The kid really said, "Uh-- New Amsterdam"

My version is more accurate.

Key Comics #4 (May 1946).

Mighty Magic Wiz

Who had the creepier era in the 1960s, England or America?

Diana #235 (August 1967).

Sup

You're too late, ROM!

Day late and a dollar short. That's what I get for sending a cyborg to do a Sleestak's job.

The Eye of Odin explains the Christmas miracle

In The Mighty Thor #293 (March 1980) the malevolent Eye of Odin, cast into a magical well by its previous owner as part of a bargain to gain knowledge imparts some forgotten Asgardian history upon Thor. In a several issues long story that covers several mythological epics the Eye tells the Thunder God about the Cycle of Ragnarok, that the destruction of the Norse pantheon is a recurring and not a singular event. Along the way, the Eye of Odin tangentially reveals the true story behind the miracle of Christmas.

You know, I'm going to make a point of insisting that the fabled Star of Bethlehem was actually the burning ruins of Asgard in any of my future discussions of religion. No reason one myth can't be grafted onto another.

Terminator: Babe-O-Rama

In a bleak, post-Apocalyptic future mankind is on the brink of extinction. The machines rose from the ashes of atomic Armageddon. Their war to exterminate mankind had raged for decades. Nuclear fires rage across half the North American continent. The sky is dark with ash.

Terrible, thinking machines called Terminators hunt without mercy the pitiful remnants of humanity. The people the Terminators kill immediately are the lucky ones. Those that survive being captured are made into slaves and when their usefulness is ended, fed into ravenous incinerators to serve as fuel for nightmarish factories.

And yet in this horrible, dying future one woman looks fan-freaking-tastic.

That woman is Tara, the wife of destined savior of humanity, John Connor. Squalid living conditions, high background radiation count, rampant disease, lack of clean water and malnutrition have had no deleterious effect on her magnificent, giant, firm breasts and awesome hair. Tara's smooth, clean and finely toned body are nothing less than a sexy, totally bad-ass shout of defiance against mankind's tireless enemies, who are clearly cool (being Terminators and all) but are not really intended to be fanboy fantasy material. We should all look that good during present day.

If Skynet sent the Terminators back in time to kill the creators of the panty before they were born then they apparently failed, so it's heartening to see that after nuclear Armageddon hot, hot, hot Uber-babes will wear thongs into battle against killer cyborgs. Because sexy underthings will recruit more humans into the Resistance than any old speech by John Connor.

From Terminator: Revolution #1 (2009).

Stand Down

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, 1932-2008.

Sorry, Kids!

No presents this year.


Santa's autopsy from Bones (Season 3).

Posed by professional models

Man to Man (1954).

More Techno-Scat

There's Techno-Scat.

And then there's Techno-Scat.

Ice Pirates (1984).

Greatest rough-country vehicle ever built

From the November 1950 Boys' Life story Satellite Scout. Written by Robert A. Heinlein. Art by Reynold Brown.

Waste lots, want not

As consumers people are getting used to the increasing amount of advertising that appears next to, above and even on the products they buy and they are getting good at ignoring the information overload. It is also that after each purchase the customer is bombarded with one last plea to get their money before they leave the register by the use of secondary printers on each check stand that spit out coupons and advertisements shortly before they receive their receipt.

While sometimes as annoying as those subscription cards in magazines at least coupons have the possibility that it might be recycled in some manner when the offered discount causes a customer to return and buy the featured item. What is maddening is the increase in useless advertising that prints out along with and sometimes in lieu of coupons.

Once items are scanned at a register the coupons and ads begin to print out. In conjunction with a discount card that identifies the shopper targeted discounts and coupons will be applied and printed. But there are failures in the system. Ads, often duplicates of two or more, will print out promoting the very same product the customer just purchased. Considering how intimately the buying habits of each customer are tracked the seeming randomness of the advertising is causing a consumer backlash. The message is getting drowned in a sea of junk spam at the register. Additionally, the coupon dispenser beeps with false error messages that prompts the cashier and customer to pay attention to the device and printing ads. While the false error tone is intended to signal the end of the coupons being dispensed the real result is that the public is being desensitized by "false negatives" and are ignoring the messages altogether.

The coupons and ads have become such an annoyance that by the end of a shift each cashier has a full trash can of strips of paper the customers refused to accept. The avalanche of ads and coupons are the treeware version of email spam. Most customers just leave the junk print outs behind. Many cashiers act as content filters for the spam by sorting and applying to the purchases only those print outs that are immediately useful such as cash back or used to get a discount during the purchase for items they are buying. While the intended use of the coupons and ads are to get return business, customers appreciate more receiving an instant discount than a ream of useless paper they will never use on their next shopping trip.

Other than the annoyance of the ads and coupons that often print out during each transaction the spamming of a shopper shows how much lip service some companies pay to being "green". Not to suggest that the two companies in the advertising examples above are not fully committed to managing their use of the environment wisely. The coupons are printed out via a service they subscribe to in order to make consumers aware of their products and discounts. However, any company committed to being "green" should be responsible enough to be aware of just how much waste is generated by their vendors and affiliates.

Just think, if just one 6-inch ad is printed out during each transaction, times 3000 customers a day at each store, times 2400 stores nation-wide that is...Well, someone else can do the math. That's the result of waste from just from one company. That is a lot of paper. That much waste seems not only criminal, but sinful as well.

Kingdom Come climax?

I have not been following the forums, blogs and previews close enough to know what is going to happen to the Kingdom Come Superman when the Magog storyline concludes in JSA but when I read this page from the January 2009 (JSA #21) issue...


I thought of this scene from the May 1975 issue of Kamandi #29 being a possible finale to the story.

Volcanic!

Silver Screen Magazine (April 1951)

Often websites with content that consists mainly of a couple of cool daily pictures or two are thought of as being managed by the lazy. Sometimes that is true. More often than not though what is perceived as the hastily posted picture is actually the result of extended periods of research and editing.

Long hours wandering flea markets and swap meets for old magazines and then sitting in front of a keyboard or scanner are required to find nifty pictures for all those disposable posts. Also, many of the online resources for images are posted "as is" and the yellowed, torn or stained pages usually need cleaning up if you are the type who want to regurgitate a cool image and post a unique and interesting scan.

All that work and time spent results in a quick image post on a site or forum that is dismissed by readers during their hit and run newsreader browsing. The "placeholder" image posts are usually part of a cycle of diminishing returns for the blogger. The entries are swiftly forgotten and other than for the love of it, there is little to be gained by the single image post other than to let a reader know the owner of the site hasn't died or lost interest in blogging all together. There are exceptions, of course. Mike Sterling could make a career on posting nothing but images of Chalk Thing, Percy Trout is in a semi-NSFW league by himself, Bully laboriously researches his Ten of a Kind covers and the Fail Blog definition of failure is vague enough that their will always be enough content available for the site.

What was challenging about repairing the Bird of Paradise advertisement poster is that the duo-tone image contains artistic layers of mist that serve to aid a gradual transition through multiple scenes. Interestingly, some of the wear and tear of the ink and paper created effects that unintentionally added to the misty, tropical atmosphere of the poster.

I couldn't tell in a few places where the ink ended and the scuffing began when I cleaned up the image but I'm pleased with the results as the artifacts of damage and age of the the paper added to the overall artistic effects.

And in another instant...

Wynken, Blynken and Zod

Wynken, Blynken, and Zod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe. Sailed on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?" The old Moon asked the three.

"Revenge! We will kill the son of our jailer! Come to we, son of Jor-El! Kneel before Wynken, Blynken and Zod!"

While many of you reading this blog undoubtedly have lives that routinely lead you to sobbing relentlessly, howling your grief into the night until exhaustion pulls you into fitful unconsciousness, I quite often laugh (or at least giggle) myself to sleep.

The laughter isn't the shrieking, maniacal cackle of the unhinged, but rather a gentle chuckle that goes off and on for a few minutes before slumber. It annoys the wife greatly. I keep telling her it is just relief, the release of stresses at the end of the day as I finally relax, but it drives her crazy.

Is that weird? Am I the only one who giggles themselves to sleep? I can't believe I am the only one.

Saga of the Bush Thing

22 lines about 1 MP3 player

1. Night is draggin' her feet, I wait alone in the heat.
2. I try to discover a little something to make me sweeter.
3. On the way up North, up on the Ventura.
4. Trees swayin' in the summer breeze, showing off their silver leaves.
5. Has anybody seen my old friend Abraham, can anyone tell me where he's gone?
6. I was the third brother of five, doing what I had to do to survive.
7. Adia I do believe I failed you.
8. I know you wanna leave me but I refuse to let you go.
9. This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice.
10. What else should I be? All apologies.
11. I said "Go if you wanna go, stay if you wanna stay".
12. Everybody all around the world, gotta tell you what I just heard
13. Come on, Babe. Why don't we paint the town?
14. I am through with hangin' 'round all the boys in town.
15. Why dont you stop and look me over?
16. A long, long time ago...I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.
17. And she was lying in the grass and she could hear the highway breathing.
18. Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful as that of the rain-soaked purple of the white birch in spring?
19. The case was pulled from under the bed. She made a call to a sympathetic friend and made arrangements.
20. Do you remember a guy that's been in such an early song, I've heard a rumor from ground control.
21. [Guitar instrumental].
22. Now the party´s over, I'm so tired. Then I see you coming out of nowhere.

First lines from the first 22 songs on my MP3 player.

World-Wide Dope, Inc.

True Crime (May 1956).

Johnny was an honorable man

Young Love #4 (August 1949).

Journey to the Sun

Looking back, comic books had less of an impact towards my fascination of science fiction than my reading material of today would indicate. It was traditional literature that kick-started my fascination with science fiction. Television and film certainly had an influence (2001 blew me away) but the parents were big on books and encouraged reading. One old folk tale in particular had a huge impact on me.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury was one of the first books I can recall reading that really got me interested in Science Fiction. The late 60s and early 70s were a boom time for publishers as they filled racks with inexpensive content collected from the pulps of decades past. A new generation of readers, particularly college kids, were exposed to authors, their ideas and work that had not been available since they were first published years prior in the Pulp and SF magazines. Much of the work was actually simplistic, cliched and reflected the era and market in which they were written, but fancy new pop-art covers helped sales and the wonderfully archaic stories seemed prescient in their descriptions of Utopian and Dystopian futures. But I didn't know all that and didn't care. I just thought it was cool there was so much "new" SF on the market.

I voraciously read any SF book I could find at the local library. Many of the books I found were old cloth-covered volumes from the 1940s and 10950s that in the early 1970s were still on library shelves, held in some sort of stasis waiting for a reader to thaw them out. Back before computerized systems library books were tracked by a card in an envelope found on the inside front cover. This card was stamped in ink letting the borrower know when it was due back. I often checked out a book based on how long it had been languishing on a shelf and enjoyed being the one who discovered a story that hadn't been read in twenty years.

Eventually the need for more input led to a more intense appreciation of television and film. Star Trek (in syndication at the time) was watched not because I thought it particularly brilliant or even good but because any science fiction was better than none at all. The same reasoning applied to the Irwin Allen shows that were were never missed, though their campy stories were often disappointing. The old monster, horror and SF movies on Los Angeles channel 5 and San Diego channel 6 always had me tuned in. Johnny Quest was the best science fiction-based cartoon ever.

But there is one comic book story that had turned me toward science fiction more than any other and was always remembered of fondly. That story was Journey to the Sun and it appeared in an anthology of funny animal tales published by Gold Key comics in 1970. From a notice on the title page of the story, Journey to the Sun was presumably originally published somewhere by the Whitman company sometime around 1961, though I can find no information for it actually being published anywhere prior to 1970. It may have been a "trunk" story, printed as educational school material or existed in some other form. Golden Comics Digest #12 could even be the first printing of the story. It is possible. The story is an odd inclusion along side the other tales of ducks, rabbits and boxing roosters.

Journey to the Sun was a tale about a scientific expedition to the center of the solar system. The story is of situational drama common to the the early Silver Age after the Comics Code Authority throttled most over-the-top creativity. During the trip to the Sun disaster strikes the expedition multiple times, threatening the mission. It is only through creative ingenuity and teamwork that the lives of the crew is spared and the mission is accomplished. Yet in spite of the questionable science, outdated characterization and educational message the story had me enthralled. A crew was sent into space on a trip to the Sun not to save the Earth from a supernova or keep Mercury from crashing into Venus thereby destabilizing planetary orbits but rather to get a close up look at the Sun and report home! Nothing but science! For a kid raised on the NASA missions it was a fascinating and fun story that I never forgot. When I saw that comic book digest on a rack with other periodicals at a local supermarket I had to have it, just because of the space station on the cover.

Interestingly the story contains one of the odd conceits of speculative space travel of the 1950s, that trips into the cosmos would be undertaken by the Average Joe. From a generation that grew up in a war time environment creators often applied what they new of group dynamics to their work. Often that dynamic reflected their military experience from World War Two and Korea. Space ship crews were often depicted as being similar to that of a military squadron common to the Army or Navy. An officer or two would lead the ship and the crew consisted of grunts who were supposedly highly-trained astronauts who nonetheless performed menial tasks that would be familiar to any camp-dweller and even pulled a form of KP when they misbehaved. This parallel can be observed in its most popular form in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

Journey to the Sun is uncredited and I have no idea who wrote, inked or colored the story and I am unable to locate much information concerning its publishing history. Since a lot of early comic book work was considered disposable (even by the creative teams) and many works remain unidentified it is possible that only the creators or their families will be able to fill in the blanks at this point. While my eye for identifying creators is not as good as it once was the panel layouts and style are familiar. As far as I can tell the pencil art in Journey to the Sun was accomplished by comic book and newspaper strip veteran Lee Elias but it could have been done by Milton Caniff or even Jim Aparo for all I know. Many of the panels appear to contain the work of different styles, particularly the facial expressions, though this could be the work of the inker. The similarities and differences to Elias' style can be seen in the example panels from All Star Comics and JttS. If someone could help confirm the artist or artists that would be groovy.

Golden Comics Digest #12 is one of those things from my childhood that I always keep an eye out for. Now that I am in the nostalgic phase of my life I managed to find a good copy and purchased it for myself. The story is exactly as I remember it and is a nice representation of the kind of tale that populated comic books of the era. It is a bit more realistic in execution than the other science fiction-oriented situational dramas like Space Museum that appeared in the DC anthology.

So enjoy a piece of my childhood and read Journey to the Sun from Golden Comics Digest #12 (August 1970). It is a slideshow, but a reader can make it larger and view individual pages at full size by clicking on the links.

Journey to the Sun

Hayley can haz cheeseburger?

Found via the new LIFE photo archive hosted by Google.

For us comic book geeks only

I didn't get the point of this...

Until I saw this...

Then it all made sense.

Steely Gaze

Col. White of the television series Captain Scarlet (1967).

Color Clues!

Here is a little arts and crafts project for all you fashion-conscious gals!

Click the picture to print and create your own ethnocentric personal rainbow! Show your work.

Hi-School Romance #11 (October 1951).

Questions that need answers

1) What was the name of the science fiction film that featured a couple of hostile aliens found on the moon, one of which looked like a drag-strip racing timing light and the other a floating leathery sphere that ate astronauts?   
OK! Found it! Mission Mars (1968).

2) What was the comic strip in Boy's Life magazine (I'm confident the strip is not The Tripods or Space Conquerors) that featured a stranded astronaut and his savage companion? 
Ok! It was a version of Al Stenzel's Space Conquerors. Long-running series that changed over the decades. The one I was familiar with featured Kurt and Primo as the astronaut and the native, respectively.

3) Was that really Patrick Swazye dancing in the Stevie Nicks Stand Back video?

4) What issue of an adult magazine is this from?

5) What old comic book is it that has on the cover two hillbillies carrying a pig between them? 
Answer: Red Seal #16.

6) What Uncle Scrooge story had him putting all his money in a rolling bank vault so the Beagle Boys couldn't steal it?

7) Who wrote and drew Journey to the Sun? 
Answer: I thought it was Lee Elias but this commenter is reporting it to be Ray Bailey.

8) What ad featuring Kelly LeBrock did this image originate from?

9) What does the design on Kono's jacket mean? 
Ok! I'm hearing it was an apology from the artist over some work he used as inspiration.


10) Who is the cartoonist who drew Otto Look?

11) Looking for an original item or good photo/scan of a 1980s t shirt design "The Assassination of Garfield the Cat". If you see it you'll know it.

12)  Who is the man profiled in the 3rd newspaper?

Gods of the Puppets

Fighting Tigress

Get small

Fantastic Voyage (1966).

Teddy Boys vs Gang Boys

True Crime (May 1956).

At the Island of Madness

Other than The Land of The Lost I failed to enjoy a lot of the Krofft television programs mainly due to my age. I was just a bit too old for most of them and the stories were really aimed at an audience several years before my time. My sister, being younger, loved nearly every show they made and the tube was usually reserved for her on Saturday mornings. One show she enjoyed more than I was H. R. Pufnstuf.

While Sid & Marty have always denied the show was one big drug reference (except for the occasional joke) it really did come out as nothing more than an acid trip for kiddies. Each week the Brothers Krofft would take you on a magic carpet ride that alternated between groovy, psychedelic delight and the unbridled terror of a bad flashback. The setting of the show was in a fantastic place called Living Island, where everything was alive, intelligent and anthropomorphic. The rocks, trees, houses, air and in fact any object you could imagine were all animate, awkwardly staggering and shuffling around the landscape. The citizens of the island displayed irredeemably evil or benevolent traits, presumably depending on the quality of the trip the production crew were having that day.

Performer and child star Jack Wild played Jimmy, a boy marooned on the island through the machinations of an evil witch. Each week Jimmy would attempt to escape the island with his friend Freddy, a magic, talking flute coveted by the witch. Jack was was the star of the show and he could sing and dance up a storm. There are a few tunes he performed that I can still remember and they rise to the surface every now and then like the songs from School House Rock are wont to do. While Jack looked okay to me then, another examination by my adult eyes reveals the harsh toll being a child star can be. In many scenes he does not look all that well and often appeared exhausted.

In the episode Book, Flute & Candle (Originally broadcast November 15, 1969) Jimmy is running from the witch after an attack on the peaceful settlement tended by Mayor Pufnstuf (a dragon whose name may have been inspired by the Peter, Paul and Mary tune Puff the Magic Dragon). Lost in the dark forest with the magic flute, Jimmy is attacked by the living trees and mushrooms that serve the witch.

The forest scene from that episode embedded here is pure nightmare fuel the terrifying World of Sid & Marty Lovekrofft. The pitiful, mournful cries for assistance by one of the victims is horrifying. Book, Flute & Candle is a perfect example of a show geared toward children that make you wonder what the producers were thinking. I can't imagine any child of 1969 that didn't scream themselves awake for a month after seeing this.

Decades have passed and my sister still won't knowingly eat mushrooms.

Angela Bomb

Angela Davis from the cover of International Times #132 (May 1972). Artist unknown.

This is a cool graphic from an old UK magazine that I cleaned up a bit to remove the streaks and whatnot though I kept the color scheme. The image is amazingly cool but is a good example how protest art and the subject can be problematic.

TRITTSYC TBBT

The Big Bang Theory is one of my favorite "fish out of water" shows. The nerdy, strange character of Sheldon has quickly become the primary focus of the show as each episode spotlights his increasingly bizarre behavior.

I don't know how long the stories can continue by spending all their time on Sheldon as his actions can get annoying very fast. Each episode tries to top the previous one in strange personality quirks, but he is clearly the stand out character of the group. The writers are on something of a roll so lets see how long it lasts.

One of the pluses of the show is the "Sam and Diane" situation was dealt with fairly quickly between the very distracting Penny and hapless Leonard (who as an adult still has not accepted his innate outcastiness). I usually find something to laugh at in every episode.

But geek humor can be infuriating, particularly when the writers get it wrong or wield it with sledgehammer subtlety. I can't help but think if Sheldon Cooper was a true comic book fan he would be wearing a TRITTSYC t-shirt. I was this close to having one made and sending it to the producers in the hope that the actor would wear it in an episode but I realized I wasn't hopeless and insane and stopped myself.

Also I don't know his size.

More Lost thoughts

Several years ago I was watching a film with several friends. The film was not that great and was kind of silly, but it had a few funny moments. Not many directors can do drug humor effectively for the non-using viewers and his previous films were far superior to this effort. In one scene when a particular character was introduced my friends and I got the pop-culture reference right away and even chuckled a bit. Then a few minutes later when the joke was repeated for those that were slow or of a different generation I knew something was horribly wrong.

"OH, CRAP!"

"What's wrong?"

"He's going to be in the movie. Oh, no. Oh, crap. This is bad."

"What movie?"

I was right. Within a year Ferrell's name was being thrown about with increasing frequency as a possible lead in a Land of the Lost film. One argument for why Ferrell would be "great" for the role of Will Marshall was because he had curly hair like Spencer Millligan! What?

I have speculated that even back then the MW&H name-dropping was not a coincidence and Ferrell likely had an idea that he would have been attached to a future project based on the television show. If that was not the case and it was just a humorous happenstance, then millions of dollars have been invested and an entire motion picture franchise owes its existence to an obscure throw-away joke from a film about profane weed-smokers.

There are less compelling and auspicious reasons to bring a film to the screen and attach a star to a project, I'm sure, but I'd be hard-pressed to fund one. My problems with the idea of the film stems from being a fan of the SF elements of the television show who would like to see the source material go in another direction. I don't want to see an expanded children's show, which is what it appears the Ferrell version will be leaning towards. Land of the Lost is going to be a family film and by all accounts the story will pretty much parallel the recent Journey to the Center of the Earth. Imagine instead if the source material was treated as a cross between Alien and Jurassic Park? That's at least ten years of good franchise money right there.

I hope the film does well and isn't going to be as bad as I think it will be but Ferrell's involvement and the tailoring of the subject material to meet his wacky comedic style does not bode well for an enduring franchise.

More on that damn picture

Even if Will Farrell wasn't attached to the Land of the Lost film I expect it to be mediocre at best. All the clue you need is in this publicity still that was released to show, presumably, how kewl an army of Sleestak are.

But I dread this scene by what it represents in the story and it is probably typical of the type of situational gags that will permeate the entire film. From this one photo I can predict with confidence the scene will go something like this:

The New Three Stooges (Disco Stu, Dumbass and Cutie) will be exploring some sort of temple when they are menaced by a gaggle of Sleestak. Frightened, they turn away and head for an exit only to be confronted by another group of hissing creatures. At this point Ferrell will probably make a noise similar to one made by either Curly or Lou Costello when frightened and the trio will turn as one and head in a third direction. The scene gag ends when MW&H meet the Boss Sleestak or some long-lost guy pretending to be the Sleestak God or something.

Ugh.

I'm only speculating but that particular gag will be done at least twice and possibly three times including the reveal of the antagonist, but due to time constraints probably won't be pushed to four times. The villain will inevitably have to appear just then to stop the Sleestaks from tearing MW&H to chewy bits. Interestingly, if the gag was pushed to five times then it might actually be a funny bit, since the group of explorers would be so scared they would attempt to flee through an exit they had already tried.

If I want "funny" Land of the Lost, I'll watch Bubble Boy.

The World of Sid & Marty Lovekrofft

Thanks to the sick feeling of doom I'm experiencing from reading all the Land of the Lost movie news, S&M has been in my mind more than usual of late. I've been thinking about the Sid & Marty Krofft characters all day. I hated that one show about the sea monsters because it was stupid and featured the annoying Johnny Winters. My sister liked it, but looking at it in adult terms it becomes terrifying. I don't know what seaside town Johnny and his pals lived in but I bet it was either Santa Carla or Innsmouth.

Introducing the Sleestak High-Steppers

Maybe catering to the Hannah Montana/High School Musical demographic by featuring a big Bob Fosse-inspired song and dance number performed by tap-dancing Sleestaks in the upcoming Land of the Lost film isn't the best way to fill the seats of a movie theater.

Looking at this picture I can envision fifty Sleestaks hissing in harmony while they tap their way down the steps:

LOST! Where we are...we haven't a clue!

LOST! Ohhhh, you are too!

Baby, I don't want to be lost with anyone but you!

Marshall, Will and Holly are not even related in this version? Way to lose the dynamic, guys. Anna Friel is cast not as daughter Holly, but the love interest? Sorry, but I won't be able to get over the familiar expectation of the three of them being father, son and daughter in my mind. But that would be an entirely different film. I like Anna Friel but I just don't see any sexual tension there with Ferrell. I would put forth the only sexual tension Ferrell generates is between him and the audience waiting for him to screw up a scene.

I've been waiting years for a hard SF cinema version of the classic show and I guess this isn't it. I honestly hope I'm wrong but the more I hear and read about this project the less confidence I have in it. Guess I'll be waiting for a long, long time for a reboot once this Will Ferrell vehicle bombs science fiction cinema back to the stone age and ties up the licensing and rights for another decade or two.

On the bright side the Sleestak High-Steppers would totally own their interpretation of Steam Heat.

Concede?

With the recent election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States, many real Americans for America have been asking when I will be conceding the race.

Concede? There is nothing to concede. Many people forget that I have access to amazing technology that allows not only journeys to alternate universes but the ability to travel through time as well.

To suggest that I have "lost" my bid to be President of the United States of America is to ignore the Krofftian resources that I can avail of myself of by a simple visit to the Hayley Mills Celebratory Complex Research and Development warehouses located here in sunny San Diego.

As the ultimate beltway outsider (watching tragedy unfold in this universe on a screen from my home dimension) what was made clear to me was that change was needed. It was obvious that inaction and apathy was dangerous. The work of many players was needed to avoid a terrible future that would rival the downfall of my own people. I could not allow America, and by extension the world, likewise descend into primitive, superstitious and warring tribes as my once enlightened race did. I have seen the futures and they were terrible indeed.

Manipulating events is much simpler on a grand scale than it is to manipulate people. Except for Monkerstein. That was so easy it was embarrassing. Not that the bad guys didn't try to accomplish both. Fortunately, while most people do not succumb to fear and ignorance there are enough who will not light a candle and instead prefer to cower in darkness and gather many around them, to huddle in caves and hide from the light. But many people, canines, frogs and simians and even the inanimate did their part by lifting torches over the land. They sensed that by not moving forwards we would all be taking giant steps backwards. True Americans for Americans could not tolerate such Non-American behavior.

Many entered the race for President. Others supported them. Encouraged in part by their bravery against impossible odds an unprecedented number of people became involved in guiding their own future, all wielding a tiny bit of influence on their surroundings. It was a good fight. One that we won. The anti-progressives tried to re-write the commandments and carved over two hundred of them, not in stone, but the bony, bleached skulls of our founding fathers. Alone, we accomplished little. Yet as the flap of a butterfly's wings can change the weather, how the stupidest movie star can occasionally say something wise and the way that very special issue of Teen Titans featuring Starfire helped crush Apartheid all those hats tossed into the ring disturbed the air enough to create a mighty storm.

Nothing was "lost". It has all gone according to plan.

Irresistible Savage

Romantic Movie Stories (July 1936).

An LTMS Milestone

Sometime on November 4th, 2008 I received the one millionth visitor to my site. Since I started keeping track it took about two years to reach that visitor mark (what Bully and Zaius regularly refer to as Tuesday). Not bad for a site that is the digital equivalent of gum on your shoe.

Futura - Chapter 8

Hard to believe time went by so quickly and my last Futura entry was in August! The reason for the delay was two back up drive crashes losing all my data and a flip-flopping work schedule. Rebuilding all the files was time-consuming. It is bad enough to do it once, but then to have the new replacement drive also fail was a bit much, so I let a lot of things sit around for a while. Fortunately I managed to save much of my Futura stuff and what I couldn't recover I found on line, in varied forms of quality, so I'll continue the series.

Planet Comics #50 (September 1947) is where things take a turn for the simplistic creatively and the story kind of loses direction. The dream-like quality of the Futura Saga is emphasized over the next several issues keeping with the premise put forth in the premiere story even as the content artistically begins to parallel the quality typical to the perceived disposable comic book entertainment of the era.

Enjoy!