New Old Stuff To Read

Every once in a while, I make a little money off my blogging. Recently, I got a tidy little kickback from the ads on my DVD Late Show and Space: 1970 sites, and decided to use it to order a few older graphic novel/comics collections online.

Having recently enjoyed re-watching the 1938 Universal movie serial Red Barry, starring Buster Crabbe, I became curious about the Will Gould newspaper comic strip that it was based on. After a little hunting around online, I discovered a 1989 Red Barry strip collection from Fantagraphics. I ordered a copy, and am more than halfway through it. Terrific stuff!

I then went through my Amazon wish list to see if anything I had on there had gone down in price. I've long wanted a copy of DC's The Warlord: The Savage Empire trade paperback by Mike Grell & company, but it's long out of print and used copies tended to be prohibitively expensive. Surprisingly, I was able to find a reasonably-priced copy listed and ordered it. It hasn't arrived yet, so I have my fingers crossed that it arrives in the "Very Good" condition advertised by the seller.

Another collection from the same time period that I ordered was DC's Cosmic Odyssey trade paperback by Jim Starlin & Mike Mignola. I missed the original 4-issue miniseries when it came out back in '88 and never got my hands on it after that. But it popped up on my radar recently thanks to Rip Jagger's Dojo, and since I've always loved Mignola's art, I decided to get it. I'm especially looking forward to his handling of Jack Kirby's Darkseid and The New Gods characters.

I also ordered the IDW hardcover edition of The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures, which collects the handful of Rocketeer tales that creator Dave Stevens actually produced in the 80s. I bought all the original comics (& the old Eclipse album) when they came out and have them stashed away somewhere in a longbox, but I figured it was past time to get all the Stevens' material in one nice bookshelf edition. Fortunately, I found an cheap copy online. Should be here sometime this week.

The last of the graphic novels I purchased was the new Fantagraphics collection of Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk comics, originally published in the 1940's as a feature in Target Comics. Back in the 90s, Dark Horse reprinted many of these bizarre and brilliant adventures in B&W comic book reprints, with a few new stories about the character produced by various artists and writers. I have four of five of these issues, but I'm missing at least one, and I'm not sure if Dark Horse actually got around to reprinting the entire run. This new collection is both complete and in color. I love Wolverton's work, and I love the character - he's sort of like Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" in space, an unfathomable and unstoppable entity with a vast array of weapons and gadgets at his disposable.

Finally, in the non-comics category, I placed an order for an early Andrew Offutt sword & planet papernck novel. Chieftain of Andor. I read a lot of Offutt's fantasy novels in the 80s - primarily his Robert E. Howard pastiches and Thieves World stories - and look forward to reading this one, too.

Wednesday Cover:VARIETY DETECTIVE

I swiped this from Paul Bishop's blog. I don't know who the artist is, but it's now one of my favorite crime pulp covers ever! Not only is that fantastic painting dynamic, but the cover copy may have just given me the name for a future Femme Noir villainess - "Lady Loot!"

Go Go Gorgo

One of my favorite monster movies is Eugène Lourié's, Gorgo. The third of Lourié's triptych of giant monster flicks (following The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The Giant Behemoth), 1961's Gorgo is a terrific entertainment, with good performances, a solid script. and excellent "suitmation" (man-in-suit) creature effects and miniatures.

The film tells of an English salvage vessel crew that captures a thirty-foot tall reptilian creature off the coast of Ireland. They dub the beastie "Gorgo" and haul it to London and put it on display. Unfortunately, despite his primeval proportions, Gorgo's just a baby, and it's much, much larger mother of a monster is coming to retrieve her purloined offspring... and all the King's forces are no match for her maternal fury.

I watched the film again a couple weeks ago on the DVD released by VCI Entertainment back in 2005, and while the movie held up to my fond memories of it, the audio-visual quality was atrocious. Colors were faded and blurry, contrast was terrible, and there was a fair amount of wear and tear evident on the source print. To add insult to injury, the 1.78:1 widescreen transfer wasn't anamorphically enhanced for 16x9 displays. Fortunately, I've heard rumors that VCI will be remastering the title in HD from new, much-improved source materials for a new release sometime in 2013. I really hope that's true.

Not only was Gorgo a movie star, but Charlton Comics published an ongoing tie-in comic that chronicled the juvenile lizards further adventures. Several of these stories were drawn by the legendary comics creator Steve Ditko. IDW Publishing has announced a special hardcover collection of these tales, to be released in February, 2013.

Here's their solicitation copy:

The genius artist Steve Ditko is a towering monster of awesomeness, and so is the character he chronicled... GORGO! If you love Godzilla - and who doesn't - you'll love Gorgo, who ravages London, New York City, and HOLLYWOOD! Gorgo goes head to head with the British Navy, atomic bombs, Communists, and aliens from the planet Corpus III! This is the complete Ditko Gorgo, 200-pages of comics, including six pulse-pounding covers all drawn during the height of Ditko's prowess concurrent with his Spider-man and Dr. Strange creative explosions. Scripts are by the fan-favorite writer Joe Gill. Introduction by Eisner award winner Craig Yoe with fascinating insight into the comics and the monster movie that inspired them. Every page is lovingly restored and the book is a large format hardcover to showcase the monstrous Ditko art.

 I'm almost certainly going to want to get this book, even though I only remember Ditko drawing a couple of the Gorgo comic books. I didn't think there would be enough material to fill 200 pages...

In any case, it looks like 2013 might be Gorgo's big year.

Wednesday Cover: SHAZAM!

Technically, this is Limited Collector's Edition C35, a "Treasury Sized" collection of Captain Marvel comic book stories reprinted by DC Comics in 1975. This photo cover features actor Jackson Bostwick who portrayed the World's Mightiest Mortal for two seasons of the Filmation Saturday morning Shazam! television series. I've been revisiting the 1974-76 series on DVD this past couple of weeks, and I remembered having this oversized comic when I was a kid. (FYI - I'll be reviewing the newly-released Warner Archive Shazam! DVD set over at my DVD Late Show and Space: 1970 blogs shortly.)

Super Friends To The Rescue!

Amazon had them on sale for less than $10 each, so last week, I ordered the last two incarnations of Super Friends from the early 1980s - The Legendary Super Powers Show and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians -  on DVD. These two seasons were tailored to tie-in with Kenner's popular DC "Super Powers" action figure line, hence the prominence of the term in both titles.

Both shows featured Jack Kirby's Darkseid as the major villain and had slightly more sophisticated stories than previous incarnations of the Super Friends franchise. In the Galactic Guardians run, Hanna-Barbara's artists switched from the original Alex Toth character designs to new ones by Jose Garcia-Lopez, giving it a fresher look; it was also the first Super Friends show to have full half-hour (well, 20 minute, really) episodes each week instead of two 10-minute stories per installment.

I missed these seasons when they originally aired on Saturday mornings (I was in Art School by then), but I'm looking forward to enjoying some Old School super-hero 'toons over the next week or two.

Three Years In SPACE

My 1970s sci-fi nostalgia (or, as I prefer to call it: pop culture archeology) blog, Space: 1970, just celebrated its third anniversary. Three years of  writing about the science fiction films and television shows - and related memorabilia - of the 1970s and early 80s (closing rapidly on 700 entries now)... and people seem to like it. Stop by if you get a moment.

Wednesday Cover: PSYCHO Fall Special

Happy Halloween! October's final Psycho cover is this Prieto Muriana masterwork, which graced the magazine's 1974 "Fall Special."

Today is also the 12th anniversary of my marriage to my wonderful soulmate, Brandi. A dozen years and still together... who would have imagined? Happy Anniversary, hon!

Wednesday Cover: PSYCHO Classic Creeps!

One week until Halloween... and here's another ghoulish cover from Skywald's Psycho comics magazine, this time from the great Ken Kelly. Enjoy!

David Lo Pan Style

"Hey, green-eyed lady..."  I really need to go watch Big Trouble In Little China now.

Wednesday Cover: PSYCHO Devil Woman

This week, our Wednesday Cover is another blood-curdling Skywald Psycho magazine masterpiece - this time painted by Enrich Torres.

Happy Birthday, 007

Today is Global James Bond Day, celebrating 50 years of Ian Fleming's creation on the silver screen. And this is a video montage of great moments from the 007 films, set to Scouting for Girls' song, "I Wish I Was James Bond."

Don't we all?

Wednesday Cover: PSYCHO Snake Woman

For this first Wednesday of October, we bring you another cover from Skywald Publication's Psycho magazine, also painted by Boris Vallejo. Enjoy!

The First PARKER Trailer

I have mixed feelings about this preview trailer for the upcoming film, Parker, based on the Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) books. I've been a bit wary about Jason Statham's casting ever since I first heard about the project - we all know that I love Statham as an action star, but I suspected from the beginning that the filmmakers would end up adapting the character to his established film persona, rather than get him to play the Parker of the books.

Based on this trailer, it appears that I was right.

The opening scenes of the heist and double-cross certainly have a Stark/Westlake flavor, but the rest of the trailer plays out like every other Statham star vehicle. Which means I'll probably enjoy it as an action movie... but as an adaptation of Stark/Westlake? Probably not so much.

Still, it's only the first trailer, and it may simply be a marketing choice (and probably the correct one) to try and make it appeal to the legions of Statham fans who probably don't have the foggiest idea of who the character Parker is.

I'll try and keep an open mind....

I do love the poster, though. Nice, clean, striking design.

From Here To Eternia

Poster art by Drew Struzan

I generally don't subscribe to the concept of "guilty pleasures." I've always felt that you should never be ashamed or feel guilty about liking "bad" movies (or anything else, for that matter), because the point of entertainment is to enjoy yourself, and it doesn't matter why you like something, as long as you have fun.

That said, when it comes to the 1987 live-action, Cannon Films adaptation of the Filmation cartoon series, Masters Of The Universe, I do sometimes feel a bit embarrassed. Mostly because I've found that admitting my fondness for the fantasy flick inevitably leads to ridicule. Never mind that the production design (by the great William Stout) is gorgeous, or that the Rob Conti-emulating-John Williams score is big, bombastic and beautiful, or that Frank Langella's portrayal of sorcerer Skeletor is sly and satisfyingly sinister... it's based on an 80s cartoon starring a guy named "He-Man."

And I don't even like the cartoon.

But I do like the Gary Goddard-directed movie, which comes out on a (unfortunately bare-bones) Blu-ray today, and I liked it even when I dragged my then-girlfriend to see it in theater in the Summer of 1987. It's just a fun, fast-paced fantasy adventure with a memorable cast (Dolph Lundgren in his first lead role, a young Courtney Cox, icy-eyed & sexy Meg Foster, and the unforgettable Billy Barty, among others), terrific 80s special effects, and a ridiculous plot that hangs together just... well enough.

It's not a classic of the genre, and it may not even be very good, subjectively, but I like it a lot (for all of the reasons cited above), and will be picking up the Blu-ray edition this week.

ADDENDUM: My local Bull Moose store - where I buy the DVDs and Blu-rays I'm too impatient to order online - actually let me down this week, as they didn't get any Master Of The Universe Blu-rays. According to their computer, all the other stores in the chain got copies, but their store didn't. Oh well, I put one on order. Hopefully they'll get it in by my next trip to town....

The Princess Diary

I hope people won't think any less of me as a man when I reveal that I'm looking forward to getting DC's latest Showcase Presents volume - Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld.

When the series originally appeared back in the 80s, I was reading mostly gritty adventure comics like Jon Sable, Freelance, Ms. Tree, Grimjack and Scout. A book about a teenage girl who magically transforms into the adult princess of a fairy tale fantasy realm - where everything was named after gemstones! - held little appeal for me.

But nowadays, with mainstream comics producing very little of interest for this aging, curmudgeonly old fanboy, I'm discovering - and rediscovering - a lot of good stuff in reprint volumes. And while I never read Amethyst back in the old days, I did read - and loved - DC's Blue Devil, a tongue-in-cheek superhero series written by the same guys who created & wrote Amethyst, Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn. In fact, I followed that book for its entire first run, and really enjoyed and admired the writing team's style and sense of fun.

I've also been a life-long fan of artist Ernie Colon, who drew most of the Amethyst stories. I've especially enjoyed his fantasy and adventure work, so it seems long past time to check out his art on this series. From the various bits and pieces I've glimmed over the decades, it looks like some of Colon's best work.

Anyway, the collection comes out this week, and I plan on getting it. The only sticking point is that it does not seem to be complete - according to what I've read, it includes the character’s preview appearance in Legion of Super-Heroes #298, the original Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld 12-issue limited series, the Amethyst Annual #1, DC Comics Presents #63... but only the first 11 issues of the 16-issue ongoing Amethyst series. That leaves a full five issues uncollected, which is not nearly enough material for a second Showcase volume.  Dammit.