Wednesday Cover: Daredevil

By Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, back when Frank was still good and a cover like this was still shocking.

Feelin Groovy...

Well not "groovy," really, but I'm in a fair state of mind tonight. Which is a serious improvement.

I've been having a(nother) rough time lately. I never really got back in the groove after my foot problems this summer, and in recent weeks have been battling full-bore, Barton Fink-staring-blankly-at-the-walls writer's block (which accounts, in part, for the recent dearth of blog posts). My wife and I also - like a fairly large, and getting larger every day, percentage of our countrymen and women - have some pressing and distressing money problems on our minds. Oh, and a job I was counting on this winter completely fell through.

The worst, though, has been the writer's block. Now, I know that there are number of successful and prolific scribes who insist that there is no such thing, but I'm here to tell you (and I know a few reputable scribblers who'll back me up) that they're both incredibly lucky... and plain frakkin' wrong.

With me, the more I struggled with it, the more I worried, and the anxiety grew debilitating. Fortunately, a friend gave me a good talking to this week, and helped me see what was causing my problem. Now, for the moment, anyway, I seem to be getting past it.

I got my DVD column written this week on time, and tonight I took the script that I've been choking on, and just scrapped it, starting from scratch. So far, that seems to be working.

So... if all goes well, you'll be seeing more posts here soon.

New DVD Late Show

My latest DVD Late Show review column is now posted at Forces Of Geek.

This week's column features reviews of the following recent DVD and Blu-Ray releases: The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, The Shortcut, Radio Patrol, Castle: The Complete First Season, Life On Mars: The Complete Series, Ugly Betty: The Complete Third Season, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi and Iron Monkey. Check 'em out!

Direct link here.

This Made Me Smile

I haven't been posting recently because I've been distracted with other things - mostly frustrating things - and, frankly, I've been sorta down lately. I'm going through a "bad period," I guess, and, while I know I'll work my way out of it eventually, it's been kinda rough lately.

This, however, from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - with musical contribution from They Might Be Giants - this made me smile.

Watch it. You'll smile too.

Wednesday Cover: Alpha Flight

I was never a huge fan of Marvel's Canadian super-team Alpha Flight except in its very earliest days when it was written and drawn by co-creator John Byrne. Byrne has always been a talented artist and has drawn many memorable comic book covers, but this one from AF #3, with it's imaginative and striking visual design, has stuck in my head for over twenty years.

New DVD Late Show column @ FOG

My latest DVD Late Show review column is now posted (just under the wire) at Forces Of Geek.

This week's column features reviews of the following recent DVD and Blu-Ray releases: Spring Break, Hardbodies, Hardbodies 2, The Land That Time Forgot, The 10th Victim, Fire And Ice, The Waterboy, Hero and The Legend Of The Drunken Master. Lots of kung fu and girls in bikinis. What more could anyone want, I ask you?

Direct link here.

V Rebooted

I am actually a fan of the 80's television miniseries and weekly series V. That said, I also feel that aside from the first miniseries directed by Kenneth Johnson, which still holds up pretty well today, the subsequent installments never lived up to their potential. A small budget, the need to recycle effects footage, and the general "kistch factor" (for lack of a better term) of early-80s TV, all undermined the premise and its potential. That's not to say it wasn't fun, though, which is why I have the DVDs.

So, while I usually dread "reimaginings" and "reboots" of my old favorites, I am actually looking forward to this season's new version of V, and hope that it works.

Wednesday Cover: Captain Strong

You know, as a kid, I had no idea that Captain Strong was a parody of Popeye. In retrospect, I was a pretty clueless kid. Cover art looks like Nick Cardy to me.

Bang Pop 2009

I will be making one of my very rare personal appearances (barring further foot troubles) at the second annual Bang Pop Comic & Pop Culture Convention in Bangor, Maine over the weekend of September 19 & 20, 2009.

I had a great time at last year's inaugural event, and am looking forward to this year's expanded show. I'll have copies of my various books, including the Femme Noir: Dark City Diaries graphic novel, with me and available for sale.

Other guests confirmed for the show are Kristen Britain, Elizabeth Hand, Walter H. Hunt, Alex Irvine, Jay Piscopo, Mark Ricketts, Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, and Catherynne M. Valente.

For information on the show, click here.

Bitch, Moan, Whine...

I swear, sometime in the misty recesses of my youth, I must have really honked off an old gypsy woman or something.

After more than a month of suffering, I finally recovered from an insanely prolonged and painful bout of gout (courtesy of my compromised kidney) only to awake on Tuesday with a shooting pain in my right heel (same foot as the gout, BTW). Plantar fasciitis. I managed to limp through the day. By Wednesday, the pain had increased so severely that I had to dig up a pair of old crutches to get around at all, and today's just as bad or worse.

I've only just now got some pills that might help, but as it is, I cannot carry out even the most basic tasks without blinding, almost-passing-out-from-the intensity pain. Getting from one room to another is a lengthy ordeal. I can't even climb the stairs to my bedroom so that I can lie in my bed! Embarrassingly, I had to call my wife home from work to take care of me.

If I keep my weight off it, the foot only throbs a bit. So, I have been getting some work done at the computer. But one can't stay sitting in the same chair for 24 hours... at least, I can't.

Some fun, eh?

Anyway, as the headline indicates, this post is strictly for venting purposes (although it may also be a cheap bid for sympathy; I leave it to you to judge). Yesterday, near tears, I was actually asking out loud what the hell I'd done to deserve this shit. Now, I'm no saint, and I'm sure I'm at least several kinds of asshole, but I don't hurt people. Hell, I mind my own business, never meddle, and generally don't judge. So why?

This is officially my Worst. Summer Ever.

HPL @ 119

"Then suddenly I saw it. With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. I think I went mad then."
–– Dagon

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on this day in 1890, marking this as the 119th anniversary of the birth of the master of cosmic horror.

A great online resource, containing everything written by the man, is The H. P. Lovecraft Archive.

Wednesday Cover: The Huntress

A striking cover by my pal Joe Staton for the first Huntress solo series back in the early 90s.

New DVD Late Show @ FOG

A fresh new DVD Late Show column has been posted at Forces of Geek. And technically, on time.

It's a short one this week, with reviews of Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death, Alien Trespass, Simon & Simon Season 3, and the latest exploitation movie trailer compilation from Synapse Films, 42nd Street Forever, Volume 5: Alamo Drafthouse.

You can check it out HERE.

Summer Reading

I haven't bought many books in a while, but this last week I added a few new titles to my expansive library. The Science Fiction Book Club had a 50% off sale, so I ordered the remaining two Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom hardcover omnibuses (now I don't have to worry about wearing out my treasured paperbacks with the Michael Whelan cover paintings), and the two titles shown above: C.L. Moore's Northwest of Earth and Max Brooks' World War Z.

Northwest of Earth sounds intriguing; apparently it's pulp space opera with a Lovecraftian flavor. I haven't read a lot of Ms. Moore's fiction before, but what few stories I have read seemed superior to most of what was being written at the time. As for World War Z, it's gotten generally positive reviews, and I'm looking forward to reading a good zombie novel.

I also ordered a copy of the last Mike Hammer novel by Mickey Spillane (and Max Allan Collins), The Goliath Bone. Normally, I would have bought that last year as soon as it came out, but I had to wait until I could afford it. I was fortunate enough to have known Mickey, and Collins is a friend, so I'm eager to get my hands on it.

Before I can start on any of those new books, though, I've got to finish reading the spy paperback I'm reading.... and Brian Daley's Han Solo's Revenge, one of the very first Star Wars tie-in novels from the late 70s. I happened upon my copies of both Revenge and its sequel, Han Solo And the Lost Legacy while moving my office, and thought I'd revisit them. So far, it's a perfectly satisfactory space opera adventure novel, refreshingly free of all the history and obsessive continuity that currently afflicts the franchise.

What are you folks reading?

Gravedigger Sneak Peek

Since I'd already posted these on Facebook, it belatedly occurred to me that I should share them here with you guys as well. Here's a teaser for The Predators, one of three stories in the upcoming Gravedigger: Hot Women, Cold Cash graphic novel. The story's fully penciled, so I'm hoping this will be out in early 2010. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Script by yours truly, art by Rick Burchett and Fred Harper.