WAIT...WHAT?

I'm damn glad I didn't pay for this turkey. If I had, I think I'd have asked for my money back. I acquired the book pictured above in a recent trade with my comic book collector buddy Blake Long (hi Blake!). It's not his fault that this is a bad book. I'll try and sell it on eBay eventually (which I planned to do all along). But I thought I'd at least sit down and read it and see what it was about. There's thirty minutes of my life I'll never get back.

I like the Hulk. I like the Silver Surfer. I like Galactus. All three of those characters appear in this book. But I didn't like this book. Skaar, for those of you who came in late (like me), is the son of the Hulk. He's a barbarian warrior king on the planet Sakaar. Think Conan on steroids with green skin.

The story is really not worth repeating here. That's because there's not much of one. Oh, there's page after page of rock 'em sock 'em fight scenes between the major (and minor) players. There's lots of over-the-top action with wild, exaggerated sound effects (SHAKOOM!) everywhere. It's punch him in the face stupidity with little or no plot or character development. If you like this kind of stuff, fine. I get tired of it very quickly.

But here's where this thing goes completely off of the rails. At one point, the Hulk (wearing battle armor) appears to join the constant fighting on Sakaar. It's never explained where he came from. Was he already on the planet? Did he come from earth? Just how the hell did he get involved in this story? And then, just as quickly as he appears, he's forgotten. In the next chapter of the story, there's no mention of him and he's not shown in any of the panels. Where did he go?

Skaar eventually gets sucked into a wormhole and transported to earth and guess who's waiting for him there? Yep, old Jade Jaws himself. Is this the same Hulk Skaar fought on Sakaar? How did he get back to earth? I'm confused.

It took four people to create this hot mess. Writer Greg Pak and artists Butch Guice, Ron Lim and Dan Panosian. Guice only drew the first chapter and I like his work here. I'd have liked to have seen more of it. Ron Lim is a competent draftsman. His art is okay, nothing great, nothing horrible. Frankly, I didn't care for Dan Panosian's artwork on the chapter he illustrated and Greg Pak doesn't impress me as a writer.

For the record, Mark Paniccia is listed as the editor of record for this book along with assistant editor Jordan D. White. Neither of these gentlemen did a very good job here. A good editor would have addressed that continuity glitch involving the Hulk first on Sakaar and then on earth with a footnote or an explanatory caption of some kind. It wouldn't have hurt the story, it would have clarified a point of confusion for the readers.

But a good editor seems to be something that doesn't exist in today's Marvel and DC comics. Time and time again I've read a comic book in which the hot, flavor-of-the-month writer has been given carte blanche to do whatever the hell he/she wants, good storytelling be damned. Or, it's the other way around. All of the editors collaborate on the general plot line of a given epic cross-over event (that will change everything until the next change everything crossover event comes along) and then they dictate to the writers what must happen in their books for the duration of the crossover event.

Sure, mistakes happened all of the time back when Stan Lee served as both writer and editor for almost danged near every Marvel comic published. But Lee owned up to his errors, acknowledged readers when they spotted a goof and awarded loyal Marvelites with the much treasured No Prize.

That's a pretty good summary of HULK: PLANET SKAAR. It won't get any prizes, certainly not from this reader.

MY EYES GLAZED OVER

The last time I was in a comic book shop was May 2012. I visited Midtown Comics on Broadway in New York City (pictured above). A couple of days before, I had made a stop at Forbidden Planet, also in Manhattan. I didn't buy a single comic book at either of these fine stores. Oh sure, I bought comic book related stuff: an OMAC action figure, t-shirts (Nick Fury and The Silver Surfer), a DC Showcase Presents SEA DEVILS volume, a book about Stan Lee, another book about Lee and Kirby's run on FANTASTIC FOUR, an issue of FAMOUS MONSTERS, a new DOC SAVAGE novel and pulp double reprint volumes of DOC SAVAGE and THE SHADOW. I definitely got my hard-earned money's worth plus some great memories to last a lifetime.

Back before I was married (ten years and counting now I'm happy to report) and bought a house (or two), I was at the comic book shop every Wednesday dropping more money than I should have on that week's new releases. That came to a halt many years ago and the only "new" comics I acquired were gained in trades with other collectors or plucked out of the boxes at Half-Price Books. When both DC's New 52 titles and Marvel's NOW reboot launched in 2011, our store carried a few of those titles on our newsstand. I decided to give them a try. After all, I got a 30% employee discount. I bought and read the first years' worth of several New 52 titles and a handful of Marvel NOW books and I was underwhelmed by nearly everything I read. And so once again, I decided to quit buying new comics completely.

The other day, I had reason to stop in at Rogue's Gallery comic book shop in Round Rock. After taking care of business, I decided to look around the store and see what was new in the world of comics. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of titles they had on display on their walls. Comics from Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse and other publishers I was unfamiliar with covered the display racks. Where to start even looking? Do I buy a favorite character, work by a favorite writer/artist team or the latest multi-issue cross-over "event" series which will "change forever" the respective comic book universe (DC or Marvel) until the next such event is published a few years down the road?  

Well, I've always liked Thor so I went to where the THOR comic books were. I found several titles (one called THORS which made me wonder, how many Thors are there?) while the main THOR comic featured a female version of the God (Goddess) of Thunder. I don't want to read that version of the character and besides, I know it's yet another superficial, cosmetic change that was done to get an immediate spike in sales and it's destined to not last long.

I like Captain America so I went to where the Cap titles were. The Falcon is now Captain America. Nothing against the character, in fact I like the Falcon and think he's always been a pretty cool character. But I don't want him to be Captain America. I want to read about Captain America and the Falcon. Pass. Oh, and this is another gimmick that won't last long.

The Avengers have always been one of my absolute favorite super hero teams. There are at least half a dozen Avengers titles on the stands now. Which one do you pick? All of them? How about none.

Another factor to consider is the price of an individual monthly comic book these days. $4.99 for something that I can read in about five minutes? No thanks. And it's only one part of a six-part (at minimum) story arc that will eventually be collected into a trade paperback. "Wait for the trade" is something many fans do these days.

On the plus side, I will say that there is a ton of great vintage material (from many different publishers) available these days and this is the material that I'm most interested in. Tons of great Golden, Silver and Bronze age comics are being reprinted and it's a second Golden Age for fans of that material like myself.

I imagined for a moment that I'm Joe Average, a guy who recently went to see AVENGERS: THE AGE OF ULTRON and really enjoyed it. I decide I'd like to read an Avengers comic book. I go into the local comic book shop and I'm dumbfounded. There are multiple Avengers comics, many of which feature characters and line-ups that are not in either of the AVENGERS films. There's a long and convoluted back story, there are books that are in continuity and some that are not. Where to begin?

Well I hope Joe Average finds a knowledgeable, friendly and patient comic book shop sales clerk to help him get started. If so, it's possible that Joe can find something he likes. But if that help is not forthcoming, he's going to turn around and walk out the door without purchasing anything.

That's my point. Comic books today are not reader friendly. I consider myself very knowledgeable about comic books and their history but I have absolutely no idea about what's going on with Marvel and DC these days. And frankly, I have no desire to invest the time and money that's necessary to bring me up to speed. That train has long since left the station for me.

Instead, I take great pleasure in digging through my many long boxes of comics and finding books I haven't read yet or books I want to re-read again and again. I do buy the occasional hardcover or trade paperback reprint of vintage, classic material and I get a kick out of seeing stuff I've either never seen or material I'm familiar with in a nice, more-or-less permanent edition.

I don't want this to sound like I have anything against Rogue's Gallery. The gentleman I spoke to was kind and friendly. They have a clean, well-lit and well-stocked store and they're obviously doing good business. They're in business to make money and they do that by selling comic books (and other things like statues, action figures and RPG material). No beef there and if I was inclined to get back into comics, I'd make some of my first purchases there.

But I have no desire to get back into new comic books now or for the foreseeable future. If you buy and read the new stuff, good for you. I hope you enjoy it. Me? I'll get my kicks from the old stuff.

And there's plenty of that out there.

SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS-1967

I was in the mood to read something different comic-book-wise yesterday afternoon so I looked through one of my long boxes and found the comic pictured above. It's TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED #103, published by DC Comics. The issue has a cover date of November 1967 but it actually went on sale in August of that year. The book itself is fairly routine with three six-page science fiction stories. But what caught my eye was a two-page spread advertising the upcoming Saturday morning line-up of animated cartoons for the CBS television network. 

 

I know it's a little blurry. I could probably find a sharper image somewhere on the Internet but I wanted to scan it quick while it was still fresh in my mind. Besides, this shows that it came straight from a real comic book.

What a fantastic line-up of cartoons! Moby Dick! Mighty Mightor! Shazzan! The Herculoids! Jonny Quest! The Superman-Aquaman Hour of Adventure! And more. The exact line-up (shown in the yellow box at bottom right) reads like this (all times Eastern Time Zone):

 

8:00 a.m. Captain Kangaroo

9:00 a.m. Frankenstein Junior and the Impossibles

9:30 a.m. The Herculoids

10:00 a.m. Shazzan!

10:30 a.m. Space Ghost

11:00 a.m. Moby Dick and The Mighty Mightor

11:30 a.m. The Superman-Aquaman Hour of Adventure

12:30 Jonny Quest

1:00 p.m. The Lone Ranger

1:30 p.m. The Road Runner

 

The small print at the bottom of this book encouraged kids to "Tear this out and carry it with you everywhere so you'll remember all of Saturday's super heroes on CBS. All in color."

 

This was nirvana for me when I was a kid. I was eleven-years old at the time. September of 1967 puts me in the sixth grade. I was still young enough to enjoy Saturday morning cartoons, but that pleasure would only last a couple of more years.

 

I've always thought it was interesting and somewhat odd that Aquaman was chosen to co-star with Superman in their hour-long show. He wasn't exactly an A-lister at the time and his share of the program was later replaced by a more familiar DC super-hero, Batman. Also of note in the Superman-Aquaman hour were the stand-alone cartoons that featured for the first time ever, animated versions of such varied DC characters as The Flash, The Green Lantern, Hawkman, The Atom, The Justice League and The Teen Titans.

 

All of these cartoons have been released on DVD. I have the complete JONNY QUEST series but I have yet to acquire MOBY DICK/MIGHTOR, HERCULOIDS and SHAZZAN! (all of which were produced by Hanna-Barbera). The Superman, Aquaman and solo DC hero cartoons (all of which were produced by Filmation) have all been released on separate DVD collections and I'm proud to say I own them all.

 

This ad appeared in every DC comic book that was on sale in August 1967. But it didn't appear in any Marvel Comics. Instead, Marvel ran an ad promoting the ABC-TV Saturday morning lineup which featured animated adventures of both Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four.

 

Yep, it was a good time to be a kid.

 

THE QUICK RED FOX

Pictured above is a British paperback edition of THE QUICK RED FOX by John D. MacDonald. It's the fourth Travis McGee adventure, first published in 1964. I finished reading it this morning for the second time. I didn't read the edition pictured above, but I like the image.

In QUICK, gorgeous movie star Lysa Dean is the target of a blackmailer. It seems that she participated in an orgy with several other people at a California beach house. Someone took very graphic photographs of that wild afternoon and has put the touch on Miss Dean not once but twice. She hires the services of Travis McGee to find out who the blackmailer is and put a stop to the threat. McGee is aided in his investigation by Dana Holtzer, Miss Dean's personal assistant.

The trail leads Travis and Dana all the way from Florida to New York, to California, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Along the way they discover that almost everyone else that took part in the orgy is either dead or severely incapacitated. Oh, and by the way, just how many blackmailers are there?

McGee thinks he has it all figured out but he guesses wrong and the identity of the real killer comes as a surprise. But it's too late to stop the murderer from injuring both Travis and Dana. Of course, Travis and Dana wind up in bed and of course, since this is a series and McGee can't be tied down to any one woman, the two part company at the end.

I first read THE QUICK RED FOX thirty some odd years ago back when I was inhaling every John D. MacDonald book I could get my hands on. It's a good one, highlighted by McGee's battle with two bull dyke lesbians in a Las Vegas trailer park. The usual cynical ruminations about mid-century life and culture abound, along with colorful characters, vivid descriptions of place and crackling dialogue. Recommended.

 

SERPICO

If I recall correctly, I saw SERPICO (1973), when it was first released at the old Aquarius Four theater on Pleasant Valley Road (off of Riverside Drive) in Austin. I remember it being a solid film and when I watched it again this afternoon for the first time in 42 years, my memories were confirmed.

SERPICO is the true story of New York City police officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino). Serpico is a rare animal for the NYPD of the late '60s/early '70s. He's a straight arrow, honest cop, perhaps the only one in the entire department not on the take. The story follows Serpico's career from patrol officer, to working in the fingerprint identification bureau, to becoming a plain clothes officer working vice squad. At each level and each new precinct, he encounters crooked cops who are taking bribes, kick-backs and skimming a piece of the action off of the top of various gambling operations. He wants to blow the whistle on this rampant corruption but it seems that all of the top brass are concerned more with covering their own asses and offering up a few, low level officers as token fall guys. Serpico soon finds his life in danger and he's eventually shot in the face during a drug bust. He survives, testifies before an investigative commission and then retires from the police force.

SERPICO was filmed entirely on location in New York City by director Sidney Lumet and he brilliantly captures the gritty look and feel of a corrupt and dangerous urban environment. The screenplay by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler is based on the bestselling book by Peter Maas and does a fine job of condensing action and creating composite characters while remaining faithful to the events as they really happened.

SERPICO is a character driven crime film and that character is brought to vivid and intense life by Al Pacino. SERPICO was Pacino's fifth feature film appearance following ME, NATALIE (1969), THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), THE GODFATHER (1972) and SCARECROW (1973). While THE GODFATHER showed Pacino's acting ability (he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination), that film really belonged more to Marlon Brando and director Francis Ford Coppola. SERPICO is all Pacino, all the time and it's a very strong performance. It's the picture that made Al Pacino a bonafide movie star.

SERPICO earned two Academy Award nominations: Best Actor (Pacino) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Salt and Wexler).

Back in the 1990s, when I was doing freelance article writing for a couple of law enforcement magazines, I almost had a chance to meet and interview Frank Serpico. I knew a woman with the Austin Police Department who had some connection to him and she indicated that it might be possible to put me in touch with him. Alas, nothing ever came of this but for awhile there I thought I might score a real coup in my writing career.

SERPICO is a fine police drama that stands the test of time thanks mainly to the phenomenal talent both in front of and behind the cameras. It perfectly captures New York City at a time when the crime rate was high and crooked cops were everywhere. Recommended.

 

HORROR OF DRACULA

I first saw Hammer's HORROR OF DRACULA (1958) at the old Austin Theater on South Congress sometime in the mid 1960s. It was on a re-release double bill with the studios' other blockbuster horror film, CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957). Both films starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and I fell in love with those men and their work on that long ago day. In the years since, I've always enjoyed watching Cushing and Lee, separately or together, in any film that they starred in. Even in small parts, they were always watchable, always professional and always a pleasure.

I watched HORROR OF DRACULA again this afternoon in honor of the recent passing of Sir Christopher Lee earlier this week at the age of 93. It's a fine film that holds up remarkably well after fifty-seven years. Released as DRACULA in the UK, the film was re-christened HORROR OF DRACULA for release in the United States. I suspect this was done in order to avoid confusion with Universal's DRACULA (1931), which was still enjoying the occasional theatrical re-release as well as showings on television.

Peter Cushing gets top billing and Christopher Lee has very little actual screen time (and minimal dialogue). Yet these two figures dominate the film. Lee was a big man and his entrances as Count Dracula are framed for maximum impact. Many are shot from a low angle, with Lee, ramrod straight and stiff, magnificent in his flowing black cape, standing in a doorway. He's just suddenly there. But Lee's Dracula is no static creature of the night. He jumps and leaps and runs and cavorts across the screen with a fierce energy and power. Here is a Dracula of uncanny strength and vitality, a far cry from Bela Lugosi's more subdued interpretation of the character. And Cushing matches Lee in the athletic sweepstakes, especially in the thrilling climax. I can't see Bela Lugosi and Edward Van Sloan duking it out like Lee and Cushing do.

The sets are good, with many simply redressed and shot from a different angle to give the illusion of a more expansive production. There's a nice matte painting employed to give some depth to Castle Dracula. The Technicolor cinematography by Jack Asher is sharp and director Terence Fisher does his usual capable job. Note how he often places inanimate objects in the foreground of his frame, giving the film a quasi-3D effect. The screenplay by Jimmy Sangster uses the original Bram Stoker novel as a starting point but condenses much of the action and leaves out several characters. James Bernard's score is used judiciously but when it does kick in, it's a corker.

Michael (BATMAN) Gough as Arthur Holmwood, provides strong support to Cushing's Dr. Van Helsing, while his wife Mina is well played by porcelain beauty Melissa Stribling. Unlike the original novel and the 1931 film version, all of the action in HORROR OF DRACULA appears to take place somewhere in continental Europe. There's no mention of England and even though the actors all speak with British accents, the names of the towns, buildings and the dress of supporting characters place the film in Europe.

HORROR OF DRACULA was a ground breaking film for many reasons. It was the first Dracula film to be shot in color, it featured several actresses in low cut dresses and gowns in order to accentuate their bosoms and underline the sexual, erotic aspects of vampirism and it featured vivid, red blood. Granted, not much blood is actually spilled on screen but we do see it in several scenes. These were all radical elements for a 1958 British horror film.

The film also solidified the reputations of Cushing and Lee as horror stars and it indelibly linked Lee to the character he played in several more films over the years. Lugosi will always be the first cinematic Dracula but for my money, Lee's portrayal of the character is the best I've ever seen on screen. He's a throat-ripper, a beast, a savage blood-drinker.  He's fierce, feral, big, fast and strong. That's a deadly combination and it makes Dracula a monster to truly fear.

Besides having a copy of the film on DVD, my other HORROR OF DRACULA collectible  is the magazine pictured here.

This is a copy of FAMOUS FILMS #2, a short lived magazine series published by James Warren in the mid '60s. The other two issues in the series featured HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and THE MOLE PEOPLE (by the way, I have all three issues in my collection). The concept behind FAMOUS FILMS was to present classic horror films in a photo-format using stills from the movies with added word balloons, to tell the story. This issue is a double feature of CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. In those days, there was no such thing as home video and you had to wait for a movie to either be shown on television (and hope you could see it), or be released (or re-released) to a local theater. That was it. But a magazine like FAMOUS FILMS gave you something to either remember the film by (if you'd already seen it) or something to tide you over and whet your appetite for the day you finally got to see one of these films for the first time.

The magazines look quaint today. They have a crude, primitive vitality but they're also cool as hell.

"CHRISTOPHER SOMEBODY"

In 2002, Judy and I, along with her parents, took a trip to London. We had a great time. One afternoon, I wanted to go shopping at Forbidden Planet, a world famous comic book store, or, as the signage pictured above says "The Cult Entertainment Megastore". That's a more accurate description than "comic book store" because this place has everything.

Judy and I set off for FP, leaving her parents at our hotel. We took the Underground and soon found ourselves in front of this super store. On our way in, we noticed that several people were lined up on the sidewalk outside of the store in anticipation of some event to take place later.

Once inside, I was like a kid in a candy store. I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of pop culture goodness that was on display. While I was looking around, Judy struck up a conversation with a sales clerk and asked him what was going on with the people lined up outside. He told her and she came over to me and said, "all of those people lined up outside are here to see Christopher Somebody."

For whatever reason, perhaps I was still in a state of euphoric bliss over all of the cool stuff on display, what she said didn't register with me. I didn't have a clue as to who "Christopher Somebody" might be. I kept looking.

I finally purchased a British SF paperback, THE SECRET OF LIFE by Paul McAuley, a book about the Godfather films and SHOCK THEATER: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

While I was paying for my purchases, I asked the clerk who this "Christopher Somebody" was that people were lining up to see.

"Oh, Sir Christopher Lee is going to make an in store appearance later today," he said. "That's what everyone is lining up for."

I turned to Judy and said, "It's not Christopher Somebody, it's Christopher Lee!"

"Who's he?"

"Dracula!" I cried. "Dracula is going to be here later!"

She said that if I really wanted to meet him that she'd be willing to wait in line with me. I considered it for a moment. It was sweet of her to offer but we'd already been in the store for more than an hour and I knew all of this pop culture geek stuff was probably getting on her last nerve. Besides, we really needed to get back to the hotel and her parents to get ready for the theater that night. So we left. I could have met Christopher Lee but really, I have no regrets. I made the right decision.

And that's how I almost got to meet the one and only "Christopher somebody."