The day FRANK avoided his BOSS

FRANKLAZY BASTARD

World of Mystery #4 (Dec 1956).

Green Lantern movie review

Didn't hate it. Which is probably the most I can hope for in a super-hero movie, that it isn't too terrible.

Anyway, here's a piece of art copyright Fred Hembeck featuring Nova kicking Hal's butt, originally from RBCC #150 (1978).

Hmm. This art needs a script...

Panel 1: "Hey, Ring Slinger Lad! What's this about you hitting on my girl Ginger? She's only 16!"

Panel 2: "She looks 28!"

Panel 3: "Eat Nova-fist, jerk! Eat it through your heart!"

Panel 4: "Daddy!"

Yeah. That was more fun than the movie.

Code Name: Gilda

I've had the phrase 'Weaponized Bio-Whore' stuck in my brain for weeks and finally photoshopped it out of my head where it can cease wreaking havoc on my gray cells. This must be what Ellis, Morrison and Moore feel like sometimes.

Take me to...Teen Street!

As part of the Disney marketing machine supporting the film In Search of the Castaways starring Maurice Chevalier and Hayley Mills, 1962 also saw the release of the elder and younger star hosting a concept album called Teen Street. Featuring a romance theme the idea behind Teen Street was that teenagers are not only the same all over the world but similar from one generation to the next. The album is a bit myopic culturally and has the standard Disney idealization of what life is like.

The album showcases established recording stars like Disney-staple Annette Funicello and relatively unknown performers getting some exposure that is surely low-risk to the studio. Billy Storm and Gary Shortall both have some good entries to the album. Annette Funicello and the Sylte Sisters add no surprises with entries pretty typical for the young teen market sought by Disney. One song listeners may take exception with is The Wildest as sung by Shortall (22:02). While not his fault the tune sounds so derivative of Dion's The Wanderer that lawyers for the Laurie label must have been high-fiving each other for months after the release, assuming Gary U.S. Bonds didn't have his people all over it first. Pushover by Storm and Rovin' Eyes by Shortall are good listens and I recommend them.

Disappointingly for most fans, Maurice and Hayley do not sing on this album. The soundtrack to Castaways would have been doing well enough at the time and Teen Street was undoubtedly using combined star power to promote sales. They serve only as hosts with Maurice doing most of the talking, introducing the songs in something of a cohesive narrative about young people finding love. The album is mostly referenced for the fun cover featuring Maurice and Hayley dancing on a cartoon street.

You can listen to the entire album as one file here: Teen Street

Here is the track list:

Side One
Teen Street - Group Vocal
Walkin' and Talkin' - Annette
Pushover - Billy Storm
Double Feature Movie - Sylte Sisters
Rovin' Eyes - Gary Shortall
Cinderella Jones - Sylte Sisters

Side Two
Double Date - Billy Storm
Two Against the World - Annette
The Wildest - Gary Shortall
Good Girl - Billy Storm
Teenage Wedding - Annette
To Be Continued - Sylte Sisters

Lest We Forget

In the Brightest Day Aftermath mini-series The Search for Swamp Thing, John Constantine is puzzling out why the new Swamp Thing, this time around hosting the spirit of Alec Holland is acting like an Eco-terrorist and not the more neutral "Guardian of the Green" he is familiar with.

After returning from being exiled in space as an unintended consequence of an assassination attempt, ST attacked and killed almost all of those responsible for the attack. All of the deaths were ironic or horrific in nature a la The Specter but the following pages from Swamp Thing #63 (August 1987) are the most grisly.

Prior to "The Anatomy Lesson" the Swamp Thing was a character that things happened to. He was a spectator and often a victim. Afterwards he was a bit more pro-active and became less the warm and cuddly cabbage patch doll. This time the difference is that the spirit of Alec Holland might be a bit peeved at being murdered and is lashing out (even though Alec eventually found peace over the course of several stories). The result may be a nut-job spirit that needs to be exorcised from the Swamp Thing.

Gene Colan

Heard today of the passing of who is without a doubt my favorite comic book artist ever, Gene Colan at the age of 84.

At the right is a page from Tomb of Dracula #50 featuring the unlikely battle between the Lord of Vampires and the Silver Surfer. This page from ToD was the first original art I ever owned. When I saw it on a table at the San Diego Comic Con years ago I knew I had to have it. Gene Colan in that one page combined what I enjoyed most about horror and science fiction with effortless wild talent.

Thanks, Gene.

I, The Quitter

The roar of the custom tour bus shook the parking lot. Conservatives staggered to the left. Sarah's eyes were a symphony of incredulity, an unbelieving witness to truth and reality. Quickly, she checked the beautiful swelling of her personal portfolio account where the money went in.

"How could you?" The Tea Party gasped.

Sarah had only a moment before talking to a corpse of a Presidential campaign, but she got it in.

"It was easy," Sarah said.

Dance Craze

It was on this day minus a few days give or take one or two years ago that Will Ferrell did his best to ensure there ever being a hard-SF version of The Land of the Lost. It would be easier and more profitable to rip off the concept of LotL and package it as something new and original than use the Krofft characters ever again. Die in a gutter, Will!

Do the Sleestak!

The Mills Family

Hayley Mills, sister Juliet and parents John and Mary at poolside.

From Cosmopolitan (December 1962).

Trending topics

For the first time since I posted about the subject several years ago the search term "Supergirl Tentacle Porn" has dropped way down on the list of what brings people to the site. The new number one phrase that directs visitors to Lady, That's My Skull is "Hayley Mills"*!

Specifically, they are landing on the Introducing: Hayley Mills entry featuring young Hayley as an infant in an uncredited screen debut!

Goodbye pervos, hello legitimacy!

Oh, and Snerls are cool.

* And thankfully not "Hayley Mills N**de", either.

A Case of Animal Cruelty

If your pet snake gets too big for the terrarium why don't you just set it free, jerk? Dropping it off in a sealed cheese ball jar behind a strip mall on a hot pavement in the sun to bake to death is not right.

Were you thinking someone would find it and adopt it? It's a snake, jerk, and had to be over four feet long. Maybe you thought setting it free would hard on the mouses and birds in the area. If that is how your brain works there is something wrong with your wiring. Take responsibility for what you do.

After calling Animal Control and describing the snake they advised me it wasn't harmful to people or pets and to set it free. I let it go in a hilly area full of trees near the mall. Couldn't tell you if the shock of being set free from a steaming death trap into a cooler environment will kill it or not but at least it has a chance now. I released the snake in stages, though. Moved the jar to the shade so it would cool down a bit closer to the outside temperature before getting set free. Did I mention you are a jerk?

I wish RFID chips were common enough to be implanted in that cheese ball container so the proper authorities could track you down by your purchases and you could get the sound thrashing you deserve.

Found in San Diego off Governor Drive, 6-5-11.

Be patient, it isn't nine o'clock yet

Shortly after the opening credits to the 1965 Disney Films incredi-opus That Darn Cat starring Hayley Mills a bank of newspaper vending machines are shown curbside to a street. The troublesome feline, DC, on a nightly prowl of the town is schmoozing one of the antagonists of the film for food. DC follows the villain which eventually leads the cat into a kidnapper's den and kick-starts the adventure of a meddlesome kid and her pet.

While the vending stands vary slightly in design the common elements of the machines is that the newspapers are not secured and simply rest in an open rack. A slot cut into a box or tube is provided so a customer can insert a coin and then take a paper. My memories of 1965 are a bit hazy from the distance of years but one thing I do recall is that the hippies were everywhere stealing anything not nailed down or bartering for food by spewing plagiarized poetry as they cleaned out a fruit-stand.

Like today, I can't imagine that the honor system of paying for your goods resulted in anything but serious financial losses on the part of the vendor. In my world within a half an hour those racks would be empty and a gum wrapper would be shoved into the money slot. But on Main Street, USA the narcissistic villain being stalked by DC in the movie actually pays for each paper headlining the crime he perpetrated. I guess bank robbery and kidnapping can be a plot point in a Disney film but the studio was reluctant to show an actual crime in progress, no matter how petty. Either that or the villain was playing it cool and behaving so as not to draw attention to himself.

In the film the full vending stand attests that for the most part the unattended machines appear to be successful in practice. But would that honor system work anywhere but in the idealized Disneyverse? For the answer, let's ask Hayley Mills. She knows everything!

That's right, Hayley! In the real world machines and semi-unattended stands, even those inside stores within full view of cashiers and staff are routinely raided and emptied to be hawked by unofficial newsies at intersections and street corners all over the nation. So while art may have imitated life at one point it didn't take long for vendors to wise up and call for securely locking vending machines.

For those into head-knodding, finger-snappin' smooth tunes while waiting your turn to play the bongos at open stage night at the Coffee Bean here are the opening credits to 1965's That Darn Cat as sung by Bobby Darin. It's cool, Jones, cool. At the end of the clip you can see the newspaper stands being used in practice by bad guy Iggy, played by the scene-chewing Frank Gorshin.

By the way...The remake should be burned, the ashes salted and the ashes burned again.

The only thing that would have made the remake watchable is if the bank-robbing kidnappers were the Gecko Brothers.

Pink Rocket

Retro future purple monkey Korean pop from Dal*Shabet (2011).

A lazy, Sunday sexy taxi driver post.

Satan's Concubines

Marga the Panther Woman

Ultra-violent, pre-Comics Code Authority comic story featuring early Jungle Girl character Marga the Panther Woman from Science Comics #6 (July 1940). In a few short appearances Marga's character would change from an uncontrollable, insane loner who identifies with the animals to rationalize her serial-killer nature into a standard jungle princess super-hero.

While the latter characterization is a lot more family-friendly it is a bit boring. The Marga as depicted in Science Comics #6 is not PC, decidedly unkind to animals, a sociopath and a whole lot more interesting.

Sue the Magic Mannikin paperdoll

Show your work.

Click to make Real Girl-sized!

From The Woodland Adventures of Sue the Magic Manikin (Sacony Fashions, 1957)

Cocker-Blocked

Miss America (Feb 1948).