ON SALE NOW! PERILS ON PLANET X Print Editions

After more than 15 years in production, all three issues of the interplanetary swashbuckler, Perils On Planet X,  by Yours Truly and Gene Gonzales, with colors by Ian Sokoliwski, are available to purchase NOW!

They are only available by mail order from IndyPlanet. This is is the best way to support us and the book, as the profits go directly to Gene and myself. Each issue is 32 full-color pages, printed on high-quality, heavy paper stock and includes pin-up art by several well-known comics creators.

Sales of these issues will help Gene and I determine whether there's enough demand for Volume 2: "Agent of Empyr," so if you'd like to see further Perils On Planet X adventures, be sure to order your copies soon.

Wednesday Cover(s): Chaykin's BUCK ROGERS

So, Hermes Press has just collected their Buck Rogers miniseries by Howard Chaykin. I didn't read the individual comics, but I pre-ordered it in trade, and expect it to arrive in a week or so. I don't always like Chaykin's comics, but when I do, I tend to like them a lot. In the 80s, I adored American Flagg, and the writer/artist is responsible for creating one of my all-time favorite comics characters - Atlas Comics' The Scorpion. I also dug his 80s Shadow miniseries (and will probably pick up his recent return to the character eventually), among many other titles.

I've read online that this version of Buck Rogers hews more closely to the original Philip Francis Nowlan pulp novellas, Armageddon 2419 A.D. and The Airlords Of Han.... and I think that's a great approach. Hey, I love the 70s TV series as much as anyone (and more than most), but it's about time to get back to the character's roots.

Here are Chaykin's covers for the four issue miniseries.

Wednesday Cover: Frazetta's BUCK ROGERS

Hope everyone had a terrific holiday! Once again, I present another fantastic Famous Funnies Buck Rogers cover by legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. This astounding image graced the front of issue #214 in November, 1954!

Wednesday Cover: Frazetta's BUCK ROGERS

Action-packed! Fast-paced! Suspenseful! Another Wednesday in December, another amazing Famous Funnies cover starring interplanetary avenger Buck Rogers, drawn by the late, great fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. This is issue #212 from July, 1954!

Wednesday Cover: Frazetta's BUCK ROGERS

Join Buck Rogers' Rocket Rangers! Here's another gorgeous Famous Funnies covers featuring space hero Buck Rogers, as rendered by the legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. This is issue #213 from September, 1954!

Wednesday Cover: Frazetta's BUCK ROGERS

I'm currently working on a space comic of my own, and I've been turning to classic pulp and comic book imagery for inspiration. I've been enjoying it so much, I thought I'd share my favorites here with you. Every Wednesday throughout December, I'll be sharing these fantastic Famous Funnies covers featuring space hero Buck Rogers, as drawn by legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta. This is issue #211 from May, 1954!

Back To The 25th Century!

As I've noted over the last few weeks here on the blog, I've been in a pulp space opera mood. I've filled in my collections of the Avon Flash Gordon and Ace Buck Rogers paperback novels, finished reading Dynamite Comics' Buck comics series from a couple years back, and, over the last few days, watching episodes of the 1939 Universal Buck Rogers serial starring Buster Crabbe, each morning before going to bed.

I'm a big fan of this serial, and in some ways I prefer it over the Flash Gordon serials that Crabbe did for the same studio. Don't misunderstand me - those three chapterplays are classics, and there's no way that Constance Moore's Wilma Deering or Anthony Warde's Killer Kane can hold a candle to Jean Rogers as Dale Arden or Charles Middleton's Ming - but there's a polish to Buck that's lacking in the first two Flash serials, and a consistent aesthetic to the look and design of Buck's 25th Century Earth that the Mongo of the Flash serials just didn't have.

The storyline is just a tiny bit more adult and better-structured, too. There isn't quite as much repetitive action and narrative water-treading in it as in the Flash Gordon adventures. Also, frankly, I prefer Crabbe without the over-bleached, over-styled coiffure. He just looks tougher with his natural brown hair.

Well, gotta go. I've got a couple chapters to spin before I hit the sack!

Roaring Rockets!

This picture illustrates some of my most recent book purchases. Can you guess what sort of reading mood I've been in lately...?

Buck Rogers Returns... Again

Well, I know absolutely nothing about this new, forthcoming comic book incarnation of Buck Rogers except that writer/artist Howard Chaykin is involved, and that this Chaykin-drawn poster made its debut at Comic-Con this past week.

From the outfits, it looks like the project is going to harken back more to the original 30s comic strip than the recent Dynamite Comics series did -- which is a good thing in my book. It's been a long time since I had much interest in any new comics (even ones based on favorite characters, like Buck), but I used to be quite the Chaykin fan, so.... color me intrigued.

I look forward to hearing/seeing more... hell, I even broke down and bought the first Dynamite Buck Rogers trade, eventually.

Weekend Double Feature... In Space!

Gil Gerard and Erin Gray in the new Buck Rogers!

Gil Gerard and Erin Gray return to the mythos as the parents of the young, future-hero Buck Rogers in the new, forthcoming webseries by the producers of the Star Trek: New Voyages online adventures.

I really love this clip; it's nice to see Gil and Erin together again, and actually given some real acting to do. I also like that the series looks like it'll be set in the period of the original comic strips. I can't wait.

Wednesday Cover: Buck Rogers

This is from the late 70's Gold Key version of Buck, which was based on the then-current television series. I don't know who painted this cover, but I just like it for some reason; probably it's pulpy style and simplicity.

Speaking of Buck Rogers...

Here's the teaser trailer for the new Buck Rogers webseries being produced by the same folks who make the Star Trek- New Adventures webisodes.

Buck's Back, Baby!

Some years ago VCI Entertainment released the 1939 Buck Rogers serial starring Buster Crabbe on DVD. As a fan of Buck, Buster, space opera and serials I bought it, of course.

Unfortunately, the source material used for the transfer was dark and murky, with considerable print damage, so the visual presentation was pretty disappointing. Also, VCI included clunky animated menu screens that were not very interesting, extremely long, and could not be skipped.... and thus, frustrating & annoying.

Well, the company has revisited the title and just sent me a review copy of the new release. It's a quantum improvement over the previous edition, both in presentation and in supplemental features.

The story has 1939 aviator Buck Rogers (Crabbe) and his young pal Buddy (Jackie Moran) crewing an airship that is held aloft by an experimental gas. There's an accident and the blimp crashes into a snow-covered peak, where it - as well as Buck & Buddy - lies undiscovered for 500 years. Fortunately, the experimental gas keeps the two adventurers in a state of suspended animation, and when they're revived, they join the freedom-loving inhabitants of a hidden city in a rebellion against the tyrannical dictatorship of uber-racketeer Killer Kane (Anthony Warde). Aerial dogfights, trips to Saturn, and the requisite fistfights provide plenty of thrills over the ensuing twelve cliffhanging chapters.

Produced between the second and third of Universal's hugely popular and financially successful Flash Gordon chapterplays, the studio had high hopes for their new production. After all, Buck had predated Flash in the funny pages, and Crabbe had proven twice over his ability to overthrow interplanetary despots. But Buck Rogers, while profitable, didn't quite hit the stratospheric heights of the Flash serials, so plans for a sequel were scrapped, and Crabbe went on to star in a third Gordon adventure.

Still, Buck Rogers is one of Universal's best serials, with high production values, good direction (by Forde Beebe and Saul Goodkind), fast, exciting action, and a slightly more adult storyline. The special effects and stuntwork are extremely well executed, and the overall quality of the serial is top-notch. It's too bad that it often gets overshadowed by the Flash Gordon serials, because Buck has a lot of entertainment to offer.

VCI's new 2-disc "70th Anniversary Edition" DVD appears to have been culled from either the original negative or a pristine 35mm fine grain print, because, unlike the earlier edition, this one looks gorgeous. The full-frame, B&W transfer is near-perfect with good contrast and sharp detail. The mono audio is clear and relatively free of hiss. It's a terrific presentation.

The supplemental material is pretty solid, too. There's a still gallery, a brief documentary on the history of the Buck Rogers character, two episodes of the Buck Rogers radio show, a videotaped presentation of the Buck Rogers panel at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, and a Buster Crabbe featurette that sets a series of stills and clips to an audio recording of Crabbe speaking to a college audience during the 70s. It rambles a bit, but is fascinating. The coolest bonus feature though, is a 1935 short, Buck Rogers & The Tiger Men of Mars. This ten minute, live-action film was produced by the makers of the comic strip and screened at the 1935 World's Fair. It's amateurish in the extreme, but is a fascinating historical curio as the very first filmed BR adventure, and is a welcome extra.

I'm a huge fan of this serial. Crabbe is as dashing, athletic and heroic as ever, and the pace is relentless. The effects and cliffhangers (although this serial has one of the most blatant "cheats" I've ever seen!) are delightful. If you've never seen it and have any interest at all in classic space opera, you should definitely check it out. If you own the previous VCI disc, you may want to sell, trade or throw it away and upgrade to the new edition. It's that much better.

Monday Morning Musings - SpyFi Edition

Welcome to another installment of my early Monday morning musings, where I catch up on whatever's been going on over the weekend.

• OPEN CHANNEL "D." Last Friday, several of the spy blogs I visit were reporting that Amazon had the complete Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVD collection on sale for more than half off the retail price, for one day only! It only took a little begging, but Brandi bought it for me, and it should be here Tuesday. I'm a huge U.N.CL.E. fan, and I've been rather desperate to get my hands on this set, and although money will be tight for a couple weeks because of it, I'm thrilled that it's on the way!

• Speaking of old TV shows, a couple weeks back, I traded in some old stuff and picked up the second seasons of Get Smart and the 80's private eye show, Simon & Simon. We're about halfway through the seasons (Brandi also likes S&S quite a bit), and having a lot of fun revisiting these shows. The second season of Smart is probably its best, and S&S is fun 80's escapism with a couple of charismatic leads.

At the same time, I picked up the latest Transporter movie on Blu-Ray (it was a buck cheaper than the 2-disc DVD). I loved it. It was ludicrous, and not quite as good as Transporter 2, but close, and a damned fun ride. Jason Statham rules.

• And, speaking of spies (U.N.C.L.E., Smart, etc.), I recently found all my Nick Carter, Killmaster paperbacks at my parents' house, and brought them home. I've got about thirty of them (nearly 300 were published), some from the 70's and quite a bunch from the 80's. Nick Carter was an American secret agent for AXE, whose paperback original adventures ran the gamut from straight Cold War intrigue to over-the-top pseudo-sci-fi adventures that would have embarrassed Roger Moore's Bond! Many different authors contributed anonymously to the series over the years. I loved the books as a teen, and I'm having a great time re-reading some of them now. I'm currently working my way through The Eyes of the Tiger, and it's silly, refreshingly un-PC fun.

• I also got an advance DVD screener of the Quantum of Solace DVD last Friday, and, well, I still don't like it. My least favorite Bond film in years. All my original complaints remain – except that I've warmed (slightly) toward the Jack White/Alicia Keyes theme. Otherwise, I still think it's a near-incoherent mess, and I think the film editors should be shot.

• Not spy related: I received the Buck Rogers statue from ReelArt Studios, last week, as well. It's friggin' gorgeous. Not only is it marvelously sculpted and flawlessly painted, but it's a minor marvel of engineering, with Buck and his flaming jetpack perched atop a billowing pillar of smoke. If you're a fan of the character and can afford it, I can't recommend it highly enough.

Have a great week, everyone!

Buck VERSUS Flash!

It's the clash of classic comic strip space aces in a contest for cosmic supremacy – Buck Rogers: heroic aviator who is transported to a war-torn 25th century by a freak dirigible accident with his teenage sidekick Buddy, and Flash Gordon: Yale polo star who, along with the beautiful Dale Arden, is shanghaied by the mad Doctor Zarkov to the oppressed planet of Mongo!

Of course, both of these interplanetary paragons were portrayed in Thirties serials by the same Olympic swimmer-turned-action star, Larry "Buster" Crabbe.

Now, Buck's got cool 25th century gadgets (courtesy of Dr. Huer) and a sexy female pilot (Wilma Deering) to chauffeur him back and forth to Saturn, but his arch-foe, Killer Kane, is pretty much just a hood with delusions of grandeur. Flash has a smokin' hot girlfriend (Dale) lots of weird, alien allies (Barin, Thun, Vultan), is good with fists and swords, and has as his nemesis probably the coolest galactic despot ever, Ming the Merciless.

I'm calling this one for Flash (after all, he had three chapterplays to Buck's one), though I really love the 1939 Buck Rogers serial, and think it's highly underrated. Besides, I think it's telling that when Buster showed up on the 1979 Buck Rogers In The 25th Century television series, his character was named Brigadier Gordon.

"Captain, I've been doing this sort of thing since before you were born."

"Think so, huh?"

"Son, I know so."

What do you folks say? (Remember, it's only the Buster Crabbe serial versions of the characters that we're dealing with here.)

Monday Afternoon Miscellany

• This is cool. Pulp writer Lester Dent, the creator and primary author of the legendary Doc Savage novels, has a new book coming out!

Actually, as the pulps were dying out, Dent turned his talents toward the growing paperback market, and actually sold a crime novel to Gold Medal Books. Now, Charles Ardai of Gold Medal's modern counterpart, Hard Case Crime, has uncovered another, previously unpublished, crime novel by Dent. I don't know how that guy keeps coming up with these treasures, but I'm grateful that he does.

Here's what HCC has to say bout the book: If you were small-time grifter Walter Harsh, recovering in a hospital with a broken arm, you’d listen to a proposition that could net you a cool $50,000 for impersonating the South American strongman you resemble. You'd pay attention when the dictator’s sultry mistress started putting the moves on you. And in the dead of night, when no one was watching, you might just hatch a plot to get it all for yourself: the money, the girl, and the stash of stolen loot she’s conspiring to spirit out of the country...

Dent's Honey in His Mouth will be published by HCC in October with a very nice cover by Ron Lesser. For more info and a sample chapter, click here.

• Over the weekend I watched Roland Emmerlich's 10,000 B.C. Normally, I'm not a fan of Emmerlich's movies, which generally seem to be constructed on the contemporary theory that if you have enough special effects, you don't need a story – or at least one that makes sense. But when my pal Martin Powell gave me the key to enjoying the director's recent cinematic caveman saga, I decided to put it in the Netflix queue.

According to Martin, the movie reminded him of an Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure story... and after watching it myself, I agree. Like Pathfinder – another generally panned fantasy that I enjoyed – the negativity that followed its release seemed to be based on the movie's clear disregard for historical accuracy in favor of pumping up the adventure story, and the perceived "corny-ness" of certain story points. But, you know, I just finished reading two classic Burroughs stories, and if held their corny-ness and cliche's against them, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the blood & thunder fun of the tales. And really, it's much the same with 10,000 B.C.

The story is somewhat simple and ultimately predictable – in fact, it follows a classic ERB template: the hero's beautiful princess is kidnapped, and he sets out on a quest through a dangerous world of prehistoric beasts and human savages to rescue his true love from a technologically advanced society, ultimately uniting warring factions and leading a rebellion against a possibly-alien tyrant. Deep? No. But satisfyingly pulpy, and quite well-executed.

The cast is made up entirely of athletic unknowns (but the script really doesn't demand much thespic heavy-lifting), and the CGI effects work is really quite good. Personally, I got a kick out of seeing thundering herds of mastodons and a flock of ferocious, giant, flightless birds, as well as the spectacle of the climactic scenes.

And really, it's a caveman movie. What do you want?

• It's still a ways off, but it looks good that artist Joe Staton and I will be sharing a table at the Maine Comics Festival in mid-May. It's being held at the Ocean Gateway Building in Portland, Maine, and it's being put on by my good pals at Casablanca Comics.

I'm hoping that we'll have the Femme Noir trade paperback available for sale by then, but even if it's not, we'll have plenty of copies of the individual issues. I'll also have copies of some of my other books, and I'm sure that Joe will be doing sketches and selling art.

This is the second new comics show in Maine in the last couple of years (after last Fall's BangPop show), and I'll be very interested to see how well it goes, especially in this economy.

• And, following up on my other recent Buck Rogers posts, here's a Buck fan-film that also riffs on Kerry Conran's Sky Captain And the World of Tomorrow. It's pretty cute.

Buck Rogers!

This, my friends, is one cool friggin' statue! This is the new Buck Rogers statue from my pal (and employer) Michael Hudson's ReelArt Studios.

Sculpted by artist Tony Cipriano, this figure is 16 inches high(!) – including the smoke from Buck's rocket pack. The detailing is incredible, and remarkably faithful to the original comics art. I particularly love the jet of flame from the muzzle of Buck's ray gun.

Now, as mentioned above, I work for Michael, editing his Sequential Pulp comic book line, but he didn't pay me to plug this thing. I just think it looks amazing, and as one space opera fanatic to (I presume) others, I wanted to share it. For more shots of the sculpt, click here.

Monday Morning Miscellania

• It's snowing. Which is actually preferable to the record cold snap which we had last week. As I've mentioned before, I live in my late grandfather's old farmhouse, which was built ages ago. It's poorly insulated, drafty, and has a kitchen that was a late addition with no insulation or heating at all. In the winter, it's like a giant walk-in refrigerator and last week, it was a walk-in freezer. Thursday morning, we had an icicle hanging from the faucet, and the jugs of drinking water and every bottle of my Pepsi cache (which we keep on the floor out of the way) were frozen solid.

Oh yeah, winter's so much fun. Because I won't be able to get out and shovel out the mailbox tomorrow, we won't get our mail. Which normally wouldn't bug me too much, since it's usually just bills and threats anyway, anyway, but since I've rebooted my DVD Late Show column (new installment tomorrow), I've been getting some cool screeners... and those I look forward to. :)

• Remember a year or so ago, when I posted about some Star Trek fans, led by a fellow named James Cawley, who were making their own episodes based on the original series and offering them over the 'net for free? Well, according to Ain't It Cool News, the same group of folks have actually made a deal to produce their own version of Buck Rogers. This project is officially licensed from the rights holders, and I'm guessing that I'll like it better than the proposed Frank Miller version.

• After reading about it all year over on Tanner's Double-O Section blog, I finally rented the French Eurospy spoof, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, from Netflix.

It was awesome! Jean Dujardin plays French secret agent OSS 117, who's sort of a cross between Maxwell Smart, Inspector Clouseau and a Gallic Sean Connery. He's sent to Cairo – a "nest of spies" – to investigate the death of another agent, his "close friend," Jack. Set in 1955 (with a hilarious WW2-set prologue), OSS 117 is a dead-on parody of the Eurospy genre. In fact, it's directly spoofing an actual, long-running series of films from the early Sixties.

The jokes and sight gags are funny, the characters are great (I especially enjoy how the filmmakers were willing to let their hero be a complete and utter ass sometimes), the girls are gorgeous, and the production and costume designs are incredible. I especially dug the swinging, loungy musical score.

I'll definitely be adding this one to my collection as soon as possible – it was vastly funnier than the Get Smart remake and smarter than the Austin Powers films. Here's the trailer:



Apparently there's a sequel in the works. I hope it makes to America quicker than the first one did!