That breeze feels good

A bit less subtle than a sledgehammer message of morality for young impressionable comic book readers of a bygone era.

My Own Romance #31 (September 1953).

Lava Shadow Pictures

Featuring John Blake and Mrs. Blake.

From The Farmer's Wife magazine (October 1932).

Certainly demonstrating something

Robin to the rescue

"I've got lots more special comics just like that in my cave. Let's go and read them together." Said Petey the Wolf.

Kiddie Kapers #1 (1945).

Flash Fact

Ow. Contemplate the amount of detail erased from that Tales of Asgard panel penciled by Jack Kirby. Well, at least it got published. If anyone else had tried to ink the high amount of news rack-flooding titles of early Marvel's output the company would probably have failed long ago.

While I agree with many that Vince Colletta could be the creative kiss of death for any comic book he worked on, he deserves more industry and fan respect than he usually receives. The man rarely missed a deadline, if ever. If Vinnie had been given an estimated percentage of all the money he routinely saved a publisher by having them avoid the high cost of of idle printing presses due to missing a publishing date he would have been a very wealthy man.

Think Snowth

via Dr. K.

Sleestak's Puzzle Page

Unsafe at any speed

Spicy Stories (September 1936).

Praise for Tru Dat

From the back cover -

STEERING WHEEL OF DESTINY!

Tru Dat © is a publicly-accessible information gathering and data retrieval service that is part and parcel of every activity, large or small. Once implemented, Tru Dat © caused a paradigm shift in the way politicians did business, it was a boon to law enforcement and the bane of corrupt businesses and those who labored to distort the truth. Privacy is a nearly out-dated concept. Transparency and accountability are a way of life. With Tru Dat ©, the most obscure fact about nearly anything or anyone was readily available via a lightning-fast download to anyone who cared to browse the database.

After a minor mechanical failure of his car causes average guy James Wassanna to be tagged by Tru Dat © with reckless endangerment his life begins to spiral out of control. Neighbors are angry, his fiance is about to leave him, the police are about to arrest him, revenue collection agencies are hounding him and a bored, sensation-hungry public is following his every move. As circumstantial evidence gathered by Tru Dat © repeatedly ties James into increasingly serious crimes he has no choice but to rebel!

"It's like GATTACA meets The Manchurian Candidate!" - Jackie Lancer, Boston Review.

"A wake-up call for the Information Age!" - Tech Quarterly OnLine.

"Frankenstein's creation is a Girl Scout compared to Harman's benevolent monster." - A-Z Book Review.

The Boy Who Ate Stress For Breakfast

Anti-War Pulp Art

It took me a few seconds to catch on that the uppermost layer of the archaeological site of ancient Earth battlefields being studied by the lizard scientists was radioactive slag.

Witchy Woman

Fate #26 (February 1973).

Graduation Present of DEATH!

Vince Colletta, the "Go-To Guy" when you had a printing deadline in the comics biz, did some pencils of his own once upon a time. The line art for this story in My Own Romance #39 (August 1954) isn't bad and is a little more representative of what the man could do as an artist when not applying his economical touch to the pencils of other artists.

But a few of the images are a little confusing and reveal some of the issues many fans have when the subject of Colletta is brought up. I know some people that are still fuming about his inks over Kirby's Tales of Asgard work.

The odd perspective of the splash page has me thinking this love story would end up as a murder mystery. The graduate student in the panel below could just as well have been getting strangled as preparing for a kiss. This could be forgiven once you consider how scripts were done in the old days. A creator sometimes never knew what magazine the story would ultimately be published in and could draw it in such a way as to have multiple endings. There were more than a few romance stories of the era that began as a typical love tale that took an unexpected and sudden turn into the fantastic or mysterious.


Then there is this panel from the exciting conclusion.

Amy looks thrilled, doesn't she? Again, reading the entire story leads me to believe the original script or idea Colletta worked from diverged from the end result by the time the art was completed. But it was just as likely that Coletta was contacted Tuesday night and asked if he could come up with something by Friday morning and worked from the barest outline.

"Vinnie? It's Stan. I need eight pages from you. I don't know...There's a girl, see? She's leaving school and she meets a guy, he might be a bimbo. The girl doesn't know if she should give up her telephone switchboard job for marriage. I'll figure that out later."

"Yeah. I'll have it to you by Thursday."

A lot of people have very little respect for the output of Vince Colletta. But one fact that needs to be taken into consideration in any critque of his work is that without him many of the classic books (and not so classic titles produced mainly to saturate the news stand with their brand) that helped create the modern comic book industry would never have made it to the printers on time or at all.

Cop for Sale: Cheap!

The Family Circle Magazine (July 1938).

Touched by an angel

Amazing Stories (November 1952).

Redhead vs Redhead

Crown Comics #4 (Winter 1945).

Drama Teen

Teen #33 (October 1954).

ROM, Wraith-Slayer

Why don't you just hang out a sign?

Has anyone apologized for the 70s yet?

The National Police Gazette (May 1977).

January 20th: The New Independence Day

My method saves you a dollar

From various 1950s comic books.

The Human Powerhouse

Nice Steve Ditko panel of "The Human Powerhouse" defeating a horde of Lovecraftian aliens bent on infecting the planet Earth.

Printed on heavy stock, this panel makes a sweet bookmark.

Strange Suspense #48 (July 1960).

Gripping Drama

TV Teens #5 (Oct-Nov 1954).

Kang-Fu Grip

Marvel Super Heroes - Secret Wars coloring book (1984).

Petticoat Gamblers

National Police Gazette (April 1970).

Spirographs are scary

I don't think the creators of the Spirograph would ever have thought that the designs rendered by a children's toy could ad a touch of menace to the macabre, take the level of psychosis up another notch for the disturbing or convey the odd, alien and unfathomable to science fiction.

A 12-Course Meal Would Probably Kill You

Advertisement placed in the premiere issue of Life Magazine (November 1936).

Click the picture to make it as big as that spot on your lungs the Doctor found on the X-Ray.

I'd be surprised if anyone attending that meal made it to the New Year. Lying, lying, lying Government-enabled Corporate monsters. If only they would have gone the way of the housing market.

Cleaver. Cleaver. Chop. Chop.

Twisted Nerve (1968).

You may recall the tune from the Kill Bill films.

Better than Jodi

A Rankin-Bassinized Hayley Mills as The Little Mermaid.

Self-Diagnostic complete

Jerk-circuits working at optimal efficiencies.

Rom #27 (February 1982).

From the Award-Winning OGN

Copies of The Hayley Mills Story Official Movie Comic Book adaptation are available in the Hayley Mills Celebratory Complex Giftorium!

You know your life is empty without a copy of your own, what are you waiting for?

Eternally adorable

Jerk-Circuits

Robo Force (1985).

Take a girl like you

Agent of C.U.T.E.

Happy New Year, Miss Bliss

Sigh.

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.