Friday, February 17, 2017

I almost forgot Curt Swan´s birthday - again

Just as I had posted all the pages of FLASH issue 133 and was already going through Today´s celebrity birthday list I realized that I totally brainfarted on Curt Swan´s birthday - again. Which is not something you are allowed to do when your blog has a name like TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN, dude.


Luckily after last year´s oversight ( I did a post on Hammer Studio cult siren Yvonne Romain instead who also was born on this day ) I started collecting Curt Swan stuff in a special folder so we will have to shelf the FLASH FRIDAY post until next week while Today is all about remembering an artist who has defined the look of the Man of Tomorrow for decades.


He even illustrated the Man of Tomorrow´s Tomorrow and past so to speak since he drew a lot of his adventures as the young Superboy as well as his exploits 1,000 years in the future with a whole legion of super friends.


Since Curt Swan´s birthday falls on a Friday this year I thought about doing a Flash - centric post like posting SUPERMAN 220 - Who Stole My Super - Powers ? but as I didn´t do a Curt Swan post last year I decided against it. In any case I would have only re - posted what somebody else had posted. 


Instead I have decided to select a few iconic moments and favorite stories from Superman´s long and wonderful history. Today´s writers very often complain about how complex and overwhelming Kal - El´s universe can be while forgetting how whacky, heartwarming and gut - wrenching all those stories were. As somebody who has lived a lot of these adventures - as much as one can really live four colored pictures in funnypages - I would almost pity them but just Today I finished watching THE ADVENTURES OF THE MINI GODDESSES, which is a cartoon spin - off from the manga series OH MY GODDESS ! Now while I stopped reading OH MY GODDESS ! because after the first story they just kept repeating it over and over again with the stakes becoming higher and higher I just love THE ADVENTURES OF THE MINI GODDESSES and could read it forever. Which shows you that just because something is the source material of something it does not mean it has to be the best version or even your favorite version. And that is totally legitimate. I have written about this topic a lot, that my favorite version of the X - Men are by John Romita Jr. and Marc Silvestri, that my favorite Daredevil is also by John Romita Jr, heck, the best Iron Man is by John Romita Jr and when you think about it Curt Swan was also not the first artist to draw Superman but he was the definitive one for many generations. And now there are new generations of readers out there whose favorite Superman artist may be John Byrne, Dan Jurgens, Rags Morales or - again - John Romita Jr ( is there anything he can´t draw ? ). 


So without further ado here is my totally incomplete and highly subjective selection of Curt Swan´s best of the best Superman moments and stories. And if there are any special stories or memories you want to share, as somebody else always says - please let me know in the comments below.


So for our 820th post ( it´s almost like I planned this only when I DO plan things they never work out as intended ) I don´t have that many new Curt Swan Superman links and a few of them might be actually re - posts. First up DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND has a groovy selection of Superman splash pages and besides the stories The Man Who Murdered The Earth from Superman 248 , Keeper Of The Eternal Flame from Superman 260 and Superman Meets The Nightmare Maker from Superman 266 you can find more posts about Curt Swan there. THE LEGION OF SUPER - BLOGGERS naturally has a Curt Swan birthday salute as does 13TH Dimension in 2015 and 2016 . Today´s other birthdays start with Ed Sheeran who turns 26.



Jerry O´Connell celebrates his 43rd birthday who has been the voice of Nightwing, Captain Marvel and Superman and who - among other series - appeared on Crossing Jordan. I tried to to watch the show but in the first episode I saw she let herself get railroaded in court even though she was the foremost authority in her field. I don´t know but I got the feeling the writers of the show tried to make her like Temperance Brennan on Bones but failed. Jerry also played Sheriff Dan Lamb on Veronica Mars with bikini 34D siren Charisma Carpenter best known as Cordelia on the show Angel.


One of these days I´ll have to get the first season of Veronica Mars to find out how it all started since I came in at the tailend of that season - as usual. Besides Veronica Mars Charisma Carpenter was also in episode 11 of season 5 of Burn Notice where she showed she still can deliver the goods.
 
In Germany only the first three seasons of Burn Notice have come out on DVD and right now I´m halfway through season 2. I´m not sure if I should wait any longer to see if they will do the rest someday or just get them through imports. Now that I´m invested I want to know how it plays out and there is even a spin off with Bruce Campbell´s character Sam. In any case Charisma´s funbags alone are worth the price of admission . Daimn !


But coming back to Jerry O´Connell he co - starred with more incredibly hot sexbombs : he was Mariah Carey´s boyfriend in the music video Heartbreaker but his biggest claim to co - starring babe fame was as Intelligenzbolzen Quinn Mallory in Sliders alongside cult siren Kari Wuhrer .

She was put on the cast as the boner guarantee for the male audience and they got more than their money´s worth in the Wild West episode where her big melons are almost spilling out of her snug saloon girl corsage.


She also was in HOT BLOODED, a really bad movie that doesn`t even have full frontal nudity. Nevertheless it´s one of my favorite movies with Kari because she looks really hot in this one. You get to see a lot of cleavage and boobs and in the first sex scene on the bed you can see her sexy ass.

And because one scene where she´s at a gas station and pulls down her leather top to make the desk clerck horny. She´s really pulling it in all directions so you get to see her full boobs. I have no evidence but I swear I can see some nipple. I bet Kari had to do this scene a hundred times as the crew was sabotaging all takes just to see her boobs again and again.

In any case, I had this scene on a video tape on a loop and I must have heard the words " This material just doesn´t breathe ! " a hundred times.


Like I said there is no full frontal nudity in this cineastic masterpiece but you get a bit of sideboob in a scene that was heavily cut on german tv.

They cut parts from when she´s using a whip to get into the mood and pours hot wax on his body. They also cut some parts from where she´s on top of him which I didn´t know until I found the movie on the internet.

Damn you, german tv for keeping Kari Wuhrer´s sideboob away from me !


There is however no sideboob involved in our next birthday babe, Denise Richards who turns 46, only full frontal in her most famous scene from Wild Things - for which she could have used a body double but she declined.


In the lesbian threesome with Neve Campbell and Matt Dillon that secured Denise a place in the nudity hall of fame herbreasts became the focus of several storyboards that were sent back and forth between her lawyer, the producers and the director in order to determine how much of her spectacular bosom would be shown. At first they only wanted to film one breast but thankfully both ended up on the screen. And while Robert Downey Jr enjoys much fame for his role of Iron Man it has to sting that Matt Dillon got to motorboat Denise Richard´s champagner - covered wet perfectly shaped boobs instead of him. There have been sequels to the movie but none have reached the level of the original for obvious reasons.

Speaking of perfectly shaped boobs, obvious reasons and motorboating in another of these strange coincidences I don´t believe in adult model, exotic dancer, actress and living 42H Power Girl body double SaRenna Lee who was turned down as a waitress at Hooters and who appeared in Russ Meyer´s Playboy´s Voluptuous Vixens also celebrates her 46th birthday.


From basketball - sized breasts we come to the real thing as my name twin Michael Jordan turns 54. Has it really been twenty years since Space Jam ?



And it´s even harder to believe that Lou Diamond Phillips is even one full year older with 55. He had his biggest success in the Young Gun movies and the Richie Valens biography La Bamba but while he´s currently on Longmire ( which my mother watches like a lot ) I am currently watching season two of Num3ers where he plays sharpshooter Agent Ian Edgerton.



Hammer studio cult siren Yvonne Romain celebrates her 79th birthday. Since I wrote my post on her last year I have managed to watch The Brigand Of Khandahar and Captain Clegg a.k.a. Night Creatures and it really seems that The Curse Of The Werewolf is Yvonne´s best work.


Now while Yvonne´s part in Captain Clegg is rather small the movie in itself is very entertaining with a few unexpected plot twists towards the end.



Our last birthday shoutout goes to Alejandro Jodorowsky who turns 88 and I almost included him in an earlier post since I got his date of birth mixed up. He is of course best known to science fiction comic fans around the world as the creator of the Incal and if you have never heard of it you need to read this . Now After The Incal and Final Incal have finally been released in the US and you might ask yourself what exactly are those books. After The Incal is the unfinished aftermath of The Incal series and illustrated by Moebius. The comic was announced in Germany but I guess since it was never finished it was not published here. I did manage to get a copy of the spanish edition from amazon and I was a bit disappointed because the art was greatly different from the other Incal books and I didn´t know that it was unfinished. So after Moebius´ death Jodorowsky still wanted to finish the story so he re - wrote it so spanish artist Jose Ladronn could do the art. That is Final Incal which is on my to - read list.


Since I already posted a Moebius video on said occassion here is one about the influence of Jodorowsky on Luc Besson´s The Fifth Element.



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1 comment:

Kid said...

Can't beat a bit of Curt. Thanks for the link on your other blog. Would've left a comment, but I would've had to join some other party in order to do so, and I don't fancy doing that.