Tuesday, August 09, 2016

A Very Happy 65th birthday to Bob McLeod !

Originally I wanted to do a double feature with Bob McLeod and Rick Leonardi - especially since they have both worked on the same books in their career, like New Mutants - but as usual I couldn´t narrow it down to just ten pictures, so each one of them is going to get their own post.


Which sadly means that I will have to do Rick Leonardi´s post Tomorrow as I can´t make more than one post a day. Well, technically speaking I am ALREADY doing two posts on most days since I´m writing a new post and trying to do some fill in posts for last month so I have at least one comic related post between all the cult siren posts that accumulated during the last weeks of the month. In any case, with all the catching up I have to do you will probably not see the Rick Leonardi tribute post before Tomorrow.


But enough administrative information let´s get back to Bob McLeod. Longtime readers know that I´m what the kids Today would call " old school " where comics are concerned. That´s why I like to spotlight those great artists that for some reason don´t do as much as they used to.


When I was starting to read american comics Bob McLeod was a very prolific artist doing pencils or inks and one of his best works is Fearful Simetry better known as Kraven´s Last Hunt written by J. M. DeMatteis where he inked Mike Zeck. Since I´m planning to do a post about that - and possibly the follow up Soul Of The Hunter in my DEATH IN COMICS series I´m not going to put much from that story in this post but Bob McLeod worked on a lot of other stuff in the Spider - Man universe. And we will get to that if I ever get to do my review of Ghosts Of The Past.


Of course Bob McLeod is best known for co - creating the NEW MUTANTS with Chris Claremont which for me is still the best young superhero team book by Marvel. I recently ordered volume 3 and 4 of the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC trades because I was putting the comics in order on my porn shelf and I thought, what the heck am I waiting for since I already have volumes 1, 2, 5 and 6 ? It´s not like I´m going to get any of those as a birthday present. I mean, it´s now almost two weeks after my birthday and so far I haven´t gotten any presents aside from the one I ordered myself last year. So I read volumes 3 and 4 and there is nothing that Marvel has put out since then that gets even near. Especially not the politically correct whitewashed teen dramas Disney puts out now.


Now the reason why I got the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC trades in the first place is that when I started reading american comics Bob McLeod was already off the book which was way post - Bill Sienkiewicz around the time when Rick Leonardi did some issues ( I told you those two overlapped ). I am not sure if he had already started working on post Crisis Superman titles but I know it must have been between the time when I was doing my military service in Munich and when I got my first regular pull list.


I really don´t know why comic companies don´t give him work anymore but maybe he has to work for Archie Comics like Norm Breyfogle or do his own thing at Boom ! Studios like George Perez. Anyway, happy birthday Mr. McLeod ( I´m trying hard to avoid any Higlander quotes here ) and maybe I have wet your comic book appetite to crack out those old issues of ACTION COMICS, NEW MUTANTS or the KRAVEN`S LAST HUNT trade.


Well, this post is a bit shorter than expected but I still have to do the Rick Leonardi post and maybe I can come back to this post later and add more text. Yeah, like that ever happened. As always there are quite a few things to do first before finishing the post and as usual we start with the obligatory shout out to the websites that have made this post possible. First I have to thank the HONEY BEE REVENGE PARTY tumblr for providing the color pages from New Mutants and DAVID WASTING PAPER for his long post on Bob McLeod where I found the original art for the cover of New Mutants issue 2 and the Batman illustration above. MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980S has a New Mutant gallery and you´ll find posts about Kraven´s Last Hunt over at 4TH LETTER and COMICS MY MOM SHOULD READ .

Our first birthday is producer McG who celebrates his 48th anniversary and who is the brain behind such great series as Human Target and Supernatural. I still haven´t seen Chuck but McG is also responsible for the awful Mysteries Of Laura series and the Fastlane trainwreck with sexbomb Tiffani Amber Thiessen. Usually I would mention natural born stripper Elizabeth Berkley since they were both on Saved By The Bell but since I just did her solo post you can use the link for more animated GIFs.


Since seeing is believing here is an episode of the REAL Mysteries Of Laura series from Spain which is a bit longer than 45 minutes. Maybe you can spot any similarities with the american version with Debra Messing.



It looks like the 9th of August 1968 all the stars were also in the perfect alignment for redheaded sexbombs like Gillian Anderson who is currently filming the tv adaption of American Gods which has all Neil Gaiman fans excited. She also got male tv viewers excited in a total different way when she put the x in The X - Files by showing that even if she´s 48 the more important number where she is concerned is the 36. 36C that is !!!  


Also turning 48 Today is Eric Bana who was in the first Hulk movie together with Sam Elliot who strangely enough celebrates his 72nd birthday. Jennifer Connelly played Betty Ross - what a hot tomato !


Speaking about hot women, when 59 year old Melanie Griffith started her career she gave quite revealing performances in movies like Fear City or Body Double. She then graduated to more serious roles with Cherry 2000 and Working Girl although she showed that she hadn´t lost any of her enchantment in Bonfire Of Vanities which is probably best known for her scene with Tom Hanks in lingerie or Milk Money. She still looks great for her age and she currently portrays Dano´s mom on Hawaii Five - O


Since I could not find any good clips with Melanie Griffith and I didn´t want to post any of her movies as such things tend to disappear from YouTube rather quickly here is a video from Hawaii Five O I coudn´t fit in when Daniel Dae Kim turned 48. That number sure is popular Today. 



We´re also paying homage to Whitney Houston. I remember that she was in german pop magazine around the time italian centerfold Sabrina Salerno started her career and that was like one of my dream sandwiches.


Selecting one casting videos with a Whitney Houston song was not easy but this is one of her first big hits and I need something upbeat Today.



Normally I try to include a video with an artist centric post but since I did not want to put up a video of people talking here is one about the New Mutants that actually uses some panels from the Bob McLeod issues.



Last but not least we close with the Phantom 2040 cartoon which I think was made by the same guys as the animated Mtv series Aeon Flux.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

No comments: