Random Interlude

Some pictures are worth a thousand words. Others prompt a thousand questions.

Pop Art: From my personal stash

Looking through the handful of sketches I own, there aren't a lot of conventional pieces. Sure, there are a few (Kyle Baker's drawing of The Shadow, for instance) but I don't have a lot of superhero art drawn by regular superhero artists.

The one above is among the lot I'd call typical of my collection: Superman, by Georges Jeanty.

Now, the request was for a sketch of Christoper Reeve as Superman. Likenesses are very difficult to do, and I've even had some professional artists pass on some requests because they don't trust their abilities to capture someone's likeness.

So I wasn't surprised - or even disappointed - when a convention sketch didn't look like Reeve's spitting image. What's funny is that Jeanty has spent a lot of time over the last few years drawing Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Dark Horse. It's not my imagination that his sketch of Superman looks a little like Xander, is it?

Doctor Madblood

As a young tyke in Norfolk, Va., I was a big fan of Doctor Madblood. He was the local "horror movie host" and was one of my heroes. I've got vague memories of meeting him at a Halloween event at a local mall, but don't know if those memories are accurate (much like my memories of meeting Adam West, who might have just been some guy in a Batman costume.)

Anyhow, I haven't lived in Virginia for a long time, but a visit to Camp Movie Camp got me to thinking about Dr. M, so I hit up his website. You can find him at www.madblood.net.

Below is a link to streaming audio of a radio drama the Madblood gang did back in 1978. Check it out!

The Halloween Hobgoblin

Welcome ... to the WORLD OF TOMORROW!

We live in an amazing age.
When you needed to communicate with someone across great distances a century ago, you had to write it on paper and physically move it from one place to another. Today, you can zap an entire novel to the other side of the planet in seconds.

Communication — and, consequently, the world's entire wealth of knowledge — is at our fingertips to discover. This is a power undreamed of by humanity for most of its existence. Even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy can't compete with the Internet.

And what do we do with this new found power? Today I used it to watch a free episode of Star Trek on my phone while walking on a treadmill. I think there's a metaphor for humanity trapped somewhere in that sentence.

Vacation '58

National Lampoon's Vacation dates back to the days when the National Lampoon trademark still meant something. The seminal humor magazine published work from an incredible array of writers and artists, ranging from the likes of Vaughn Bode, Michael O'Donoghue, Neal Adams, Edward Gorey ... and even John Hughes.

In 1979, the magazine published a short story by Hughes called Vacation '58, which became the basis for the 1983 Chevy Chase film. It's a LOT crazier than the film and ends on a much darker beat. It also has the kind of freedom that films never have, such as using the name Walt Disney instead of the not-quite-but-almost "Roy Wally." Here's what Hughes had to say about the story:

"I wrote the first sentence — "If Dad hadn't shot Walt Disney in the leg, it would have been our best vacation ever!" — and the rest was automatic. I used the voice of a boy to cover my lack of skill, and to flatten the big moments. In Rusty's prosaic language, a ruined vacation and an assault with a deadly weapon upon an entertainment legend enjoyed comparable importance. I called to mind a clamor of relatives, situations, catchphrases, and behaviors. I was mindful of my feelings as a child witnessing phony pop inventions go to hell. I understood that the dark side of my middle-class, middle-American, suburban life was not drugs, paganism, or perversion. It was disappointment. There were no gnawing insects beneath the grass. Only dirt. I also knew that trapped inside every defeat is a small victory, and inside that small victory is the Great Defeat. This knowledge—along with a cranky old lady; strange, needy relatives; a vile dog; and everything that could possibly go wrong on a highway—was enough to make a story, plug a hole in the magazine, and get on to the next issue."

Read the entire essay here.

If you're curious about how Hughes' original story read, you're in luck! Here's a link to an online transcript.

These days, the National Lampoon trademark is just something leased to grade-z teen sex comedies that make Porky's look like Citizen Kane (though you could make the argument that Porky's is the Citizen Kane of teen sex comedies.)

Meanwhile, allow me to get this song permanently attached to your brain for the rest of the day ...

Interview with World of Hurt's Jay Potts

Comixfan.com has an interview posted with World of Hurt artist/writer Jay Potts. Jay talks a bit about the strip's first story arc "The Thrill Seekers," as well as the follow up "Black Fist." He'll be present at the annual HeroesCon in Charlotte, N.C., this year and will have a few goodies for sale

Check it out!

And sign up as a fan at World of Hurt's Facebook page.

Cheese-tacular!

Here are the final results of the two Star Wars iron-ons I applied this evening. One of the shirts is a half-sleeve baseball tee, which gives it that authentic '70s look.

The Six Million Dollar Man art got slightly mangled in the process. I'm going to take some sandpaper to it this weekend and give it a weathered look. Maybe that way it will look like the damage was on purpose (which it wasn't.) If it works, I'll share.

Note: Mind the washed-out look of the photos ... the transfers were actually bright and sharp. Everything else is the result of a camera app on my phone that I'm currently infatuated with.

Tonight's mission ...

... turn these into t-shirts.


Earlier this week, Reis at Geek Orthodox posted some scans of classic Star Wars t-shirt transfers. I had at least two of them as a kid and decided to get some transfers made and re-create these shirts. Assuming I've got access to a working iron, I plan to apply these tonight to create a few new shirts I can wear at the gym (and formal events.)

The Six-Million Dollar Man transfer you see wasn't part of that post, but I thought it might make a cool shirt.

I'll post some pics when I'm done.

UPDATE: Thought I'd mention this is post #100. Crap, that's a lot of posts for two weeks.

What's white and sells hamburgers?

Confessions of a Rocky Horror Virgin

So, I'm talking to Buck Dharma outside Rocky's nightclub in Charlotte, N.C., around 1993 ...

(This isn't the oddest story involving members of Blue Oyster Cult I could share with you. It's not even a story about BOC, so be patient.)

Rocky's used to be a nightclub on Independence Boulevard, an establishment that changed hands and names so often that I've lost track of its spiraling personality disorder. I think Public Enemy was on the bill the week before BOC played the club, which should give you an example of how effed up this place was. It changed names so often that it might not even have been called Rocky's when this story (kinda) begins.

I think it was the second or third time I saw Blue Oyster Cult, and afterward I worked up the nerve to flag down the band members afterward for some autographs and a quick chat. Next door was a theater (which was closed at that point) called the Silver Screen Cafe, which had been the best place in town for midnight movies. Frozen on its roadside sign were the last movies it had played before going out of business. One of them was Heavy Metal, for which BOC contributed a song.

I believe the Silver Screen Cafe was also the place to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I've been a Rocky Horror fan forever, but would you believe I've never had the chance to see it in an actual theater? Ever? The opportunity has literally never presented itself.

It's not that I've never been in the same town as a Rocky Horror screening. But there were always social barriers between me and the movie ... which is understandable when you're an underage military brat. Asking an adult to take me to something like Rocky Horror would have been like asking them to sit with me on a float at a Gay Pride Parade. It doesn't especially matter that I'm not gay, but since I didn't share the Universal Sense of Disgust(tm) that all right-thinking Americans were supposed to share, then I might as well have been. It was the 1980s, after all.

You can see how this situation actually made me more curious about the movie, and how its content so easily won me over.

I had spent most of my childhood wondering what was so appealing about that strange, perverse movie. I'd first seen ads for it in newspapers in the late 1970s in Virginia, then read an article about it in Starburst magazine after Shock Treatment was released. When my family moved to Charleston, S.C., the first thing we did after arriving was see The Terminator ... which was playing across the street from a theater showing Rocky Horror. I've got a memory for certain details that is a category 4 Rainman.

One birthday in Charleston, though, I found myself at a mall with a pocket full of cash. Some vendors were selling movie posters in the walkway and I picked up the original one-sheets for Back to the Future and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

And, at a record store, I bought The Rocky Horror Picture Show Audience Participation Album. I had NO idea what I was getting myself in for.

I grew up in the military, so I had heard profanity. I'd also heard a few Richard Pryor albums, as well as Eddie Murphy's first (and only?) two comedy albums. So, at age 14, there weren't a lot of words I'd hadn't heard.

But there was a feeling of chaos on the Rocky Horror album that was a little terrifying to me. In a good way. By this point I enjoyed a good audience response to a film because that sense of energy is contagious. It's the reason we watch movies together.

The Rocky Horror recording sounded like outright anarchy, though. Only it wasn't. While everyone was screaming their lungs out, they seemed to be doing so in chorus with each other. And it was hilarious.

For parental security reasons I had to listen to this album with headphones on. I was also left wondering about some of the gags that obviously involved something on-screen which, of course, I couldn't see on a record. But I was intrigued and have loved the movie ever since ... even if I didn't see it until the inevitable home video release around 1990.

The Cost of Doing Business

Comic book artist* Chrissie Zullo was recently commissioned to create sketch art for a Star Wars Galaxy trading cards subset.

Funny story ... she was paid $1 per card for a set of 100 original sketch cards. These cards are now selling for as much as $549.99 each on Ebay. She makes her sentiments plain on her Facebook page:

"My LEGO Snowtrooper Star Wars Sketch Card is going for $550 on eBay. Suddenly, I want it back now."

This situation is part of the long-standing difficulty between professionals and the collectors market. Many artists are leery of dealing with collectors because a few of us are ... what's the term? Oh yeah, "Outright Fucking Crooks."

Michael Golden has been bilked by scammers and, at one time, stopped selling his original comic pages to anyone (his policy might have changed, but I don't think it has.) Steve Ditko is another who'd rather toss his pages in the garbage rather than see collectors get rich of his work.

On the other hand, without collectors there would be no demand for products like trading cards that require the work of commercial artists. No collectors = no market ... no market = no jobs. And it's fair to say that whoever is selling these cards on Ebay has a right to get whatever they can for them as long as it's all legal and above board (which the referenced Ebay auctions appear to be.)

I don't see a solution to this mess. Unless her contract demands otherwise, Zullo could always whip up a few cards and underbid these Ebay vendors right out of business. And that might be fun to watch.

(*Wow, that title sounds limiting, doesn't it? She's actually quite an accomplished artist and not the kind of person usually paid to draw guys in capes and shiny underwear.)

Arcade Flyer: TRON

It's rather amazing how much stuff that is now collectible was once considered trash.
Above is an example of this metamorphosis: a flier sent to arcade owners and managers in the early 1980s to persuade them to order Tron. These kinds of things were once tossed in the trash but have since turned into valued relics.

Back around 1984 one of the home computer systems (Atari? Intellivision? I forget which) created a joy stick for home computers modeled on Tron's arcade controller. I saw it a few times, but never managed to secure one. Depending on my mood, Tron is my absolute favorite arcade game ... other times Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong hold the top spot.

Buffy Summers is 30?

I've been re-watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer this week and noticed an interesting detail. According to her records Buffy would turn 30 this year. If she were, like, real.

If that doesn't make you feel old, the rest of Season 1 ought to do the trick. The episode I Robot, You Jane is a delightfully anachronistic look back at the Internet before anybody really knew what the hell it was. It also includes a lot of annoying "type talking." You know, when people read aloud the words they are typing on the screen, even though there's nobody there to hear them. (See also: Jumping Jack Flash starring Whoopi Goldberg.)

Buffy's relationship to the Internet doesn't get much better in later years. The show took frequent writing shortcuts by letting Willow (or whoever) pull pretty much any page from any newspaper off the web with a couple of key strokes. But I digress.

Season 1 is an interesting display of improvisation as Joss Whedon and crew figured out exactly what kind of show they were making. It's one of the best displays of "editing in motion" I've ever seen on television. Some pretty brave decisions were made to jettison characters and story arcs (The Annointed, anyone?) that were most probably dead ends, in favor of exploring new ground. The first few shows were shaky, at least in retrospect, but by the end of the season it's quickly becoming the show people fell in love with. The dialogue isn't quite up to snuff and the characters still lack the layers they developed in the second season ... but from where I am the real show is at least in sight.

UPDATE: A few episodes after I Robot, You Jane, Buffy's birthday seems to have moved ahead a year to 1981. I understand it eventually falls all the way back to 1979 at one point before returning to 1981 at a later date.

Concept Albums: Ziltoid the Omniscient

Note: Before we go any further I should warn you: there's no free music here. And by "free," I mean "illegal." Not that I'm above such things, mind you. I've spent a few minutes surfing the Rapidshare waves for not entirely legal music downloads, myself. This just doesn't happen to be one of those posts.

Concept albums can be pretty amazing. Operation Mindcrime? Imaginos? Animals? Quadrophenia? All pretty terrific.

But there are a lot of them out there that suck. The format leans heavily toward melodrama and dramatic histrionics that are the antithesis of entertainment, and many a pretentious song writer has lost themselves in quagmires of self indulgence. I think you know who I'm talking about (and there's more than one.)

Devin Townsend steered clear of all that nonsense with his 2007 release Ziltoid the Omniscient, a concept album that wraps space opera, comic books and Douglas Adams-style satire in a Jim Henson-esque aesthetic. It's hilarious, but Townsend plays it straight and doesn't skimp on the song writing.

Don't expect a lot of depth and soul searching, though. Townsend's never been the kind of guy to stare longingly into the camera and express fake sentiment for its own sake. While there's some interesting emotional moments in the music (see below) most of this is a rip-roaring adventure about an omniscient alien who declares war on Earth because he needs the planet's supply of coffee to power his time-bending hyperdrive. He also knows how to shred, but is harboring a deep secret ... he's a nerd. What's not to love?

Below is a video for one of my favorite songs on the album, Hyperdrive.

Anti Christ/Devil's Child

When I was a lad I had an uncomfortable attachment to The Omen movies. It's not something I can explain, really, but when the rest of the class was reading Beverly Clearly, I was reading David Seltzer's adaptation of his own script for The Omen (followed in short order by Joseph Howard's novel for Damien: Omen II and, later the final three Gordon McGill novels. That's not a typo.)

Here are scans of my book report for The Omen. Click on them for a closer look. Don't say I didn't warn you.

These days my feelings about the Omen movies are mixed. I won't get into the reasons why with too much detail, but will say the mythology behind the stories looks hopelessly quaint to my adult eyes. The Exorcist is a much more sophisticated story but I wouldn't see that until I was 13 (and then it was a version edited for television.)

And, for the record, I liked Beverly Clearly just fine, too.

Below is a video of Iced Earth performing their song Damien.

Hawtness.com ...

... occasionally good for something.

Every day should be Friday the 13th

If you absolutely have to go to Wal-Mart (and today I did) you might as well make it worth your while.
Today I picked up this little Friday the 13th fun pack, which they ought to sell as a bundle but don't: a DVD of Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D!) and a Jason Vorhees t-shirt. How's that for a run-on sentence?
On a side note ... see that sad, sad expression on Jason's face? That's what I usually look like when leaving Wal-Mart.

Cardboard Fett

Here a case of burying your lede: "How to make a costume cardboard helmet."
Seriously, if you've got Boba Fett in a story you put him in the headline. This is Imperial Journalism 101 stuff.

This is a link from Mark, who first came across these instructions at a German website but was kind enough to forward an English translation. Here the summary from the website:

"Helmets are usually one of the hardest and most expensive parts to make for a cool Halloween costume so here's a simple method I use. The methods I describe can be used to make almost any kind of helmet but I'm showing how to make a Star Wars Boba Fett helmet as an example."

There is a step-by-step guide at the website, as well as photos to walk you through the process. I'm not sure that I've got the patience (or skill set) to accomplish this.

Read more by clicking the quote below.

"He's no use to me dead."

Lullaby of Duckland

As I've said before (and will say again, I promise) I love Howard the Duck. It's an unreasonable and unconditional love. I even have a certain fondness for the 1986 movie and, let's face it ... it's kinda crap.

Worse, the movie's failure essentially scuttled the Duck at Marvel for a decade. Even after he began his slow emergence his appearances were scattered. You have to really be paying attention to find out he had returned, at all. I mean, really ... how many people expected to see Howard and Beverly pop up in Generation X?

The Duck has also been victim of scare reprints. The inexpensive B&W Essential trade is out of print and in its place is a color (and very expensive) omnibus edition. I'm not sure if his various other appearances (such as the Ty Templeton mini) have ever been collected.

Lost in the shuffle are the Howard the Duck newspaper strips from the 1970s. Lucky for us some diligent folks have intervened. Here is a website where you can download most (if not all) of those strips in PDF and CBR formats. Folks like Steve Gerber, Val Mayerik, Gene Colon and Paul Kupperberg contributed to these strips.

Check them out!

Blade Runner

I had a bitch of a time seeing Ridley Scott's movies as a kid.
Seriously, I could write a goddamn book on the Ullyses-like quest to see Alien. Instead I'll probably settle for a quick blogpost sometime in the near future.

Blade Runner came a little easier, but was still a challenge. I was living in England when it was released and first heard of the movie in either Starburst magazine or in a color insert in the Spider-Man Weekly TV Comic (a B&W tabloid that reprinted American Spider-Man comics.) In retrospect the Spider-Man teaser was a little inappropriate, but Warners was probably at a loss on how to market a sci-fi movie with Harrison Ford as a drunken, woman killing bounty hunter.

My first effort to see in in the theater was rebuffed at the ticket booth of the local theater in Beaconsfield. This was the theater where I saw such amazing films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Annie (f*ck you if you don't like Annie!) On one of my family's last nights in the country my father somehow got us into the much stricter-rated Creepshow (slapped with an X) but my younger brother and I couldn't get into Blade Runner by ourselves. We were too young at the time. I think the British method of rating movies has changed since 1982 but, at the time, I was 10 and couldn't BS the teller that I was actually 13. Lord knows I tried. I don't remember what we saw instead.

I wouldn't see Blade Runner for a few more years, and then it was the video version with the "added footage," a tag that didn't mean much to me because I hadn't see the theatrical cut. Between these events I busied myself with Marvel's comic adaption and the original Phillip K. Dick novel.

Here's the part that ought to earn me geek streed cred for the rest of my life: in 1982 I somehow convinced my teacher to let me stage two scenes from the movie. The comic, magazine photos and Dick's novel were my sources of reference. I found a couple of classmates to play Holden, Leon and Rachel (and cast myself as Deckard, or course) and we performed the opening "Voight Kampf" sequence and the death of Leon. Cap guns and stage blood were involved.

In you're wondering: Yes, I have problems watching Rushmore without getting weepy.

When the director's cut was released in the early 1990s I had a second chance to see Blade Runner in the theater ... and I took it. My brother and I (then adults) drove more than an hour to Charlotte, N.C., to see the movie in its only venue in the Carolinas. I recently came across my ticket stub and a newspaper clipping from the event. I have NO idea why or how I held on to these things for so long.

This just in ...

That is all.

My Unholy Robot Army

Note: I hadn't planned to post this photo for a few weeks, but Reis over at Geek Orthodox has not only been posting some great scans of vintage Star Wars iron-on transfers, but he had a few nice things to say about this site, as well. (If you're reading this there's a chance you already knew that.) Anyway, look closely at the shirt I'm wearing and you'll see the image pictured to your left, which you can find at Geek Orthodox.

— The Creep

Here's a photo of me around the age of 6, plotting my conquest of the Earth with my army of metal monsters. I had Godzilla, too, though he's not seen here. He probably didn't fit the theme, being a giant lizard and all. Never had Mazinga, though.

Quick story about that blue robot sitting next to me in the photo: I LOVED that thing, even more than the Shogun Warriors seen in this pic. It was battery operated, walked and had a built-in death ray (note: I'm totally lying about the death ray.) It also had a moving film strip with a light behind it that played in its chest as it walked. The film strip showed lots of '50s-style sci-fi imagery, the kind of things seen in movies like Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

I mention the robot in order to share this story: there were a couple of kids who lived down the street from me who I had convinced I was an alien. My evidence was this little blue robot, sent here with me to Earth to ... well, I don't think I had a backstory or a plan. I was content to be just be an alien, and the kids (named Mikey and Mindy, if I recall) bought it.

Pop Art: From my personal stash

Back in 1996, nobody gave a crap about Steve Epting. I always liked his work but had heard quite a few people disparage him over the years (mostly, I suspect, because his early stuff wasn't especially good.)

Epting developed into a great comic artist and is one of the most influential figures of the last 10 years. There's almost a cottage industry inside Marvel devoted to knocking off his style. At last year's HeroesCon his line for autographs was so long that I didn't bother trying to meet him. When I got this sketch back in 1996, though, when there were no lines.

J'onn J'onzz ... the half-elf?

I spent way too much money as a kid on role playing games.
Ordinarily, I'd probably be a little embarrassed to talk about playing something as profoundly geeky as a pencil-and-paper RPG. By itself, it's bad enough.
But if Dungeons and Dragons was the gateway drug of RPGs, then I was a full-blown crackwhore by the time I was 14 years old.
Allow me to explain.
It started around 1980 or so when I had a lot of time to kill, specifically time on the school bus. My brother and I were the first ones on the bus in the morning and the last ones off in the afternoon. On a good day we spent an hour on the bus. One way.
We weren't alone on these daily trudges and, before long, someone introduced us to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (I always thought the "Advanced" was a bit pretentious, even at the tender age of 9.) Most of these games were just excuses for the older kids to invent female characters with low standards in fashion and lower standards in men, if you catch my drift. Some of my greatest misinformation about sex came from listening in on the narratives of these games.

Anyway, I eventually created my own character, a half-elf named J'onn J'onzz ... a name I ripped off from an issue of Justice League of America because I was a raging dork. I'm much better now, thanks.
AD&D led to Star Frontiers, which lead to Star Trek, James Bond, Marvel and DC comic book roleplaying games, as well as my two favorites: Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones.

While I dearly love Ghostbusters and Indy, the real appeal of these games were their flexible rules. The Indiana Jones game from TSR let you build functional, detailed games that never got bogged down in tedious legalese like AD&D.
It was also easy to adapt those rules to other settings. Around 1988 I applied the Indiana Jones rules to a homemade Die Hard module and ran some friends through a skyscraper labyrinth full of terrorists ... all of whom proved less terrifying than my friends actually playing the game. One insisted on trying to rattle my imaginary bad guys by defiling the corpses of his enemies. And by "defiling" I mean pretty much what you think I mean.
Ghostbusters, on the other hand, had no rules. In the RPG world it was the equivalent of the old Batman TV show with Adam West. It was just an excuse to have fun. But I think I'll save commentary of that terrific game for another post.

Roofies Not Included

Ever notice how many ads in old comics were devoted to separating women from their clothes? Or, in this case, offering "hypnotic aids" to help men commit sexual assault? I wonder how many times these ads were used in legal defenses ... the old "I didn't think she'd remember so it should be OK" argument favored by fratboys the world over.

The fact that these kinds of products aren't more disturbing is, in itself, disturbing.

TRON Trailer Countdown!

The Tron Legacy Facebook Fan Page isn't a total waste of time. In fact, they're actually publishing a new images from the upcoming movie every day this week, leading up to the debut of the first official trailer.

Check it out here.

If you'd told me 10 years ago that my most anticipated films of 2010 would star Robert Downey Jr and Mickey Rourke and/or included a Tron sequel, I'd have laughed in your face. Because I can be an insensitive asshole.

In the meantime, look at these Tron goodies recently scooped up by Reis O'Brien over at Geek Orthodox.

DRUNK HULK OKAY TO DRIVE!

Is it sad that some of my favorite Twitterers don't really exist?
Among my favorites is Drunk Hulk, who tends to shoot his mouth off after he's had a few. Here's a sample:

YOU DRINK LIKE DRUNK HULK IF YOU HEAR SAD PIANO MUSIC EVERY TIME YOU WALK DOWN STREET!

AVATAR IN 4D IN KOREA! FOR FIRST TIME! LUCKY VIEWER ABLE TO WALK THROUGH PLOT HOLE!

Ah, Drunk Hulk. I hope you never sober up.

Stickers of Fury

I'm not sure where these little babies came from, but they're awesome.
Below is a download file for a number of Bruce Lee stickers showing him at various stages in his career (thought I don't see Kato.) They might be bootlegs, they might be official — given the presence of images from Game of Death, they were most certainly created posthumously.

Thanks to the obsessive (and inherently archival) nature of the Internet, these stickers can now be yours. Above is a small version of all SIX PAGES of stickers found in a PDF file, which you can download below. The images in the PDF were super-high resolution and ought to reproduce well, if you're into that kind of thing. My favorite? The magenta cartoon embedded at your left. It would make a great tattoo.

DOWNLOAD

Pop Art? Not exactly

While rummaging through some old boxes I recently came across a collection of book reports written when I was about 8 years old. Most of the reports were two pages, one written and the other illustrated. These are monstrously embarrassing on every imaginable level, so my first instinct was to post them on the Internet. That's the rule, right?

Looking back on some of these book reports I recognized a few desperate attempts at bullshit. A few were written using only info from the back cover of the book and appear to have been hastily completed at the last minute. It didn't appear to have affected the grades any. Thank god for teachers with drinking problems!

Above is the art for my report on Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Though I was only 8, I was drawing at the level of a really smart 4 year old. And I had a way with hands and feet that was positively Liefeld-esque.

I've got a few others to share in coming weeks, including a book report on The Omen. It ought to disturb and delight. Those were my feelings when I re-read it, anyway.

National Lampoon's "Radio Dinner" (1972)

Here's an early album from National Lampoon: RADIO DINNER.

The cast and crew of National Lampoon was an amazing pool of talent in the early 1970s. When Lorne Michaels was building the show that would become Saturday Night Live, Lampoon was one of his two favored groups from which to poach (Second City was the other.) Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Gilda Radner were part of National Lampoon before SNL.

Appearing on this album are future SNL alumni Christopher Guest and Michael O'Donoghue (who, along with Michaels and Chevy Chase was one of the three real masterminds of SNL) and Tony Hendra (of Spitting Image and This is Spinal Tap.)

This is an album rip, complete with pops and occasional scratches.

DOWNLOAD

Elektra

So, I was watching the 2005 movie Elektra the other night ...

It had been a while since I'd seen it and my memories of the film were vague. Critics and fans were repelled by it, but I don't remember being especially offended.

But I also don't remember liking it much, either.

I came across a super-cheap DVD of the director's cut recently and thought I'd give it another spin. The elements I liked the first time still held up, particularly the photography and overall look of the film.

The film has the ambiance of a '60s European action film and earthy supernatural elements that set the film apart from Marvel's other productions. The decision to move the character to a rural setting for most of the story was also ballsy move.
Though there are a few splashes of red here and there, most of the movie is colored in stark greens and blacks. On screen, Jennifer Garner looks like a living silhouette. Even when standing in broad daylight she looks like nothing less than a shadow.

Elektra looks and feels nothing like any other "superhero" film released ... well, ever.



But the movie's problems undermine all the elements that could have made this film special. Halfway through my most recent viewing I found I'd stopped paying attention. The set pieces became increasingly mundane; most of the villains were just put through the predictable "fight/defeat" rhythm of a video game (a problem shared by the Ghost Rider movie.)

As Elektra dropped a falling tree on one of the bad guys I asked myself "If this wasn't based on characters from Daredevil, would I care?"

The answer was "No." If this didn't have ties to comics I already loved I doubt this movie would ever have registered with me. It might even be one of those cases where the movie's ties to a comic was actually a hindrance, where efforts to remain (even peripherally) faithful to the comic character kept the story from going in more dangerous - and interesting - directions.

Technically, it's not a terrible film. The physical aspects are well crafted but, as a story, Elektra fails. It has a lot going for it, particularly a strong female protagonist with very real, easily relatable problems. It's just a shame they couldn't have found a better story to insert her into.

Dave Sim draws Howard the Duck

I've got a special fondness from the various B&W comic magazine published in the 1970s/early 80s.
I've love bronze age comics in general, and the magazines published during those years were the bronziest of the bronze (yes, bronziest is now a real word. I insist.) Without the comics code in place writers and artists were allowed to go kind of crazy. I mean, Marvel was reprinting Cheech Wizard strips in Epic Magazine. Cheech-fucking-Wizard. I'm going to shed a tear just thinking about those days.



For reasons I've never seen explained, Howard the Duck jumped from a monthly color comic to a less-regular B&W magazine. It wasn't exactly a glowing success. I've talked to a few guys over the years (including an artist who contributed to the B&W magazine and other Marvel titles) who blamed the uneven quality of the Howard the Duck magazine on editor Lynn Graeme.
And the magazine was a mess ... but what a great mess it was.
In addition to the regular artists of Gene Colon, Michael Golden and Marshall Rogers were contributions from such guys as John Byrne, Howard Chaykin, Steven Grant and Bob McLeod. There was also some flirtation with nudity in the magazine (as well as in Savage Sword of Conan) that did not last long and was never mentioned again. I can only guess Stan Lee wasn't amused.
Above is a frontspiece from the Howard the Duck magazine drawn by Dave Sim. I think it's pretty great.

A Naked Star Wars Christmas: 1979

You know it's a good Christmas when you can't be bothered to put on pants.
I spared you the full monty, but I'm the kid in his underdrawers in the bottom left-hand corner. My dad is putting together a Star Wars playset for me; my brother is in the background with his face pressed into a ViewMaster. My mom's behind the camera, naturally.

To the Batpoles!

And you thought the casting director of Captain America had problems? Try casting the Batman XXX porno "parody."
Once the lawyers figured out the proper loopholes to exploit the floodgates opened on the concept of Porn Parody. In the last few years we've seen well-financed parodies of The Munsters, Three's Company and 30 Rock. Next up? Batman. But you probably already figured that out.
Considering the various copyright issues with the characters, I can't even imagine who would be the first to try to sue over a venture like this. The ironic thing is that copyright issues are still preventing the original 1960s series from being released on DVD. Go figure.
The photos embedded here have been leaked by various cast members via Twitter over the last week or so. There appears to be some inconsistency in the designs. That, or there are two very similar films currently being shot.

A Muppet Wicker Man

This is pretty awesome: a B&W online comic that puts the cast of The Muppet Show into the classic horror film The Wicker Man. I'm speechless. And not that kind of "speechless" where someone says "I'm speechless" and then proceeds to write another 300 words.

Word of warning: the embedded comic includes scenes of Miss Piggy in the buff.

Click the "comic" below to read it fullscreen.

Pop Art: From my personal stash

Here's an older one: Barnabas Collins by Casey Jones. If I remember correctly this was drawn back at the Charlotte HeroesCon in 1994 on the same day as my Judge Dredd sketch.