Thank You, DC

Why couldn't you have done this back in 2006?

Childhood's Endtimes

It was with some skepticism that I sat down to watch the apocalyptic sci-fi drama Knowing. Surprisingly it turned out to be Nicholas Cage's best film in years. It isn't a great film but it is entertaining and isn't on the level of dreck he's been doing for years.

Themes familiar to SF fans abound. Ideas from Clarke's Childhood's End to Signs to the Mothman legend and even some Men in Black paranoia appears but the film doesn't do a bad job of it.

Knowing is about a college professor who through his child discovers a several decades old text of seemingly random numbers. The number sequence of course is actually a prophecy of micro and macro disasters as sent years ago to a child by the otherworldly, terrifying and angelic Mothmen in Black. The child, bombarded by voices from the future, goes mad and changes from an eccentric kid to a raving hermit preparing for the end times. Nicholas Cage plays the typical educated skeptic but avoids the usual cliche of refusing to believe the evidence until the end when he achieves enlightenment. Fairly quickly Cage accepts the evidence before him and takes it upon himself to help wherever he can. His attempts meet with mixed results and the movie takes a turn when Cage figures out what the final sequence of numbers foretells.

As expected in a film about the destruction of humanity, religion, or to be more accurate, mythology plays a large part in the film. This is particularly evident in the final scene of the film and even prior to that during the climax one gets the idea that the character played by Cage is merely humoring his father in the interest of familial peace.

I'll be adding Knowing to my DVD collection when it hits the store a few months from now in an exception to my usual No Cruise/Cage/Costner rule.

Product Placement

If I thought this display was arranged that way on purpose I'd be having a little chat with the department manager.

More One More Day

This Marvel house ad has been appearing in a few magazines this month. I can only speculate that this means the story arc that will ultimately conclude with the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America is going to begin.

I'm curious as to why the star is inverted, the familiar symbol of Captain America corrupted and referencing a pentagram. Does this mean that Marvel is going to continue using Mephisto as their own "Black Lantern"? When a reboot is required, when someone needs to be brought back from the dead is a contract with the devil going to be used as the plot device to accomplish it?

This appears to be the case.

From what I've read and seen in online chats with comic professionals, Marvel and DC are working somewhat parallel in regards to their respective universes. Deceased or forgotten characters can be returned as a Black Lantern without messy retcons or cheesing off the fans too much. Admittedly, this is only as effective as the execution of the story. Depending upon the popularity or story requirements of the reanimated character they can be freed of the Lantern influence and live again either as a member of the Corps or a citizen of the DC Universe in some other capacity be it supporting character, villain, hero or otherwise. The same, after a slug-fest of some sort presumably, could be done with returning a Marvel character to the most marketable or fan favorite status quo.

For Marvel's purposes, Mephisto is serving as the big reboot device. Someone agrees to a bargain and Monkey's Paw style, they get their wish. As one source in the industry notes, this is good for years of cross-overs. Want dead heroes or villains back? Easy, just call up the Devil and get it done. One More Day aside, Marvel can't really get away with this easy out more than once unless there is an over-all plan already in place. Of course, for the characters nothing will go to smoothly and there will rarely be any happy endings. The Devil doesn't play fair. Over time all the heroes and villains and regular people who made their desperate bargains will come to realize that they were manipulated and the bill remitted by Mephisto will come due. Let's face it: There is an entire story arc to be had from someone wishing the Hector Ayala White Tiger to be alive again even as someone else makes a bargain for him to be dead.

Eventually, all this bargaining and "soft-reboots", as a source let slip, will lead to the cosmic-level Mephisto War mega event a few years from now. This could be Marvel's opportunity to merge the 616 and Ultimate Universes, do some house-cleaning and refresh the stable of characters without starting from scratch. It is I'm told, "planned to be a cross between Inferno and Heroes Reborn but without the horrible creative missteps and suckage." I'd take this thing with a grain of salt, though. It reads like typical hyped solicitation.

Yet erasing decades of stories is risky. Companies rightly worry about turning off what fans they have remaining. DC balked when resetting their universe at Day One after the 1986 Crisis event and the Heroes Reborn debacle showed how resistant fans were to sweeping wholesale changes even during the 90s, surprising considering the main readership didn't care how good a story was as long as there were plenty of giant guns, bandoleers and pouches. Marvel also became hesitant in the execution of the Ultimate line. Reading Ultimate X-Men in its entirety reveals an evolutionary dead-end and not for fictional humanity. What started out as a unique vision quickly became indistinguishable from the regular line of X-Books.

Hopefully, the Mepshisto War won't have the rushed, half-assed climax that seems to be typical of the last several years of mega events that plague the comic book companies. But it is at least two years and several mini-series yet distant, so maybe the editors will grow some berries and reign in the egos of their superstars and the creative teams will manage to pitch and accomplish a cohesive, fun and exciting story by then.

The Dolittle Codex

While out shopping at a grocery store I found a copy of The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle (Written by Hugh Lofting, Publisher F.A. Stokes, 1922). While the wife browsed for snacks I checked out the donation table where customers drop off books to be sold for a modest donation to whatever worthy cause the store is supporting that month. Typically the table is usually overstocked with old travel books, regional geographical survey pamphlets and religious tracts. But this time around far more interesting fare had been donated by some unknown customers. There were a number of mainstream paperbacks, a few scholarly texts and other types of novels but the real prize on the table was the Dolittle book.

It was in great shape, boasted a color plate on the cover and it was full of ink illustrations. But the bonus was the color frontispiece (a copy of which was also the cover illustration). The frontispiece is about a character in the Dolittle book and is titled The Popsipetal Picture History of King Jong Thinkalot. The page tells a story and the layout is similar to a modern six-panel comic book format. Included on the next page is a tanslucent text overlay. When the page is turned over onto the frontispiece the text overlays a corresponding panel and describes each scene. The author, Hugh Lofting, is credited elsewhere as the artist for this book.

I've included each page separately and one showing the combined effect of the overlay. Click the pictures to make Gub-Gub-sized.

Enjoy!

Space: 1999

From the team that brought us UFO comes the science fiction classic Space: 1999, exploring the adventures of the crew of a moon base, stranded on site when the moon was blasted into deep space by an atomic explosion. This two year British import featured the real world husband and wife team Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, most familiar to American audiences as having been featured in the Mission: Impossible television series from 1966 t0 1969.

The title sequences from the first year of Space:1999 are cool. It always featured groovy noise and the best FX money could buy in 1975. Due to editing, each opening sequence was marginally different and unique. Not only did the sequence inform viewers how the moon was thrown out of Earth orbit but also included a mini-preview of the upcoming episode. Today the preview would be considered a 'spoiler' but back in 1975 it was a tease, a taste of awesomeness to come. The second season title sequence in my opinion is actually kind of inferior and the music far more jarring to the ear. Yes, I had the Space: 1999 toys.

Enjoy!

Space: 1999 - Breakaway. Originally aired on 17 November 1975.

John and Bully in 3-D!

It's Bully's pal John's birthday today! John is a great guy. We have never met in person and we know each other only via our blogs. John is, to paraphrase a professional blogger, a real internet friend. John had helped me when I was going through a very bad time by sending me literally thousands of dollars worth of books. By doing this John kept me entertained when my resources were severely curtailed and I was unable to access the art and stories I enjoy. I was incredibly depressed and stressed and John helped keep my spirits up by sending care packages. A whole bunch of bright spots in a pretty dark time. Those lights had to be cast by someone and that was John. He shines. His kindness helped in ways I can't ever repay. If John and Bully make it to the San Diego Con this year I want to shake his hand, Bully's hoof and buy them both lunch everyday.

So I can't think of a better treat than letting everyone wishing John and his pal Bully a happy birthday than for everyone to do so in person. On my budget the cost of flying the thousands of his fans around the country would be impossible but I can make it happen through the magicks of the internet!

So break out the red & blue glasses folks, because while most of you can't meet John in person I can bring the next best thing, JOHN & BULLY in 3-D!

So click on over to Bully's place and join the party!

Happy Birthday, John!

A lady with a skull

Found at a used book store last week. How could I pass this up?



Bonus! Illustration from back cover.
The Dream Is Deadly (October 1960). Cover painting by Barye Phillips.

UFO (September 1970)

Colletta hands

Oh, Vinnie. Well, you made the deadline, and that was what was most important back in the day.

Today's fans complaining about delays in publication amuses me a bit more than it annoys. Would fans now accept anything that had a rushed, Colletta-style production value to it or do the demands of the market require stylized, photo-realistic, highly-detailed computer-enhanced work with snappy presentation? In times past a good story would often balance out poor art (ie, many comics published in the 1990s). Could the same be said of today, or is it that technological advances and consumer expectations no longer allows creators to give less than an endless series of mind-boggling blockbusters?

Lovers #85 (June 1957).

Atoms and Evil

Atoms and Evil by Robert Bloch (Fawcett, 1962).

Click to reach critical mass!

Scene from an S-Mart

"Are there any new movies out?"
"Not really. There was that one about the really old guy trying to have sex with a teen-aged slave."
"What? I don't know that one. What is it called."
"Twilight."
"Oh. Oh! Is it any good?"
"It is...If you are a 15 year old girl and have no sense of self-esteem."


- A conversation between my wife and I while shopping.

Don't just stand there

Space: 1999 - Breakaway (17 October 1975).

Billy Bunny and Daddy Fox

Found this old book Billy Bunny and Daddy Fox at a used bookstore on Adams Avenue this week. There are a few good used book and magazine stores on that street and are worth spending some time in browsing. There were several volumes of the Billy Bunny series in the store but this one contained art I preferred over the others, even though one book contained a drawing of the Luckymobile tearing through a forest that I was loathe to pass up for the time being.

Billy Bunny was a series of books written in the 1920s by David Cory for children featuring the tales of a young rabbit and his many adventures. One of the main themes of the stories seems to be about Billy and his friends and their attempts to avoid being eaten by their carnivorous peers. From what I read, most of the entries are typical cautionary tales about trusting strangers and bachelor uncles.

Each book contains a few minimally colored illustrations credited to artist Hugh Spencer. The art is wonderfully simplistic and un-apologetically two-dimensional. I chose to purchase this volume in the series over the book containing the Luckymobile (reminiscent of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride) because I really got a kick out of the the two pages featuring the the bourgeois rabbit exploiting proletariat child labor and the ambushing bobcat.

Click the pictures to make Flemish-sized. Enjoy!



Bonus advertisement section!

Bypass to Otherness

Bypass to Otherness was published by Ballantine books in 1961, featuring stories originally published in the 1940s. The 1960s were a boom time for science fiction paperbacks as great "new" authors made the scene. Not many people where aware that savvy publishers had mined the past by raiding the contents of decades of old pulp magazine material and packaged it as new with abstract, vaguely SF-themed art for a modern audience. Aided by the growing counter-culture, science fiction was reintroduced to an entire generation, granting another life to semi-retired, marginal or forgotten authors and ensuring that alternate thought, ideas and art would not entirely vanish as cheap pulp magazines crumbled with age.

Never Forgive, Never Forget

Dell house ad that advocated the destruction of their titles from the sad era when comic books where considered disposable. As bad an idea for posterity and collectors as clipping those Marvel Value stamps.

Absent-Minded Professor #1 (1961).

Cosmos magazine frontispiece (July 1977)

Lunchtime with Sleestak

Typically I prefer to take my breaks from work in the office. It is quiet and I am left alone to enjoy my meal and get caught up on paperwork or read and maybe watch a flick on the laptop. Often customers, oblivious or just being jerks about it, intrude with problems real or imagined if a manager is found in public. On this day I chose to take my lunch break out in the public seating area due to meetings in the office.

For a few minutes I watched the Hayley Mills film In Search of the Castaways, one of her successes from 1962, loosely based on a Jules Verne story. This film is noteworthy for featuring Hayley Mills' first adult on-screen kiss. Not a bad film, though dated and meant for a young audience. It is equal parts fun, ridiculous and Wold-Newtonish. One aspect I found annoying was the music. Disney makes a lot of money via their original movie soundtracks so it is understandable that every movie they produce has a few songs in it. This is done whether the plot can really support the intrusion of a tune or not. I love the Hayley, but I can only take so much Maurice Chevalier who in the course of the movie drunkenly bursts into song at the pop of a cork. So since time and my patience was was short I stopped the film, closed the laptop and started reading a book I had brought along.

That is when the first interruption began. I was leafing through my new book when a customer approached my table.

"You work here. The Wi-Fi works better in the middle of the room than on the sides..."
"Yeah. I'm at lunch right now."
"...So you need to adjust the coverage so that when I sit next to the wall I can get a better connection. If I don't sit next to the wall near a plug my laptop battery runs out after a few hours."
"Well, we offer free Wi-Fi, not free electricity."
"That's your response?"
"Sir, I'm off the clock, eating my lunch and reading. There are two managers standing right over there who are getting paid and they will be more than happy to listen to you complain about the quality of FREE STUFF."

The customer went away mad, upset that I declined to reconfigure the internet so he could leech our bandwidth for six hours.

While on the subject of free stuff, Bully and his pal John just sent me a copy of The Wolverton Bible, published by Fantagraphics. That was the book I was reading at lunch when Crybaby McLaptop accosted me. Some comic book fans are not aware that for nearly two decades, Golden Age illustrator Basil Wolverton worked for and was a ranking member of a popular religious organization. While Basil played a role in the organization speaking to the faithful he is best known for his art work illustrating the Bible for their various publications.

Through the course of his career Wolverton's art was typically graphic, shocking and at times sickening even as it was brilliant. To his credit, when Wolverton secured the job of illustrating the monumental task of illustrating the many passages of the Bible he insisted that he be allowed to render the stories with honesty and not have them sanitized for popular consumption. The Bible, like most religious tracts, is a product of the times and is as violent, raw and uncomfortable culturally as it is supposed to be inspiring. There is nothing about the book that would cause either the believer or reality-based reader to avoid it. It does not preach nor does it tear down the institution. Each reader will take from the experience what they choose to, be it a study of the evolution of an artist or an affirmation. The images may make some people uncomfortable, particularly those concerning the end of the world. The book, with just a few exceptions, reprints the entirety of Wolverton's work chronologically. It is a fascinating look at the side of an artist that most fans are not familiar with due to the scarcity of the material.

Get your own through Fantagraphics.

Thanks, guys!

Dastardly Idea Wheels

Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #2 (November 1970).

FOOMP!

Close Shaves of Pauline Peril #2 (November 1970).