stash was an item I’d mentioned just a few days ago that I’d been looking for:

Yes, the Al Williamson adaptation of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie. While we had the recent Al Williamson Flash Gordon book in stock at our shop, with the complete artwork of this adaptation presented in nice, clear black and white, I kind of wanted it as it originally was printed, garish (and I do mean garish) coloring and all. Kind of a nostalgic, “present the material with all the cheesiness it was intended to have,” kind of thing, I guess.

Anyway, it’s finally in my possession. I CLAIM THIS COMIC IN THE NAME OF MIKE.

Here’s another goodie from the box of books:

Lots and lots of interviews and quotes with the stars, about all the fun they had, all the work that went into costumes and special effects, and George Clooney saying “playing Batman is the high point of my career.” Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not like he was going to say “boy, I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret ever having done this film,” but still, it’s interesting reading a book like this, designed to pump up and promote the film in the most positive way possible, from the perspective of years after the fact, when the film’s tarnished reputation has been firmly established. It’s like reading a tragedy, where you know the tragic ending is coming, but it never actually arrives in the book itself.

• Sort of surprised that my post about Electric Superman got the response it did. Most of you had fond memories of this storyline, a few of you really didn’t care for it, and quite a few folks commented on this version of Superman being used by Grant Morrison during his run on JLA. I remember at the time thinking that it was a shame Morrison couldn’t use Superman Classic (well, Superman in His Regular Costume, I mean…Superman Classic is, of course, edited by Mort Weisinger and drawn by Curt Swan). I don’t know why I thought that, really, since I was enjoying the storyline in the Superman books. Maybe it was a personal perception that the Justice League book should be free of the story machinations in the characters’ individual titles…as was also noted, the “Death of Wonder Woman” story was reflected in the series as well. I know that probably wouldn’t happen with the main Justice League series, since it has to be in continuity and fit in with everything else being published or people will gripe. But still…Morrison did a good job with the toys he was allowed to use.

  As for the storyline proper, as it appeared in the Superman books…I did quite enjoy it. The Superman line wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders like it was during the whole Death/Return thing, but it was perfectly fine serialized superhero shenaniganery. One of these days I should go through and do an overview of all of the post-Death event storylines. I suspect “Death of Clark Kent” will rank highest on the “Biggest Groaner” chart.

• BEHOLD: Pal Andrew, the giant brain behind Armagideon Time, has unleashed a new website for you fans of funnybooks and its portrayal of youthful counterculture – COMICPUNX.
• Johnny Bacardi has a new batch of reviews up at Popdose, which I wanted to point out since this is, I think, the first review of Darkwing Duck to note writer pal Ian‘s status as a founding member of the Associated Comics And Pop Culture Webloggers Of Ventura County, CA And Outlying Environs (which is, as I’m sure you guessed, ACAPCWOVCCAOE for short). Thanks, Johnny!
• Neilalien continues to post limericks, and posted mine the other day. Gasp in horror at the most strained rhyme ever!