When it comes to movies based on comic book superheroes I am of the opinion that the best I can hope for is it doesn't suck too much. Two or three bad super hero films can kill the genre for about a decade. Look at the 80s for an example.
Fortunately for fans of comic-to-film cinema Marvel has been doing a pretty good job lately in their choices. What helped I think was an overall vision or if you prefer, a story arc. Beginning with Iron Man a connecting theme of sorts has been present all with the goal of maintaining a franchise to culminate in the Avengers movie slated to be released next year. Clearly, a lot is riding on the Marvel characters to pay off in the end and the recent Captain America movie probably did not hurt the studios chances of wrapping up the story with good box office.
I saw Captain America, the First Avenger, The Movie (to use the full official title) in the theater last Monday and I was pretty impressed. It exceeded my expectations that the movie not be merely OK which is about all I really want from a super hero flick. While I really enjoyed the film I did accidentally pick the 3D version from the hard to navigate sun-washed touch-screen kiosk outside the box office, so ouch to my eyes. The 3D was alright but it is not my entertainment viewing preference.
The film was fun, exciting and the producers didn't get stupid with the script or go cheap which is the death of any comic book film (for instance the 1990 Cap). Production values were high and there were plenty of Easter eggs to delight the geeks like myself such as the Human Torch android safely sealed in a vacuum tube and the Arnim Zola giant face in the monitor. Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving as Captain America and the Red Skull were pretty great. Wisely, a young Nick Fury was not included.
The film managed to acknowledge the entire published and cinematic history of Captain America and as a fan I was pleased it did not ignore the contributions of Simon and Kirby among other creative teams. Honestly though, I thought the 1990s Red Skull mask was superior to the one worn by Weaving. The 2011 Red Skull had smooth and flawless skin. I expected more veins, raw exposed teeth and muscles similar to the one worn by Scott Paulin in the 1990 film.
The initial Hydra spy foot chase could have benefited from some tighter editing and the musical number, with Cap punching co-splay Hitler was a nice scene that set the stage for the journey from propaganda jester to hero. Also, a nice touch was that Captain America was made in a process that meant more than the physical aspect as a pre-super soldier Steve Rogers obsessively studied militarily history and tactics. It was clear that not just anyone could be Captain America, something that the comic books has addressed for decades. That the Nazis were only incidental to the film and Hydra was the big bad initially caused some story concern for me. What is Cap without Nazis? But it became clear that the Nazis were petty, venal thugs with limited vision and ability. In recent cinema (after the 1940s) this idea was also put forth in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The fate of the Red Skull is pretty obvious and I'd be surprised if he doesn't make an appearance in the Avengers film or a Cap sequel. Bucky was also set up to make a return as the Winter Soldier if the fan interest is there.
So as a lead in to The Avengers and as a stand alone film I was not disappointed with Captain America: The First Avenger. Most of all, are you listening, Marvel? This film I would pay to see again.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Can I get a WA-HOOO!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Not Shown: Tears
Utterly hilarious in heavy-handed guilt inducement this online ad from a bank urges you to avoid years of expensive therapy for your children and acrimonious divorce from a spouse by taking out a loan for fancy, expensive vacations and not suffer the shame of a mediocre family trip to lesser destinations.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday with Hayley Mills: Q and A
Came across this research website with an unanswered query about film star Hayley Mills and knew that it was up to me to provide peace to her fans.
No other answer possible.
FYI, this entry of Monday With Hayley Mills also marks the 6th blogiversary of Lady, That's My Skull.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
All in color for a won
The popular music I heard while out was more often than not self-produced, self-promoted and self-distributed and the bands commonly consisted of a small electric organ with pre-programmed bossa nova beats. One of the interesting things to watch while I was in Korea was the evolution of rap and rock music. As restrictions of an oppressive government eased and Korean youth could speak out they did so angrily through their songs, though more polite by several degrees than the urban American inspiration that shocked so many people.
Watching the slick, corporate-owned and high production values of some of the newest Korean pop groups is something of a shock since all I recall are stiff, rote performances to a cassette tape playing on a chair next to the performer. There are few surprises in the music videos though and all pretty much follow the standard themes familiar to anyone born after the 1980s. The girls are cute, bouncy and sexy (very few affect a public street or gangster persona though this is changing) and rapid changes in costume and sets are the rules. A lot of cosplay costumes are involved though I'm sure this is what producers are confident that the audience wants.
The male performers in videos are usually depicted as living large and horribly tortured by emotion, definitely appealing to teen girls. The videos are hilarious because of the overwrought scenery chewing of the performers. I suspect focus groups or something similar dictate the format and themes of the music videos to an extreme perhaps more than their American counterparts and that these groups are similar to the heavily-managed and manufactured boy and girl groups of the American 1990s music scene.
5 Dolls is a typical Korean girl bubblegum pop group featured in a video with a comic book layout theme. Kind of fun and a little daring.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Voyeur enabling comic book ad
While not being privy to the creation of the ad copy for this mini-camera from a 1958 girl's romance comic book it is hard to believe that the following sales point for the camera was meant for anyone other than emerging pervs or creepy adults. It is possible that it was totally innocent but the sleaze-factor, combined with the explosion of "camera clubs" during that time period leads me to doubt that the camera was meant just for laughs.
In case you can't read the copy it proudly states one of the positive features of the small, easily-concealed camera is:"Your girlfriend and other bathing-beauties will all relax in their natural pose and make a swell pin-up collection. Through a paper is just one of many ways to go about it."
Thursday, July 21, 2011
From the Library of Ada Winemiller, Part 2
The presumably young Ada Winemiller that claimed this copy of Brides in Love #9 back in 1958 would have been reading tales of romance that perhaps misled her as to what gender roles were really like in the late 1950s. Other than the social programming within the book Ada would also have been exposed to the somewhat non-gender specific advertising within the pages as well.
The advertisements that appeared in comics were not really targeted to both genders back in the day. Comic books were primarily and rightly so aimed at the young male demographic. Female customers were almost an after-thought and romance comic books held the same place the more adventure oriented books had as a product, as a safer alternative to the racier and more lurid pulp and gossip magazines that dominated the news stands.
Comic book advertising was almost certainly sold based upon volume, not a targeted youth or older group. Ads for submarines, rockets, space suits, cowboy gear and body building dominated pages set aside for outside revenue. What the sales department was selling was eyes on the page, not what percentage of boys versus girls were tempted by their products. Even the romance or female-oriented magazines for the most part contained advertising directly aimed at the young male reader. Ads for fashion and makeup were typically published in titles like Miss America or Calling All Girls which while they contained sequential art were considered full-fled magazines and were on a different tier than the other four-color comics.
So it was that Brides in Love #9 contained the usual advertising of the era. That several of the ads depicted muscle men is likely incidental and while possibly of interest to Ada were probably not placed in the book specifically to her market.
The opposite may be true for the male youth market as the amount of T&A in most of the mainstream comic books were obvious and gratuitous far beyond what the artist or writer knew was sensible. The romance books, while not as adventuresome thematically, supports my personal theory that even the girl-oriented books were also primarily meant for the male reader and served as a safe and acceptable form of pornography or at least a source to satisfy curiosity, somewhat like the notorious lingerie ads in a Sears catalog. Given that so many stories feature panels of women in their underclothes and showing them fitfully tossing and turning on their bed with frustration is provocative to be sure. A scene in an issue of Marvel Comics 2003 mini-series Unstable Molecules, reflecting the era, bears anecdotal witness to the idea. You can view the semi-NSFW page here.
These type of cheesecake voyeuristic images were almost exclusive to the romance comics. Unfortunately when this imagery, combined with the more violent ones that were ubiquitous to the action and adventure comics reached a sort of parental saturation the result was government and group involvement that resulted in the Comics Code Authority.
Of the eight pages of ads in Brides of Love #9 there are three are shilling body building, four are pushing a combination of toys and science-related instruments. Arguably given the perceived audience of the time these ads were correctly and most effectively aimed at a young male.
One ad features photographs of popular media stars, which is the only ad that might be considered by advertisers to be directly of interest to a girl of that era. But what sort of young woman was Ada Winemiller? If she took any interest in the ads at all who is to say she wasn't the most intrigued by the rocket kit? Maybe she liked the idea of breaching the walls of America's enemies in a tank? It could be she grew up to be a force to be reckoned with in the business world after learning entrepreneurship from selling salve or Grit. Out of all the advertisements from Brides in Love #9 presented here, which ones may have captured the attention of Ada the most?
Maybe she chose her own path and did whatever she wanted be it in business, science or as homemaker. Perhaps the old men editing the romance comic books of the 1950s, who mandated stories of women who yearned to be housewives and mothers and nothing else because there was no other goal worthier than domestic breeder, would be shocked to learn how Ada Winemiller ultimately turned out.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Multiple Choice
OR GREATEST TV SHOW EVER?The venison of vegetables
Baby carrots are the venison of the vegetable world. This is because they are not grown into such a convenient shape and size like baby corn is. Rather, a regular carrot is chopped, shaved and whittled down to a fun sized snack. A similar process is used in making veal, which is the tasty result of a calf being ripped from the beating womb of a cow. Such waste.
Annually millions of pounds of carrot shavings are then discarded into the streets creating traffic jams or toasted and made into non-caffeinated coffee substitute. Furthermore, a bag of baby carrots can cost the consumer $7.99 or more while a few bunches of carrots that the buyer would have to wash and cut themselves costs less than $5.
It is in Maryland that sales of baby carrots are the most brisk. This immoral act of environmental crime is ameliorated by the fact that for the most part anything sharp enough to cut carrots in the state of Maryland is typically used for preparing meth or stabbing neighbors, or both, usually in the same evening. Baby carrots are most appealing to children and it would be wrong to use blood-stained, meth-permeated knives to cut up carrots and then feed them to kids.
So already prepared carrot pieces manufactured in a smarter region and imported are preferable to warping another generation of Maryland spawn by getting them hooked too early on drugs and the taste of blood. It is better to delay the inevitable until they can be securely housed in a Super-Max prison jail instead of the rotating doors of Juvenile Hall. Somebody has to think of the children.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Caroline is back, but not in the US
Right now there are three classic Hayley Mills films I want to own but have to purchase as old VHS tapes from online listings. That is assuming I can get past the typical auction site sock puppets that many sellers have in place to prevent their item being sold at a less than an artificially inflated price or the vultures that hover over a bid and pounce using bidding software. I had to use a piece of software to successfully win a bid for some Land of the Lost memorabilia some time ago, as I kept getting outbid by a few cents at the very last possible second. I really don't mind paying the "Buy It Now" price for many items but when the expected bid for an item is $35 and the BIN is over $150 then you can be pretty sure the fix is in for the auction and it is a waste of time to enter a bid.
And the big risk of a thirty year old video tape is that it will get ruined by the equally aged player the first time I put it in the machine, leaving the world a lesser place for having lost a Hayley Mills film for the crime of trying to watch a movie. Maybe another ten or fifteen years will see big changes in the media business model that doesn't alienate consumers but by that time I may only be interested in collecting my medication and adult diapers. The future can't come fast enough.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
From the Library of Ada Winemiller, Part 1
An unknown time ago Ada Winemiller signed her name to a September 1958 copy of Brides In Love #9 published by Charlton Comics.
At this time Ada is a mystery. Nothing is known of her past, what she was like or the path of her life's journey. The travels of this old romance comic book are as equally unknown as the owner.
How is it that this book came into Ada's possession? Was it a gift, purchased with hard-earned nickles or begged for to a parent at a news stand? Did Ada enjoy the stories within and treasure them or did a cynical young girl dismiss them as foolish tripe?
That is almost impossible to say but here is one of the stories that a presumably young Ada Winemiller would have read way back in 1958. I'd like to imagine Ada lazily splayed over a pile of Annette Funicello records scattered about the floor, idly kicking her bobby sox adorned feet as she happily read about four-colored romance and happy endings as she dreamed of her future wedding day.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Painting the fourth wall
Nice panel gimmick by David Wachter for That Hell Bound Train (July 2011). I've seen something similar in a few movies but it works better in a comic book than the screen. Painting on glass to segue in the next scene isn't as effective as breaking the panel wall.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Desperately Seeking Ada
Who were you Ada Winemiller?
Why did you sign this 1956 copy of Brides in Love #9?
Was it to claim the wishes it held as your own?
What were your hopes?
Did you dream of a comic book romance?
Did it come true?
What was your life like?
Were you more happy than sad?
We may never know.
Recursion by Monteil
Seeing this ad for Nostalgia perfume in my copy of the December 1962 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine made me wistful for the good old days and before I knew it I was stuck in a recursive nostalgia loop from which there was no escape.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Captain America vs. Cthulhu
Ever wanted to read a story about Captain America vs. Cthulhu? Do you like super-soldiers, mad science and evil elder gods? Then check out this book, Beneath the Dark Ice.
Or maybe it was demons
It's been months and months since I have fallen ill, corresponding with the decision to stop letting customers use my personal pen to make notes or write checks at the register. I rarely got sick before I worked in retail but shortly after I started I kept having various health issues that just wouldn't stop. I suspected it was exposure to customers, raw meats and blood and relatively unsanitary conditions from shared keyboards, phone handsets and other equipment.
A few weeks ago I got sick again resulting in a short hiatus. It felt like it was the same sort of respiratory and intestinal affliction I always got when customers used my equipment or I failed to clean the keyboards and phones we all share. This is an illness we all share at some time or another and you can actually track the progress of it moving through the store like WHO tracks disease through the members of a remote village.
No telling how I got the old familiar germs but some weeks ago one customer hacked and coughed directly in my face and I could feel the warm death-spray spatter into my face. Of course my first reaction was a surprised "What the hell, dude!" The anger followed nearly immediately and I let the guy have it. He was not at all apologetic, just stood there and refused to respond or meet my gaze. To make things worse I had to assist him in entering his store club discount card and payment in the point of sale pad since it seemed beyond his faculties. The fact that he carried more money on him than I see in a month and had a wallet full of high-end credit cards did not help my mood any. I really hate it when stupid people make more money then I do.
I expected the worst and a few days later I started feeling poorly and then lapsed into horribleness. Fever, intestinal problems and the sensation of drowning in my own mucous lasted about four weeks total. Medicine did little to help and merely allowed me to keep on my feet, though one customer called the corporate office the complain I wasn't very upbeat and nice to her. She was apparently oblivious to my near-constant retching, coughing and difficulty standing without shaking. Don't people have anything better to do?
I guess it's also possible I got sick from the equipment but I doubt it. Some time ago the liquid sanitizer we used on the equipment was replaced with a gel that isn't suitable for wiping on keypads or phones. The glass cleaner we now use may be a poor substitute but I'm pretty fastidious about cleaning the gunk off my work spaces. So I'm pretty sure it was the jerk violently assaulting me by splashing his yellow/green lung fluids in my face that got me sick but ultimately...Who knows?
While the illness didn't cause much pain it did leave me exhausted by the end of the work day forcing me to ignore the site and place on hold various To Do projects. Curiously, during my hiatus of a week or so when I was not posting I received more followers, links and "likes" to the blog than I did during the last four months of regular updates.
And that hurt.
Monday, July 11, 2011
You've gone too far, DC
I don't care what you do with every other character post-Flashpoint, DC. Stupid 90s costumes, re-worked "contemporary" origins attempting to lure in young readers and discarding decades of world-building. All that I could care less about.
But THIS better be undone by the time you do the reboot.
Flashpoint #3 (Sept 2011).
The Million-Dollar Pixie
Years before Cosmopolitan magazine became known as Cosmo and advocated that liberated, independent, strong, intelligent and powerful women keep a married man on the side to help pay the bills movie star Hayley Mills appeared on the cover, goofing around and reinforcing a young image.
Cosmopolitan used to be a well-rounded periodical of not only light articles but some in-depth investigative stories as well. From the December 1962 cover Hayley Mills talks about how her family keeps her grounded, the ways the young women of Moscow are defying Cold War stereotypes of behavior and fashion and the growing number of adults who are taking care of grandchildren born by unwed mothers. I'd like to present the Hayley Mills family-centric article "The Million-Dollar Pixie" in its entirety but laying the magazine flat enough to scan the pages would cause them to separate from the binding. I'll leave that sort of damage to those who cut ads and art out of vintage magazines and sell them online. So instead of the fascinating Hayley article I'll present a few pages of interior artwork instead.
Like many other magazines of the time a lot of page space was filled with fiction and non-fiction stories. For my tastes it isn't so much the writing and authors that are of interest but the art and illustrations that accompanied the stories. Frequently the art is classic and highly skilled and is widely appreciated as a stylistic snapshot of the era. Of all the art in this issue of Cosmopolitan it is the two pages that accompany the "complete mystery novel" Snow Job by Malcolm Gair, illustrated by Mitchell Hooks that I like the most. I've got a thing for duo-tone (or nearly so) magazine illustrations.
He put out his hand to throw back the bedclothes, but Sally caught his arm in her long tanned fingers and stopped him. "You're doped," she said.
When he got to the low point of the cliff, he looked up. On top stood a figure with a large stone poised to throw.
