• My much-anticipated Man From U.N.CL.E. set showed up yesterday, a day earlier than Amazon had promised. I ended up taking the day off and going through all the bonus features and watching various episodes from the first two seasons. I'm in spy-fi heaven, brothers.• To make it seem even more like Christmas morning, I also received in the mail, courtesy of my pal and collaborator Joe Staton, a copy of the new Tales of the Green Lantern Corps trade paperback, which collects the 1981 three-issue miniseries of the same name, along with a bunch of short features from the same era spotlighting various alien members of the aforementioned Corps. The main story, though, was the first time (I believe) the comic ever attempted to show all 3600 members of the star-spanning police force, and artistically, it's a bravura performance by Joe and inker Frank McLaughlin. Many of Joe's alien creations are brilliant! The story – by Len Wein and Mike W. Barr – is pretty nifty, too, and I understand that recent events in DC's Green Lantern titles have drawn heavily upon its ideas.
• I just discovered that Warners has launched a DVD-on-demand program, called Warners Archive, where they're taking some of their more obscure titles – or ones they don't have much confidence in commercially – and making them available on their website for about twenty bucks each. When you order a movie, they'll burn you a disc and send it to you. They have about 150 titles available so far; the three that interest me are all genre films – Captain Sindbad, Captain Nemo's Underwater City, and the George Pal production of Doc Savage, Man of Bronze, starring Ron Ely. Of course, since I just got the U.N.C.L.E. set, it will be a while before I can afford to try out the service. You can find the info here.
Sigh. Looks like I'll have to get back to work now....
I remember that GREEN LANTERN series with great fondness. A real class act from all involved. Also, I think this was the first time I saw the splendid artwork of (Femme Noir cover artist) Brian Bolland, who instantly became one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteThose were the days...!
I had a friend that finished reading the Green Lantern & Sinestro series, and really enjoyed it, I'll have to check this one out too. $20. is a bit expensive for the Doc Savage film, but I've been curious about it for a while. I remember seeing it back in the 80's on some friend's VHS tape they'd loanded me.
ReplyDeleteThere was a biography on Chuck Jones tonight and several of his animated shorts on TCM, probably it will repeat, if anyone is interested.