The algorithm needs tweaking

Sometimes those keywords are not that successful in matching the ad to the content.

Or Google Ads has been programmed with a sense of humor.

Don't go away, Renee

Cover of Planet Comics #39 (November 1945), drawn by Fiction House creative talent Lily Renee. I want this cover on a t-shirt or a big glossy framed poster for my wall. Or both.

Champagne...Take Me Away!

Sweet, sweet alcohol dulling the pain since October 1958 from Falling In Love #22.

Futura - Chapter 17

In the previous chapter of the Futura Saga our heroine makes a daring escape from captivity by causing the death of thousands of patrons of the Death Market. This installment from Planet Comics #59 (March 1949) doesn't continue much differently from issue #58 only because Futura's escape craft had limited seating, thereby probably reducing the collateral death toll to merely hundreds when the ship slammed into the water planet Oceania. Presumably, the pirate Yrina and Futura are the only survivors of the crash. The ultimate fate of the Star-Pirate is not clear since the effectiveness of a ray-gun and interpretive dance against sea monsters is dubious.

As usual Futura intrudes between two warring factions though this time she is more a spectator than participant in events. The scene is a familiar story of one invading culture eradicating the other. In this instance galactic fishing interests are inserting themselves into Oceania and at odds with the native population. While a water planet may have plenty of food available it is problematic that the fisheries are in the hunting range of the natives causing them distress as their less efficient farming methods can not compete with the high technology of the industrial fishing complex. One well-placed tractor beam can pull in anything edible for miles leaving the locals with nothing. It is through Futura's unexpected trespassing that some of the native populace is captured by the representatives of the fishing interests. This event will soon be important in the course of the final chapters of the story.

While this installment suffers from the same abrupt changes in scenery of some of the previous entries what is faithful is Futura's struggle to gain her freedom from slavery and become an independent citizen. It is the events that occur in this chapter that clearly sets up the finale to the Futura Saga.

I promise, more Futura by Monday!

To Do Today

Update dead links to those awesome Cowboy Sahib stories.

Clean up that crappy copy of the next chapter of Futura to post tomorrow (get that good copy scanned while I'm at it).

Watch that classic Doctor Who episode where Susan gets abandoned on the ruined Earth, thus laying ground for the next 4 decades of Susan-substitutes.

Contemplate my future without having to resort to booze afterward to cope.

Continue war of wills with that online auction seller who may or may not have shipped that item I bought. I suspect I won auction at price lower than seller wanted so long delay might be in hopes I cancel order. I must be victorious.

Scan those vintage crochet magazines from the late 60s and early 70s.

Give dog bath.

Take car into shop.

Frown at news reports of oil spill in gulf but do nothing.

Read new comic books and file away.

Watch wife sleep.

Point at image of Joran van der Sloot on monitor and yell "Daddy can't help you this time!"

Look for alternative to itunes that won't delete songs I have owned for years from the collection. "This copy of your media file is no longer available," my foot.

Take nap.

Gee

From Gay Comics #40 (Oct 1949).

Photo Fetish

I don't know which aspect of this gag is worse, Sally loaning her niece out to a camera club or the shutterbug sharing photos of his body parts. Lucky for everybody involved the internet didn't exist back then because this entire scene was a humiliating tragedy in the making. The early camera clubs were kind of creepy.

From Kerry Drake #12 (Jan 1949).

Your reward is now

Hey! My All-Seeing Eyes are up here, creep!

Wow, the 90s. I hope by focusing in on the torso of Pele the artist was making a point about the pandering hyper-sexualization and blatant sales-grubbing cheesecake art of the era. Then again the creative crew may have defined human nature perfectly. There are basically two options to witnessing a ridiculously attractive demi-godess striding from a churning pool of molten lava and declaring she would destroy the Hawaiian islands with super-volcanoes: One is to run screaming the opposite direction and the other is to plan on how you are going to score with her.

Panels from X-Force #81 (September 1998).

I don't think he cares

What with Peggy's underwear tucked away in his back pocket and all.

Heart Throbs #72 (July 1961).

Screenshots

Here is one of several photos that are stored on the wife's cellphone that she can easily scroll to and show someone who doesn't understand sign language. They are chosen to aid her in communication for when she is out on her own so she does not have to resort to trial and error via gestures, pen and paper or typing out her request on the phone's text screen.

This minimalist image was designed by me to inform a cashier how she would like the twenty dollar bill she received as change from a purchase broken down into smaller currency. I made it a little arty so it wasn't boring but not so much that the average cashier couldn't grasp the message.

Other photos consists of a large simple 911 to request emergency services and the familiar symbol for the woman's restroom. The photo that gets more use than I'd like is the nice clear image of her damn cigarette brand to show to a cashier. That one is included only so I'm not the one who is forced to purchase her cancer sticks. If my wife can't overcome her addiction to death-by-inches then I'm not going to assist her with the purchase any more than I have to.

The Nights That Never Ended

This is a good romantic cover. The world outside of Michele and Dean's relationship is unimportant and ignored. One could interpret this as Michele focusing on the surprising presence of her supposedly deceased fiance to the point that he is her whole world. But what I think is really going on here is that she is also dead and stranded in purgatory but is not yet aware of her situation.

Overlay a different DC title header onto the original book and it easily transforms from a tale of heartbreak into horror. Michele is accepting of her dreary, empty existence until she unexpectedly reunites with her dead fiance and then reality begins to crumble. The world doesn't really exist except maybe as some ill-defined purgatorial construct of the heroine that will fade only when she realizes she and Dean will be together forever in the afterlife.

From Heart Throbs #92 (November 1964).

Non-Euclidian Einstein

"Non-Euclidean geometry was no more than a mathematical curiosity until Einstein applied it to physics."

Uh-Oh. I'd bet all those pieces of Al's brain scattered all over in labs and Universities are still alive (or non-dead) and separately plotting, just waiting to be reunited in order to solve the final proof and summon giant demon dogs through sharp corners to drag us all away as sacrifices to the Old Ones.

You know, this could lead to a story better than when Albert Einstein showed up in the novel Last Son of Krypton.

Loot is what she lived for

Not much to this story from Wings Comics #74 (October 1946) other than the great cover and the page featuring the shot to the face. It is noteworthy that Madame Hell Hawk went to jail at the end and didn't betray her fellow bandits due to some good American loving from Captain Wings.

Risking my expletive deleted

Noticed while watching the awesome Breaking Bad last night that even the most innocuous word used as a swear was censored for the closed captioning but the audio remained raw and unedited.

Kind of funny since the opposite usually occurs when shows or movies that are heavily dubbed for content for a broadcast somehow usually fail to go to the expense of going back and editing the captioning. There have even been instances where a entertainment or news show will be showing a clip in the background and the clips' captioning while override that of the main show. It was really only disconcerting once when a news story about porn accidentally being broadcast during a prime time network slot showed a steady stream of closed captioning describing in detail the otherwise heavily-pixelated scene playing on the overlay adjacent to the newscaster.

Yes, some pornographic films are closed captioned. Yes, that's freaking stupid as decaf coffee.

A melody I'd never heard before

Sure, we all make fun of those old Silver Age romance comic books but every now and then they get one of those stories right. If this page didn't tug at the heart strings then you are dead inside.

The cover on the other hand is unintentionally (?) hilarious.

From Girls' Romance #101 (June 1964).

It's a thin line

I guess there are worse foundations for a relationship. At least hatred is more honest than marrying for money.

From Heart Throbs #90 (July 1964).

Don't put that in your mouth, you don't know where it's been

Something was lost in translation, maybe? Found in a local San Diego store 5-26-10.

Wouldn't make the back page in Metropolis

It must be difficult to make a living as a photographer in the DC Universe what with the sky opening up every other day, star ships crashing into parks, demons running around and people flying about. The competition for a news-worthy photo that would catch the interest of a public used to giant star ships hovering and 100 foot tall men striding through the city must be fierce. In the real world this photo would be a Pulitzer-winner. But in the DCU even the most spectacular photo, even one that caught a buzzard getting disintegrated by the impact flash of a meteor would barely rate publication unless it was in some dusty desert burg.

From DC Super-Stars #15 (July-August 1977) and of course Bob Kanigher wrote it.

Susan Foreman

...Is more hardcore than you will ever be.

Doctor Who (Series 1, Episode 4, The Firemaker. Originally aired 14 December 1963).

Cola Wars

Vendors are very territorial. Still, when fighting on multiple fronts don't ever take your eyes off the beer barons.

Earth to the Moon

I can't recall what episode of the early-1970s British television show UFO this scene is from but I really want that map detailing the flight path of objects between the earth and the moon. I don't know if the map is representative of actual space flights or was made specially as a background prop revealing SHADO operations but it would be cool either way.

Interior Design

Icon-filled pattern found on the interior of the covers of many Dell paperback books circa 1949 noting the various types of books the company published. In an era of largely misleading book covers the large identifying icon placed somewhere on the front of the book would let a reader (and vendor stocking the stands) know at a glance from what category of fiction they were browsing. Due to the extra expense of printing, interior cover patterns are nearly non-existent today.

From the Collection: Sinister Barrier

Sinister Barrier was originally published in 1939 for the pulp magazine Unknown and was re-issued for this 1985 volume with suitably horrifying cover art by the great Ralph McQuarrie.

There's being mischievous

...And then there is this little demon seed.
From the psychotic man-baby contemplating the gigantic mystery pie with horrible, unnamed ingredients to the shark-toothed demon-mother-wife-jailer and the rushing river euphemistically named the "County Orphanage" this Golden Age attempt at humor begs for a modern-day treatment by a good horror or shock writer. There's undoubtedly an entire unknown back story to this tale and I believe we are looking into a region of hell.
 
From Jack in the Box #11 (October 1946).

Because of Susan

Silver Age subtext, however unintentional, from Girls' Love Stories #117 (February 1966). Much like issue #152 of the same series, change a few word balloons and the story takes on an entirely different meaning.

From the Collection: Invasion from Mars

A Dell Backmap book. Invasion from Mars, Interplanetary Stories selected by Orson Wells (1949).

It's a trade off

I guess all that water that is saved using less soap washing clothes can be used to process the pulp to make all these paper tags hanging on bottles of laundry detergent.

BONUS: Don't forget the water saved in not nourishing all the trees that are cut down to supply the raw materials! It's a win/win!

- Found hanging on hundreds of bottles of laundry detergent in a local San Diego grocery store, May 2010.

Shut up and worship her

Blondie performs Contact In Red Square & Kung Fu Girls (1977).

Who, Iron Man and links

Movies: Went and watched the Iron Man 2 movie the other day and it was a fun time. The movie isn't as good in my opinion as the first but I still liked it. In fact, I liked it enough to take the time to ad the awesome Sam Rockwell to the poster. It's a crime he was left off it.

My main complaint, and one which applies to nearly every Marvel super-hero movie made in the last decade, is that the story once again was all about someone creating a mess and being hailed a hero for cleaning up after themselves. For some reason Hollywood seems almost incapable of making a comic book film that doesn't involve a threat from within and/or a relative of the antagonist.

The other problem I have is with armored fighters in particular who remove their protective head gear during battle. I'm sure this is done for the purpose of the story and sometimes due to contractual obligations for the actor to get so many minutes of screen time (Yes, I'm looking at you, Toby McGuire). But it still bugs me and has for some time. But then I guess if they didn't show the audience their faces from time to time then the film would be nothing but voice-over work with CGI and actors nodding their helmets as they pretended to speak like a super-ninja from Power Rangers.

I agree the Mandarin needs to make an appearance as the villain in the next film. I don't see that character as a racist sterotype as much as some do. It is probably a knee-jerk PC reaction to the name and the fact that the character has an origin during the Red-baiting days of Stan Lee being at the helm of the Marvel books. I think the company has redeemed the Mandarin as a viable character not only from the animated movie of a year or so ago but also in the classic Fin Fang Foom storyline from the comic book. No longer a Commie, just a megalomaniac who wants to use the trappings of the past to secure power in the present day.

I don't see the Ten Rings mentioned in the film being the magical or technological rings from the comic book series. That would be hard to accomplish and not look silly. More than likely the rings will turn out to be a family symbol of some kind or the crest of a branch of a guild. A film from years ago that featured a Thugee cult as the villains had the members being awarded a ring to place on the hilt of their murder-dagger every time they passed a stage in their training. Eventually the rings would complete the hilt and when held up to the light, the shadow cast by the rings on the handle would show a profile of the leader of the cult. Maybe the Ten Rings would turn out to be be something like that.

DVD: Re-watched Real Genius. Such a great and funny 80s movie. Liked Val Kilmer (how the mighty have fallen!) irked by the kid. Still inappropriately attracted to the weird girl.

Re-watched Night Shift. In my opinion Henry Winkler did his best job ever in front of the camera for this comedy though a pre-Cheers Shelly Long and then new-comer Michael Keaton stole the film. Fav quotes: "That Barney Rubble. What an actor!" and not to forget "Hello, this is Chuck to remind Bill to SHUT UP!"

Comic Books: Slight yet geeky Iron Man movie spoiler! The stunt of "crossing the streams"? Iron Man first did that way back in Avengers Annual #6 (1976).


Television: The up-coming television series Terra Nova is getting a lot of internet press lately. Many are comparing it to The Land of the Lost because of the time-travel element in which a family is thrown back to the dinosaur age. From what I'm reading it sounds more like Jurassic Park but without all the messy licensing and contractual issues. I'm looking forwards to watching it. Even if it is terrible some SF is better than no SF. I'm tired of the long periods in which the best science fiction on TV is contained in car commercials.

Doctor Who: Been watching episodes of the Jon Pertwee interpretation of the Doctor recently. His version is full of humor and honest horror. Not a lot of running but a heck of a lot of shouting and yelling.

The new Doctor played by Matt Smith is fresh, the fans are negative goofs and so far the show is keen to watch. Vampires of Venice was notable for one trait of the Doctor that a lot of people miss because they always accept him as some sort of super-hero. The Doc, as much as he meddles, would stand by and watch (albeit with sadness) if the entirety of humanity were killed and eaten by aliens if that were the natural order of things. He gets involved usually only when the characters are evil, monstrous and get a thrill when applying their rapacious ways.

Lost: Enjoying this show. Can't wait for the climax. Dread the inevitable very special Lost Christmas Reunion Special in 2020.

Fringe: This is the show I'm most excited about right now. Waiting a week for each new episode is painful. But if I had the power to cancel the show with extreme prejudice I would have done so after that storyteller/noir episode a few weeks back. That was nearly unwatchable. Happily the next episode redeemed it. I'm a sucker for alternate universe stories and the appearance of Walternate totally nailed.

Toys: 30 years ago I would have killed for an Iron Man toy. Fortunately nowadays I can avoid the moral implications of murder and jail time by a visit to the mall and about 6 bucks. Yesterday I picked up the classic comic series toy for my desk. It is cool. This Iron Man game I may get just because it is silly.

Immigrant 1/American Citizen 0: It bears repeating that they man who called in the failed Times Square car bomb planted by an American citizen of Muslim faith was an immigrant from Senegal who is also of the Muslim faith. The media however is continuing to demonize the naturalized citizen and has made little or no mention that the hero of this tale has the same basic religious philosophy as the bad guy. The more I read about Shahzad the more he comes off as an bitter loser and there are no shortage of people ready to take advantage and use someone like that. A second well-deserved tip of the hat to Samurai Frog.

Art: The news that Frank Frazetta died sure sheds some light on the fight going on between his son and the rest of the family. It will probably be some time before fans find out if the various members of his family was fighting to protect his legacy or being greedy poopy-heads. Conan vs. the Man-Ape is one of my favorite illustrations from one of my favorite Howard stories.

No idea what music has to do with Cricket

But the book is full of musically-themed gags.
From The Art of Coarse Cricket (1963). Art by Antony Wysard.

From the Collection: Armor

John Steakley has written a total of two books in his career thus far. Armor (1984) and Vampire$ (1991). Both books kick genre ass. Director John Carpenter even adapted Vampire$ into a movie that was enjoyable enough but doesn't really do the book justice.

Of the two novels Armor has the deepest plotting though readers are often split on the success of the two inter-mingling plots. I enjoyed both equally. While it is superficially reminiscent of Starship Troopers that goes only as far as the relationship between the the antagonists (the aptly named Ants) and the Armored Corps.

The novel tells two separate stories that crash headlong with a pretty good pay off at the end. One of my favorite novels for quite a while.

A sequel to Armor is in the works.

The Blogger Who Ate Stress For Dinner

A year ago I couldn't type in "boy breakfast vintage" into a search engine without the advertisement I used to make the mock-up of the book cover for The Boy Who Ate Stress For Breakfast unfailingly showing up on the first page of the results. Now, I can not locate the original image online anywhere.

The original ad I had located and saved was lost in last years' drive crash. I thought it might be a Leyendecker but it doesn't show up in any of his collections, not that it isn't one of his works. I'm looking for the original ad because I may have to secure the rights for use sometime in the near future.

Can anyone identify the ad this image came from?

I'm willing to send a prize to whoever finds it.

Related: Questions That Need Answers.

From the Collection: Jack of Eagles

Originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1949, expanded to novel-length in 1952 and re-issued in 1982, Jack of Eagles is one of the lesser-known novels of award-winning author James Blish.

James Blish was most familiar to me in my youth as the author who adapted the Star Trek television shows to book form and wrote the original Trek novel Spock Must Die! One of the ways in which I was introduced to a greater universe of science fiction was through screenplay adaptions of James Blish.

That Jack of Eagles has not been reprinted is a shame as this story is a must read for anyone who is a fan of tales involving telepathy, telekinesis and other mind powers. I would go so far as to say anyone thinking of writing a novel or cinema using those fantastic elements and want to experience how to do the subject matter right should read not only Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human but Jack of Eagles as well.

From the Collection: Dagger of the Mind

Hard to find and out of print, Bob Shaw's Dagger of the Mind is a good blend of science fiction and Lovecraftian horror featuring alien mind-control and murder.

Thought missing, this book was recently rediscovered in a mislabeled box from my storage area. The book was used along with a few others to top off a box before it was sealed.