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Dune Long Jacket
$ 125.00
By Rains
Long Jacket is a longer version of Rains' classic design, Jacket. This ever-contemporary unisex rain jacket delivers high functionality in a minimal silhouette. Features include double welded slanting flap pockets, adjustable cuffs and a fishtail hem. The look is finished with snap fastenings, under-arm eyelets, and a back yoke with concealed vents.
This waterproof jacket is cut from Rains' signature PU fabric and features ultrasonically welded seams. The finish is lightweight with a soft feel and elegant drape.
- Waterproof
- Windproof
- Lightweight
- Ventilation


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afternoon snack
afternoon snack
Colorful oil painting of a piece of cake, coffee cup and moka pot
5×7″ oil on cradled panel
3/4 inch deep
Kitchen decor
Shipped with Care
- Each painting is an original one-of-a-kind and is signed and dated by Rachel
- Paintings are sealed and protected with Gamblin Gamvar varnish
- Every order is packaged and shipped with care by Rachel
- Gift orders can be shipped with a custom note, include your request at check out
- Tracking information will be emailed to you when your order has shipped
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Let customers speak for us
from 18 reviewsBest Ever! This artwork makes so so happy! Thank you so much!
The painting came and was even more beautiful than the photo. Also, it was shipped very fast. Thank you so much for this!
I'm so thrilled to add this painting to my wall. The colors, JB's expression, everything about it is incredible. It was well packed and arrived safely!
I've purchased three pieces from Rachel. Great work, reasonably priced, and professionally shipped. I tell all of my friends! Art that's accessible for anyone. I cannot say enough about how much I love Rachel's work!
I am enjoying my new painting of the Cliffs of Moher bringing back special memories from a visit there a few years ago.
In the midst of shopping for everyone else, I discovered this little gem of a painting from
Rachel Petruccillo and knew I needed a "To me, love me" gift. It arrived and I loved it. I'm so happy to own one of Rachel's pieces and know that it will always add to my holiday cheer! 🎄❤⭐❤🎄
I still can't get over how amazing these paintings are in real life! Pictures don't do them justice. I love every painting I own from Rachel and look forward to growing my collection
The print quality is excellent; the textures are so clear you could almost trick yourself into thinking it's the real thing! And of course, the paintings are gorgeous. Will definitely order again in the future.
I just love this painting so much you never fail me they are so beautiful! This makes 5 of them all special!
Oh my… I am in the presence of Greatness… Mastery… Purest Love of Mother Earth…
all this i SEE… all this i FEEL
This is so incredible to have in my home. Thank you so much, Rachel!

subset: commoncrawl


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Heather Wokusch
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Philadelphia's fire department is investigating the fire that killed at least 12 people inside an apartment building Wednesday. Eight were children. Here's Aaron Moselle of WHYY.
AARON MOSELLE, BYLINE: Smoke lingered in the air as Reggie Johnson stood, nearly speechless, at the end of North 23rd Street, not far from downtown. In the distance, police and firefighters were removing victims from the burned-out row house. Several of them were Johnson's relatives.
REGGIE JOHNSON: I feel mad. I feel like I - helpless. I feel like I don't have nothing to - I wish I had something to offer the rest of them. I don't have nothing.
MOSELLE: Johnson says his family is devastated by the loss of their young relatives.
JOHNSON: There was some hope in the generation that they was raising. They was raising them real good in a real good upbringing way, you know? The kids was going to take the family somewhere else. This was going to change the family.
MOSELLE: Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused the fire that also sent one adult and a child to local hospitals for treatment. Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy says the three-story row house had four smoke detectors, but that none of them went off before flames ripped through the duplex. The building is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
CRAIG MURPHY: It was terrible. I've been around for 30, 35 years now, and this is probably one of the worst fires I've ever been to.
MOSELLE: Murphy says the fire moved quickly through the building.
MURPHY: The only thing that was slowing that fire down from moving was - there was nothing slowing that fire down from moving. That fire was moving.
MOSELLE: Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, whose father was a firefighter, was visibly shaken as he spoke to reporters.
JIM KENNEY: I don't have much more to say than please keep all these folks and especially these children in your prayers. Losing so many kids is just devastating.
MOSELLE: Another relative of the victims is Isaiah Brown. He says the fire has left him feeling broken.
ISAIAH BROWN: They're babies. Babies, man. Young children, you know what I'm saying? They didn't even get to experience life.
MOSELLE: The Philadelphia Housing Authority says it last inspected the building in May of 2021. The agency says all smoke detectors were working at that time.
For NPR News, I'm Aaron Moselle in Philadelphia.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERMANOS GUTIERREZ'S "DOLORES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Hitting 60k miles on your vehicle's odometer is a huge milestone. At this point, your vehicle has driven many miles, and it is time to take it to Northgate Automotive for your 60k mile service. Your vehicle's owner's manual has a list of what must be inspected or changed, and we at Northgate Automotive can go over the services we perform during this interval. The typical 60k service consists of an oil change, tire inspection, filter inspection, road test, brake inspection, replacement of any necessary fluids, and more. By getting this service done, you extend your vehicle's lifespan and maintain its performance for years to come. To guarantee the longevity of your vehicle, make sure to keep following the service schedule that the manufacturer recommends and getting the appropriate services performed if issues are found during your comprehensive vehicle inspection. We at Northgate Automotive in San Rafael understand how important your vehicle is to your daily life. Whether your vehicle is used for long commutes, going on road trips, running errands, or seeing different loved ones, we want to make sure that your vehicle is safe and properly functioning for your lifestyle.
What to expect when getting the 60k service for your vehicle:
By the time you hit 60,000 miles on your vehicle, it is highly recommended that you come in to get your vehicle thoroughly inspected. At this point in your vehicle's lifespan, there are certain things that need to be replaced or at least checked out to ensure they are still functioning properly. By keeping up with this service, we guarantee that your vehicle will last much longer and perform at its optimal best. No matter what make you drive, such as Honda, Toyota, Lexus, Chevrolet, or any other make, we are knowledgeable about everything your vehicle may need. Here are some basic services we inspect or conduct during the 60k service:
- Oil change: Getting an oil change keeps your engine clean and removes any excess dirt and impurities from building up in the engine. By getting your engine oil changed regularly, the fuel economy and engine performance will stay efficient for many more miles to come.
- Tire rotation/replacement: Our technicians will examine the tires to see whether they need to be replaced or rotated. By doing so, we ensure that your tires will last longer and keep you more planted on the road. Tire rotations also lower the chance of getting a flat tire.
- Brake pad inspections: Daily driving can cause the brake pads to wear down. The metallic, ceramic, or combination material on brake pads is designed to wear as it stops your vehicle. We will fully evaluate your brake system and advise if any wear is excessive that requires replacement.
- Fluid check, such as for the transmission fluid and coolant: It is important to check that there are no fluid leaks and that every single fluid is at its optimum level. If not, our technician will replace them.
- The air filter will be inspected and replaced if necessary: Excessive buildup on air filters lowers the efficiency of your vehicle.
- The power steering fluid and system will be inspected: Our technician will replace the power steering fluid if it is applicable and recommended. This will protect the pump and ensure that your vehicle remains easy to steer while driving.
The 30k, 60k, 90k service interval is a general auto-scheduled maintenance routine to follow. These service intervals ensure that there is nothing concerning with your vehicle and that the reliability of your vehicle will be maintained. If you need a 60k mile service, come to Northgate Automotive in San Rafael to get your vehicle serviced.
Your Reliable Shop for 60k Mile Service
When you hit 60k miles on your vehicle, look no further than Northgate Automotive in Marin to fulfill all your auto repair and maintenance needs. We've been fixing cars, trucks, and SUVs since 1978, and our Expert technicians have decades of experience and can take care of your vehicle. We service most models and makes. We at Northgate Automotive are extremely dedicated to providing a top-notch customer experience and will make sure any issues with your vehicle are fixed as soon as possible.
Reasons You Should Do Business With Us:
If you are in or near San Rafael, San Anselmo, Gallinas, Kentfield, or St. Vincent, don't hesitate to schedule an appointment with Northgate Automotive in San Rafael today! Many residents come to our service center. You can schedule an appointment with us online or give us a call at 415-479-7544. Northgate Automotive - Quality you Can Trust, at a Fair Price.


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Thanks so much for stopping by! Lots going on today.
So I finally picked a date! A Spy Like Me will be officially released on May 7th, 2012. Woo hoo!
Seventeen-year-old Savvy Bent expects magic on her first date with Malcolm – in Paris! Except over a picnic of sparkling cider and strawberry tarts, a sniper shoots at them. That's only the beginning. From the top of the Eiffel Tower to the depths of the catacombs, Savvy must sneak, deceive, and spy to save her family and friends and figure out whether Malcolm is the one of the bad guys before she completely falls for him. Or he tries to snuff her out.
Heather McCorkle of CP Designs helped me with it! Check her out.
Here's the sneak peek of A Spy Like Me:
[issuu width=420 height=272 backgroundColor=%23222222 documentId=120229204309-fcaec68c340847fdbb8277878bd9e7ad name=a_spy_like_mesample username=laura_pauling tag=fiction unit=px id=272bfc0a-6264-20bf-8ae5-0099829b1397 v=2]
Want to help out with the release of A Spy Like Me? And gain points for the giveaway too?
You can read a complimentary arc in exchange for an honest review or you can help on May 7th by posting the cover and blurb to your blog!
What? You want to know what I'm giving away? Secret stuff, my friends, but I think I can trust you.
Pre-order of Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig (Out March 15, 2012)
Ebook of Watched by Cindy M. Hogan
And here's where to enter the giveaway! Open to the United States and Canada.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You lucked out. I was denied permission to send you on a top-secret spy mission for 100 points on Rafflecopter. Maybe next time.
If you want to keep up with my news about books and releases then sign up for my newsletter!
Thank you so much!


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The Shark Alliance was founded in Europe in 2006 to campaign for an EU Shark Action Plan and to close loopholes in the EU's ban on shark 'finning'—the wasteful practice of cutting off valuable shark fins and discarding the body at sea. The alliance was led by: The European Elasmobranch Association, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Project Aware and Shark Trust.
In 2009, the Shark Alliance won a major victory when the EU adopted a Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks, setting the stage for sweeping improvements in shark fishing management and protection policies.
In 2013, after years of debate and a complex political process, the alliance achieved the second of its objectives when the European Parliament and Council of Fisheries Ministers agreed to a regulation requiring that all sharks caught in EU waters or by EU boats globally had to be landed with their fins naturally attached, with no exceptions.
The EU is fast becoming a world leader in shark conservation, and these significant milestones will go a long way toward ensuring a sustainable future for sharks.
Yet there is unfinished business to safeguard sharks globally. Although the Shark Alliance campaign came to a successful conclusion, our member groups continue to educate and advocate for science-based shark conservation and management in the EU and around the world.


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Join statement
Mary Oloiparuni was 13 when she was mutilated. Restrained in a doorway early one morning in her home, she was cut, bled profusely and experienced agonizing pain. The scarring she endured then continues to cause her pain today, 19 years later. It has made giving birth to each of her five children an excruciating and harrowing experience.
Mary is not alone. At least 200 million girls and women alive today have had their genitals mutilated – suffering one of the most inhuman acts of gender-based violence in the world.
On the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, we reaffirm our commitment to end this violation of human rights, so that the tens of millions of girls who are still at risk of being mutilated by 2030 do not experience the same suffering as Mary.
This effort is especially critical because female genital mutilation leads to long-term physical, psychological and social consequences. It violates women's rights to sexual and reproductive health, physical integrity, non-discrimination and freedom from cruel or degrading treatment. It is also a violation of medical ethics: Female genital mutilation is never safe, no matter who carries it out or how clean the venue is.
Because female genital mutilation is a form of gender-based violence, we cannot address it in isolation from other forms of violence against women and girls, or other harmful practices such as early and forced marriages. To end female genital mutilation, we have to tackle the root causes of gender inequality and work for women's social and economic empowerment.
In 2015, world leaders overwhelmingly backed the elimination of female genital mutilation as one of the targets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This is an achievable goal, and we must act now to translate that political commitment into action.
At the national level, we need new policies and legislation protecting the rights of girls and women to live free from violence and discrimination. Governments in countries where female genital mutilation is prevalent should also develop national action plans to end the practice. To be effective, their plans must include budget lines dedicated to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health, education, social welfare and legal services.
At the regional level, we need institutions and economic communities to work together, preventing the movement of girls and women across borders when the purpose is to get them into countries with less restrictive female genital mutilation laws.
Locally, we need religious leaders to strike down myths that female genital mutilation has a basis in religion. Because societal pressures often drive the practice, individuals and families need more information about the benefits of abandoning it.
Public pledges to abandon female genital mutilation – particularly pledges by entire communities – are an effective model of collective commitment. But public pledges must be paired with comprehensive strategies for challenging the social norms, practices and behaviours that condone female genital mutilation. Testimonials by survivors like Mary also help to build understanding of the practice's grim reality and long-lasting impact on women's lives. Advocacy campaigns and social media can amplify the message that ending female genital mutilation saves and improves lives.
Thanks to the collective action of governments, civil society, communities and individuals, female genital mutilation is in decline. But we are not aiming for fewer cases of this practice. We are insisting on zero.
Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director, UNFPA
Henrietta H. Fore, Executive Director, UNICEF
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women


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Heartbleed: behind the scenes at CSE
The story of Heartbleed – one of the most significant security bugs found since the advent of the commercial Internet – is fairly well recognized, especially in tech circles. Publicly disclosed on April 7, 2014, Heartbleed is a memory handling error in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library that allows for the stealing of information this is normally protected in secure communications with Internet servers and other nodes. Attackers can leverage Heartbleed to steal passwords and the keys intended to secure all types of sensitive personal, business, and government information.
What's less known is how a team of computer science researchers at Michigan was able to rapidly pinpoint vulnerable servers on the Internet, quantifying Heartbleed's scope and providing data on when and where servers were patched to repair the flaw.
This work, and related work that documented the nature of attacks on vulnerable test servers, is the immediate inside story of how the efforts to mend Heartbleed were focused and reported upon. And the story continues: the same researchers are now identifying the extent of vulnerabilities found in other Internet-connected devices, from home routers, firewalls, and printers to your connected television and refrigerator; to business equipment such as cash registers, industrial controls, and gas pumps; and infrastructure such as traffic lights.
When the news of Heartbleed broke, it was immediately seen for what it truly was: a catastrophic, widespread bug with serious security implications. According to Zakir Durumeric, a graduate student researcher in CSE, "There have been some other flaws of this nature detected previously, but they were all more difficult to exploit. This one essentially let anyone on the Internet go out and pull the most recent contents of memory from any affected server, with very few barriers to doing so. It's much more dangerous."
Large services, such as Gmail and Yahoo! mail, were quickly recognized to be vulnerable. Speculation about the scope of the problem caused some to estimate that as many as 66% of Internet servers might be compromised.
Durumeric realized that it was actually possible to quickly measure and quantify the extent of the Heartbleed flaw. He, along with fellow CSE graduate student Eric Wustrow and Prof. J. Alex Halderman, had in August 2013 released ZMap, a tool that can perform a scan of the entire public IPv4 address space on the Internet in less than 45 minutes, which is up to 1000 times faster than with traditional techniques.
On the advice of Halderman, Durumeric immediately dropped everything to track Heartbleed. "I basically lived here for a week. David Adrian, an undergraduate CS student, worked with me and was also here a lot." The two raced to customize ZMap so that it would look for characteristics of vulnerable servers without actually probing or exploiting them.
On April 8 – just one day after the Heartbleed bug was made known – Durumeric, under advisement from Research Prof. Michael Bailey and Prof. Halderman, was able to perform an Internet-wide scan for Heartbleed vulnerabilities using ZMap. The research team chose to focus on the status of the one million most trafficked sites as tracked by Alexa, scanning them every eight hours to see which ones were patched and how quickly. They found that about 15% of Internet servers were actually compromised, not 66%. Durumeric posted the initial results of these scans in a blog posting.
Word of the blog posting and their work spread after Durumeric tweeted about it, and organizations began to contact the researchers. "They'd ask us which of their servers were vulnerable," said Durumeric. "Others asked which of their customers were vulnerable so that they could start working with them. It wasn't long before I had to remove Twitter from my phone because the onslaught of inquiries was so fierce."
The researchers decided to post a list of vulnerable servers in a Heartbleed Bug Health Report, which provided a large portion of the data that was used by the media in reporting on vulnerable sites and when to change passwords that took place around Heartbleed.
At the same time, Durumeric, Wustrow, Bailey, and Halderman decided to answer the question of who if anyone was actually trying to take advantage of vulnerable servers. They deployed a number of "honey pots" – servers intentionally left vulnerable – on the Internet and watched to see what happened. Their work, still underway, has shown that hackers – including from China – very quickly sought out even these relatively obscure servers to exploit.
With the initial Heartbleed work behind them, the research team is now digging deeper with ZMap to find what other types of devices are vulnerable – connected devices such as routers, printers, and cameras. It appears the Internet still needs a patch.


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text: Mendocino Purps, or Mendo Purps, or even just The Purps, comes out of Mendocino County in Northern California. Winning one of the Top Ten slots in High Times' Strains of the Year in 2007, Mendocino Purps began as a clone-only plant, but BC Bud Depot developed a stable cross to make The Purps seeds available. This cannabis strain grows well both in and outdoors. It can grow 3-4 feet at harvest indoors and 6-8 feet outdoors. Flowering time for this strain is 8-9 weeks. It has medium-thick leaves and green hues that turn more purple as the plant ripens. The taste has been likened to a caramel coffee and woodsy pine.


text:
This is a piece written by Christa's daughter Nicole. I had seen the piece before but would not have presumed to post it without permission but Nicole herself just posted it as a comment under an earlier piece I wrote about her mother. I thought it might get noticed a bit more as today's post. MY NAME IS CHRISTA HELM The early 1970's were a difficult time for the women of the day. Their moms were of the 50's, housekeepers, held against their will, by the "Right thing to do'. Those divorces hadn't much in the line of options either. Then there was the incoming age of peace, rock and roll, and the newfound sex, drugs and freedoms that no generation of women before had the pleasure, and pain of experiencing.My mother was one of these women, finally finding power in her sexuality, as opposed to the shame her earlier experiences had taught her. Her beauty was undeniable, and once she mastered the art of manipulation and charm, she found her way onto the path of her dreams. She was going to be a Movie Star!A few years of modeling and "Faking it" paid off when she moved to Hollywood and changed her name to Christa Helm.Living in a mansion, driving a new Jag, rich men falling all over her. Movie stars, sports figures, rich producers, politicians and musicians. They were all hers for the taking, and she took, and she worked, until she found herself on on the Yellow Brick Road of fame.Guest starring in Wonder Woman, Starsky and Hutch, making B rated movies, lathering in the Coppertone commercial of the day with Tarzan, and finally starring in her own debut film that was never released, all introduced her to the thrills and dangers of stardom.The lifestyles of Hollywood starlets of the time were filled with drugs, sex, murder, and money. My mother gained it all, and lost it all in a very short time.Down to her last dollars, waiting on a prime role and desperate to survive, she logged all of her escapades in a journal. The journal is rumored to have been filled with lovers, events and details of her private moments.Her affairs, beauty and strength enraged many who knew my mother, but those same attributes also brought respect, career growth, and an array of people who truly loved and respected the beauty within her. In the end those who loved and hated her would all become scrutinized under an investigation that remains open today, almost 30 years later.In the early morning hours one February morning in 1977, my mother was murdered. Stabbed over 30 times. beaten with a blunt instrument and left to bleed to death under a parked car in an upscale Hollywood neighborhood.The case remains unsolved. She was born Sandra Wohlfeil. She died Christa Helm.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
My Name is Christa Helm
This is a piece written by Christa's daughter Nicole. I had seen the piece before but would not have presumed to post it without permission but Nicole herself just posted it as a comment under an earlier piece I wrote about her mother. I thought it might get noticed a bit more as today's post. MY NAME IS CHRISTA HELM The early 1970's were a difficult time for the women of the day. Their moms were of the 50's, housekeepers, held against their will, by the "Right thing to do'. Those divorces hadn't much in the line of options either. Then there was the incoming age of peace, rock and roll, and the newfound sex, drugs and freedoms that no generation of women before had the pleasure, and pain of experiencing.My mother was one of these women, finally finding power in her sexuality, as opposed to the shame her earlier experiences had taught her. Her beauty was undeniable, and once she mastered the art of manipulation and charm, she found her way onto the path of her dreams. She was going to be a Movie Star!A few years of modeling and "Faking it" paid off when she moved to Hollywood and changed her name to Christa Helm.Living in a mansion, driving a new Jag, rich men falling all over her. Movie stars, sports figures, rich producers, politicians and musicians. They were all hers for the taking, and she took, and she worked, until she found herself on on the Yellow Brick Road of fame.Guest starring in Wonder Woman, Starsky and Hutch, making B rated movies, lathering in the Coppertone commercial of the day with Tarzan, and finally starring in her own debut film that was never released, all introduced her to the thrills and dangers of stardom.The lifestyles of Hollywood starlets of the time were filled with drugs, sex, murder, and money. My mother gained it all, and lost it all in a very short time.Down to her last dollars, waiting on a prime role and desperate to survive, she logged all of her escapades in a journal. The journal is rumored to have been filled with lovers, events and details of her private moments.Her affairs, beauty and strength enraged many who knew my mother, but those same attributes also brought respect, career growth, and an array of people who truly loved and respected the beauty within her. In the end those who loved and hated her would all become scrutinized under an investigation that remains open today, almost 30 years later.In the early morning hours one February morning in 1977, my mother was murdered. Stabbed over 30 times. beaten with a blunt instrument and left to bleed to death under a parked car in an upscale Hollywood neighborhood.The case remains unsolved. She was born Sandra Wohlfeil. She died Christa Helm.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
All-Star Companions
Yet another cool Christmas gift I received, this one from my lovely wife, was Rascally Roy Thomas's ALL STAR COMPANION 2, the new book from the always reliable Twomorrows. This is, as you might guess from the title, a follow-up (one of two expected!) to 2000's unnumbered ALL-STAR COMPANION. Roy, along with the late Jerry Bails, is on record as a huge fan of the 1940's DC heroes, particularly those of the Justice Society of America. Both of these lovely volumes cover the JSA's appearances in ALL-STAR and beyond in obsessively minute detail and depth, something we greatly appreciate around here. Hundreds of pieces of rare and sometimes previously unpublished artwork dot each volume as Roy and friends weave the tale of each individual canonical appearance of the JSA in the forties and, in Volume two, Roy's own WWII era ALL-STAR SQUADRON from the eighties. Irwin Hasen, Arthur Peddy, Harry Peter, Mart Nodell, Joe Kubert, Bob Oksner and Beranard Sachs are given their due along with a dozen more as writer Gardner Fox is rightly lionized as one of the best comics writers of his day. Later, Jerry Ordway leads the way in coverage of the ret-conned Squadron series. Volume two even has a feature about the ads that appeared in ALL-STAR COMICS. You know, the same ads we've been running from time to time here at the Library! Captain Tootsie, Sam Spade and those guys! Hours and hours of great comics info and trivia in both of these fine volumes from one of my all-time favorite comics writers. Another great geek gift this holiday season!
Friday, December 29, 2006
WWII Timely Comics Ads
Since we were scouring through the archives just yesterday for Stan the Man's early text story, thought we'd also share these nifty early 1940's house ads featuring Cap, Subby and the Torch! Also present are the Patriot, the Angel, the original Ka-Zar and the original Vision,
the Young Allies, some thoroughly obscure characters...and a monkey. As they say, everything's better with a monkey.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Broken Trust by Stan Lee-1941
As you may have noted, today was Stan Lee's birthday. Stan Lee, the co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, Stripperella and WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPER-HERO? began his writing career doing the postally mandated filler stories in early Marvel (Timely) comics. Here's a rare bylined early text piece from CAPTAIN AMERICA # 11, published in late 1941. The contents page describes it as "An ace G-Man brings down the king of the underworld." Enjoy BROKEN TRUST.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Marvel Encyclopedia
Another marvelous (pardon the pun) Christmas (and early birthday) present this year came from friend Terri. The DK MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA limited edition! Number 852 out of only 1200 produced worldwide to be precise! If you've seen the regular edition at your local book superstore, you know that it presents an authoritative, more or less up-to-date look at 1000 current Marvel heroes, villains and fellow travelers, illustrated in a hundred different styles with comic clips as well as art done especially for this volume. Everybody from Kirby and Ditko to last year's flavor of the month illustrators that I've never even heard of are represented here. The limited edition, in fact, features two (count 'em! Two!) signed art prints in their own separate little portfolio slot in the slipcase. These are done by artist Frank Cho who did (still does??) the marvelous LIBERTY MEADOWS strip! I didn't even know he did any work for Marvel. Anyway, this is a marvelous (okay, that time it was on purpose) resource for all things in the Marvel Universe. As limited and as special as it is, however , I'm almost afraid to actually READ it! Maybe I should get the regular edition, too? Thanks, Terri!
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Superman Finally Returns!
Like everyone else, I waited a bit impatiently for a new Superman movie for literally decades. I suffered through Nicolas Cage's seemingly endless attachment to the project, rumors of director Tim Burton's bizarre concepts, talk of a Batman cameo, Kevin Smith's aborted script (which was quite good!) and producer Jon Peters' insistence on using the "Superman is dead" saga as source material. Then, perhaps against all odds, Bryan Singer emerged as Superman's guiding light and Brandon Routh was announced as a visually astonishing hero. The late Marlon Brando was back as Jor-el in footage left over from the controversy that cut him out of SUPERMAN II and Kevin Spacey, one of our greatest screen actors today, was announced as the villain of the piece. It looked like it was all coming together at last and I was going to be there to see it! Only…I wasn't.
For weeks that stretched into months, it became an ironic (read: unfunny) running gag that I had NOT been able to see SUPERMAN RETURNS in spite of multiple efforts! Something came up to scotch my plans to see it with my wife that first weekend, she arranged for friend Kim to go with me later but when that, too, had to be postponed, she ended up seeing it without me! I was literally heading out the door to see it on my own when a phone call demanded my attention and I had to postpone again. Then came my summer firing! In spite of the fact that income was suddenly non-existent, I rationalized that I NEEDED to see SUPERMAN RETURNS to lift my spirits. Unfortunately, my spirits tumbled so fast that I still didn't get to do so.
Fast forward to Christmas time. My wife and I are buying a couple used video games for our son. The store's "buy 2, get 1 free" sale included DVD's and I saw a SUPERMAN RETURNS DVD shining like a hidden gem in the store's bin so my wife says to get that as the freebie so I could FINALLY see it! That evening, I load it in the player and am about to turn it on when Kim calls with a crisis. I chuckle at yet another interruption as I head off to her house to help out. Post-crisis, she asks what we had bought while shopping and I tell her that I was finally going to get to see SUPERMAN RETURNS! In a bit of a shock, she tells me that I have to return it. Being rather dense, I nonetheless eventually figure out that she has, in fact, purchased a copy for me herself for Christmas! Aaargh! I decide to wait just a few more days.
Finally, on Christmas Eve, Kim and I exchange gifts. I feel humbled as my friend presents me not with the expected DC double disk but, amazingly, that ultimate geek set, the fourteen disk SUPERMAN box set!!!!!! Every Christopher Reeve Superman film! Multiple versions of the Christopher Reeve films! The Donner cut! The Fleischer cartoons fully restored! The first George Reeves appearance! Superpup! Super parody cartoons! A dozen documentaries and TV specials! And, yes! SUPERMAN RETURNS!!!!!! At long last!
I guess it was inevitable that it couldn't live up to the hype by that point, though, don't you think? It was okay but…
Brandon Routh looks stunning, echoing Reeve but offering a more brooding hero. His delivery was good but the script keeps the Man of Steel so stoic much of the time that I longed for more lines for the poor guy. His Clark, if anything, was a bit less silly than Reeve's. Do NOT, however, get me started on the changes in Superman's uniform. Spacey, channeling Gene Hackman for the most part, offered a bit more realistic insanity to Luthor along with the silliness. His evil scheme though, was never really that clear to me. Seemed like a less than brilliant variation on the one he had back in the first Reeve movie.
The casting was good elsewhere. I liked Lois and Jimmy. Frank Langella seemed strangely subdued as Perry. Original TV Jimmy Jack Larson got a good cameo. Original Lois was unrecognizable in hers. James Marsden (Cyclops from the director's X-MEN films) was quite good but his role should not have even existed! He plays Lois' long-term boyfriend and the acknowledged father of her son. Uh…what's it been now? About fifteen years since Lois and Clark got married in the comic books? Oh, and big surprise that Clark turns out (spoiler!) to be the child's real father! My problem with that is that Clark Kent really is a Kansas boy scout. I truly doubt that he would have "been" with Lois in the first place without marriage BUT, if he was, he certainly would've worried about the possibilities of safely being able to procreate with a human woman and taken the proper precautions! When the child (spoiler again) first displays super powers, his first act is to kill the bad guy! He doesn't seem too shook up about it and neither does Lois or, later, anyone else! That's the part my wife truly hated.
I kept waiting for the various plot points to gel but it seemed too little too late. I never did figure out exactly what was going on. Where was Superman all those years really? What the heck was Lex up to exactly and why the coincidental timing? The movie seemed to go on at least ten minutes after what passed for a plot ended. The Brando footage was not well utilized, being played up more in the nicely edited trailer than in the film itself. Too much of the movie referenced scenes from the 1978 original for it to be considered the sequel it seems to be.
That said, I did enjoy the movie on some levels. Some of the individual scenes were truly spectacular, most especially Superman's rescue of the plane and the Space Shuttle, the visual scenes of the hero in Metropolis, the baseball stadium, the Daily Planet globe rescue. Still, at the end of the day, we're left with a sullen, brooding hero with no love interest who doesn't even end up catching the villain. Marsdens' character comes across as just as much of a hero and yet you just know that somewhere down the line, there's going to be a triangle there, perhaps even with him becoming a villain so that Supes can be reunited with his one true love and the mother of his child. I remind myself that each of the Reeve films has it's problems also and look forward to the inevitable Super-sequel with hope. The ingredients are all there and Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage aren't. Maybe next time.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Happy Holidays!
Some of the absolute best comic book covers of all time were those found on the 1940's DC anthology title, COMIC CAVALCADE. During the super-hero heyday, this quarterly, fifteen cent title would always feature Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Flash. The unusual thing, though, was that they were never fighting criminals. No, they were doing charity work, selling war bonds, playing games, performing in a circus or just hangin' out together and enjoying each other's company. Here's a quiet moment from one of my all-time favorite Christmas comic covers. Happy Holidays to all my blogosphere friends, readers and cohorts. I, myself, have to go in to work today. Hopefully you don't. Enjoy the company of your friends and family just like these all-stars are!
Sunday, December 24, 2006
One of my favorite shows this season (passed on to me by folks in the UK) has been the BBC's DR WHO spin-off TORCHWOOD. Essentially designed as a vehicle for the popular Eccleston series companion Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman), the series surprised me greatly by being an adult (at times VERY adult!) sci-fi/horror show along the lines of X-FILES. Rather than base the series around the notably bisexual time-travelling Jack, we enter TORCHWOOD through the eyes of Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles). She's a young Welsh police officer (who may or may not end up related to the character of Gwyneth she played in a DR WHO episode!) who encounters the local branch of the secret nationwide organization devoted to researching and cataloging alien artifacts and technology and is drafted into the group by necessity. Jack himself is played as an enigmatic, moody (and that includes frequent light-hearted moods, too!) man with a most unusual past…and future. We're never explained Jack in toto and, in fact, we're led to believe that Jack himself may not understand exactly who he is. That's part of the joy of the character. Still, Gwen is the POV star and her gap-toothed charm infuses every episode as her character develops in both good and not necessarily good ways throughout the season. Although not actually serialized, you kind of do have to watch the series in order as she and all of the other characters undergo a lot of changes. Each of the other regulars gets a star turn and each brings a deeper humanity to their roles than this type of series really requires. The overall effect keeps you off guard. There are lots of truly unexpected twists and turns, sharp dialogue, a great sense of classic British wit and lovely Welsh scenery (seen with wonderful camerawork and a lot of overhead shots). There's also a considerable amount of blood, truly disturbing imagery, some fairly explicit sex scenes and the kind of devotion to detail that you really just don't see on American TV these days. Producer/creator Russell T. Davies wins again! As Captain Jack says in the intro to every episode, "The 21st Century is when everything changes." If this series is any indication, it's a change for the better! Don't know how this one will survive on American TV but undoubtedly it will eventually cross the Atlantic. After all, Captain Jack IS an American…or is he?
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The Byrds-There is a Season
My friend the notorious Klaus Kinski, Jr. informed me recently that there was a new CD box set of the Byrds. My first reaction was "Why?" as the 4 disc 1990 Byrds box set was relatively definitive for all but the most die-hard fans. Still, the next time I was out I looked at a copy. Seemed like a lot of repeats from the first, some new stuff with which I wasn't familiar and a DVD of a handful of mid-sixties TV appearances. At nearly sixty bucks, I opted to pass. Then a few days later I was at a big national chain when I happened on a stray copy. I looked at it again and noticed that this copy was labeled at 29.99! The other copies they had in the correct section were 44.99! Knowing a sign when I see it, I called my wife and asked if she would like to consider this my birthday present (even though said birthday is still a couple weeks away). At that price, I took the box set home.
I STILL think the first box set was better. Trying not to compare, however, I find myself enjoying this one immensely. As most of my readers undoubtedly know, the Byrds were arguably the most artistically successful American group of the British Invasion. Their biggest problem, by their members' own admission, was that they were a group of "out for themselves" individuals rather than a real team like the Beatles. Thus, their members tended to come and go with only Roger McGuinn's trademark jangly twelve-string and distinctive (if somewhat slight) vocals being the group's only real constant. They were known in the beginning for their soaring harmonies (courtesy of relatively skinny young David Crosby) and later for practically inventing country rock (I say practically because you could make a darn good case for a half dozen other bands including Buffalo Springfield and Mike Nesmith and the Monkees). They were also known for their squabbles and for making electrified folk music (particularly Dylan's) into massive hit records. If you're a fan of the Byrds and already have the original box set, unless you also find this one at a bargain…or really like watching go-go dancers frug to MISTER TAMBOURINE MAN…I'd seriously consider giving this one a pass. What's on it is choice, but when we already had a definitive collection, I still find myself asking "Why?"
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Return of Tony Isabella
I've been reading those Marvel Essential volumes lately that deal with the various horror series of the seventies. You know, GHOST RIDER, SON OF SATAN, MAN-THING, TALES OF THE ZOMBIE, etc. Back in the day, some of these were among my favorite comics. MAN-THING by Steve Gerber was a particular favorite. Gerber's bizarre imagination was growing in leaps and bounds right before the reader's eyes, culminating in the classic GIANT SIZE MAN-THING # 4 story "The Kid's Night Out." After all these years, I still remember that as one of the most disturbing stories I have ever read in a comic. I had a chance to tell Gerber this not long after its original publication as he was the guest of honor at the very first Cincinnati Comic Book Convention. He thanked me for the compliment. That story is NOT in the current Essential volume however and the Gerber stories that are now seem just dated and preachy. His Simon Garth ZOMBIE stories do, too, although I now have an appreciation for Pablo Marcos art I never really had when I was younger. Likewise the Gary Friedrich tales where the author consistently mixes up variations of modern witchcraft with satanism. Some of my best friends are devout witches and I can assure you they don't even believe in Satan (and I'm gonna delete any comments that say he believes in them. Heard it before!)
Whar DOES hold up in each of these volumes are stories by our blogger friend Tony Isabella. At the time both writing and editing for Marvel, his GHOST RIDER stories are entertaining and more than just a constant variation on the theme of the cowboy cyclist versus the Devil. His "Simon Garth Lives" story is the most entertaining ZOMBIE story and a fitting finale to that series and even his one appearance with a MAN-THING story seems fresher and less dated than Gerber's!
Newly 55, Tony announced today that he plans on a full-time return to writing in the new year. I couldn't be more excited. He has a love of comics and heroes and perhaps most of all an appreciation of standards that most writers in comics today don't have and it shows. Having written mostly non-fiction columns, a few novels and most recently dialogued some foreign duck stories (which I'm sure is NOT as easy as it may sound!), no doubt Tony has a backlog of creative ideas I can't wait to see in action. Happy birthday, my friend and welcome back! We'll be watching for your return and anything you write will always have a place here at the Library.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Archie on Radio
Today we have a vintage ad for ARCHIE on radio! This has more meaning for me than some ads of this type as my wife and I have become friendly with three of the surviving actors over the last half decade or so and, in fact, appeared in two re-creations of original ARCHIE scripts. Bob Hastings wasn't the original ARCHIE but he took over the role as he returned home from World War II and made it his own. Hal Stone played Jughead throughout the run and Rosemary Rice appeared as Betty. All three of these great radio performers have become regulars at the annual Cincinnati Old-Time Radio and Nostalgia Convention. Back when Bob was the only one coming, I was priviliged to co-star as Jughead in two on-stage episodes in different years, one of which featured my lovely wife as Betty, the other having her as Veronica (so who needs to choose? I have 'em both!). It was a fun series distinctly in the ALDRICH FAMILY mode and all of the performers have great memories of doing it. In fact, if you ever get the chance to see Bob and Hal just standing together arguing and sniping lovingly at each other, you'll enjoy it more than most any show you could pay for anywhere! As far as this picture goes, though, what's the deal with Jug having his arm around Betty (whom is notably bosomier than Ronnie!) when we all know he hates girls!!!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
MLJ Ad
Speaking of Black Hood, here's a nifty ad from the company that would eventually become Archie Comics, MLJ. This 1943 ad highlights some of the company's popular super-heroes. They would, of course, be revived in dreadful but fondly remembered "camp" versions in the sixties. In fact, the Hangman and the Wizard had gone to the dark side and were revived as villains! They would later be revived again and again including a brief run at DC, but never really successfully. Note however, the innocuous red-headed kid at the bottom of the ad. He never had to be revived because he never went away! As for Pokey Oakey, well... if some enterprising publisher is reading this, then...
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Black Hood on Radio
We all know that SUPERMAN was a successful radio show and Batman was not (although he appeared on Supes' show). Other super heroes that did NOT appear on radio included Green Lantern, Captain America, Plastic Man and Captain Marvel along with most other ones come to think of it. Oddly, among those who DID have their own radio series included BLUE BEETLE, THE GREEN LAMA and, apparently, as I found out today, MLJ's BLACK HOOD. Here's a 1943 ad promoting the Mutual Network series. A quick glance at John Dunning's radio reference guide shows that he fought crime over the airwaves in a 15 minute serialized format for a little over six monhs before fading away into the ether. He was played by one Scott Douglas.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Joe Barbera
The late Joe Barbera, along with partner Bill Hanna, created an incredible legacy of entertaining animation that rarely gets enough credit due to the simple fact that Hanna-Barbera was NOT Disney or Warner Brothers. That's just it, though. From the earliest collaborations on TOM AND JERRY to the stiflingly limited animation of the late seventies, Hanna-Barbera cartoons had a unique look and feel all their own, characterized by voice acting that, dare I say it, may well have been better than that of the bigger studios! As radio died off, many of the best of its voice actors turned to animation with Alan Reed, Daws Butler, Arnold Stang and even Mel Blanc taking up long-term residence in HB cartoons. Sometimes it seemed that Butler (along with Don Messick) was handling about 90 percent of the company's output! The other thing that characterized Hanna-Barbera cartoons was their music and constant, inventive sound effects.
As a child, some of my earliest memories are of watching HUCKLEBERRY HOUND. Later, I developed a genuine fondness for H-B's super-hero and fantasy cartoons such as THE IMPOSSIBLES, SPACE GHOST and BIRDMAN. The studio's output spread into so many directions that quality suffered, perhaps inevitably, but as time went on, characters such as YOGI BEAR, QUICK-DRAW McGRAW and especially SCOOBY-DOO became icons every bit as beloved as MICKEY MOUSE or BUGS BUNNY. With animation having changed so much as computers developed, Joe Barbera was perhaps a man out of his time. His place in that time and in legend, though, are secure. Thanks, Joe! We here at the Library take special delight in the Hanna-Barbera books we have on hand and appreciate your life-long dedication to the fans!
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Darwyn Cooke's Spirit
I'm on record as being a huge fan of Will Eisner's SPIRIT since age seven in 1966! Over the years, with rare exception, Eisner resisted the temptation to allow new creators to do new adventures of his classic character...until now. Supposedly approved by the Master prior to his passing last year, DC gave the project to Darwyn Cooke whose retro art style combines elements of classic comics art and current TV animation. He premiered his take on the "late" Denny Colt recently in a team-up with Batman that both surprised me and delighted me. Seems Commisoners Dolan and Gordon were old friends and an attempt by Batman's rogues gallery to eliminate Gordon leads to a team-up between Central City's masked vigilante and the Gotham hero he had thought just a myth. Now comes the first true issue. It's a slight piece in a way, reading at times more like an homage to Eisner than the first of a continuing series. Still, the familiar characters are well-delineated and the deceptively simplistic artwork masks a modern and fairly adult story. The new female reporter character is a joy. Obsessed with succeeding in her job (and the ratings) in spite of kidnap and rescue attempts, she broadcasts the whole thing via her cell phone. One of my favorite things about the new SPIRIT is Ebony! He's here and he works! Frank Miller! Take a look! Don't just write him out of the movie. At its peak and looking past the stereotype, Ebony was the humanizing heart of the seemingly indestructible Spirit. Looks like Cooke's planning on keeping it that way with a modern twist or two. Look's like THE SPIRIT is yet another modern comic book I'm liking here!
I'm betting Will would, too.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Gahoon
Friday, December 15, 2006
Ed Brubaker and the Winter Soldier
It used to be said that to be really and truly, once and for all dead in the Marvel Universe was to be "Uncle Ben dead" or "Bucky dead" as those were the only two characters who had (in spite of various dreams, flashbacks, robots, etc.) never been revived. I noted recently that even an alternate world Uncle Ben returned! Still, nothing prepared me for Bucky's big comeback…which I finally got around to reading in the trades. What surprised me most is that it all works!
Ed Brubaker is one of those types of comics writers who have begun to infuse the industry in recent years. Rather then just "Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead!" they respect what has gone before but don't let it stand in the way of a good storyline. After years of creative stagnation in the mainstream comics field, the development of these guys (Geoff Johns is another) has become a joy to watch! I'll admit I'm still trepidatious but they have gotten my attention!
According to Ed, as a collector it always irked him that Bucky died "off-camera." That you couldn't actually buy the issue with Bucky's death because, in fact, it was an early example of ret-con! So if all we have is Cap's version…maybe his partner wasn't any more dead than Cap himself! Enter the writer's way of looking at an idea and twisting it. Bucky survived that buzz bomb explosion but was rescued by the Soviets in pretty bad shape. Ed ret-conned that Bucky had logically (?) been a trained assassin and was probably about twenty when they fought Baron Zemo. As such, the Russians nursed him back to health and brainwashed him, taking advantage of and enhancing his covert training. Then they froze him, thawing him out every few years when they had a nasty job for him to do. Thus he aged much more slowly than normal. Somehow, it all actually made sense.
Besides Cap, the "Winter Soldier" storyline that ran last year featured superb storytelling all around, re-presenting Sharon Carter, Nick Fury, the Red Skull, and even Union Jack and Spitfire(!), all old acquaintances familiar and yet made new at long last. After years of false hopes and evil twins, Captain America finally learns the truth about his former partner a little at a time and in a moment of crisis, they even team up again! As with most comics these days, however, there can be no happy ending. Still, a good story well-told is a joy unto itself and I've found far too few of those in recent years' comics. Mr. Brubaker, I salute you, sir! Thanks for caring enough to do right by Captain America in these confusing times in which we find ourselves. I guess even Bucky isn't "Bucky dead" anymore. Here's a link to Ed Brubaker's site: edbrubaker.com.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Christa Helm Revisited
For those of you who have inquired, we here at the Library have not given up on our quest to unearth more info about actress Christa Helm, star of the unreleased film, LET'S GO FOR BROKE. The starlet, whose 1977 murder remains unsolved, is generating more and more interest from a number of sources and author John O'Dowd(John O'Dowd Presents: Hollywood Starlet - Barbara Payton) and I continue to work on her life story. The more we learn, the more complex and fascinating a woman she becomes. If you or anyone you know knew Christa, please contact me with any and all information you might have on her life, her career and LET'S GO FOR BROKE. Use the "Search This Blog" function to check out my earlier pieces on her and watch for some big news on Christa soon.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Kim Recommends:The Matrix
Not a big Keanu Reaves fan so I didn't rush out to see THE MATRIX back in 1999…or since. It looked pretty good mind you. Just never a priority. I mean I do enjoy Larry Fishburne (Pee-Wee's "Cowboy Curtis!") and the words "comic book-like" were bandied about quite a bit in connection with it but then that's not always a good thing, y'know.
Then came Kim. Longtime readers know that my young friend Kim has eclectic tastes in…well, everything…and has a bizarre knack for finding films that I would greatly enjoy if I would just watch them. She insisted that it was time I watch THE MATRIX. I loved it!
Looking past the highly touted coolness factor and the nifty special effects, it really does offer an intelligent storyline in which reality itself is questioned on multiple levels. Nothing is what it seems. No one is as expected. There's a lot of pop philosophy espoused throughout (so much so that a MATRIX philosophy book was later published) but in the end it's the characters' humanity that succeeds in shining through.
The fight scenes are choreographed in the style of Chinese martial arts films (ironically aided and abetted by computer) and the action sequences match any 007 film there ever was. The performances are good with Keanu being suitably cold for most of it and Carrie-Anne Moss (who according to IMDB once appeared in a TV series entitled MATRIX) owning her "kick-ass"(Kim's words) role out of the gate. Fishburne is the heart of it all, though as Morpheus, the mentoring leader of the rag-tag group trying to reveal reality to the masses.
Why am I telling all of you this, though? Apparently I was the last comic book geek to see THE MATRIX. You guys have already seen it. We started the second one tonight but didn't have time to finish it. I'm looking forward to it, though…thanks once again to Kim.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box
I kinda feel like I'm coming late to this party even though the book is still several months away from publication. What book, you ask? HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill. If you saw the plug in USA TODAY more than a month ago, HEART-SHAPED BOX is generating enough buzz to be considered a notable book of 2007 before it even comes out! Today, I got my hands on an advance copy and I'm anxiously devouring it already. The book won me over immediately by opening with a quote from Alan Moore! HEART-SHAPED BOX introduces us to a collector (like most of us) who collects weird and wacky things (like drawings of Disney's seven dwarfs by serial killer John Wayne Gacy). In the beginning of the book, he buys a real ghost online from one of the Ebay knockoffs. I'm still early in the book but let's just say this turns out to NOT be such a good idea. Obviously, I can't write a full review at this time but I'm enjoying it immensely and wanted to give you all a heads up. Hill's writing style is unpretentious and his imagination fertile. His background in comics and horror fiction (he downplays it for obvious reasons but he's Stephen King's son) serves him well for the pop-goth setting of the novel. Here's a link to Mr. Hill's website: joe hill fiction :: home Even though I'm not finished with it yet, I don't get the impression that it's going to be the blockbuster USA TODAY touted but I can't help but think pop culture fans and horror buffs will find HEART-SHAPED BOX enjoyable. Watch for it in February, 2007!
Monday, December 11, 2006
A New Kind of Family
At long last, here's another forgotten TV show from the seventies. A NEW KIND OF FAMILY was one of far too many "relevant" series, most of which were thoroughly irrelevant in the end. This particular one from 1979, however, is notable for several reasons.
Essentially a vehicle for actress Eileen Brennan whose career was on the rise after appearances in several hit films including MURDER BY DEATH and THE CHEAP DETECTIVE, A NEW KIND OF FAMILY told the story of a two women who move in together (platonically. This WAS the seventies) and combine their families. One of the kids was Rob Lowe who would err…pioneer the accidental sex tape release less than ten years later. This was his first actual credit, believe it or not. The younger boy was played by David Hollander who was instantly recognizable as a TV kid in the Disco decade. He has since turned his attentions to scoring programs, perhaps most notably the recent animated series MY GYM PARTNER IS A MONKEY!
Near the end of the series brief run, the color of the roommate family was mysteriously changed with Telma (TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN) Hopkins and future wardrobe malfunction queen Janet Jackson taking over the mother/daughter roles, adding yet another trivial reason to remember this also-ran series. When it ended, Eileen Brennan went straight into what will probably be remembered as her signature role, that of the tough Captain in Goldie Hawn's PRIVATE BENJAMIN. In spite of longtime health issues, she keeps building up credits even today when nobody remembers A NEW KIND OF FAMILY at all.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Tip Box Reminder
Just a reminder that if you like what you see here, you can drop a tip in the Ol' Paypal tipbox to the right at the top of the main screen. After my nightmarish summer, I have been working steadily (with a considerable pay cut) since mid-August but due to various factors (including the ever-popular "unexpected health issues") we are still treading water financially. My ISP just announced an increase as did the local electric company. This next week will mark a full year in which I've managed to make daily posts of pop culture items in spite of any and all distractions going on in my life. If you like what you've seen here, please consider donating a wee bit so we can do it all again for another year! Thanks!
Mart Nodell's Green Lantern
Since I've spent much of the past week reading stories of the Golden Age Green Lantern from the forties through the present (and even extolling the character's virtues here at the blog!), I feel as though I would be remiss if I neglected to note the passing yesterday of the character's originator, Mart Nodell. Mister Nodell was a delightful comic convention guest for many years and I had the pleasure to meet him twice in the late eighties/early nineties. One of my early favorite comic books was GREEN LANTERN (the Hal Jordan version) and I always enjoyed the guest appearances by the "Earth 2" GL, Alan Scott. At the time, I had no idea that the character had such a rich history behind it. Later, Green Lantern was the reason I shelled out big bucks (when I HAD big bucks!) for my first Golden Age comics. According to legend, Mister Nodell asked All American editor Sheldon Mayer what would get him a regular gig drawing for the company and was told that super guys were hot. On his way home, he saw a subway worker swinging a green lantern and history was born. Batman co-creator Bill Finger helped develop the character and over the years the series would feature scripts by Gardner Fox, Alfred (THE STARS MY DESTINATION) Bester and some of the best comics writers of the period. Nodell would handle the art off and on, sometimes also drawing FLASH stories. Later Alex Toth would draw some stories but Paul Reinman and Irwin Hasen eventually became the main artists on the strip. The character was so popular that he appeared in his own mag as well as in ALL AMERICAN COMICS, COMIC CAVALCADE and ALL STAR COMICS (with the JSA!). Although he disappeared for a few years in the fifties, the revived version would see his return as well as grow into a considerable franchise of its own. Just this week Green Lantern appeared in the new JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA book. Not bad for a spur of the moment inspiration. Thank you, Mister Nodell. You did a good job!
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Like Father, Like Son
My father died in December. Oh my Gods and Goddesses, has it really been fifteen years ago?
My father, Frank, taught me a lot of my pop cultural background. He loved newspaper comic strips and from the earliest stages that I can recall would share the Sunday funnies with me. It's sometimes hard to recall as an adult but that folded out Sunday comics page is huge and colorful and looks like a gameboard to a kid!
He bought me my first comic books, Harvey issues with CASPER and HOT STUFF picked up every single time he found himself in a drugstore that carried them. When I was old enough to go along, he let me pick my own and dutifully paid for them. By then, I chose BATMAN.
Frank himself loved comic books, too, especially SUPERMAN, SPIDER-MAN and his longtime favorite, DICK TRACY. He was in seventh heaven over the long series of sequential Blackthorne Tracy reprints started in the eighties.
His personal tastes in humor led to his teaching me to appreciate the comic subtleties of the Three Stooges, the Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello. He also instilled in me an appreciation for silent comedians. His personal favorite, though, was always Red Skelton.
When it came to movies, he loved them, old and new. He introduced me to favorite classics such as ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES and DOUBLE INDEMNITY and, as I got older, to newer films he enjoyed such as DIRTY HARRY and DEATH WISH. His favorite actors were James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Spencer Tracy.
He grew up with B Westerns and whenever possible he shared that love with me also. In the seventies, a local TV station picked up a B Western package and the two of us sat down together weekly to watch Tim Holt, George O'Brien and every once and awhile Buck Jones ride the range.
Television became more and more of a favorite pastime as he grew older. He had always loved silly sitcoms such as THE ADDAMS FAMILY, MY MOTHER THE CAR and HOGAN'S HEROES. Westerns such as BONANZA and GUNSMOKE were weekly features at our house. He, along with my mother, also became a big fan of DARK SHADOWS. Frank retired in the late seventies after being hit by a car while crossing a street. After that, he became a big game show buff, delighting in CARD SHARKS and THE PRICE IS RIGHT. Survey people used to call and ask what his favorite shows were. After awhile, he realized that every time he told them, those shows were cancelled soon after. At that point, he began lying to the surveyors saying that he watched shows that he actually hated.
AS far as music, I could never get him to appreciate the Beatles or even the Monkees but he did instill in me a lifelong appreciation of swing music and Bing Crosby, his all-time favorite singer. He had even gotten to see Crosby and Bob Hope together in England during World War II.
Most of all, the thing that he instilled in me most was a love and respect for reading. He read constantly-fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, the Bible, comic books, dirty magazines. What you read didn't matter to him so much as that you DID read!
Frank lived to see me perform onstage when I was with the comedy troupes. He got to hear me on the radio with them, too. He was in the audience for one of my game show appearances and saw my first few pop culture magazine articles published. He wasn't really the type to say it, preferring to come across as a kind of hard, conservative father but whether he said it or not I knew he was proud of me. I wouldn't have the pop culture background I have without my dad. You wouldn't be reading this blog without my dad.
Fifteen years. In a way it seems forever. In a way, he's never left. I hope I do HALF as well by my son.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Post Old-Time Radio
It's time we dug into the vast recorded archives here at the Library yet again. While dramatic radio ended its initial dominance of the entertainment field for good with the final 1962 broadcasts of SUSPENSE and YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR on CBS in the US, this was by no means the end of dramatic radio. In fact, just a couple years later, the great Fred Foy was announcing THEATER FIVE, a generally inventive New York based anthology series (My wife and I had the privilege of having dinner with longtime LONE RANGER announcer Foy a few years back. We discussed the greats he met due to his work on THE DICK CAVETT SHOW). In the seventies, there was a surprisingly dull DOC SAVAGE radio series and even a short, noisy FANTASTIC FOUR serial notable for its pre-SNL appearance of the great Bill Murray as the Human Torch! In other parts of the world, the concept of dramatic radio never went away at all, leading to a number of well done Canadian sci-fi adaptations including FAHRENHEIT 451 and COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT. In the UK, there were actually serious 1990's adaptations of popular DC comics story arcs such as the Death of Superman and the Batman/Bane/ Azrael Saga. meanwhile, one of the quintessential British programs (or should I say "programmes?"), THE AVENGERS, turned up in the unlikely market of South Africa in the early seventies. Running as a daily serial starring Donald Monat as John Steed and the late Diane Appleby as Mrs. Peel, most stories were adaptations of the classic Brian Clemens TV series. The distinctive voices of Patrick Macnee and especially Diana Rigg were missed but their replacements coped admirably, aided and abetted by the familiar theme music and a narrator who often told more of the story than he perhaps should. Even more recently, the various BBC websites have offered new DR. WHO serials as well as rebroadcasts of various sixties and seventies radio dramas. I've forgotten the name but I recently heard one with Vincent Price (a fixture of forties/fifties radio in the US) and Peter Cushing! Keep your eyes--and ears--open for some of these niftypost old-time radio gems, especially on the Web where they turn up free on various pop sites from time to time.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
The Justice Society of America
When I was seven years old, my parents and I stopped at a dimestore called Ben Franklin's on a Sunday afternoon and as we were going through the checkout lane with our cart, I spotted some comic books. One of them was an issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA and featured several heroes being tossed about through giant sound effects words. One of the heroes was TV favorite Batman. There was another, however, who looked pretty much like Batman (at least when drawn by Mike Sekowsky). Soon enough, I learned that he was Wildcat, a super hero from the Earth 2 group, the Justice Society of America. With that issue, the JSA became immediate favorites and have remained so ever since. Over the years, through the courtesy of various reprint projects, I have been able to discover the surprisingly rich 1940's world in which these original super heroes premiered. Nearly all of the JSA were All American Comics characters and lately we've been writing alot about these longtime favorites here. Today, I stopped by my local comic shop for the first time in several weeks ( I got no money, remember?) and spotted an all-new JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA # 1.The magnificent (as always) cover by Alex Ross grabbed my attention, echoing as it did the JSA's earliest ALL-STAR COMICS appearance. Once again, after more than six decades, the golden age Flash and the golden age Green Lantern, two of my all-time favorites, prove themselves to be seminal heroes in the truest sense of the word. Here they team with only one other original member, the surprisingly durable Wildcat, and recruit a new team of youngsters to carry on as a "moral compass" for America and the free world. The JSA has meant so much to so many over the years for just that very reason. No matter who writes them, these guys ARE heroes and they know it. It's good to see that still counts in this new century in which we find ourselves. I don't pay much attention to modern comic books these days because the characters clearly aren't really the same ones I grew up with but, in this case, they are! There's something magical about Jay Garrick, Alan Scott and yes, Ted Grant. They were created at a time when the goal was simply to cash in on the super hero craze but somehow, they transcended that. JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA # 1 spends its entire length developing characters and setting up future developments. Geoff Johns knows his stuff, though, so its all good. The art is clean, the storytelling good.How can you go wrong with Golden Age Magic!? Booksteve says check it out!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
More Shredded Wheat Transfers
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Timely Comics Wants Mail
Here's a deal you don't see anymore! This is an inside cover ad from MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS # 4, soliciting mail for money! That's right! The editors would pay you good money (especially for 1940!) in exchange for letters detailing your favorite characters from MARVEL MYSTERY. SUB-MARINER, HUMAN TORCH, KA-ZAR, ANGEL or the AMERICAN ACE? Which one was it. Well, my money's on AMERICAN ACE for LEAST favorite as he's one of the very few Marvel/Timely characters whom I don't believe has EVER been revived. Incidentally, Stan Lee, although working as an "office boy" was NOT yet an Editor. Come to think of it, maybe that's the real reason he became an editor. Instead of giving out REAL cash, Stan came up with the ingenious concept of the "no-prize."
Monday, December 04, 2006
Shredded Wheat Comic Transfers
Yesterday, we talked about Silly Putty and the joys of being able to lift images of your favorite comics characters right off of the printed page! Well, here, in this fifties(?) ad for Shredded Wheat cereal, we have comic strip transfers which you can put right on your clothing (or your hankies!) and wear to school where you'll be the envy of all your friends...or at least you would be if any of these were A-list characters. I mean seriously, when ANDY GUMP and HAROLD TEEN are the big shot names on your licensed character list, I sense a bit of a problem. Were they even still being published that late? What's that? THE SHADOW?? Hmmm... I dunno... Hey, Mister Tollin, does that guy "Shadow" look like he knows what evil is lurking in the hearts of men...or anywhere else for that matter?
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Silly Putty
Okay, so erector sets were a tad before my time on the Baby Boom scale. Silly Putty, on the other hand, was the "IN" thing during my youth! I recall seeing the ads (like this one from a 1966 comic) and buying it at Woolworths. In fact, I recall buying it a number of times over the years, usually in its traditional plastic egg container. Once, though, I found and bought Silly Putty (or possibly a knock-off) in a cool plastic skull container. Being the CAPTAIN AMERICA fan that I am, I naturally painted the white skull container red. I still have it! I'm sure you all know that Silly Putty was invented by accident when trying to discover a rubber substitute for use in World War II. If not, here's a link that will tell you all about that:Silly Putty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. As a kid, the important thing was that it could pick up comics images from the cheap pulp paper and stretch them!! Ahhahahahaha! What fun!! It didn't taste that bad as I recall either!
Saturday, December 02, 2006
DC Slogan Contest-1956
Here's an interesting house ad. This is from 1956 DC comics and features the company's then most popular characters--Superman, Batman and...Tomahawk?? Well, as previously noted, the TV popularity of Davy Crockett helped Tomahawk around this time. Anyway, this particular ad announces an upcoming slogan contest to promote DC. Does anyone know if any winners were ever announced and what they were?
Friday, December 01, 2006
Rudolph the Red Nosed Comic Book
In the late fifties and early sixties (and then again in the seventies in the tabloid format) DC published annual issues of a comic based on the famed "ninth reindeer," Rudolph. Immortalized in cowboy music and TV puppets, Rudolph's four-color adventures were marvelous comic inventiveness. In fact, the seventies revival was from Sheldon Mayer, the unsung hero of DC/All American Comics. According to most sources, Mayer was instrumental in getting SUPERMAN published, he edited and shepherded most of the AA line that included the JSA members, he created Scribbly, the teenaged cartoonist as an alter-ego, the original Red Tornado and later and most legendarily, SUGAR AND SPIKE! If you look closely at some of Mayer's mid-sixties art, you could also make a good case for him being a possible influence on underground artists of the Gilbert Shelton school! Here's a late fifties RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER house ad to start off December right!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Erector Sets
Well, Christmas is coming as it usually does at this time of year. When I was a child, one of the most wanted (read: most widely marketed and advertised ) toys was an Erector Set. Oddly, I never got one. I knew kids who had them but I never had one of my own. When I saw them, they seemed complicated and confusing. I did want one, though. Perhaps the reason I never got one was that the company that made them declared bankruptcy in 1967 and they were picked up by a competitor. It wasn't long after that that I hit puberty and finally got one of my own. Sorry but the jokes just tend to write themselves on this one...which may well be another reason they faded from popularity in the more sexually-aware sixties.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Yellow Submarine
In the late sixties, Gold Key experimented with putting fold-out posters in some of its comics. As I recall they had them in DARK SHADOWS, CHITTY CHIITY BANG BANG and the adaptation of the Beatles film YELLOW SUBMARINE. This one was particularly cool because it gave nice views (and names!) to some of the monstrous Peter Max-style villains of the story, many of whom went unnamed (and under-utilized) in the film itself. YELLOW SUBMARINE was the very first film that I was allowed to go to see on my own (age 9) to the best of my recollection. The line for the Saturday afternoon matinee was stretched all the way to the Woolworth's down at the other end of the block. As previously stated, I was NOT really a Beatles fan until the LET IT BE era but, having discovered the comic at that selfsame Woolworths a week or two prior to the movie opening, I HAD to see it! I saw it twice that day and went to bed that night with Beatles songs echoing in my head for the very first time.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
One of the most wondrous things about the age in which we find ourselves is that the once lowly newspaper comic strip is now at long last given its due as an art form and little by little, the true classics are coming back into print. The current case in point would be POPEYE by E. C. Segar. The first of a series of handsome tabloid-sized volumes presenting the original dailies and Sundays is just out and we highly recommend it.
It took nearly ten years before the one-eyed sailor man even appeared in THIMBLE THEATRE, a pre-jazz age comic strip showcasing the adventures of one Castor Oyl and his friends and family. Despite the historical significance of a volume reprinting those undoubtedly worthy strips, publisher Fantagraphics has wisely—at least from a marketing viewpoint—chosen to begin with that first storyline involving Popeye. We do see a bit of what the strip was like earlier as the storyline begins 27 pages prior to Popeye's debut. Castor Oyl is presented a magic Whiffle Hen which he tries at some length to kill, then sell, but the bird keeps returning to him. Ultimately, he and friend Ham Gravy rent a ship and need a crew which is where Popeye comes into the picture.
Strangely, that first appearance is presaged by an early panel in which Castor yells, "I'll be pop-eyed!" and then by the brief appearance of a tramp who resembles the later star of the strip!
Also in this initial volume is Castor's sister and Popeye's future paramour, Olive Oyl as well as the first appearance of the Sea Hag, originally one of the scariest strip villains of them all!
Visually and verbally inventive, Segar's run on THIMBLE THEATRE stands with the work of the best humorists of the early twentieth century. In fact, as times have changed, much of the prose humor of the period doesn't really hold up all that well but this strip is at turns exciting, amusing and endlessly ingratiating. In almost no time, Popeye takes center stage at the THIMBLE THEATRE never to relinquish it again. It's about time whole new generations will get to discover the wonder of one of the very best comic strips and the true, unexpurgated version of a character they THINK they've known for years.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Wonder Woman Paper Drive Ad-1944
Sunday, November 26, 2006
1940's Cereal Ads
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