TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN

It´s a whole big Who - niverse out there

2012-01-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

It´s been over a week since my last post and even if I feel like I have been on the receiving end of one of the Hulk´s best haymakers it´s about time to finally do a new post. Even if it doesn´t have much comic content and just is about one of the things I´m doing in the meantime.

Some readers don´t realize this but one of the reasons why it´s so long between posts is that it can take quite some time until all the things are done on such a post. In fact I just put the finishing touches on my last post about movie cult sirens Janet Jones and Leslie Easterbrook THIS Monday adding some stuff about POLICE ACADEMY nad DIRTY HARRY so I didn´t want to put up the next one too soon. I know some readers are not too thrilled with this kind of posts that have lots os hot babes but on the other side they seem to be the most popular. They definitely are the ones that get the most spam.

The post got a bit derailed and I´m not sure what I initially wanted to write about. I had already written most of the post previously and thought I would just have to add some nooks and crannies but then it just went downhill from there and before I realized it was a whole week before I had finally managed to add all the bell and whistles. I hope all the stuff about wrestling on german tv wasn´t too boring but that´s just how it works on this blog. One idea pops into my head and - bang - I´m off on a rant and no idea how I´m going to get back on the original subject. Anyway, I hope I can be more linear on this post.

Yesterday I wanted to take things slower and stay away from the internet but then I spent more time before the computer than planned and it looks like I´m also going do a few things Today that were not planned.

Since I now have a job again ( Yay, the novelty still hasn´t worn off ) and I have to work on Saturdays and Monday my weekend is pretty short. So my weekend is more between Wednesday and Saturday, which means right now.

I have been pretty emerged in DOCTOR WHO stuff since my mother has now more crime tv channels than ever and watches all those crime series 24 / 7. So I needed a break from that and have rewatched the 5th season of DOCTOR WHO ( yes, I know it´s not really the fifth season but the 31st but I´m going with the new numbering - we do the same with comics, don´t we ? ) to get to the last Christmas special.

And I have to say, it really IS a better Christmas special because it adapts one of the best Christmas stories and one of the most often copied - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - and it´s much more about Christmas than last year´s. Don´t get me wrong, it was a good special but it was more of a Winter special that just happens to take place on Christmas than really a Christmas special. The Doctor was not as involved in this one and the most interesting part is the beginning with the starship he seems to blow up. I´d like to see what´s up with that.

Of course you can´t just keep rewatching the old episodes of DOCTOR WHO so I finally watched all the episodes of DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL of season 6 now that I have seen all the episodes. Because you don´t want to be spoilered on an episode you haven´t seen. The most interesting episodes of the CONFIDENTIAL were of course the one with the Neil Gaiman episode and the last one now that the identity of River Song is finally revealed. Which was for me the initial reason to rewatch the 5th season because I didn´t watch the history of River Song in order.

My introduction to DOCTOR WHO proper was of course the first season with Christopher Eccleston that started the reboot of the whole series but here in Germany they just stopped after the second season which was the first one with David Tennant. I saw a few episodes of DOCTOR WHO in Spain ( and it is kind of weird hearing him in catalan ) but here we are still waiting for more episodes. Season 5 is shown on FOX but the general public is still waiting. That´s so typical of german tv, one of the best sci - fi series of the world and they are not showing it. I have to admit his voice sound a bit strange in german since Matt Smith does so much with his voice but I think you can get used to it.

Anyway, one day while surfing the internet ( probably looking for pictures of Power Girl, massita ) I found some episodes of the David Tennant episodes and started with his last ones. Which is logical. Don´t start with the ones that come after the last one you have seen, start with the last one. The finale is great. Must be all those comic reading over the decades, I´m just not used to experience things in the right chronical order. When I started collecting comics you never got issues in the right order so you were used to start in the middle of a storyline, read the beginning later and find out the end years later.

Which is kind of my experience with River Song´s story. I saw the end of the David Tennant run ( no pun intended, Doctor Who fans know what I mean ) then season 5 with Matt Smith, then season 3 with David Tennant ( Matha Jones, BEST traveling companion ever ), then season 6 with Matt Smith again and then season 4 with David Tennant - and that all with some episodes of Tom Baker inbetween. So I first saw the end / beginning of River Song as the last and the beginning / end the first. Or, if that makes more sense although I´m not sure if it possibly can with such a complicated thing like River Song´s timeline in particular and all the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff in general, I started with THE TIME OF ANGELS or THE FALL OF THE BYZANTIUM like River calls it, then went forwards until THE WEDDING OF RIVER SONG before finally making my way to SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY.

I´m not sure if that´s the best way to see it ( I´m sure it probably isn´t ) but what I can say is that SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY is a real tearjerker especially after you have seen the rest of River Song´s story. You know everything she´s been through with the Doctor and why she´s willing to make such a big sacrifice for him. It is a very good episode, even if you DO see it in the order it was meant to thanks to the brilliant writing of Brian Moffat, but having seen season 5 and 6 it just packs a bigger punch because you are kind of put in her place and see things from her perspective. Now if you´re new to DOCTOR WHO you might want to skip the next clip because likie River says : spoilers. Although on the other side it just might get you interested.

So, Doctor Who, nothing short of brilliant. But of course old episodes of DOCTOR WHO and DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL can only last so far. Which is where DOCTORWHOCAST comes in. You may have noticed that there are two new links on the blogroll, one for the official DOCTOR WHO webside at BBC and the other one for the Doctor Who podcast DOCTORWHOCAST, which not only brings entertaining podcasts of Whosomeness but also TARDIS every other day, meaning Totally Awesome, Ridiculously Doctor - like Internet Stuff.

Which is where I got most of the pictures on this post from. The TARDIS stuff can be a cake that looks like the TARDIS, a woman who has a corset that looks like the TARDIS ( you have got to check that out ) or the handy Doctor / River Song chart that lists all the Doctors, who they were travelling with, who they fought against, which one faught against the Daleks most often, which one fought the Cybermen most often, who had the most seasons etc., etc. A really indispensable tool especially for writing this post.

So, now there is no new DOCTOR WHO for me to watch unless I find some old episodes on the net or the DOCTOR WHO movie is finished. There are rumors Tim Burton is going to direct it.

Or maybe they show the old DOCTOR WHO episodes on german tv. I have no idea why they don´t show them for the fans and call it DOCTOR WHO CLASSIC or something. They can´t be very expensive, maybe they could get the whole pack for a good price.

Anyway, there is still other stuff to watch and hopefully I can get to that now that my Mum is going back to Spain on Sunday and my brother is also going for 4 weeks. I still haven´t finished watching the second season of SLEDGE HAMMER, I´m still the only one who hasn´t watched all the episodes of THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and I finally have found season 3 of SLIDERS on DVD, which is where Kari Wuhrer comes in. Which sounds a bit pervy but really, Wade was starting to get on my nerves constantly getting involved when Quinn always told her not to get involved. Well, Kari is much more take of business, what do we have to do to survive till our next slide. And she looks waaay better in a corsage.

I also haven´t had the chance to watch the last 5 DVDs I bought which was one of those 5 FOR 20 BUCKS deals. I got VARSITY BLUES, which has a great striptease scene and it is a decent flick but I never watched the whole movie, THE CANNONBALL RUN with Adrienne Barbeau ( who was in the best SWAMP THING movie so far ) and her famous zipper cleavage, HAPPY EASTER with Jean - Paul Belmondo and Sophie Marceau which I haven´t seen before, DER GROSSE BLONDE MIT DEM SCHWARZEN SCHUH ( which was remade with Tom Hanks as THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE ) which is just a brilliant comedy and Mireille Darc has a stunning dress in that one and INDECENT PROPOSAL with Demi Moore, Robert Redford and Woody Harrelson. So, all great movies to re - watch or watch for the first time.

I thought I could write a bit more about comic stuff but it seems this is all we have time for Today. Like I said in another post : if you don´t watch DOCTOR WHO please try it. Oh, and one last thing : can anyone explain to me why the female superiors ( or women in general ) are called " Mom " by the soldiers ? Is that a british thing or just a thing in DOCTOR WHO ?

The video in my last two posts have been kind of a theme so Today it´s time for another version of DINNER FOR ONE, this time by BERND DAS BROT ( Bernd, the loaf of bread ) a really hilarious german comedy show.

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I´m most definitely a mad man with a box.

Movie cult siren Janet Jones ( and stuff )

2012-01-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Today Janet Jones Gretzky celebrates her 51st birthday so I thought it´s time for another of the ever popular MOVIE CULT SIRENS posts. Which is my way to give props to the unsung heroines that transform many otherwise unwatchable b - movies into bearable entertainment.

And it´s also a possibility to talk about other stuff like POLICE ACADEMY and a whole lot of other stuff that comes to mind. Now that I´m almost about to finish the post I am tempted to call it MOVIE CULT SIREN JANET JONES - AND OTHER STUFF LIKE WET T - SHIRTS, PLAYMATES AND POLICE ACADEMY but that´s just too long. Janet is of course best known for appearing in POLICE ACADEMY 5 - ASSIGNMENT MIAMI BEACH in a stunning white swimsuit presenting her best assets and she´s one of the reasons people still watch the movie. Or at least wait for her bits before zapping to something else.

Nowadays nobody really watches the complete movies anymore because thanks to a seemingly neverending number of sequels Hollywood has managed to completely ruin the franchise. Not only with the movies but also with POLICE ACADEMY - THE ANIMATED SERIES of which I saw an episode or two and which thankfully has been wiped from my memory for which I will forever be thankful.

And I also can´t talk about POLICE ACADEMY without mentioning the comic series by MARVEL that either only lasted for six issues or was a six issue miniseries to begin with.

Since it was a big movie franchise comic ( well, obviously according to somebody´s standard ) it was also published in Germany but as usual the covers were buried under a lot of lettering and other stuff.

I never read an issue and probably have an higher IQ because of that. Coming back to the movie series of POLICE ACADEMY I remember seeing the first one in the movie theater and coming out pretty overwhelmed because at that time it was really a novel concept. And I still think the first part holds up pretty well. Not that it´s the big cinematographic gem but it´s funny and entertaining if you haven´t seen the gags repeated in all the other sequels. It sure lauched a few careers since it brought Steve Guttenberg a big career boost and gave Bubba Smith and Michael Winslow their big break.

Although I have to confess I´m not sure what Michael Winslow is doing right now. I know he did some really bad german movies starring Thomas Gottschalk and written by Thomas Gottschalk ( who else would cast Thomas Gottschalk in a movie who didn´t owe him a favor ? )

but also better stuff like SPACEBALLS and ROBOT CHICKEN. Steve Guttenberg was pretty big in the 80s and 90s but to the current generation he´s probably best known for playing corrupt town mayor Woody Goodman on VERONICA MARS with the lovely Kristen Bell in the lead role of plucky successor to Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars. I guess I just appeared on all search engines because I mentioned Kristen Bell.

Speaking about VERONICA MARS, Charisma Carpenter also has a part on the show who is of course best known for playing Cordelia on BUFFY and later on ANGEL. Which brings us to Enrico Colantoni, who plays ex - sheriff / ex - private eye / new sheriff Keith Mars and he also was on an episode of BONES which is the new series of David Boreananz who plays FBI agent Seely Booth and who also played Angel first on BUFFY and then on ANGEL.

And Kim Catrall - who later on had more SEX AND THE CITY - also appeared in the first POLICE ACADEMY movie. Like I said, it was pretty good but with each sequel the quality has gotten worse and worse and the only good parts were the ones with hot babes like Janet Jones who is the only reason anybody can suffer through these pieces.

The other reason is sexy Leslie Easterbrook who plays megabusty police officer Debbi Callahan Callahan and had her best scene in POLICE ACADEMY 4 - CITIZENS ON PATROL where she was in a pool with a wet t - shirt.

Leslie Easterbrook´s secondbest clip is in POLICE ACADEMY 5 when she´s on the plane and two boys stare at her cleavage thinking her fast asleep. If you pay attention you see how she first yells at them. But then when they try to check her out again you can see her flashing a proud grin and pushing her boobs up a bit ( sorry, I only found the french clip ).

Which shows what a sense of humor Callahan has and that despite everything she´s still proud of her breasts.

She probably got that from Leslie Easterbrook, the actress who Callahan and appears on most of the films, who seems like the kind of actress I’d love to have lunch with. She knows exactly what kind of movies she’s in, and plays the part with a vicious commitment unseen in most comedies of this ilk. She’s perfectly o.k. with being objectified and in interviews seems amused and tickled at some of the things she’s had to do. Pragmatic, flirty, professional and practical, Easterbrook is one of the stars of the POLICE ACADEMY series and may well be one of the women who influenced my fixation on confident blondes with big breasts that kick ass like Power Girl.

Power Girl picture from Taguiar´s deviantART gallery

She would have been one hell of a Power Girl, which is kind of a coincidence since originally I wanted to do the TOP TEN OF POWER GIRL COSPLAY post which I now have to leave for another day. I have had several complaints from readers as to " Where´s the Power Girl ? We want more magical cleavage windows....stuff ! " but I promise it´s coming.

Back to Leslie Easterbrook and her role as Callahan ( of course named after Clint Eastwood´s famous character Harry Callahan in the DIRTY HARRY cult movies )

while she DID play the hot blonde she wasn´t the stupid bimbo. And to think that originally they wanted her character to be older and have a beard.

I had an audition and at that point Callahan was described as a 45 year old female Wayne Newton with a moustache. I was younger than 45, was blonde and had no moustache. So I had visions of, “ Well if they like me for this I may have to grow one ! ” And I think that may be the wrong hormone. So I looked at this material and it was very tough, it was a scene that’s not in the movie — very tough, mean, authoritative scene — and I had just finished doing Rhonda on Laverne and Shirley, and now here was this character who could control the world. She could beat up the guys, intimidate them with one look. I knew I had to become tough. I didn’t have the script, just the scene. I didn’t really know if I could play a tough guy. And I went up the stairs and you know, I didn’t dress real sexy, but I put on a tight shirt. And I did this silly scene and everyone stood up at the end of it, going," Oh it’s okay, stop, stop ! ” And I thought, my gosh, maybe that was a little over the top. I left there and thought I really loved playing that character because it was so far outside of my package of ammunition, so to speak, as an actor. I got a call three weeks later saying that they’re considering me for this and I thought, " Well, wonderful! This is really great! I’d love to play it. ” About a week later they sent me the script just to see if I would read it and if they decided to choose me, and I read this script and I literally cracked up, I just thought it was the funniest script I’d ever read. I just wanted to be a part of that. I gotta tell ya, I’ve been happy like that, but I don’t remember having that same feeling of elation, and I was just simply cast for that part from an audition, and the rest is history.

Leslie´s Callahan was kind of empowering for women, she was strong, intelligent, kick - ass tough as nails, independent and secure in her sexuality. Physically she was superior to most men who came across as rather stupid and one - minded most often suffering - or inflicting upon others - heavy injury while being distracted by her curves. Like in the scene where this poor guy almost chokes to death because the beefcake who is supposed to be spotting him is checking her out.

Callahan was the hunter and all others were the prey. Another movie that´s still sort of known and didn´t fall into obscurity only due to Leslie Easterbrook´s participation in it is PRIVATE RESORT in which Leslie already showed her big talents.

Easterbrook first became famous as Rhonda Lee, the Marilyn - Monroe - like neighbor of Laverne & Shirley. Among the television shows in which Leslie has appeared are FANTASY ISLAND, LOVE BOAT, MURDER SHE WROTE, HANGIN WITH MR COOPER, THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, MATLOCK, HUNTER, and BAYWATCH. Soap opera fans will remember her as Devlin Kowalski from RYAN´S HOPE. She's also been doing voice work for the SUPERMAN and BATMAN animated series.

Easterbrook's vocal talents led to her being chosen to sing the National Anthem at Super Bowl XVII and has landed her starring roles in musicals; she also recorded a song for the soundtrack of POLICE ACADEMY - MISSION TO MOSCOW. As an NRA member and accomplished sports shooter, Leslie has put together a video, REAL BEGINNER´S GUIDE TO THE SHOTGUN SPORTS, and has served on the board of directors of the California Rifle & Pistol Association. Leslie also serves on the board of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and supports a number of children's charities.

In 2005, Leslie replaced Karen Black in Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL´S REJECTS, the sequel to the 2003 horror movie HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. Leslie's intense portrayal proved her to be an excellent actress and the definitive Mother Firefly as a result she has been dubbed " Unrecognised horror queen. " Leslie was given the part of Mother Firefly after Karen Black demanded a higher salary, but Leslie Easterbrook took the part and made it her own, giving the performance a disturbing edge that Karen Black lacked. In 2007, she played security guard Patty Frost in Rob Zombie's remake of HALLOWEEN and in 2008, she played as Betty in the thriller / horror film HOUSE.

Now back to playmate Janet Jones Gretzky who was a few times on the cover and inside of PLAYBOY magazine

and yes, she that famous icehockey player´s wife.

As her appearances in the pages of PLAYBOY have proven she´s one hot masssita and since she looks absolutely boobielicious in a swimsuit she takes over Leslie Easterbrook´s part as eye candy - at least partially. In an X - Men movie I would cast Janet as Dazzler.

Or she could play my favorite X - Girl Tabitha Smith a.k.a. Boom Boom ( because of her big Boom Booms ) since they could be twin sisters.

And so you can get idea what that would look like here are some screencaps from POLICE ACADEMY 5 - ASSIGNMENT MIAMI BEACH with Janet Jones in a white swimsuit or just watch the movie. And if you do don´t be surprised to see Rene Auberjonois as the villain who also played Odo on STAR TREK - DEEP SPACE NINE.

Janet Jones, whose film credits include BEASTMASTER, STAYING ALIVE, THE FLAMINGO KID, A CHORUS LINE, AMERICAN ANTHEM and A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN also did a workout video where she also wears a white suit. Hmm, I guess white is her color. Now we all know why men buy workout videos and I made the mistake of buying volume 4 and 5 of the strip fitness tapes with Carmen Elektra only to find out that the first 3 parts are probably the better ones. Of course I only got them for therapeutical reasons for stress relieving purposes but that didn´t work out. Trivia tidbit : like Janet Jones Carmen Electra was on the cover of PLAYBOY and inside ( in fact numerous times ) and like Leslie Easterbrook she had a wet t - shirt scene in the movie MY BOSS´ DAUGHTER.

( Here I wanted to post this animated gif of wet Carmen but it´s too big )

Back to Janet Jones I guess I would have bought her workout tape and I wouldn´t have regretted it from the short clips I could watch on the internet. Janet really shows her best parts and in some instances there is some nipplage visible through the thin fabric. The tape is available through amazon so there still must be some demand for it. Although I´m not sure who can play it since the only way to get something that´s equipped with a VCR is one of this combined machines that also have a DVD player and those are going out of style because everything is Blue Ray now.

And speaking about BAYWATCH, PLAYBOY and workout tapes Pamela Anderson hasn´t made a workout tape ( her most famous tape is more kind of a home video ) but she was on an episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN with Becky Mullen of which I found some pictures while doing the research for this post.

It´s the episode where Al is having these dream sequences with first Becky, then with Pamela and then with both fighting over him but each time it´s about to get interesting Kelly - of course - wakes him up.

I really can´t decide who´s hotter in the episode, Pamela or Becky. I mean Pamela is Pamela, my very first candidate for the SEARCH FOR POWER GIRL series but Becky is nobody you would throw out of bed either. Especially the scene when she takes off the business suit is extremely sexy.

Becky appeared in a few erotic movies like SINFUL INTRIGUE, which is extremely difficult to find because there seem to be at least ten movies with this name and you want to get the right one. In the movie she´s a hot babe who gets taken advantage of by her bad boyfriend who makes her do some hardcore stuff which she´s not comfortable with.

Basically he treats her like a prostitute which is not okay. Even if she has the measurements to be the centerfold of a certain publication for men I already mentioned twice in this post you should treat her with respect. But her husband is not even trying, I mean no flowers, no presents, no nice dinner, just " Slut up, wife ! " and then it´s " Wham, bang, not even Thank you, Ma´am ! " What a dork. On top of that he cheats on her with every other woman he comes across like Mai - Ling ( really, like there are no other names for asian women, but that´s Hollywood for you ) played by ultrahot Chona Jason, who gives him a very special massage - one of the best scenes of the movie. There is one decent guy who has the hots for Becky Mullen which is her neighbour but of course she keeps him at a distance and only does it with him out of pity when he´s ill. Just like in real life - the guy who treats her like a prostitute gets to do her every which way day in and day out the whole year while the nice guy finishes last.

There´s some kind of murder story involved but the important thing is that Becky gets to strut her stuff and wears some kinky outfits. If you have a chance you should watch the movie, it´s quite entertaining and the story doesn´t distract too much from the erotic parts.

Now, all of this might not be interesting but the reason why I´m even mentioning it at all is that besides having parts on almost every tv show from RENEGADE to CYBIL to MADtv to PACIFIC BLUE to HUDSON STREET to HIGH TIDE and appearing in a few Andy Sidaris movies she also played the part of Sally, the Farmer´s Daughter.

Not on Playboy Late Night or in an erotic movie but on the first season of GLOW, Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling one of the few shows with female wrestlers shown on german tv. At that time as a wrestling fan you took what you could get and I´m not sure if the show was really that serious. Although there was this one episode where one of the female wrestlers had an accident and sprained or dislocated her elbow and they kept repeating that footage over and over during the show. Which was really freaking me out. There were some weird characters on the show and I remember having a thing for Palestina who had quite a big rack.

There were other hot wrestlers on the show but the woman that made the biggest impact in wrestling outside of GLOW was Lisa Moretti who played Tina Ferrari. Lisa went on to wrestle for the WWF / WWE as Ivory and hold the WWF Women's Championship three times. Ah, good times.

I think GLOW aired around the time when the legendary CATCH UP show was on RTL presented by Joe Williams and Horst Brack der Bestrafer ( the Punisher, obviously named after the MARVEL character ).

While the wrestling matches ( NWA, CWA and WCW ) were interesting the best parts were the banter between straight man Joe Williams and heel Horst Brack. And of course the highlights of the shows was the interview section BRACK´s PRANGER ( Brack´s pillory ) where Horst Brack either butterd up his guests or trashed them depending on whether he liked them or not.

But Horst Brack wasn´t just like most people all talk and even participated in a few wrestling matches. I tried to find the legendary fight against Rene Lassartesse but the only video I could find was this one with a tag team match between Horst Brack & Rolo Brazil vs Rene Lasartesse & Indio Guajaro.

Horst Brack a.k.a. Rochus Hahn a.k.a. Robi is also a prolific comic writer who wrote such german cult comics like MENSCHENBLUT, DR. DIPPERZ ( the german version of Dr. House only this one really IS insane ), HORST, LUNA, ARSINOE or ALRAUNE.

I remember that every time at the INTERNATIONALER COMIC SALON ERLANGEN he was nominated for best writer or best comic with his newest publication from SCHWARZER TURM and most of the times won. One of THE coolest guys in the german comic scene. He also works in tv and movies and he wrote the original script for Sönke Wortmann´s THE MIRACLE OF BERN, and I don´t know if it´s a coincidence but from all people involved in the movie the only guy who never was in any interviews was the guy who wrote the initial script and who is involved with comics. Makes you think.

Another thing I wanted to mention since I have already opened the subject of the DIRTY HARRY movies is that during my research I found out that the translation on the german movie poster for the first movie wasn´t spot on. " Detective Harry Callahan. He doesn´t break murder cases. He smashes them. " was changed into " They called him Dirty Harry because Detective Harry Callahan handled the dirtiest assignments - and he handled them alone. " probably due to the fact that in the german language you say that somebody solves a case, not breaks a case. Which throws the whole breaking / smashing comparison right out of the window.

So the german text is a good solution although it kind of spoilers one of the big things of the movie, namely why the lead character is called Dirty Harry.

Once again, time to wrap things up since I have been writing waay too long on this post already. But as usual here are the shownotes with the websites without making this post would have been pretty difficult :

an overview of the police academy series ( by Whitney Seiboldt )

cartoons that never should have been - police academy

leslie easterbrooks on the afflicted, rob zombie and police academy

leslie easterbrook wiki / leslie easterbrook imdb / janet jones imdb

becky mullen imdb / glow wiki / glow article ( lot of background info )

name the glow girls from season one quiz / catch up fansite

catch up wiki / horst brack facebook / rochus hahn wiki

schwarzer turm homepage / john kenneth muirs review of dirty harry

dirty harry review on actionmoviefreak / dirty harry novels on bear alley

Well, the post was a bit all over the place but the next one will be more straightlined and about comics. Or not. Who knows with this blog. And I also hope nobody´s head exploded from erotic sensory overload by all the pictures of hot babes in this post like Carmen Electra.

Now there are a lot of videos I could put at the end of the post but since I featured DINNER FOR ONE in my last post I´m going to post another version of it, this one called EURO FOR NOONE featuring Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy about the monthly EU summit. Same procedure as last month. I even found a version with english subtitles.

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

Here, hold my Annihilus, there´s something I need to do.

Happy New Year ! and some S.T.R.A.F.E.

2012-01-01T05:48:00.000-08:00

So, finally 2012 has come and I want to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. I hope you survived the holidays in good condition and for those who don´t have to work during the next days ( I have to - bummer ) relaxing holidays.

I spent the last few days on which I didn´t work watching season 4 of DR. WHO since I had started while waiting for this year´s Christmas special. Now I could have watched it already BUT I wanted to see how the 4th season ends and I must say, BEST SERIES EVER. They really put out all the stops on this one so if you still don´t watch DR. WHO - shame on you.

I´m going to watch the special in a few minutes ( more like an hour knowing how long it takes to even do these short posts ) but I wanted to put a shoutout to my readers on the blog first. There haven´t been many posts last month but I hope to do more this month.

Of course I want to thank my longtime readers for sticking with me ( as TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN is now going for 7 years ) but I also want to greet all the newbies who just found the blog this year or Today. You´re all welcome and if you like what you read spread the word. Speaking of new and blog I want to give a warm " Welcome back ! " to fellow blogger Kitty Pryde whose blog I´D LOVE TO STAY HERE AND BE NORMAL has finally returned from a long hiatus. I haven´t read all new entries yet but that´s because the font size borders on the microscopic. So kudos, and keep blogging.

Since everybody and their dog is doing a best of 2011 list and last year I only posted other lists ( which I may be doing in one of the next posts ) I wanted to do my own version. I have always been a fan of COMIC SHOP NEWS Red K Awards and so I´m giving out my own version of an award. Being broke there is of course no money involved but the honor of being nominated is everything that counts - right ?

First I wanted to call them Outstanding Honored Recipiants For Excellence In Graphic Entertainment or short OHRFEIGE, but that was just too long. So instead I´ll go with Subzero´s Totally Random Awards For Excellence or short STRAFE. Okay, maybe that´s not so lucky but until I can come up with a better name that´s it.

BEST FOREIGN EDITION OF A GEORGE PEREZ COMIC

This STRAFE goes to the spanish edition of Marv Wolfman and George Perez Teen Titans CLASSICOS DC - NUEVOS TITANES. Not only are these some of the best comics ever written but the 500 page hardcovers are just beautiful to read and re - read, which you will do. Trust me.

True, I can´t say how they compare to DC´s newly released OMNIBUS but at 35 EUROS they only cost half as much and are at least affordable for the regular comic reader. Planeta has now lost the rights to DC but they went out in style and gave comic readers ( at least the ones fluent in spanish ) a big present.

BEST GEORGE PEREZ COMIC NOT F - ED UP BY THE NEW 52

Again we enter titans territory. Longtime fans of George Perez or the Titans have of course heard of the unfinished GAMES graphic novel. Long since has the story become one of many urban comic legends until it miraculously resurfaced as an actual comic project that is once again coming out. I have mentioned it a few times and I bought it as soon as it came out. But I didn´t read it right away. There are some comics, special ones, where I like to wait for a quiet moment and the right alignment of the stars to read it so I can give it my full attention.

The way last year had been going there was always something else to keep me occupied but this week I finally read it. Because if I was going to read one last comic in 2011 it had to be NEW TEEN TITANS - GAMES.

And let me tell you, it holds up to all the expectations you may have and more. I´m feeling a bit uncomfortable with these expressions but if the word " nerdgasm " has ever had any raison d'être ( pardon my french ) it´s to describe this comic. In one of the ads the graphic novel is called a swan song for the Teen Titans and I couldn´t phrase it better. George Perez´art is the best it´s ever been and reading Marv Wolfman´s words is like it´s only been a few weeks and not twentysomething years since he last wrote a Titans book. It´s seems that sometimes you CAN go home again.

The only negative thing I can say about it - but which I already predicted before reading it - is that it makes you painfully aware how low the TEEN TITANS have sunk since then. Which brings us to :

BEST TEEN TITANS COMIC NOT F - ED UP BY THE NEW 52

I´d like to say that the pre - new 52 TEEN TITANS comic was really that good, but to tell you the truth the last 6 issues of that run are still lying in my box at the comicshop and that alone should tell you everything there is to know. Too many changes in the writing departement, too many changes in the art departement and really, after Eddy Barrows left there hasn´t been anybody nearly as good on the book.

Adding to that the fiasko of the new incarnation of the book it should be no surprise that the best Teen Titans related comic right now is TINY TITANS by Art Baltazar and Franco. Aw yeah, Titans !

Every issue is funny, witty and can even be enjoyed by new readers who don´t understand all the in - jokes. This is something you can read with your kids and I especially like the " theme " issues like the " all redhead " issue or the " all Batgirls " issue. Highest recommendation.

BEST COMIC THAT CAN´T BE F - ED BY BAD TRANSLATIONS

I know it was technically published in 2010 and was on most Best Of lists in 2011 but since I only read it last year ( and I still haven´t gotten around to get CONGRESS OF THE ANIMALS ) Jim Woodring´s fantastic comic parable WEATHERCRAFT wins this category.

Back when I started reading american comics I probably never would have thought that one of the best comics I would read in the future would have no superheroes, be in black and white and have no words. But that´s the beauty of Jim Woodring´s FRANK series. He has his own way of telling ..... well, what exactly ? It´s not really a story as there is no narrator and the reader takes more the role of a spectator who is just a witness to certain happenings and has to come to his conclusions of his own.

If the events are real or taking place on a higher plane of existence - who knows ? If there is any logic to the comics it more closely resembles dream logic and so it is rather difficult to categorize the comics.

The only thing that is for sure is the feeling of spiritual enrichment you have after reading them. Comics for the mind, body and soul, beautifully drawn, printed in lush hardcovers by Fantagraphics all this without words. I guess that´s why everybody loves Jim Woodring´s comics.

weathercraft review on comics alliance

BEST WATCHMEN - LIKE COMIC THAT IS NOT WATCHMEN

Ever since Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons gamechanging WATCHMEN comic came out everybody has been waiting for the " next Watchmen " and there have also been a few who have been given that title. So far there have been none who really have come close - at least in my opinion - and I´m not sure if that´s even possible. WATCHMEN has had such a profound impact not only because of the great story, the great art, the big scope which it takes, the complexity and layers upon layers of story and meaning but also because of the time it came out. And because it was groundbreaking and a gamechanger. And that´s where the dilemma is. Once you have broken new ground you can´t un - break it again and then break it for a second time. What´s done is done. So most attempts to recreate such an experience are doomed to failure from the start.

Which is the reason why THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN by David Hine and Shaky Kane came totally out of left field for me. I hadn´t read any announcements, the covers I had seen didn´t really inspire me to run out and buy the comic and apart from an enthustiastic write - up on fellow blog COMICBITS ONLINE I never heard of it.

Now since I trust Terry Hooper´s taste in comics and because it was described as " a must read for fans of comics, superheroes, rayguns, dinosaurs, or pop culture or any combination of it " I ordered the trade and was totally overwhelmed by it. The comic is not like WATCHMEN in the sense that it is not a deconstruction of superheroes but it does manage to show you what really is possible in a comicbook. Comics like these only come around every decade.

I don´t want to spoiler anything but you will start to question things about comic convictions you believe to be true, you will change your thinking about real life and reality as this comic crosses over to the real world and even involves timetravel. No joke. The story is brilliant and even the art that didn´t impress me at first is totally point on. I don´t know if any other artist could have pulled it off. As the sequel begins this year it´s not too late to get this comic and remember rule number one : The Doctor lies.

BEST INFINITELY ONGOING COMIC BY THE SAME CREATOR

This is a no - brainer as Stan Sakai´s USAGI YOJIMBO has now entered it´s 25th year of publication. The black and white samurai saga is still going on strong with stories going from ghost stories to murder mysteries to moral plays to funny comedy as well as everything inbetween.

With a brush stroke that looks really simple while being anything but, Stan Sakai does epic as well as small world stuff depicting everyday medivial Japan and the human spectrum of emotions in funny animal characters that will make you laugh, shout and cry. This is better than any history book and far more entertaining. It´s a series everybody should be reading and it´s going to be on my pull list as long as it lasts.

BEST INFINITELY ONGOING COMIC BY THE SAME CREATOR WHO KILLS THE LEAD CHARACTER ON A REGULAR BASIS

Savage Dragon is dead. This is a sentence you can read in a lot of issues of SAVAGE DRAGON written, penciled and inked by creator Erik Larsen.

And not because they like to remind readers of it but because it happens again and again and again. I don´t know if Dragon is just an especially tenacious character but he just won´t stay dead. He really gets more mileage out of his recuperation powers than Wolverine but Erik Larsen still manages to make you think that THIS one is the final nail in the coffin. This time he even went so far that Dragon´s son Malcolm took over the book with stepsister / secret crush Angel. There were many readers who were sceptical about this risky step all but ready to leave the title at the first signs of weakness. But within a few issues Erik won them over and the book is better than ever.

Nobody is sure if Dragon is ever coming back, if it´s really Dragon who´s coming back or if they even want him to come back. What nobody questions is that this comic that takes place in real time ( yes, really ) has kicked into overdrive with the EMPEROR DRAGON storyline and is only gaining momentum.

BEST CONSECUTIVE SERIES OF COMICS BY THE SAME CREATOR

I know this sounds a bit complicated but now that STRANGERS IN PARADISE and the equally brilliant but shorter ECHO has ended that´s my way of honoring Terry Moore.

When the end of SIP was announced I was sad because I thought it would leave a whole - not only in my pull list but my life. I hadn´t come aboard with day 1 but rather after the third trade had been out and only after a recommendation by WIZARD magazine. One of the things I will be always indebted for to them.

And it was a rough transition. But then Terry moore started ECHO and showed that he can also do drama ( and brilliant sci fi ) in a METAL BIKINI book of all series. Now he has also finished this story and the new RACHEL RISING continues on this path of comic book greatness adding horror to the genres where Terry Moore leaves his distinctive mark.

BEST AMERICAN COMIC ANTHOLOGY WITH DIFFERENT CREATORS

I have mentioned it once or twice, one of the best series of last year - at least in my opinion - has been the new DARK HORSE PRESENTS. With a WHO´S WHO list of creators like Mike Mignola, Neal Adams, Paul Chadwick, Dave Gibbons, Richard Corben, Evan Dorkin, Fabio Moon, Steve Niles, Howard Chaykin, Geof Darrow, Eric Powell, Frank Miller, Steranko and Harlan Ellison it´s totally worth the 8 bucks for 80 pages. Except issue 3.

That was 104 pages for the same price. But really.

Anybody who can pluck down 4 bucks for a 22 page comic from the big two but has problems paying twice as much for what is almost four times the page count can´t calculate. So far every issue has delivered and what is more I have made the experience that my favorite comics are not always the ones by creators I already know but rather comics like Carla Speed McNeil´s FINDER or Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse´s RESIDENT ALIEN.

BEST GERMAN COMIC ANTHOLOGY WITH DIFFERENT CREATORS

Another winner that shouldn´t surprise longtime readers Levin Kurio´s HORROR SCHOCKER series is another one that gets some STRAFE.

Issue 27 has just come out and it´s everything a german comic and horrorfan could want. With every issue Levin manages to keep the high quality level of this homage to old classics like TALES FROM THE CRYPT, HAUNT OF FEAR and the likes while adding a modern touch. Showing that you really can tell a great story in just a few pages he serves up little horror vignettes that always deliver no matter if it starts in everyday life, ancient Rome or the farflung future.

In fact the stories that take place in post apocaliptic futures are always entertaining and full of social commentary about human society. Other fanfavorites are the Stories from the Styx starring Charon, the Ferryman or stories with an historical background and people that really existed like Hermann Cothmann, burgomaster of Lemgo who was called The Witchjudgde.

The list of artists is not as famous as the one of DARK HORSE PRESENTS but not less talented.

Besides HORROR SCHOCKER Levin Kurio also somehow manages to publish several other comics throughout the year like WEISSBLECH´S WELTBESTE COMICS ( Weissblech´s Wolrd´s Best Comics ) with such great titles like SCHAURIGER SCHUND ( Scary Trash )

of which the latest issue includes a new look at old classics like HEIDI courtesy of Dirk Eggers, Stefan Hagenow and Carsten Dörr .

preview pages weissblechs weltbeste comics 20 - schauriger schund

preview pages hammerharte horrorschocker

/ preview pages issue 27

And with that it´s once again time to wrap up things if I ever want to get some sleep before going to work on Monday. I managed to give out ten awards which is a lot and maybe I can come up with a few more in one of my next posts. For now I want to wish you all the best for 2012, good health ( which is only appreciated once it´s gone ) and great comics.

Today I´m leaving with two videos. The first one is DINNER FOR ONE a sketch that has been a fixture for my generation on Sylvester and really, you can´t start the New Year in Germany without seeing DINNER FOR ONE. So for all who missed it here´s your chance.

The second video is the brilliant last minutes of episode 11 of season 4 of Dr. WHO called TURN LEFT. I just love it how they can turn your whole world upside down with two words. And what´s even more Airwolf is that those two words are not only the message but also tell you who sent it.

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

I think I need three clones of myself

2011-12-20T08:41:00.000-08:00

It´s been an awful long time since my last post but I have a really good excuse because I was busy, busy, busy with my new job, getting all the Christmas presents and - last but not lest - my big Christmas contest on this very blog.

So let´s do the update first. Thanks to my brilliant idea of announcing it at the german Comicforum and Paniniforum most of the books from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 are gone and the rest ( and some of the american comics ) are probably going out this week. Last week I sent out the first wave which set me back a whopping 10 bucks for shipping. Man, next time I really have to see if I can find a sponsor. So I hope all people who received some comics are happy with them and if you want to return the postage ( as somebody already did ) you have my address now.

Boy, the lengths I go to for giving away free comics. I even went into Ludwigsburg one more time after spending most of last Wednesday showing my brother the new location of the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen. It really would have been cheaper to send the comics by mail but since I already had agreed to a meeting in person ( I thought I would go to the comicshop much later and spend more time there ) there was no way out.

So, I think still in the pot - for anybody still interested in getting free comics - are SPAWN Band 50 from INFINITY ( contains issues 99 and 100 ), MARVEL EXCLUSIV 26 - DAREDEVIL HÖLLENFAHRT, SQUADRON SUPREME Buch 2 - HYPERION vs NIGHTHAWK, PUNISHER - DIE LANGE KALTE NACHT and some issues of COMIX : issue 07 / 2010 ( 2 copies ), 08 / 2010, 04 / 2011 and 05 / 2011.

SPECIAL READERS REQUEST

In the comments of the last post somebody asked me to post some art of mine, since he read in my deviantart profile that I was an artist. Now there have been a few people asking for some art of POWER FREAKS and I DID look for it but the truth is I can´t find it at the moment. The only page I found is this one and I´m not sure if it´s safe to post. It´s the splash page for the first issue. The art was done by my brother with inks by me.

The only piece of art entirely done by myself is this illustration ( that is also on the deviantart page I share with my brother ) which I did a few years ago and even sent it to the letters page of LEAVE IT TO CHANCE but since I did that around the time the series went on hiatus ( I´m not sure if it´s been officially canceled ) I never found out if they received it or read it at all.

This was one of my earliest coloring jobs and being a big fan of crime stories that take place in sewers ( which I think must have something to do with all the EC comics I read ) I put the two main characters there. I thought about putting some of the gremlins there but then I opted to go for the simple design. I did it in the style used in the series or better TRIED to do but it turned out as a mix of that and Tintin. I think Today I would do it differently.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW ?

One of the things I hoped for DC´s NEW 52 initiative was that we would see more art by some of the industry´s veterans who don´t do much comic work now. But instead of new titles by the likes of Kerry Gamill, Bob McLeod or Mike Zeck most of the new artists look like they were frozen in time during the iMAGE explosion.

One of my favorite artists has always been Ron Frenz who really should get more work and who did a brilliant zero issue for SUPERMAN BEYOND with the great Sal Buscema. As you can see by this comission piece he still has it.

For longtime readers of this blog it´s no secret that I´m still a big fan of John Byrne and after long weeks fellow blogger Pedro Angosto has finally worn me down by posting a whole plethora of beautiful John Byrne comissions. You can find more pieces here , here and here or just use the link for MAN OF BRONZE on the blogroll.

And since I already mentioned the blog I was really floored when I read that Jason Pearson apparently had some kind of personal crisis around the 10th of this month . Apparently he left what sounded very much like a suicide note on facebook and was incommunicado for a dreadful hour. Thanks to the intervention of some friends he´s better now but it´s kind of a shock when you hear that such a talented artist has a nervous breakdown.

YOU HAVE JUST ENTERED THE WEIRD ZONE

I don´t know if that´s a good sign or not but it has been a while since I did my news roundup posts where I include all the funny and interesting and strange stuff you can find on the interwebs. And the first thing I MUST post is this picture that expresses all our feelings about the TWILIGHT saga.

Next comes this aircraft identification chart courtesy of COMICBITS ONLINE ( also to be found on the blogroll ) which really explains a lot.

And I think I found this on facebook or Allyson Mack´s blog. Words to live by.

Of course this section wouldn´t be complete without a top ten list and Today´s list comes from the fine folks at Zen College Life , namely the 10 Most Memorable TV Cameos like Boy George on the A- Team.

So Christmas is coming around and there´s still some shopping to be done and you never know what to get.

For all my readers in Germany my tip is go over to amazon.de and get some hardcover collections because you can get them sent till Christmas if you order now. My tips would be - as I said before WEDNESDAY COMICS, DARK AVENGERS ( the complete collection ), WEATHERCRAFT, BULLETPROOF COTTIN, iZOMBIE, LOVE AND CAPES, ULTIMATE X - ORIGINS and THE NEW TEEN TITANS - GAMES by George Perez or the long overdue AVENGERS - ASSAULT ON OLYMPUS by comic legend John Buscema.

But I´m sure you´ll find something interesting. I´m wrapping this post finally up as this day has gone different than I thought. Instead of spending my time with watching female wrestling and getting some rest before having to work Tomorrow I have worked on this post for most of the afternoon.

And naturally we can´t end this post without mentioning Today´s celebrity birthdays. First up is Jenny Agutter who turns 59 and who played in such cult classics like LOGAN´S RUN and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. I did an exhausting post on Pop culture icons - Logan´s Run that you should really check out because not only does it have all kinds of stuff about the movie but also the tv series and the comic adaptions.

The other one is Joyce Hyser who celebrates her 54th anniversary and before you ask : you don´t know don´t know Joyce Hyser, you don´t remember the movie JUST ONE OF THE GUYS for which she is best known but I bet you remember this scene.

Back in the 80s your best bet to see some naked breasts were screwball comedies because you knew even if the script was totally worthless and the actors without any kind of talent you were going to get some boobage. Joyce Hyser may not be famous and may not have played in the best movies but every prebubescent boy growing up in the 80s saw this movie.

And to think she almost didn´t do it. Joyce had a no nudity clause in her contract and was against showing the puppies especially after a friend told her : " Honey, with those breasts if you go topless in that scene, no one you meet will ever look into your eyes again. " Thankfully she shot the scene showing her breasts and without showing them and in the end decided that the scene didn´t work if she didn´t go topless. So thanks for logic winning over superstition. Or naked breasts winning over...whatever.

As it´s now waay past 20.00 hours and there´s nothing good on tv I´m going to watch the Doctor Who special VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED. Since the Christmas special won´t air for a few more days I´m watching all the specials I haven´t seen yet like River Song - meaning backwards. I already know where The Doctor will end up as I go further and further into his past.

Since I haven´t posted it yet here´s the trailer for this year´s Christmans special THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE.

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

The 2nd big Christmas Contest

2011-12-06T04:53:00.001-08:00

Like I promised here is the official announcement of the second annual Christmas contest and what better day for it than Saint Nicholas Day ? Even if you won´t get something into your boots until Christmas I wanted to post the details.

Like the last time around here is a soundbite to get you in the right mood. Now what is the big Christmas contest ? Mainly an excuse for me to give away free comics. TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN will enter it´s 6th year in 2012 ( the gods willing ) and this is my way to give back something to all my loyal readers. Now the situation regarding review copies hasn´t improved much since last year so free comics means mostly that : free comics.

The big blunt of it are comics from this years GRATIS COMIC TAG as I have already promised to give away the issues I have reviewed. Although that didn´t work exactly as planned - I only managed to review a bunch of them - it´s about time to give them away. The end of 2011 is rapidly approaching and I don´t want to accumulate too much stuff for next year. Who knows ? I might even find the time to change the look of the blog back to the old look. Unless you like the new look better. I myself am not so sure. It was nice for Halloween but it´s a tad too depressing for winter and the new year. So unless there´s a massive outcry to keep the new look be prepared to this blog looking like it used to.

Now what is the loot ? As I said, first are the issues from the GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 ( to which a few copies will be added next week ) namely : DIE SCHLÜMPFE, HOLZHOF COMIX, DIE MÜLLERS, BOULE & BILL, THOR, BLACKTOWN, ZARLA, MONSIEUR JEAN, TALES FROM THE VAULT OF THE GRINGO, DIE MUPPET SHOW, WEISSBLECHS GRATIS GRUSEL GEISTERSTUNDE, DER TOD UND DAS MÄDCHEN, PROFESSOR BELL, UNGEBREMSTER SPASS VOM BSE VERLAG, BONGO COMICS FÜR UMME, MOSAIK, ICOM - COMICS FÜR ALLE, DER GRATIS - COMIC ZUM FESTIVAL MÜNCHEN, DIE PEANUTS, GREEN MANOR, POLLY UND DIE PIRATEN and THE GOON.

And as if that´s not a lot I´m also throwing HELLBOY, STAR WARS - THE CLONE WARS and YTHAQ from the first GRATIS COMIC TAG 2010 into the hat.

Next are the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics from this year and since I didn´t get any of the ones I ordered I can only put MICKEY MOUSE from Fantagraphics Books and PEP COMICS featuring Betty & Veronica from Archie Comics on the pile. Additionally there is WOLVERINE ORIGIN OF AN X - MAN, MERCY SPARX - UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, WILLIAM SHATNER PRESENTS and the IMAGE COMICS SUMMER SPECIAL from previous FREE COMIC BOOK DAYs. More free comics : 2 copies of DC COMICS THE NEW 52 ( for all who are interested ), X - MEN CURSE OF THE MUTANTS SAGA, INVINCIBLE IRON MAN 1 and INVINCIBLE issue 0.

Of course there are not only free comics on the menu, also to be given away for free are THE SAVAGE DRAGON issue 0 ( containing the origin story of Savage Dragon ), X- MEN and SPIDER - MAN 1, DELETE 3, the HUNDRED PENNY PRESS issues of ANGEL AFTER THE FALL and KILL SHAKESPEARE, issue 1 of WEDNESDAY COMICS, X - MEN SONDERHEFT GENERATION M ( contains the full miniseries ), DC COMICS presents SUPERMAN 1 ( containig superman man of steel 121 and SUPERMAN 179, 180 and 185 ), SPAWN band 50 from INFINITY ( contains issues 99 and 100 ), MARVEL EXCLUSIV 26 - DAREDEVIL HÖLLENFAHRT, SQUADRON SUPREME Buch 2 - HYPERION vs NIGHTHAWK, PUNISHER - DIE LANGE KALTE NACHT and VAMPIRE BOY 1 - DIE AUFERSTEHUNG form CrossCult. And last but not least some issues of COMIX : issue 07 / 2010 ( 2 copies ), 08 / 2010, 04 / 2011 and 05 / 2011.

I will probably also throw in some posters, postcards or other goodies but that´s it. Now you will probably ask yourself ( or the next person if have company and think he may know the answer ) what you hav to do to get a piece of the action. Well, almost nothing.

Last year I made it a kind of a contest because I thought it might be more exciting but apparently that was not the case. Or maybe some people thought because I wrote they have to send an e - mail with the quotes and the corresponding comics they had to send in actual comics to win. In hindsight I might have phrased it better. So this time around you don´t have to send me 5 of the comic quotes I leave at the end of the posts and from which comic, movie or tv series they are. You can if you want to but you don´t have to. All I need is an e - mail with your address ( e - mail address to be found on the " About me " section or just post a comment ) and if there are some preferences regarding the comics. I can´t guarantee that you will get ALL the comics you want but if it´s possible we can do the " I´d rather have the PUNISHER trade than the SQUADRON SUPREME one. "

Seeing as most of the comics are in german and keeping in mind that I have to pay out of my own pocket for the sending contestants from Germany are more likely to win but the contest is also open to non - german residents. Heck, I want to hear from TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN fans from all over the world.

There will not be a strict deadline but it would be nice if your e - mail ( with the words " christmas contest " in the about line ) could arrive around December 24th as the latest since I will probably start sending packages before that.

Simultanously I will also open a thread on the german Comicforum and PANINI Comics Forum to give away the issues of GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011. So good luck entering and I hope I can add a few more comics to the list until I have to send them. And maybe I can even review some of them.

From time to time I like to post some funny videos at the end of the post that don´t have to do anything with the topic and Today is no exception. One of the funniest things I have seen lately : the Chuck Norris commercial for World of Warcraft.

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

Stuttgarter Comicbörse - too late, too little time

2011-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

As predicted in my last post a few days have passed and my post about Jamie Lee Curtis has been longer on the blog than the one about D - GRUPPE I wrote before that. It are always the posts I want to keep on the blog as long as possible that spend the least amount of time on it.

But nothing in life goes as planned. Like my visit to the Stuttgarter Comicbörse this month which was way shorter and much later than planned. To which we will get in a moment.

First I wanted to mention that there were two more things - aside from what I already expected like exhaustion from the Comicbörse throughout the weekend - that delayed a new post. Number 1 was that my internet explorer seems to have problems with blogger, meaning it crashes when I try to upload pictures or publish a post. At first I thought that was because I didn´t have enough free space on the computer but even after I trashed a lot of garbage the problem still remains. Which means right now I´m writing this post with Mozilla Firefox and I have to do the finetuning in Explorer later so I know everything is at it´s proper place.

The other thing is that I now finally have a job. It´s only three days a week but for the moment that is enough. Yesterday was my first day at work and Today I woke up sore all over. Maybe that is just because I´m not used to work anymore or maybe the days are over where I could do hard physical labour. Who knows ?

The good thing is that instead of the job at the health spa I´m working outside now which means instead of having to work late at night and having to worry about catching the last bus ride home I finish work in the afternoon. The bad thing is instead of working at the health spa that is really warm I have to work outside where it´s really cold which isn´t good for my cold. But how do they say : you have to die one kind of death.

So, waking up Today the first thing I had to do was go to the pharmacy to get some cough drops because I was too wasted Yesterday. The only things I did buy were a pack with 50 CDRoms to clean out the computer and two bottles of SCHWIP SCHWAP light because I forgot to bring something to drink to work and was thirstier than a dozen russians afterwards. I drank half a bottle before catching the bus home and the other half of the first bottle after getting there.

The second bottle was originally planned for Tomorrow, when I have to work again but it seems I´m not the only one who likes the drink so I also had to buy something to drink Today. Like I said I was really knocked out after work so instead of buying some medicine for my cold I went straight home. Which in turn meant getting up Today to go to the pharmacy. On the way back I bought more to drink but the bottle didn´t even last till dinner so I had to go a second time in the afternoon and buy more to drink. I hope there is one bottle left of the two I bought when I get up Tomorrow.

So, Today every muscle in my body was aching, especially my back is killing me and the first thing I did was going for a forced march. I tried to take a nap but there was always something else coming up and now it´s almost time for DR. HOUSE so I can forget about it. Maybe Tomorrow after work. Today I was just constantly interrupted by a short visit from my aunt and the usual hijinks with my Mum. You know, Mothers are strange and it´s always the same. First they want to order clothes online even if you don´t think that is such a good idea. When you say that you can´t try it on before ordering they say they will just send it back if they don´t fit. But when the clothes arrive and don´t fit they want to change it instead of sending them back. Why ? I already have clothes that don´t fit me. Why do I need more of them ? Or they say that maybe in two months you will loose a few pounds and they WILL fit.

Then why can´t it wait until in a few months ? Why do I have to order it now ? It´s not like there´s a war going on and they are going to ration clothes and we have to stock up on them. When I have lost a few pounds in the next few months - THEN we can get new clothes. Although then I can probably finally fit into the stuff I already have and don´t need new stuff. I don´t know. Women have this strange habit of buying new clothes that don´t fit like it automatically forces them to loose weight.

The problem is that doesn´t work with men. If a guy has some part of his wardrobe that is too tight he´s either going to give it away or use it to clean the cylinder head cover.

Sorry, for that little rant. But things like that drive me crazy. Especially if it´s just a waste of time - which I said from the beginning - and prevents me from getting my much needed rest. Now besides not getting any ( rest I mean, snap out of it ) I finally managed to watch the NICK FURY, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. tv movie starring none other then the Hoff himself as old One Eye.

I had seen some pictures and clips online but I thought how bad can it really be ? Well, the worst wasn´t the really unimaginative script, the bad acting by all involved or the typical 80s catchphrases. That was all really painful but the worst was the helicarrier or like I like to call it " s - word on a stick ". Now this is how the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier should look :

And this is the abomination the tv movie unleashed upon the world :

Now I don´t know who designed....no, whose sick and demented psyche this atrocity escaped but I´m betting he was blood - related to the producer and there was probably some incest involved. I mean they turned the whole idea of the helicarrier upside down. Instead of a giant aircraft carrier with some flying thingies on the sides you got four giant thingies with an itty bitty aircraft carrier on top of it. In fact if you don´t know there´s supposed to be an aircraft carrier on top of it you will miss it.

I know this sounds like nitpicking - especially since the movie is sooo bad and predictable on so many levels - but the thing is once you notice it it sticks in your mind. And it gets worse each time they show it and they show it over and over and over again in the movie. Even at the end when you finally think that you have overcome the worse they have to rub it in and show it one final time.

Man, this movie is so bad you have to see it to believe it which is why I will give a copy of this to my sister as a Christmas present. No, really. She loves stuff like that. She once made us all watch a really horrible movie because it was soo bad. She will be floored when she watches this for Christmas.

And speaking about Christmas, this was one of the main reasons why I was so keen on going to the Comicbörse in Stuttgart and why I was so disappointed when I got there late. And when I say late I don´t mean a few hours but almost too late. The night before I really had trouble falling asleep and when I finally must have managed to fall asleep....just a few minutes before I thought it would be a good idea to go and see what time it is since I haven´t set my alarm clock. But I must have dozed off while I was thinking about that.

And when my Mum woke me it was already ten o´clock. The Comicbörse in Stuttgart always starts at nine so I try to be on my way around half past nine at the latest. But last Saturday I left the house at half past ten which meant arriving in Ludwigsburg at a quarter past eleven ( of course I missed the first bus to Ludwigsburg ) and arriving in Stuttgart shortly after noon. Which didn´t really leave me much time to scour for Christmas presents since despite being oficially open till four o´clock some of the dealers start packing their stuff at one o´clock.

When you arrive after noon it´s a bit difficult to say if business or the number of customers has picked up since the last time because very often most of the visitors leave around noon. So I can´t say anything in that regards. As most of the good bargain priced comics were probably already sold I went for the most important things first. It has been a long time since I found more than one american comic at the comicbörse so I usually try to find some german comics. Which can be frustrating some times because the best stuff doesn´t necessarily get translated into german. And when it does it´s usually more expensive than the original version. There were no copies of the german edition of WEDNESDAY COMICS there - at least none that were still around when I arrived - but what was out was the german edition of the ULTIMATE X - ORIGINS trade collecting the five issue miniseries by Jeph Loeb and Arthur Adams.

Now you can ONLY buy this with a clear conscience at a comicfair or convention where the dealer will give you a discount because the regular price for it is 14.95 EUROS while you can get the premiere hardcover for 13.95 EUROS via amazon.de. That´s one buck less for the hardcover via the trade. And that´s without thinking about the translation. I think I already mentioned it once or twice but despite having all the single issues ( some of them twice because I read them so many times ) I knew I was going to get the collected edition. Jeph Loeb has gotten a lot of flack for some of his writing and I particularly found his stereo commentary on SUPERMAN / BATMAN irritating at times but here he´s bringing his a - game. And can Arthur Adams really do less than impressive ? Even if the german translation is up to the usual standard ( or lack thereof ) this comic is worth it for the art alone.

But there are also some comics you HAVE to buy in the german language...well, because they haven´t been translated yet. And maybe they can´t be translated into another language. Like DIE ABENTEUER VOM HARTMUT.

I have mentioned the comic at every chance I get and I will keep pimping it until it is world famous. It´s one of the best german comics out there, the concept is brilliant and every time you think that everything about this little universe is said Haggi comes out with a new volume. It´s one of the few comics my brother in law reads and he always cracks up every time he gets a new issue. This time I even could get two new issues for him, DER HARTMUT KOMMT, SIET UND SIGT ! ( Hartmut comes, sees and conquers ! ) and DER HARTMUT HILFT DEHM WEINACHTZMANN ( Hartmut helps Santa Claus ).

I even got two Hartmut minicomics which I included in the present.

One of the things I always mention is that every time you find the dealer with the best bargains at the end and you always make a mental note to start at that table the next time. And every time you look for it first and you can´t find it until the end. And this time was no exception. In fact I don´t think I found the table with the trades at half price this time around. Maybe he had already packed up by the time I came. After buying the Hartmut issues I met german comic pontifex Geier who returned my first trade of AGE OF BRONZE - A THOUSAND SHIPS by Eric Shanower to me. Apparently I sent him the trade together with issue 3 of RANTIFUSO as research material for his planned comic about the Nibelingen. Yes, now that I think about it it doesn´t make any sense but at that time I must have thought it was a really good idea.

After putting the comics into my bag I continued to do the rounds and I made my next purchase at another table. This time I was getting something for my sister ( you don´t think the Nick Fury movie is all I´m giving her for Christmas, do you ? ) DER DUNKLE TURM - VERRAT.

The only thing that keeps nagging at me is that I´m not sure if she already has it or not. No, really. We almost never visit her because she is always busy with something or has something planned for weekends and holidays. And the only time we see her is when she visits us on Christmas or New Year. So I have no idea if I have to exchange it.

In any case I also bought the STAR TREK - MC COY trade by John Byrne, originally from IDW and published in german by CrossCult, the fine folks who do the german versions of HELLBOY, SIN CITY and THE GOON.

I love me some John Byrne. No, really. This may not surprise some of my longtime readers but a few of the newer ones might be shocked to hear it. I really am one of those diehard Byrnefans who keeps buying his stuff.

And not because of nostalgia or based on the masterworks he did earlier in his career. Well not exclusively. I will confess that there is a bit of special connection involved when you have followed the career of an artist for almost most of your comic reading life. Not only because you see him evolve as an artist and learn to think in his own version of graphic shorthand - which is something all comic artists do over the years.

But also because you like the way he tells the stories and more importantly you like the stories he tells. I enjoyed his BLOOD OF THE DEMON and DOOM PATROL books and right now I can´t wait for the next installment of his NEXT MEN continuation.

I have known for quite some time that he was doing some STAR TREK connected miniseries for IDW but there always was something else on my priority list so I never bought one. So this time I grabbed the opportunity and I can really recommend MC COY to any STAR TREK fan or anybody familiar with STAR TREK. And who isn´t ? Of course my sister will get a special kick out of the fact that the artist of the DARK PHOENIX SAGA ( which had such a big influence on the X - Men movie trilogy ) is doing a series about the original Bones.

DeForrest Kelley - Bones 1966. Hits the booze and stubborn patients.

Emily Deschanel - Bones 2006. Hits bad guys and gets hit on by Booth.

But I think even people who don´t know who John Byrne is will enjoy it.

A comic I thought my brother would enjoy was the MARVEL MONSTER EDITION 28 - IRON MAN, DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D. ( we just keep coming back to it, don´t we ? ) but apparently he doesn´t like Tony Stark very much after everything that happened during CIVIL WAR and after it. And yes, we also keep coming back to CIVIL WAR too.

The collection contains the 4 part THE INITIATIVE storyline and the 8 parter HAUNTED one of my favorite Iron Man stories of the last years. When I wrote about ULTIMATE X - ORIGINS I mentioned the german translation and while I don´t know who did it on that tome in MARVEL MONSTER EDITION 28 it´s once again everybody´s favorite. Not too surprising since he does a lot of Thor and Avengers stuff. I would like to say that it´s just a personal grudge by me but just opening the first page you see that this guy doesn´t know the difference between " haunted " and " hunted ".

Despite the translation´s usual shortcomings the story is really good and what especially hooked me it the crime mystery / haunted by ghosts angle. I´m always up for a good whodunnit and if you throw a guest appearance by the silver centurion armour ( BEST Iron Man armour ever ! ) into the mix it´s a must buy for me. And the art by Butch Guice is some of the best of his career.

I know Tony Stark is a bit whacko since he has this uncontrollable urge to turn everything into a weapon, and he´s a war profiteer. But this is another comic I really can recommend. Being a MARVEL MONSTER EDITION the only reason I hadn´t bought it before was of course the price.

These suckers are way too expensive and I once saw it at the SAMMLERECKE at half price but I waited too long and somebody else bought it. I was really of two minds about buying it or not but since I got it for 15 bucks ( I think that is a 7 EURO discount from the regular price ) I couldn´t resist. Like I said, originally planned as another present it´s now going to end up in my own collection.

Speaking about Tony Stark, it seems german readers were familiar with the name before the first Iron Man comic was translated to german. Now I just don´t know who was first and who copied who.

And since I mentioned my own comic collection a comic I have been after like the devil after a poor soul is ESSENTIAL HOWARD THE DUCK - Volume 1, although I don´t know if there really is enough material for a second volume. Frequent visitors to this blog already know that lately I can´t shut up about Gene Colan and I have been trying to get my hands on this ever since it came out. So far all comicshops had sold out on the collection and every thread on Comicforum or the Paniniforum where somebody sold it closed before I got a chance to buy it. So when I saw somebody selling it for 10 bucks I just said yes. The first issues are by Frank Brunner but from then on it´s all Gene Colan.

The last two comics I bought at the Comicbörse were the first two volumes of AMERICAN VAMPIRE from PANINI COMICS and I was a bit surprised myself that I did, even if I got them for 12 bucks each which means I saved almost 14 EUROS.

If you have read my last post you know I´m really sick and tired of vampires not being vampires and especially of vampires walking around in broad daylight.

I always get the feeling the writer either didn´t really want to tell a vampire story but it is what sells at the moment. So he takes some high school drama story and adds a vampire but for the story to still work he can´t have the whole " sunlight means death " thing so he comes up with a ring, a spell, a magic potion or WHATEVER. The other possibility is that the writer is either too lazy to deal with the whole daylight thing or too stupid to make it work in his story. In any case, vampires walking around in daylight are as bad as fast zombies. So far I haven´t seen a good " fast zombie " movie and if you ask me : if they are fast they are not zombies. Undead, yes. Hard to kill, yes. Eat brains, yes. Infectious, yes. Doesn´t mean they are automatically zombies. Just some zombielike, hard to kill, undead braineating and very fast not - zombies.

So when I first heard about this series from VERTIGO on all the " Best of 2010 " lists last year the whole idea of a vampire who is immune to sunlight didn´t really sound so innovative.

Okay, Scott Snyder came up with a vampire who can walk around in the day. So did everybody else. I mean does the term " daywalker " ring any bells ? The idea was in the first BLADE movie ( yes, the GOOD one )

and it was even mentioned on South Park. Everybody is doing daylight vampires nowadays. So that wasn´t the big selling point for me even if Stephen King was involved in the project and in fact wrote the backup stories in the first collection.

No, the real kicker in the series is the stunning art by former BLUE BEETLE artist Rafael Albuquerque who goes way and beyond.

After Cully Hamner left the BLUE BEETLE book I was really disappointed but after a few issues I really didn´t miss him since Rafael hit the ground running and made the look of the series all his own. VERTIGO books tend to suffer from great writing and mediocre art in most cases but not here. Together with I ZOMBIE this is already my second VERTIGO series I´m collecting and it seems that they have wised up because the art is improving.

The whole idea of a new breed of vampires who can walk around during daylight hours is sold a bit better here since there are still the " old " vampires around who have this weakness which is a clever stratagem. The main character Skinner Sweet is not very likeable - which he shouldn´t be because he´s the villain - but there are hints that the writer tries to turn him into that " lovable rogue / charming anti - hero " crap Today´s kids are so fascinated by.

Now in spite of all the reasons to hate it I´ll reserve a final verdict until I have read more of the series which I cannot avoid because Jordi Bernet is going to do an upcoming storyarc.

At the moment I can neither recommend nor damn the series so here are some links to check them out for yourself. The first one is for a preview on mycomics.de of volume 2 which according to the german commentary is a bit anemic compared to the original. There are also previews for issue 4 , issue 7 , issue 13 , issue 14 , issue 15 , issue 18 , issue 19 and issue 20 of the original series.

So, a pretty decent swag when you keep in mind that some of the dealers were packing their stuff one hour after my arrival but on the other side you might get a better deal if they are packing it in. They don´t want to carry all those heavy books and might get you an " Okay, 15 bucks for you because you always buy at my table . " kind of deal. Which in my case IS true because I always end up at the same tables. So, no hardcovers this time around even if that is one of my goals on going to the comicbörse in Stuttgart but I couldn´t find any interesting ones. I will still go to the next one because maybe I have better luck and even if you don´t find a lot of new reading material it´s one of the few places where you can mingle with the usual suspects and talk comics and why fast zombies suck. Which leads us to our last part.

Because of multiple requests by one reader Today´s video is the first part of the 1991 Fantastic Four movie I already posted before. Enjoy !

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

Movie cult siren Jamie Lee Curtis

2011-11-22T12:43:00.000-08:00

Originally I didn´t want to do another post so quickly after the last one but going through my old posts I realized I only did a very short post about Jamie Lee Curtis who turns 53 today.

That was back before I started the movie section on the blog and posts were really short. But being a horror fan and a fan of movies like Halloween, The Fog or Prom Night as well as a fan of Jamie's more sexy performances ( like the striptease in TRUE LIES )

I couldn't let this opportunity pass to wish her many happy returns. Especially so short after Halloween. It seems in the last few weeks the horror quota of my pop culture diet has exploded and everything is connected to vampires, zombies, werewolves or ghouls. More movies, more audioplays and especially more comics with horror stuff since I´m probably going to get the new HELLBOY graphic novel by the end of this year or the beginning of 2012. And let´s not forget the sexy vampires like TRUE BLOOD. I´m not sure if sexy vampires are the new zombies or if it´s the other way around.

What really gets on my nerves is that all the popular vampires walk around in broad daylight. Ever since Angel had this ring that let him survive the direct exposure to sunlight everyone seems to have on of those. No matter if it´s this TWILIGHT crap ( and I´m saying this as somebody who suffered the first movie which was only bearable through the TWILIGHT drinking game ) or VAMPIRE DIARIES or whatever. It´´s like there is some guy out there handing out rings and amuletts and spell for vampires against sunlight. And it all started on BUFFY.

But back to Jamie Lee Curtis : at the beginning of her career the daughter of Tony Curtis was known for her impressive set of lungs,

as one of the best known Scream Queens and her appearances in various horror movies like Prom Night or Halloween.

Another Carpenter thriller, 1980's The Fog also featured Jamie Lee and to this day it´s one of the classic horror movies of all time. They did a remake of it in 2005 with SMALLVILLE Superman Tom Welling but it´s just painful to watch. To quote John Kenneth Muir from his brilliant expose about the remake :

Rupert Wainright's remake of John Carpenter's The Fog is an utterly craftless horror film, and one so lazy, so poorly constructed that it can't even be bothered to develop the most rudimentary idea, or even present an interesting character and logical storyline. The overriding atmosphere of the film is literally one of " I can't be bothered to scare you. " It is the absolute worst case of PG - 13 / remake - itis I have seen in 2005, and consequently the worst horror film of the year.

You can read the whole painful truth in this post . You should really avoid it at all costs and go for the classic if you haven´t seen it yet.

Jamie Lee Curtis reprised her starring role in Halloween II in 1981 a franchise to which she would return in HALLOWEEN H20 - TWENTY YEARS LATER ( 1998 ) and HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION ( 2002 ) .

Like THE FOG there has also been a remake only recently and it also was a really bad movie. I don´t know what´s wrong with Hollywood ( that´s a lie, we all know what´s wrong with Hollywood : they have no ideas ! ) but lately all they do is remake of 80s movies like FRIGHT NIGHT or FOOTLOOSE. No, really. Footloose. How does that even work ? Was there really somebody out there who saw the original and decided we need another helping of that ?

They are doing all these remakes and in most cases they don´t understand the source material and end up producing crap. There is the occasional hilarious action / comedy flick like THE GREEN HORNET in there but in most cases the ideas the movie people have are something like " Let´s make a movie in which Batman has learned to cope with the death of his parents. " Which completely defeats the purpose of Batman. He owes his sole existence to Bruce´s inability to cope with the death of his parents. You take that away and there is no need for Batman.

And it´s the same with Michael Myers. He´s a force of nature, a soulless engine of destruction, an unkillable abomination.

To quote Beavis and Butt - Head : he feels no pain, he can´t be reasoned with. The minute you start to give him a background and try to explain where he comes from you destroy the character. Michael Myers is a cypher, the bogeyman, the monster under the bed, the darkness in mankinds soul. If you make him human you unmake all the previous movies.

But back to Jamie Lee Curtis. She wanted something more out of life than to star in horror movies ( not that there´s something wrong with that ) and to be considered more than just an actress known for her screaming techniques.

Later on she was known for her impressive set of lungs....but in a different context. To be precisely : 34C - 22 - 34. When she finally did lose her "Scream Queen" title, it was in exchange for the names "The Body" ( which is also Elle MacPherson's nickname ) thanks to her revealing roles in Trading Places and 1985's Perfect.

After a string of made-for-TV movies in the early '80s, Jamie Lee made heads turn in her role as a prostitute in the Eddie Murphy comedy, 1983's Trading Places ( Soldiers of Fortune in german " DIE GLÜCKSRITTER " - don't ask me why ) , for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress.

When she went topless she cemented herself a fan base that would last for years. Not only because she decided to disrobe, but because she had a fantastic body, that she was often referred to as " Freeze Frame " ( a nod to all the VCR users' use of the pause button on certain Jamie Lee Curtis scenes ).

Jamie Lee proved her comedic ability with her starring role in 1988's A Fish Called Wanda with John Cleese and both worked together again on Fierce Creatures in 1997.

She continued on the comedy path co - starring with Richard Lewis in the sitcom Anything But Love, until 1992 and her role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Series.

The rest of the '90s were marked by a slew of movie roles, most notably in 1990's Blue Steel, 1991's My Girl, 1994's True Lies ( which reminded viewers yet again how magnificent her body is when she did a striptease like a professional stripper for Arnold Schwarzenegger,

and garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture and an American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture ) and 1999's Virus based on the comic series by DARK HORSE. I have to confess that I haven´t read the comic but it is a pretty decent movie and at least the Germans didn´t cut out 10 minutes from the opening scene like in the other DARK HORSE movie Barb Wire. Which probably was the reason it flopped here.

In 2001 Jamie starred in The Tailor of Panama alongside Pierce Brosnan, who was the lucky guy who got to fondle her and I´m not sure if that was in the original script. Yes, you know which scene I´m talking about.

What is really remarkable about Jamie is that she did her best striptease very late in her career in the Schwarzenegger flick TRUE LIES and you can say what you want about the Governator but his taste in women is unpeccable. Ann Margret, Brigitte Nielsen, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Williams, Gina Gershon, Rae Dawn Chong, Alyssa Milano, Olivia D´Abo, Kelly Preston, Robin Tunney, Uma Thurman, Tia Carrera, Jamie Lee Curtis - the list of his female co - stars is like a WHO`S WHO of hot actresses.

Now, since I mentioned Jamie´s striptease on TRUE LIES ( yeah, like this whole post isn´t like one big excuse to post pictures of Jamie Lee Curtis shaking her moneymakers ) I have to say it's so popular that it's almost impossible to find pictures of her that are not stills from that scene. I really had some difficulty finding other pics.

She even won a poll for best striptease in 2007 :

Jamie Lee Curtis’ striptease in ‘True Lies’ polled best ever

November 14th, 2007

The ’scream queen’ was followed by Oscar winner Kim Basinger for her ‘tremendous sex appeal’ in ‘91/2 Weeks’.

Spanish star Salma Hayek (From Dusk Till Dawn) and Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door) secured third and fourth places respectively, reports Contactmusic. Natalie Portman rounded of the top five, at the fifth spot for role in ‘Closer’, in which she played a stripper.

The top six list of best film striptease are as follows:

1. Jamie Lee Curtis ( True Lies )

2. Kim Basinger ( 9 1/2 Weeks )

3. Salma Hayek ( From Dusk Till Dawn )

4. Elisha Cuthbert ( The Girl Next Door )

5. Natalie Portman ( Closer )

6. Demi Moore ( Striptease )

Now I would like to offer you an indepth analysis of TRUE LIES revealing the multiple layers of sociopolitical / cinematoanthropologic multidimensionality of the movie but as always, John Kenneth Muir has already done that more eloquently than I ever could :

TRUE LIES does feel very contemporary in the sense that it accurately forecasts the 21st century ascent of Middle - Eastern terrorism against the United States. And it certainly predicts a powerful, unaccountable bureaucracy in the U.S. Government as the response to such terrorist attacks. Here, that organization is " Omega Sector ," the " last line of defense. " Leading Omega Sector is none other than Charlton Heston as "Spencer Trilby," and once more, his right - wing reputation carries a brand of symbolic power and weight.

( He basically plays Nick Fury. )

Indeed, TRUE LIES works primarily as a kind of time capsule of 1994's cultural concerns, echoing the conservative tide that swept Newt Gingrich into power as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

You can read the full post right here and I´m going to end this post with a picture from one of my favorite parts of the movie that´s right before the striptease scene. Jamie is in her way to the motel room where she has to plant the microchip and seeing herself in the mirror she decides she has to sex up her outfit. Which she does by ripping off some parts and pouring water from a vase over her head.

Now this works only in movies and if you try to do this in the real world you would totally ruin that dress and I bet if you just pour some water over your head your hair will probably not look like you just came from the hairdresser. But that´s the suspension of disbelieve in movies and we wouldn´t have it any other way.

And before closing the post and letting you re - watch Halloween, The Fog, True Lies or any other cult movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis I wanted to mention she´s also a bestselling author of Children´s Books and is the inventor of a new kind of diaper. Yes, a woman of many talents.

"My breasts are beautiful, and I gotta tell you, they've gotten a lot of attention for what is relatively short screen time." - Jamie Lee Curtis

Yes, I know, these posts are not so popular as my more comic related posts but they show up more frequent on search engines and somehow I got to bring new readers to the blog. That´s my motto : come for the massitas, stay for the comics. And after such an work intensive post like the last one about D - GRUPPE from Black Tower Comics I need a post where I can just relax and shoot the breeze a bit. I must have caught something because I spent most of last night coughing and Today I had a headache worse than a drunk russian. So I hope my unqualified ramblings about striptease, sexy vampires and psycho serial killers was a bit entertaining for some of my readers.

Man, two posts in two days, I fear that is almost all for this week since I´m going to another AA meeting Tomorrow ( although I will go a bit earlier than last time and cancel the trip to Stuttgart right before the meeting ) and I will have to sleep sometime. Which will probably be on Thursday. On Saturday the Comicbörse Stuttgart will take place and if previous experience is an indicator I will be knocked out for the weekend. But it can´t be helped, Christmas is coming so I hope to find something hardcovery but not too expensive there. In short, what I want to say is don´t be surprised if you don´t hear from me till next week.

As I like to include some goodies for my readers here is a link for Jamie Lee Curtis´ appearance on the Tonight Show from the 14th of September 2010 and one from 2007 . Usually I add a clip that fits with the topic of the post but since I already posted a link for a late night appearance by Jamie Lee Curtis I think you can find others easily on YouTube. Since I already mentioned it in my last post here is the original 1944 Warner Brothers version of LORD OF THE RINGS starring Humphery Bogart, Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich. I got the video from Neil Gaiman´s blog, to be found on the blogroll.

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

Go left, right, left, right, move that body from side to side
oh girl, don’t get nervous, shake that sh** like Jamie Lee Curtis
go left, right, left, right, move that body from side to side
oh girl, don’t be nervous
‘cause every single part of you to me is perfect

D - Gruppe returns and it´s about time !

2011-11-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

It´s been quite a while since my last post but this time I have a really good excuse. As we are nearing the final lap of the year 2011 I didn´t want to leave too much unfinished business so I decided that the next post would be about Black Tower Comics D - GRUPPE comic - no matter what it takes.

There are a lot of things on my plate right now ( the second part of the Darick Robertson Appreciation post, the rest of the issues from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 which I have to review so I can give them away for the big Christmas contest, the announcement for the big Christmas contest, tons of news and strange and weird bits ) but all of them have to wait. I could have written a few posts in the meantime but I was adamant that it had to be D - GRUPPE, which of course meant re - reading the three issues and that turned out more difficult than I thought. Especially last weekend I really sat down with the sole purpose of starting with those issues of D - GRUPPE but each time something else came up. And the two days before the weekend I was busy with female wrestling because that´s one thing you can only get from the internet in Germany.

Female wrestling is almost never shown on German tv as the tv stations here have some strange fear of it possibly encouraging young, impressionable women will start to kick the s - word out of each other. I always found it strange what a bad image wrestling has in Germany ( you have to protect your kids from this stuff ) while football ( or like it is known outside of Germany : soccer ) is the number 1 sport with the best image of all sports even if it produces hundreds of hooligans who roam the streets leading to millions in property damage because they trash things, beat people up and burn everything down.

But no. Wrestling is bad and dangerous because people are stupid and imitate everything they see on the telly. And football is a safe sport and healthy and....it´s total rubbish anyway. So : hot females wrestling. Like I said, they almost never show it on tv and when they do so much time has elapsed since the last time that all the titles have changed hands, all the feuds have been resolved and I have no idea who most of the women in the squared circle are. If it weren´t for knockouts like Melina, Alicia Fox or Gail Kim there would be no familiar faces among them.

Or other body parts that look familiar. So when I finally - through some strange luck of the interweb gods - find a page with footage of some matches I just have to make it a priority. You don´t get a lot of real wrestling news here in Germany ( the tv shows are just commercials to sell tour tickets, wrestling magazines and promote the awful German WWE website ) so I´m really not up to date on all that stuff. The last thing I heard was that the TnA IMPACT wrestling league had gone bancrupt but it seems to be still up and running. Looks like the WWE may have bought it or at least invested in it. And Gail Kim seems to be in the WWE as a Diva AND at TnA IMPACT wrestling at the same time. Who knows ?

As long as she gives her opponents a taste of " defeet " I don´t care.

Another reason that it took me so long to start this post is that for some strange reason blogger keeps crashing whenever I press the " publish " button so everything I write keeps getting erased. The last few days this was just happening over and over but now I´m going to chance it. The problem is that I totally forgot about it so the next paragraph that took me 30 minutes to write has disappeared and I have already forgotten what I wrote in that paragraph. So, sorry if some of the sentences don´t make too much sense, I´ll try to correct them eventually.

Oh, and for another strange reason my computer keeps on writing " isn´´t " Instead of " isn´t ". What´s up with that ?

So, last time I didn´t get to write much about the first issue of D - GRUPPE issue 1 REVENGE OF THE ICE QUEEN because as always I got a bit sidetracked by one of my usual rants about German superheroes. But now that we have covered all of that - at least for the forseeable future - we can concentrate on the comics.

Originally planned as a 50plus page collection it was split into 3 issues for two main reasons. Firstly, as it was an old strip from the early 1990s, it had to be cleaned up and doing that with over 50 pages would have delayed the comic immensly. Second, and more important, publishing the story in 3 parts means that the cover price is much, much lower. You can read it all more in detail here

The first issue of D - GRUPPE by Terry Hooper - Scharf, Benjamin R. Dilworth and John Erasmus published by Black Tower Comics Group is a european album sized ( about DIN A 4 ) comic with 32 black and white pages plus a color cardboard cover and color backcover priced at 5.78 EUROS. The strange price comes from converting English Pounds into European Euros I guess. The issue contains 2 stories : REVENGE OF THE ICE QUEEN, a 14 page story that introduces the team of D - Gruppe and FESTIVAL OF DEATH, a 5 page backup featuring DEUTSCHER MICHAEL ( which more correctly should have been DEUTSCHER MICHEL ). The second story was originally done in color and you can see one of the gorgeous original color pages as the back cover.

Additionally the issue also contains a 2 page introduction to D - GRUPPE, 6 lost pages of D - GRUPPE artwork by Ben Dilworth and ads for DENE VERNON - THE THING FROM BELOW.

I have to say, the first issue contains some of the best art I´ve seen so far from the BLACK TOWER books. While on THE BAT RIUMPHANT the art by Terry Hooper was more reminiscent of the 1940 pulp comic due to the nature of the comic ( a superhero created around that time ) in the lead story it looks more like 80s John Byrne on UNCANNY X - MEN at the height of his fame. Which in great part has to be accredited to the inks by Ben Dilworth and comparing him to John Byrne would really be selling him short. There are clear traces of Byrne and also a bit of Barry Windsor Smith there but at the same time he has his unique look that is much more realistic than comicbook looking.

Like I already said, THE REVENGE OF THE ICE QUEEN, introduces all seven members of the team and they go up against their first villain. While the story has not too much character interaction you get a pretty good idea how the team members relate to each other, what their powers are and what the purpose of D - Gruppe is. And of course you get a good dose of action. But like ALPHA FLIGHT ( which may be the reason I automatically thought of John Byrne when I saw the art ) it has it´s own national quirks and unexpected group dynamic. It begins with the unusual team leader Kopfmann ( Headman ), a superintelligent dwarf and continues with Waldmeister ( Forrestmaster, additionally " Waldmeister " is also an ice - cream flavor ), Insektenkönig ( I guess this would be the German name for Insect King ), Goldener Soldat ( Golden Soldier ), Sturmgeist ( Stormghost ), Sternenengel ( Star Angel ) and Einsamer Wolf ( Lone Wolf ). I´m not sure but I guess Einsamwolf is just a typo.

Lastly we have Bluebird, which would be " Hüttensänger " in German or more specifically Rotkehlhüttensänger, Blaukehlhüttensänger or Berghüttensänger depending on if we´re talking about an eastern, western or mountain bluebird. Which is the reason why I´m okay with Bluebird instead of the German translation.

Aside from the German names there are also other bits in the story that show a clear knowledge of Germany ( yes, nobody wanted to appear on GOTTSCHALK ) and a familiarity with the look of various German cities that appear in the stories like Lemgo or Hannover . It´s a nice change of pace from most of the American comics that take place in Germany which always looks like Bavaria. Seeing the spot - on depiction of German everyday life it comes as no surprise that Terry Hooper partially grew up in Germany and the genesis of D - GRUPPE came from a lack of German superheroes at that time :

Growing up in rural Germany wasn’t so bad. No British comics, of course, but I had access to Bastei comics such as Silberpfeil,

Buffalo Bill,

Lasso,

Schwarzer Wolf

as well as the ubiquitous Disney comics and those produced by Kauka Verlag. But in the UK I’d been used to The Purple Hood, Billy The Cat, The Steel Claw in British comics as well as US super hero comics. Wastl was the only German character in a costume I could find and it turned out he was Belgian!

In the 1980s came Mykros

and Fotonik but they were French. There simply were no German super heroes. Of course, later in the 1980s Helge “ Herod ” Korda ( writer ) and Stefan Dinter ( artist ) produced the parody HEROES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. But that was a loong time later.

Fairy tales were big on German tv and there were quite a few involving dwarves. So I created a German dwarf hero who was quite an acrobat. Later I thought that rather than just make him athletic I’d make him a genius - Klaus von Happe ( “ Kopfmann ” ) was born.

The second story FESTIVAL OF DEATH also has wonderful art, this time by John Erasmus and like I said, check out the color page on the backcover. All in all a great issue that introduces a complete team ( something most writers at DC seem incapable of, now that I have read more of the NEW 52 books ), has lots of action and is fun to read.

Issue 2 of D - GRUPPE has the same size but it has only 24 pages plus color cover and contains a 20 page story ZEIT - GEIST ( not to be confused with german podcast ZETTGEIST to be found on the blogroll ), a one page introduction that contains more information about D - Gruppe and a backcover pin up drawn by Terry Hooper and inked by Jim Beanranko, all for 4.05 Euros. ZEIT - GEIST is a 3 part story with the 3rd part coming out in issue 4. The art is once again done exclusively by Terry Hooper

and the new team, with some new members who have joined the team since THE REVENGE OF THE ICE QUEEN after Kopfmann decided his team needed more power ( that´s a nice piece of continuity from isue one right there ) , goes on its first Crisis - like big crossover adventure. The story spotlights the new members a bit without spoiling too much and introduces the main threat.

Issue three also has 24 pages plus color cover and has the second part of Zeit - Geist, ZEIT - GEIST STRIKES ! with 21 story pages, also for 4.05 Euros. Here the story is continued, the concept of the parallels is introduced and the fighting begins in earnest.

Like the best crossovers the story involves multiple earths, in this case called " parallels " that are inhabited by heroes of mainly german origin, and the whole of creation is in peril.

It´s not the most original concept - which could have been the case if it HAD come out in the 1990s - but that´s not really the important part. Because the really fun part is all the different variations of superheroes that interact and seeing characters from Germany´s classic literature / fairy tales like Rotkäppchen, Barbarossa or Baron von Münchhausen as part of a supergroup to save the universe interact. I mean we´ve seen all the big battles in such stories like JLA / AVENGERS but for me the best bits were Sue Dibny and Sue Richards chatting about life with an elongated husband or Snapper Carr and Rick Jones teaching Jarvis the finer points in grilling a burger.

Of course it wouldn´t be a true BLACK TOWER comic if things weren´t different from what they seem at first. Like in SAVAGE DRAGON things look really familiar down to strange forces " whiting out " existence like in Crisis only to take a turn for the unexpected.

As with most of the Black Tower Comics output a big part of the appeal of the stories is nostalgia and I won´t deny it. This may not be the right reading material for all the new readers out there who expect their stories to drag out everything for six issues to fit into a nice paperback and who are accustomed to flashy art and " brave " page layout instead of solid storytelling that puts the story first.

I might even say that part of this nostalgia may come from remembering a time when comics were bold, daring and exciting. Reading the issues I felt the same " energy " for lack of a better word when I read the first issues of a new comic company like iMAGE or CROSSGEN. It´s also a bit of a chance to look into a possible universe as you can imagine how comics in Germany could have been if this series really had been picked up by Bastei.

It´s interesting to see all these German superheroes who usually get the short end of the stick getting more than their 15 minutes of fame, especially for German readers. The price is only a bit higher than most mainstream comics offered by Marvel or American independent publishers and with the bigger size you can´t even argue with that. Also there will be no reboots, relaunches or other marketing schticks involved so you can get them without fear.

And really, don´t you have a few empty spots on your pull list that could be filled up by new books, now that most of the good part of DC has self - destructed ?

Now you may ask : but where do I get those fantastic comics ? Since I have gotten my review copies directly from Black Tower mastermind Terry Hooper by mail I had to research this a bit ( I can´t tell my readers to start a blog in the hopes of getting some copies as well, can I ? ) and finding them wasn´t easy. As expected I couldn´t find it on amazon but I was a bit surprised that I couldn´t find it on LULU since i know you can get the Black Tower comics there. So I used the link to the Black Tower comics and books online store that can be found on the Black Tower comics and books website link on the blogroll. It can be a bit difficult to navigate so here are the direct links for issue 1 , issue 2 and issue 3 of D - Gruppe where you can see some preview pages of the issues. Of course you can find all other publications by the Hoopster there. I also found some pages from the Zeitgeist story here but from the look of it those are the original pages, the cleaned up version looks much better.

For more about D - Gruppe and Terry Hooper here are the links that helped me greatly in making this post :

d - gruppe issue 1 : revenge of the ice queen

d - gruppe issue 2 : zeit - geist

d - gruppe issue 3 : zeit - geist strikes

terry hooper profile on lambiek

terry hooper interview by phil latter

As is the tradition on this blog a video at the end, but instead of the original 1944 black and white version of LORD OF THE RINGS ( which will be posted at some other time ) I really found two from Black Tower comics. The first one is from the horror anthology TALES OF TERROR and since lately the posts tend to dabble in that territory I found it appropiate.

The second one is from Black Tower´s PURPLE HOOD series with art by Benjamin R. Dilworth. Enjoy.

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

We need raw power and I mean to get it or else D - Gruppe is a joke.

Shameless comic pimping Tuesday

2011-11-15T01:26:00.000-08:00

It´s been a while since I did one of those because lately I have done other posts on weekends, what with Halloween and all those other things that have come up. But now there are a few comic bargains at amazon I wanted to mention before going back to business as usual so let´s start with the shameless comic pimping.

As you all know I got my own little amazon store embedded in this blog but even though I have created approximately 0.00 bucks of revenue through it every once in a while I want to bring certain bargains to the attention of my readers. It´s what I did before I got the store and I guess it´s what I´ll keep doing once amazon decides that I´m not worth keeping as a partner and kicks me out.

I like to entertain the idea that such a thing has no influence on me or the way I write my blog. Which is probably true since I still have to pay for most review copies myself. And I never recommend any books I haven´t bought myself and enjoyed. As my amazon store is from amazon.de I should not have to mention that this is all for my german readers.

Keeping that in mind I just HAD to plug the WEDNESDAY COMICS HARDCOVER especially in the pre - Christmas period.

As every year another Christmas comes around in a few weeks and that means aside from the BIG FREE COMIC CHRISTMAS CONTEST on this very blog, getting presents - preferably comic presents - for your loved ones, family or acquaintances. Of course the best is when you manage to give one of those diehard comic muggels a comic as a present and they can´t get enough of it. That´s one big " Mission accomplished " on your Christmas list right there.

Now when I give presents for Christmas I prefer to give those big hardcovers that look very impressive on the bookshelf but here in Germany they are very expensive which means there are only two outlets for those kind of books for me : conventions like the Stuttgarter Comicbörse taking place this month on the 26th - or amazon.

Now you may find the new german hardcover edition of WEDNESDAY COMICS at the Comicbörse in Stuttgart. But - " as always " a frustrated Subzero added - PANINI COMICS GERMANY just had to make it unavailable to the general comic reading public. I really have no idea how they expect to bring more readers into the german comic market if they keep pandering exclusively to the collectors market. Now you better sit down because for some unfathomable reason PANINI COMICS GERMANY thought it would be a brilliant idea to make the german version of the american 50 Dollar hardcover a limited edition of only 999 copies at a price of 69 EUROS. No, really. If you don´t believe me check out this link

Just before Christmas they throw such an overpriced collectors edition hardcover on the market. What does that say about them ? Okay, you might find it with a bit of a discount at the Comicbörse in Stuttgart or at some other comic convention but to have an even comparable price with the american 50 Dollar edition the comic dealer would have to give you a discount of 19 bucks. Might happen. Okay, it might happen. But it´s not very likely and it´s not nice of PANINI COMICS GERMANY to put this kind of pressure on german comic dealers by forcing them to offer at least a 19 EURO discount to stay competitive.

I´m saying " at least a 19 EURO discount " because you can get the hardcover between 40 and 35 EUROS at your regular online comicstore. Now the reason why I had to make the WEDNESDAY COMICS HARDCOVER my first item is that at the moment amazon is selling it for 25 EUROS. That´s almost a third of the german price, half the price of the original edition and still 10 bucks below what the best priced online shop will charge you and it includes shipping.

And the reason why I want to put it on the blog right now is that those bargains can go very quick. In one of my first bargain books posts the comics I was writing about were sold out while I was finishing the post. And good prices will not last forever as the CAPTAIN AMERICA OMNIBUS or the ASTONISHING X - MEN OMNIBUS have already gone over 51 EUROS and the " 3 trades for 15 EUROS " offer has also already expired. Now if you really, really want to support the german comic market OR if you want to buy it as a Christmas present for somebody who only can read german you´re stuck with the german 69 EURO monster. But if you can read english and you may have thought about getting it NOW is the right time. I have learned a long time ago that with these things you only have one chance and in most cases you will regret it later if you don´t grab the bull by the horns.

Now what is WEDNESDAY COMIS ? Oh my god, I totally forgot that there may be people out there who have no idea what I´m talking about.

Back in 2009 DC comics had the idea of reviving those classic newspaper comics section and I´m not talking about the tiny cartoon strips you would get during the week but those glorious big Sunday pages in full color. Coming in the newspaper size and folded to standard comicbook size WEDNESDAY COMICS was printed on newspaper and although at a price of 3.99 per issue it tanked the whole " good comics at low prices " thing it still offered your money´s worth with comics that each had one page every issue by a literally WHO`S WHO of comic legends and up and coming artists.

On the top of my list is - naturally - KAMANDI written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ryan Sook,

METAL MEN written by Dan DiDio and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez,

METAMORPHO written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Mike Allred,

SGT ROCK written by Adam Kubert and drawn by Joe Kubert

and SUPERGIRL written by Jimmy Palmiotti and drawn by Amanda Connor.

And the rest of the list is equally impressive : BATMAN by the 100 BULLETS team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso,

SUPERMAN by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo, DEADMAN by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck who´s channeling his inner Darwyn Cook,

GREEN LANTERN by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones,

TEEN TITANS by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway, STRANGE ADVENTURES by Paul Pope, a really strange WONDER WOMAN by Bill Caldwell, FLASH COMICS by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher that simultanely tells a story of the Flash AND a story of Iris West,

THE DEMON / CATWOMAN by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze

and last but not least HAWKMAN by the incomparable Kyle Baker. Now I would like to be able to give you a detailed analysis about each and every one of the comics but the truth is that I only got the first issue.

Because after reading the first installment of the strips I knew I had to get the collection at some point and buying any subsequent issues would just be a waste of money. And now that I have the hardcover edition on glorious highend paper my issue 1 is of course going into the bag for the big Christmas contest. In any case this book is worth it if you only like some of the comics and you won´t believe the size of this sucker. Throwing this book at somebody is considered assault with a deadly weapon and legally it should come with a weapon´s license.

Talking about blunt force trauma my next two items are also in the " get it while it lasts " section and the first one is the 50 Dollar DARK AVENGERS HARDCOVER by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato ( with some help by Greg Horn and Chris Bachalo ) that is still offered at 25 EUROS.

I have already written at length in this post why the 400 page collection gets my utmost recommendation so I´ll just post another piece of gorgeous art by Mike Deodato.

The second one is SECRET WARRIORS HC 6 - WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS that is now offered at 10.70 EUROS which is less than you pay for the paperback at amazon ( 11.99 EURO ) or at your regular online shop for the hardcover ( around 18 bucks ).

I haven´t gotten around to do a review on the series but from all the fallout of CIVIL WAR ( we just keep getting back to it don´t we ? ) this is one of the best written books. The art is done by Alessandro Vitti who first alternated art chores with Stefano Casselli and then took over when Stefano left the book and while it may not be the best volume for new readers I wanted to mention it for all those who already are fans of Nick Fury´s handpicked band of misfits and didn´t have the time to get the latest volume.

Now the next two items I HAVE already mentioned a few times on the blog : iZombie volume 1 and 2 by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred. So far I have only given some dubious hints or mysterious comments but now it´s time to let the cat out of the sack - so to speak. I won´t ruin everything but here´s the readers review from amazon :

For all zombie fans out there gnashing their teeth in anticipation for the next issue of WALKING DEAD, MARVEL ZOMBIES or DIE TOTEN, Vertigo offers a surprising new take on the zombie genre. iZombie is a significant tonal shift from most zombie comics on the market : it’s told from the perspective of female 20 - something zombie Gwen Dylan, whose undead existence comes with a great twist. In order to maintain the pretense that she’s alive, Gwen must consume human gray matter once a month or else her zombie instincts take over. Along with the brainy aftertaste comes selective memories from the deceased, and Gwen is cursed with flashbacks that are not her own. It’s a tough gig, coupled with a job digging graves ( bright side : her day job provides those necessary late - night snacks that she reluctantly craves), and the irony is not lost on her :

This is, by the way, totally some kind of symbol for my entire existence. Digging holes in the morning, filling them up in the afternoon, and sneaking in at night to dig ‘em back up again. Over and over. Like that guy in the Greek hell who rolled a big rock up and down a hill all day. What was his name? Syphilis? Something like that, anyway. Whatever. Seriously, though, I’d switch places with the dead Greek guy in a second.

Gwen’s best friend, Ellie, is a lonely ghost stuck in 1960s fashion, but she wears it well. Her melancholic state is just as interesting as Gwen’s predicament, and Roberson develops both female characters with an easy - going, natural manner, giving iZombie a refreshingly frank attitude. When Gwen’s oblivious coworkers ask her to join them after work, she off - handedly dismisses them: " I’ve got to wash my hair, or something suitably girly like that. " Even undead, Gwen is too cool--a graveyard hipster, hiding her secret under a thick coffin liner of aloofness.

Once Gwen cracks the latest cranium and devours its innards, however, she uncovers a murder mystery that threatens to spoil her detached routine. She, Ellie, and their were - terrier pal, Scott, form an askew Scooby - Doo alliance to solve the case, and along the way they cross paths with a sorority comprised of vamping vamps, a Hugh Hefner - esque mummy who might hold more answers than Gwen imagined and monster hunter Horatio who she should avoid but falls in love with instead.

Mike Allred’s pop art leanings imbue iZombie with a sly, ever - smirking temperament. His characters inhabit a canvas that’s instantly recognizable as his own : bold, unblended lines case characters who seem partially aware of the comic panels that frame their stories. They knowingly pose, at once a part of and removed from their backgrounds. The artwork is muddier than Allred’s Madman series, yet not as sharp - edged as his X - FORCE / X - STATIX run. The first paperback includes over ten pages of sketchbook material from Allred, and it’s fun to see his pencil - work before it gets handed off to his wife, Laura, for coloring.

As longtime readers of the blog may already know I´m a big fan of Mike Allred and so I might be a bit biased where the art is concerned but what really makes this a winner for me is how Mike Allred manages once again to collaborate with a writer who makes slackers interesting. First he did it in the aforementioned X - FORCE / X - STATIX where I started reading the series because I had to know which of those self - absorbed pseudo heroes would die a horrible death ( next ) and ended up rooting for them. Now he does it again and while I usually am not a big fan of slackers as main characters and find them boring the way Chris Roberson writes Gwen has won me over. Which might have to do with the occasional nudie shot by Mr. Allred.

This series is just all kinds of fun, intrigue, action, comedy, romance, horror and......well, stuff and it gets high marks from me.

And last but not least the HELLBOY - HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD HARDCOVER written by Mike Mignola with art by the brilliant Richard Corben is finally out.

I had totally forgotten about this but thanks to the suggestion list of amazon I was reminded of it. The book gets top scores from me without having read it first only based on their previous collaborations. It seems Mike Mignola read my comment that it would be nice to have a book full with Richard Corben Hellboy art because this time he went straigth to the graphic novel. It´s only about 2 EUROS cheaper as from regular online shops but I wanted to mention it because it´s new in my amazon store and the shipping takes 4 to 7 weeks as it is a new book. So if you want to get it for Christmas you should order it soon.

As I said, all these books are offered at a good price right now so you shouldn´t wait too long before ordering them.

Man, with all the HELLBOY, iZOMBIE, GEISTER SCHOCKER, JOHN SINCLAIR and GESPENSTER KRIMI lately you might think this was SUBZERO´s LITTLE HORROR COMIC BLOG but on the other side what would you expect from a blog called TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN ? There´s bound to be some horror stuff involved especially during the time around Halloween. And since I already mentioned JOHN SINCLAIR I´m glad to announce that the rumors about the death of Vincente Ballestar are just that : rumors.

The spanish artist who did most of the ( and the best ) covers during my period on the german horror pulp cult series is alive and well and you can find his blog right here . He even posted some artwork especially for his german JOHN SINCLAIR fans.

With pulp novels in most cases you have only the cover to give you some visual input of the story and the covers by Vincente always helped you greatly in that departement. Most of the issues I read have his covers which always managed to convey a mood of horror and suspense. It also helped that he has a knack for drawing the ladies although it sometimes took a long time until such massitas like Glenda Perkins finally made it on the cover. I mean managed to be shown on the cover.

And with that it´s once again time to wrap things up as it´s pretty late and the first comments are starting to come in. As usual around here it has taken me longer to write this post than anticipated and I couldn´t put in all the stuff I wanted. But with writing the post, doing the necessary research, receiving mail from amazon, making phone calls, writing e - mails, do the big clean up in my room, help with the cooking and even leave the house for some shopping I had a pretty busy day.

As this post was almost exclusively for my german readers I want to close out things with german band LOS DOS Y COMPANEROS who, according to my brother are the s - word.

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

Instead of more Darick Robertson : my quivering quest for GEISTER SCHOCKER

2011-11-12T08:23:00.000-08:00

I know I haven´t posted Yesterday as I promised but although my own brother doesn´t believe it even somebody as perfect as me has to sleep or at least rest from time to time. I had hoped to put all I have to say about Darick Robertson in my last post but somehow the whole post escaped from me - like on the backseat of a car driven by two filthy assistants and a three - eyed smoking cat.

But that´s all the TRANSMETROPOLITAN references you will get Today as I probably should explain a bit why I was so tired on Thursday - since I promised do do that on my next post. On Tuesday I had to do a few errands and although I was very exhausted I didn´t get the chance to nap a bit during the afternoon because things kept coming in the way. Also I wanted to get to bed early but that also didn´t work out.

But Wednesday was the day that really broke this Camel´s back. Around noon I got a phone call that reminded me of this week´s meeting of AA ( Auffällige Arbeitslose ) and I had one of the worst ideas ever. Since I had received a comic order that day and issue 1 of UNCANNY X - MEN by Carlos Pacheco was not included since the online comicshop had just run out I decided to visit my regular comicshop before the AA reunion and see if I can´t get the issue there. And maybe the first two issues of GEISTER SCHOCKER, a new horror comic from DIE ROMANTRUHE which is an onlineshop for everything a german horrorfriki could ever want that has added the production of audioplays ( where they produced audioplays based on stories like german horror grandmasters A. F. Morland and Jason Dark who later on created JOHN SINCLAIR ) and now comics to their repertoire.

As longtime readers of the blog might know just recently my horror enthusiasm has been rekindled by the absolutely brilliant new JOHN SINCLAIR audioplays and since GEISTER SCHOCKER not only included a poster but also a horror audioplay I wanted to give it a try. I first saw the ad for GEISTER SCHOCKER in the latest issue of german horror comic par excellence HORRORSCHOCKER but when I asked at the newsstand in Bietigheim they never heard of it. And they have a really good selection of comic there, even better than at the newsstand in Ludwigsburg.

Now I could have just placed an order for UNCANNY X - MEN number 1 at the other online comicshop and gotten the two issues of GEISTER SCHOCKER that was already out ( the zero issue and the first one ) with one of my subsequent orders. Or I could have called my comicshop and asked them to put the three comics in my bag so I have them waiting for me upon my next visit. But I didn´t want to place another comic order so quick after the last one and I thought it would be easier to pick them up myself. And you really think I would finally learn from my mistakes.

The definition of a fool is somebody who keeps doing the same thing in the hopes of getting a different result. Well, I must be some kind of hardcore fool because every time I expect to find the comics I´m missing in my comicshop and every time I don´t and have to order them online anyway.

Now while that in itself is therefore a bad idea by definition I insisted in adding another wrinkle by deciding to visit the comicshop BEFORE the meeting. It was 14.30 hours when I began my trek to the comicshop and the meeting was supposed to start at 17.00 hours ( 18.00 hours for those coming late ) which would have been okay if it had been on the way.

But it wasn´t. Going to the comicshop first meant taking the subway all the way to Esslingen, then look for my comics and finally riding all the way back to Bietigheim - in two hours and a half. Which is not possible. Normally I go to the comicshop on those days when I through some bizarre coincidence wake up before eleven o´clock in the morning because it takes so frikkin long to go there. If I don´t get there very early I don´t have enough time to look for all the stuff and decide what I´m going to take with me this time.

At the moment I head on out to the old comicshop once a month and it always includes a lot of walking at the store since I´m looking for all kinds of stuff. It´s not as much walking as in the old store where I had to climb the stairs up and down to get to the different sections with back issues or the trades but it´s still quite the workout. And it´s one of the few workouts I get. This and putting my comics in order.

But I usually go there very early because even if I go to the shop just a little bit after noon I don´t come home until six or seven in the afternoon. So you can imagine what a bad idea it was to squeeze this visit into my agenda on that day. I had a good connection - not that it much helped things - but at the comicshop I was pressed for time so I just grabbed a few things and immediatelly left. Of course they couldn´t find the issues of GEISTER SCHOCKER and they also hadn´t unpacked UNCANNY X - MEN 1 yet so it would have been better if I had postponed the whole thing.

At the train station in Esslingen I got stress induced stomach cramps and I was lucky to have an iron ration of potato chips ( salt and vinegar ) on me that saved me. I always say it pays to carry a well packed bag in case of an emergency and this time it really payed off. My mother always says that I have my bag full of totally useless stuff but what she doesn´t understand that I mostly put things in there in the hopes that I won´t need it. I mean, do you put band - aids in you bag hoping you get cut or something just so you can use them ? And my mother is also more a fan of throwing away things instead of keeping them until they come in handy. For her anything that is not used in the first six seconds after purchase is useless. I think the whole concept of buying something you will use at a later date is uncomprehensible to her. Thus her constant war with my comic collection. Well, that and the fact that she still believes that I will at some point grow out of this whole comic reading nonsense. Even if I´m already waaay past 40.

Anyway, the trip wasn´t a complete failure since I caught an express train from Esslingen to Stuttgart and as I had to go from the upper rails to the subway stations below I came across a newsstand that had issue 1 of GEISTER SCHOCKER.

As could be expected I was waaaay to late for the meeting so I phoned ahead from the station in Bietigheim. Luckily three people were still at our usual watering hole so after being picked up by one of them we chatted for an hour about the latest developements and enjoyed some drinks and pizza. Maybe next time I will go there directly.

After this whole ordeal I was a bit bummed out so I slept through most of Thursday which made the post rather short. As I was writing it I thought I could come back to it the next day but finishing it took longer and longer and when it was finally done it was already six o´clock in the morning. So you can guess the rest. Instead of doing the follow - up post like promised I took a break on Friday ( I didn´t even go on the interwebs ) and did some eating, a lot of sleeping and also caught up a bit on my comic reading and watching new episodes of SLEDGE HAMMER.

So now you know why I was so tired on Thursday and why there was no new post Yesterday. And seeing that it´s 4.35 in the morning and I still haven´t finished it´s a safe bet that this post will not include any new clever examinations of Darick Robertson´s further comics by Yours truly. Since I have mentioned GEISTER SCHOCKER so often in this post I should probably give abit more info about the comic.

As I said it´s produced by DIE ROMANTRUHE, the first address for dime pulp horror in Germany where you can get the usual floppies as well as special collectors editions of the usual suspects like of course JOHN SINCLAIR and GESPENSTER KRIMI as well as TONY BALLARD, DAMONA KING or PROFESSOR ZAMORA.

And you can get other cool stuff like a replica of John Sinclair´s crucifix there. They also produce audioplays and are now trying their hand at comics. Issue 1 of GEISTER SCHOCKER is an albumsized black and white comic with a color cover and it has 48 pages. The price is 5.99 EUROS but you also get a color poster, which is a reproduction of the cover by Ertugrul Edirne which is based on this cover,

and the audioplay HIGHWAY ZUR HÖLLE ( Highway to hell ) based on the novel by Earl Warren with about 65 minutes length.

Since the first thing I did was listening to the disc let´s do this first. While it´s not the most original story and the actors are not up to the excellent standard of the JOHN SINCLAIR series it´s still pretty solid and just the right thing to put on your CD player after midnight.

There are 4 comic stories contained in issue 1 and one text short of which the first comic story is clearly the highlight. Although the story is based very much on the classic THE MUMMY with Boris Karloff the art by cover artist Ertugrul Edirne keeps you hooked even if you already know how the story turns out. I haven´t read the rest of the issue but the remaining three comic stories seem to be reprints from the 70s that would have profited from a smaller size.

In fact I half expected it to be regular comic size and in color since it clearly tries to fill the gap cult comic series GESPENSTER GESCHICHTEN left in the german comic landscape.

Despite how my review may sound I enjoyed the first issue of GEISTER SCHOCKER and as far as I´m concerned I got my money´s worth. You can see that this series is produced by real fans as they even added the red cover square all Williams comics used to have. And while there is some reprint material in the issue it makes complete sense since new readers are probably not familiar with the stories and older comic readers might have the chance to get the familiar stories in mint condition. And the audioplays are an additional incentive so as long as they can keep that and the posters they are offering quite a good package deal.

So far the series has gotten a lot of positive reactions so let´s hope they can keep their level of quality. While Levin Kurio´s HAMMERHARTE HORRORSCHOCKER is the best horror anthology comic on the german comic market this could be a good way for fans of 60s and 70s horror to pass the time between issues.

As usual I´m adding the links for all the indispensable pages without which I couldn´t have done the post. Especially the GESPENSTER KRIMI database with it´s plethora of almost impossible to find covers. Thanks, dudes.

get your own issues of geister schocker from die romantruhe

review of geister schocker issue 0 by zauberspiegel

review geister schocker 0 by splashcomics

/ review geister schocker 1

interview with joachim otto at the start of the audioplay series

bei vollmond holt dich der vampir - review

gespenster krimi database

Last but not least I have to mention Today´s celebrity birthdays but rejoice because Yesterday it would have been Demi Moore´s birthday and I know how raunchy pictures make some readers of my blog cringe. First up is " soon to be seen in a cinema near you " Catwoman Anne Hathaway who turns 29 on this very day.

The second one is Chilean - American actress and recording artist Cote De Pablo ( full name María José de Pablo Fernández ) and it´s her 32nd birthday. You probably all know her from playing former Israeli Mossad Liaison Officer and now NCIS Special Agent Ziva David on the tv hit show NCIS. Here in Germany they´re showing 3 episodes each Saturday on Kabel 1 every Saturday so it´s not too late to change your tv schedule accordingly.

And last but not least - and keeping the horror theme of Todays post - British actress Valerie Leon has her 66th anniversary. She´s best known for playing the dominatrix with the whip in REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER from 1978 and her lead role in BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY´S TOMB from 1971.

All the best wishes to all three of them.

Since the post has been all about GEISTER SCHOCKER the video is more of an audio since it´s BEI VOLLOND HOLT DICH DER VAMPIR ( The vampire takes you at midnight ) by Jason Dark. It was issue 5 of german horror cult series GESPENSTER KRIMI, first published on Friday the 7th of September in 1973.

It was his second novel for the series after DIE NACHT DES HEXERS ( Night of the Warlock ) published on Friday the 13th of July 1973 in which John Sinclair was first introduced to german dime novel readers. Yes, bad luck for all demons, ghosts and witches. And now : Good Night and Good Fright !

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

Darick Robertson Donnerstag

2011-11-10T09:03:00.000-08:00

Well, it´s just that " Darick Robertson appreciating Thursday " has not the same alliteration in it otherwise I would have gone with that. Today it´s Mr. Robertson birthday so I wanted to put the spotlight one of my favorite artists and the different series he worked on.

And being such an old fart that I am we´ll have to use the " way back timemachine " for that. I´m not that old that I read his first professional work the mythic SPACE BEAVER series so I guess the first I saw of his artwork was on JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE. It was just a short part and all I remember from it is that it had the story with Power Girl´s famous coconut bikini and that I sorely missed somebody with a knack for drawing hot women like Bart Sears from the pages.

Aside from DC Darick also worked for Marvel on the odd issues of X - FACTOR and more importantly NEW WARRIORS and WOLVERINE. One of the latter ones was a Wolverine story involving Jubilee ( who still had a pretty small cupsize back then ) and Terror, a contract killer who could obtain certain abilities by adding bodyparts of other people. Preferable dead ones.

Like for instance if he changed his hands for the hands of a pianist he could play the piano. Weird, I know but that has always been my taste in comics : superheroes mixed with horror and a bit of the bizarre. The art on TERROR INC was done by Jorge Zaffino who also did some PUNISHER stuff like the storyline that crossed over Frank Castle and NAM or the ASSASINS GUILD graphic novel.

Back then I had pretty strict criterias for what I considered a good artist and most of the series I´m reading Today wouldn´t have made the cut because of artists like Mike Allred, Paul Grist, Steve Rude or Darwyn Cooke. Now I´m a big fan of their work but I had to cultivate my comic reading taste till reaching that point.

So it´s kind of a miracle that I read most of Jorge Zaffino´s stuff. I guess I was REALLY into all that horror stuff at that time period.

While HORROR INC had an interesting premise and tickled MY horror bone it didn´t catch on with too many comic readers and as the commercial success didn´t match expectations the originally planned 15 issue run was ended with the unlucky 13 but not before Terror could pay Wolverine a return visit - like they so often did back then. Although now that I think of it they still do that from time to time.

We´ll also pay Frank Castle and Wolverine a retun visit a bit later but coming back to Darick Robertson he was just about to start his first big thing where he went from an artist who I tolerated in my books to an artist that slowly made his way to the top of my reading pile.

In THOR 412 old Goldilocks got into a brawl with the f - ing Juggernaut ( beyotch ! ) and was bailed out at a very critical moment by Marvel´s newest Teen Team that was christened as THE NEW WARRIORS by Thor himself. And you know that if Thor picks your team name you better stick with it unless you want to be hit by a thunderbolt where the sun doesn´t shine.

The New Warriors pretty soon got their own title written by Fabian Nicieza and art by the - back then - up and coming superstar Mark Bagley. The team consisted of Speedball who was in his pre - Civil War jokester phase , Nova who was going by Kid Nova and changed his red costume for the now familiar blue one, Firestar and Marvel Boy who would later on become Avengers in training, Namorita who already was a hot babe and a character called Nightrasher who would lead to thousand of inapropriate jokes.

I got the first two or three issues but because they didn´t make a big impression on me I would have passed on the entire series if it hadn´t been for the cheapest marketing ploy in comics.

Yes, that´s right. I fell for the old " guest - starring THE PUNISHER " schtick. Which turned up not so bad in the long run since Mr. Bagley´s art had improved a great deal since the first issues and I not only stayed for the Punisher issues but also till the FOREVER YESTERDAY trilogy. The story pitted the Warriors against their first archnemesis The Sphinx in an alternate reality that had the familiar Marvel heroes although in ethnically more diverse versions. As a big fan of parallel worlds, alternate realities and doppelgangers from other dimension it was the perfect story to get me hooked and before I knew it this was one of my favorite books.

Fabian Nicieza ( whose name I still have to look up to amke sure to write it correctly ) really knows how to make characters interesting and in the first 25 - issue storyarc all the characters got their fair share of screentime. And I think in this series Namorita became an interesting character since over the course of the series she not only changed her one piece swimsuit for a two piece bikini

but she also got a forced haircut ( with cruxification at the same price ) by the villain Sea Urchin who she defeated in the rematch and even became team leader of the New Warriors.

All in all it wasn´t an easy time for her. First she got beaten up by Neo Nazis in the NAMOR series, then she learned she wasn´t really Namor´s cousin but a clone and then got the beatdown by sea Urchin. Man, I don´t think the writers didn´t like her that much since they later on gave her blue skin,

transformed her into some kind of fishwoman and finally blew her skyhigh during the Stamford Incident that sparked the CIVIL WAR. Of course, being a comic book character death is not final and a time displaced version of Namorita has already been seen in REALM OF KINGS and THE THANOS INPERATIVE. With time being kind of wibbly - wobbly, timey - wimey she may already be back.

By the way, back when I did my first COMICBABE BATTLE post I thought this costume might be a bit risky.

But it seems Marvel itself put Namorita in a similar one as far back as March 1978.

Coming back to the New Warriors, this was before the time when artists only stayed a few issues on any given title with six the highest number for a possible trade paperback, so the benchmark number for when an artist would leave a title was issue 12 or issue 25. Which meant for regular artists doing a book for one or two years and for artists like Joe Madureiras or J. Scott Campbell 10 to 15 years.

But staying serious, issues 12 or issue 25 was the point where you had to decide if you would stick with the book through a new creative team or not. Since in the case of NEW WARRIORS Fabian Nicieza stayed with the book ( he wrote all issues up to issue 52 ) I decided to take a chance on this new artist called Darick Robertson whose art I might have seen before somewhere.

The writing reached the level of quality few other teen team books like NEW MUTANTS or TEEN TITANS achieved especially with stories like Marvel Boy ( now going by the name of JUSTICE ) facing charges for killing his abusive father with his powers and the relationship between Nova and Namorita.

Artwise Darick Robertson started slowly with good, solid art on his first issues but started to take of with the beginning of the FORCES OF DARKNESS, FORCES OF LIGHT storyline.

Not only was he beginning to evolve a very unique artstyle with dynamic storytelling, in this three parter that guest - starred Darkhawk, Dagger and Spider - Man he began to experiment with the layout in interesting ways.

Darick Robertson stayed with the title till issue 50, the finale of the TIME AND TIME AGAIN story in which the New Warriors had to lay the smack down on - Sphinx - who would have thought that in a story about time they had to fight their time travelling nemesis ?

About issue 40 or so I was thinking about leaving the title but since 45 was part of a crossover with X - FORCE ( which wasn´t that difficult to manage for Fabian Nicieza since he wrote both series ), a teen team book I was also reading I decided to tough it out till the big 50th issue.

And that basically was it for me and NEW WARRIORS. Marvel tried another series but since it was entirely dependent on artist Steve Scott´s distinctive style the whole thing crashed and burned in the worst possible way when it took him longer and longer to finish his issues until he finally bailed.

There also was another series where they had their own tv show ( which ultimately led to the Stamford incident ) but since it was drawn by Scottie Young I never bothered to check it out. I didn´t return to NEW WARRIORS until CIVIL WAR when Jubilee developed an incredible rack, quite possibly due to a second mutation as some speculated.

Now coming back to X - FORCE, that was another book on my pull list that was a teen team book of which I apparently read quite a bunch during that time. The writing was done by Fabian Nicieza, like I said, and in the art departement Greg Capullo was rocking the title.

This was long before Greg became a better Todd McFarlane artist then Todd McFarlane himself when all his creative juices were flowing and he was at the top of the game. He was fresh of QUASAR, a title that he put on the map and which helped him gain a kind of new superstar status at Marvel. Man, I really wish they would do a trade with this run since this is one of Marvel´s best runs. Mark Gruenwald really hit it out of the ballpark and he even managed to include appearances of pre - crisis Barry Allen and NEW UNIVERSE characters like the STAR BRAND and DP7.

Now X - FORCE was more of a military kind of drill team instead of the NEW WARRIORS which was more like a family. Which should be no surprise if you keep in mind Cable´s military background. It also put Cannonball from New Mutants in a leadership role, one of the very few instances where he wasn´t underused. In the EXECUTIONER´S SONG story, that crossed over between all x - titles as most of the stories did, I remember Cyclops empasizing how important it was not to underestimate Cannonball. Not only was he trained by Charles Xavier and so knew all of the X - Men´s tactics,

he also was tutored by mutant terrorist Magneto when he was headmaster of the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Students and on top of that received military training by Cable who was a specialist in guerilla tactics.

It´s one of the rare moments when Cannonball got some well deserved respect. And speaking about military training there were a lot of team books that more resembled a fighting unit and in Marvel´s x - books that meant three things. First : teleportation, a lot of teleportation. All the villains had teleporters on the team or teleportation technology to escape in the nick of time and if the heroes didn´t have some means to teleport they couldn´t follow them. Teleportation is a topic to which we will also return later on.

The second thing fighting team books meant was time travel in all its aspects like team leaders from an alternate timeline like Cable, villains from another alternate timeline who were the twin of the team leader from an alternative reality like Stryfe and babies from our timeline who could grow up to be one or the other. Although I won´t get into detail as who this baby might be since I´ve already spoilered enough.

And the third and final thing that was an absolute must on those team books was weird accessories like pouches, lots of pouches, even pouches for the puches. Just ask Rob Liefeld or Jim Lee, they based their whole career - or at least big part of it - on the ability to add lots of pouches to a dress. I´m just surprised that Jim Lee didn´t put those pouches on the designs for DC´s new 52 heroes. Or maybe he did and Cully Hamner erased them all. But back in 1993 mutants had to have pouches. And guns. Let´s not forget the guns, the bigger the better.

As for Darick Robertson, after NEW WARRIORS he did THE NIGHT MAN for Malibu, some issues of mutant books like EXCALIBUR and SPIDER - MAN stuff at Marvel and he returned to the Justice League franchise with JUSTICE LEAGUE : A MIDSUMMER´S NIGHTMARE. It was in the following year that Darick Robertson should start working on one of the two titles he would be associated with from then on forward : TRANSMETROPOLITAN.

And with that we have reached the end of the first part of the Darick Robertson retrospective as it´s once again at least one hour past my bedtime. I thought I could wrap this up in one post, especially keeping in mind that I prepared all the stuff for this post the last two days. And maybe I would have if I had stayed on Darick Robertson but as always I drifted a bit away from the main topic into unexpected territory. And I slept a lot this afternoon because.....well, I´ll talk more about the reasons for that Tomorrow or I´ll never get this post finished.

Before closing I just wanted to mention that Today Vanessa Angel also celebrates her 45th anniversary so this could also have been an entirely different post. Vanessa is best known for playing the sexy russian spy in the god - awful SPIES LIKE US, in fact it´s the only scene that makes the movie almost bearable.

She also played Kelly Le Brock´s part of artificial lifeform Lisa in the tv series WEIRD SCIENCE. Yup, like the EC comic.

So happy anniversary Vanessa.

Since I have already mentioned the NIGHT MAN comic series I couldn´t end this post without a clip form the tv series. Here´s the first part of episode 1 and I have to admit up until now I have never watched it so don´t ask me if it´s any good.

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

Pop culture tv siren Markie Post

2011-11-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today 80s Power Girl Markie Post celebrates her 61st birthday so I wanted to give this tv cult siren from my youth some props and take a stroll down memory lane to reminiscence about tv shows gone by.

Yes, it seems that lately this blog has been more about tv and movies then about comics but I have done other posts about pop culture icons like LOGAN´S RUN or PUMPKINHEAD. So this is not so unexpected. By the way, I have decided to keep the new look of the blog a bit longer since I didn´t get as much mileage out of it during Halloween as I thought. Who knows, if enough readers like it I might make it a permanent thing.

Since we have November this also means that ARTHUR ADAMS TRIBUTE MONTH is now officially over. So don´t expect to find those groovy Arthur Adams pics in every post. There may be some here or there but it´s not mandatory anymore.

After we have these announcements out of the way let´s get started with the main post. As usual I´m going to take a few tangents, make some off - topic remarks ( although there is no off - topic on this blog ) and basically let my thoughts ricochet from everything that catches my fancy.

Markie Post had appearances on tv shows like CHiPs, The incredible Hulk, Buck Rogers in the 25th century, Hart to Heart, Eight is enough, The Greatest American Hero, Simon and Simon, Matt Houston, Love Boat, Cheers, A - Team or Hotel so when you were watching tv in the 80s you were bound to catch her somewhere sooner or later. She was probably best known outside of Germany for playing public defender Christine Sullivan in the NBC sitcom Night Court from 1985 to 1992. The reason why the series is not so well known in Germany...well, we´ll come to that part a bit later.

Aside from that she also played bail bonds contractor Terri Michaels on the tv show THE FALL GUY ( who replaced previous bail bonds contractor Samantha Jack played by Jo Ann Pflug ) beginning with Season 2.

At the beginning she played a minor role but one of the producers must have realized what a waste it is to have somebody like Markie on the cast without letting her " show what her Mama gave her " like they say nowadays. So she got more involved in the stories where she stole the scene from Heather Thomas as soon as she donned a bikini ( mainly in the 3rd Season ), like in the scene pictured below from the episode " Inside, Outside " Season 3 episode 8.

Now there is this period in life where you are already interested in girls but because you´re still not 18 you can´t get the PLAYBOY, which in the times before the internet was a big thing. So as a pubertal boy in his prime you were looking for other stimulation which could be books, pulps, pin ups, BRAVO starpuzzles in - I don´t know how many - parts or comics with Black Canary in underwear.

If you follow the link to DAVE´S LONGBOX post on Black Canary´s underwear you´ll see that I wasn´t the only one who studied this panel intensly.

So my age group had different sources for hot massitas but most often it was television. There were a few tv shows that were indispensable if you wanted to join in the schoolyard conversations, which were must see tv. One of the shows we watched was THE FALL GUY , in german EIN COLT FÜR ALL FÄLLE - A Colt in any case - don't ask me, typical unrelated german translation at work here. The original title is a clever play on words since a " fall guy " can be a scapegoat who will take the fall for someone else so to speak, a stock character which is a two dimensional archetype on television or literally someone who takes the fall for someone else like a stunt man does for the actor in a movie.

The series had everything a good tv show needed : a cool main character, car chases, fisticuffs, explosions, shooting, monkeys, dangerous stunts and the hot Heather Thomas.

She played Jody and her role was to keep the male viewers hooked by providing some eye candy. She was in all episodes except for an episode in the first season. Yes, fanservice is not as new as some people might want you to think and Heather mainly got the part because of her absolutely amazing bikini figure that she showed in a few episodes as well as in the intro. For generations of adolescent young boys the highlight of the week was the short moment during the intro where she appeared in her famous blue bikini.

Interesting fact : one of the stunt shots in the intro was not even done by a stuntman .

Jody was the female sidekick to main man Colt Seavers ( played by Lee Majors ), a very capable and sexy young woman who Colt saw as his equal or at least like a surrogate daughter. Which was a bit frustrating for her since I think she had a crush on him which he - of course - never realized. I´m not sure what Lee Majors is doing at the moment, the last two things in which he appeared that I know of was the BEN 10 live action movie ( which I sadly missed ) and his cameo on the final episode of the 1st Season of HUMAN TARGET where he played OCC - Original Christopher Chance.

But Jody Banks was the reason guys watched THE FALL GUY.....well, apart from Colt who was just too cool. Which is something that I realized later when the show was in reruns. When it first aired I couldn't watch many episodes but later on I caught them in the rerun. And I realized that Colt suffers from the " Superman Syndrome ".

The Superman Syndrome is the effect that a character like Superman has on some writers - because he's perfect and invulnerable it's difficult to get the reader to connect with him and they don´t know what to do with him. Which can lead to strange storylines, relaunches and ultimately even to reboots.

If a character is never in real danger and is perfect in everything he does - nobody cares for him. He's boring. Colt can do whatever he decides to do - stunts, fights, drink, sex......he's always the best. Which is the reason why when you watch the episodes the second time you realize that Howie Munson is the real hero.

That's right. Howie is the one who is not perfect. Quite contrary ! You can almost be sure that he fails no matter what he tries. What makes him the hero is that he keeps on trying no matter how often he fails. Studying was apparently not his thing so he decided to do the most dangerous stuff he could think of - becoming a stunt man. He just jumps into the pool without looking if there's any water in it.

And yes, that's the comic relief in most episodes but for me Howie personifies the guy who accomplishes things through sure determination and endurance. He has no super powers like Colt but he just puts on the Superman costume and tries to fight Lex Luthor. When you see the show the first time as a kid you want to be Colt because he´s just perfect but when you watch it again after you´re a bit older you begin to admire Howie.

Another thing I only got when I saw THE FALL GUY for the second time was who the people Colt knows are. When I first saw the show I didn´t know most of the famous people on the show with a few exceptions. I knew some of the actors or actresses but with most people I only knew that such - and - such was a famous singer, actor, director or whatever because it was mentioned in the episode. Yes, I have to admit that when I first saw the episode with Elvira ( " October The 31st " episode 7 of Season 4, in which Jody Banks was her stunt double and used a lot of padding to achieve her trademark cleavage ) I had no idea that she was a world famous horror hostess. Which in no way diminished my enjoyment of said episode.

When I first saw the series having two jobs ( stunt man and bounty hunter ) was a bit strange for me but looking at it from Today´s perspective where most people have to do two or more jobs to make ends meets the show was more visionary that I thought. Colt was the prototype of the modern 21st century man so to speak. Of course Lee Majors also played another kind of prototype as Six - Million - Dollar Man Steve Austin,

not to be confused with wrestling Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase.

I never watched the BIONIC MAN series with Lee Majors because that was a bit before my time but I saw plenty of wrestling matches of Ted DiBiase. Back when german wrestling shows were still emtertaining instead of pure commercials and the WWF still had stars instead of the generic, easily disposable cyphers that now plague the squared circle.

Right now DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT is doing a new BIONIC MAN series, written by Kevin Smith with covers by Alex Ross that I might check out. As I´m not very familiar with the source material - I think the only thing I know is that sound from the slomo that pops up on shows like PIMP MY RIDE or that commercial with Lee Majors - I´m not going in with too much baggage. preview issue 1 / preview issue 2 / preview issue 3

With most of my DC books eliminated from my pull list I´m reading more independent titles expanding it to publishers like IDW from which I already got the 4 issue ROCKETEER ADVENTURES book,

JOHN BYRNE´S NEXT MEN ( John Byrne´s Next Men FAQs )

and the absolutely brilliant LOVE AND CAPES .

I´m also thinking of getting the DR WHO trade that continues the Hundred Penny Press issue I got but I´m not sure which trade to order. One thing I´m definitely going to order is Jim Starlin´s KID COSMOS trades from DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT since I´m a big fan of his cosmic sagas. So far I have only found one online comicshop that has them at all but I think they are going to be in one of my next orders.

Another thing about THE FALL GUY I found strange - or better about american tv series in general - was how many people were bounty hunters. It didn´t strike me as a very safe profession : you are chasing bad guys and criminals, you risk personal injury and a single stray bullet can get you into an early grave. Despite this all there were dozens of tv series with bounty hunters in it long before Dog, and in RENEGADE ( a tv series you should avoid at all costs unless you´re a really big fan of Lorenzo Lama´s wife Kathleen Kinmont or of Gambit ) even the main character who was on the run from bounty hunters was a bounty hunter.

Isn´t that the worst idea ever ? I mean, how does he know that he´s not going to meet another bounty hunter while hunting a fugitive and then the other bounty hunter suddenly recognizes him from the wanted poster : " Hey, I know your face. You´re that other dude the police is searching. You´ve got a bigger reward than the guy I was after in the first place. I think I´m going to bring you in instead. "

Not that RENEGADE was the epitome of logic but how did they miss this one ? And they even had an episode in which all the bounty hunters met.

What I didn´t know was that all one has to do is absolve a one week course and pay a 50 Dollar fee to get a bounty hunting license. And if you are after the right guy the reward money is more than you can earn in a regular job. If that´s a possible career for you check out the wikipedia page about bounty hunters , read the FAQs about How to become a Bounty Hunter or visit the main page of Be A Bounty Hunter.com .

My favorite part is Can a felon become a bounty hunter ? because the answer reminds me a bit of those Radio Eriwan jokes we used to tell in school. In general, the answer is " no " but there are several exceptions.........

But back to Heather Thomas . Thanks to her 37 - 23 - 32 measurements and the exposure in THE FALL GUY she became a famous pin up model with posters in every boy's bedroom from that time. She even replaced pin up godess Raquel Welch on the number one spot.

Careerwise she just didn't manage to cash in on her popularity mostly because she didn't want to use her physical attributes to succeed. It was what made her famous in the first place but Heather thought she could do without it. Which is often a mistake.

When you have managed to position yourself in the business - no matter in which niche - it's very hard to have success when leaving that niche. Heather had managed to place herself in the top spot as " hot blonde bikini babe " but when she tried to enter the " actress who doesn't take her clothes of " sector there were already hundreds of actresses there - with far better acting abilities.

It's the same that happened to the LADY DEATH comic.

Through the hard work of many years CHAOS! COMICS managed to put her in the top spot for hot comic chicks in the HORROR / GOTH / FETISH section. But that wasn't enough so they changed her white skinned goth bikini look to a more normal looking blonde woman.

The only problem was that she was now competing in the same sector as Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Lara Croft, Jessica Rabbit and all the other hot comic babes. And the others had decades to fortify their fanbase. So she lost most of her old fans and didn't win many new fans. It's like the old saying : sometimes it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than to be a small fish in a big pond. Nowadays Lady Death has returned to her horror / goth roots but I don´t know if her readership is back to the old numbers. I used to read the series mainly because of the art by Ivan Reis who became more popular when he went on to draw books like GREEN LANTERN, BLACKEST NIGHT, BRIGHTEST DAY and the surprisingly good rebooted AQUAMAN

but the latest issues of LADY DEATH haven´t reached the quality level of her glory days.

Like Lady Death Heather Thomas tried the big pond only to become a small fish and the high points of her career were her parts in THE FALL GUY and the screwball comedy ZAPPED.

Beyond that she appeared in such awful movies like CYCLONE and RED BLOODED AMERICAN GIRL which I had the misfortune of watching again a few months ago. And let me tell you that movie is soooo 80s but not in a good way as it has all the worst cliches from the 80s in it. Added to that it also combines the cheapest effects available at that time and a really bad collection of awful dialogue and bad ideas. Two hours of my life I´ll never get back and THANK GOD that genetics went in a totally different direction. Watching this was actually painful !

Anyway, after a few episodes another hot babe appeared on the show : Markie Post. She played bail bonds contractor Terri and was just as hot in a bikini as Heather if not hotter. Really, if I would have had to pic only one of the two at that time I don´t know who I would have chosen.

TV viewers got a first look at Markie Post´s 36 - 24 - 36 on THE FALL GUY in the episode " Baker´s Dozen " in Season 3 episode 4

NIGHT COURT was another of my favorite series from the 80s although as usual german television policy kept it from reaching a big audience in Germany. Like NORTHERN EXPOSUE it was only shown after midnight and I don´t know what the translators were smoking when they came up with HARRY´S WUNDERSAMES STRAFGERICHT ( Harry´s woundrous criminal court ).

I guess they went for that option because in Germany there is no such thing as a night court. In Germany court sessions take place during the day and if you have read Kafka´s THE TRIAL you know that bureaucracy is more important than speedy justice. Here you have to wait for justice until the sun rises. In America the system of night courts was started to battle the overwhelming flood of street crimes in the 80s - at least that´s what I think but I couldn´t find any webpages to verify that.

The series NIGHT COURT was quite funny and had Saturday Night Live comedian Harry Anderson as the unorthodox Judge Harold T. Stone, John Larroquette as lecherous prosecutor Reinhold Fielding Elmore ( Tomar - Re on GREEN LANTERN FIRST FLIGHT and Mirror Master on THE BATMAN ), Richard Moll as bailif Nostradamus " Bull " Shannon and various others.

Richard Moll not only appeared in THE FALL GUY in an episode called " The Human Torch " he also had appearances on SLEDGE HAMMER, THE DUKES OF HAZARD COUNTY and SMALLVILLE. He´s also a very prolific voice actor who did Two Face on BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES and BATMAN AND ROBIN, the Abomination on the 60s INCREDIBLE HULK cartoon, Scorpion on NEW SPIDER - MAN and Java on JUSTICE LEAGUE. I have included his iMDb sheet because his resumee is just too damn long to include it all here.

Since NIGHT COURT practically ran closed to the public in Germany there are no DVDs available.

Now while Markie got to show her goods in THE FALL GUY the producers were much more timid in NIGHT COURT. There were a few occasions in which she had a hot outfit but mainly she wore a business suit - even if it could not conceal her best assets. Her stunning physique was often addressed in the show by guys constantly hitting on her - which was the realistic part. If she were a public defender I bet that guys would get into all kinds of trouble just to have her defend them.

Her first appearance on the show was an early 2nd Season episode ( " Daddy for the Defense " , originally aired on October the 4th 1984 ) but she didn't become a regular until the 3rd Season because she was starring on THE FALL GUY at the time.

In one episode she helps judge Harry win an armwrestling match by flashing her bra. Of course being a sitcom you didn´t actually see anything. But you can get a good idea about the size of her breasts by the bouncing action going down under the shirt just before she pops her buttons.

But don't despair true believer. There was CHRISTINE`S FRIEND, the 17th episode of the 4th Season, in which Markie showed what she's capable off. The plot was that she tried to go against her image by dressing more sexy and of course it didn't work.

Now this was clearly just a cheap plot by the writers to explain why a hot sexbomb like Markie didn't show more skin - especially since she had already done so in FALL GUY. And it wasn't that she didn't look as hot as before. No, quite the opposite was true. But I didn't mind because at least she showed a cleavage window in that episode to rival Power Girl.

Man, I can just imagine if they had done a Power Girl movie with her back then - ah, the possibilities.

You must be already tired of hearing me say that I don´t want to include download links for clips and then finding some excuse to include them. I had links in some of my previous posts like for the SPIKE TV SCREAM AWARDS 2011 and one of the criteria is if you can´t get it in Germany. With the same reasoning I´m adding a few clips from the episode of NIGHT COURT in which Markie Post wears the satin ress with the Power Girl cleavage.

If this was just for readers in America I could say just get the DVD but here in Germany there is no DVD. What´s more most people here don´t even know the series. So I think it´s okay to put this up :

clip 1

/ clip 2 / clip 3 / clip 4 / full episode / ditto

Now with THE FALL GUY there is at least a chance that you have seen the episodes and the show might even be in reruns on some german tv station. The DVD collections were released pretty late, Season 1 on January 2008 and Season 2 on November 2008 with no release date announced for Season 3 or any of the following. So here you are :

Markie Post´s first bikini scene

/ ditto / in two different versions

Markie Post in Undersea Oddity - Season 3 episode 21

/ ditto

Markie Post at the beach

/ ditto / in two different versions

Like always I want to thank all the people out there who worked on the various websites I used to do the research on this post. You may not believe it, but there are some things even I don´t know so here are kudos to you guys who post those indispensable trivia pages, cool reviews or the fabulous pictures without which this post would look pretty bleak. You are SO Airwolf !

Heather Thomas imdb

/ The Fall Guy episode list

Markie Post imdb

/ Markie Post Forever

Finding the adequate video for this post was a bit difficult since we had a bit of everything in this post from bounty hunters to wrestlers to superheroines in underwear and even a judge. Who knew that this post would become so long ? At first I thought I would use Markie Post´s birthday just as a intro and then come to other stuff but the more I wrote the more things I wanted to add. That´s how it goes when you think you have already written about certain things but haven´t. The whole " Bounty Hunters in tv, movies and comics " alone is a topic that deserves a long post of it´s own which is the reason why I cut it a bit short.

Anyway, I DID find a clip that has scenes from the already mentioned episode with Elvira from THE FALL GUY, although not the scene with Heather Thomas in the Elvira get up so here it is.

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

Oh well, there's nothing wrong with G - rated movies, as long as there's lots of sex and violence.

Midnight movie madness : Dellamorte Dellamore

2011-11-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

I didn´t expect to write another post so soon after my last one but one of the reason why it never gets boring writing this blog is that I never know what´s going to be the next topic. So it´s time to resurrect the beloved MIDNIGHT MOVIE MADNESS series for a look at the cult classic DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE.

The movie was shown Yesterday by ARTE and since it combines three of my favorite things - comics, horror and sex - I thought this would be just right for this blog. The movie is based on the book by Tiziano Sclavi the writer of Italy´s most famous comic DYLAN DOG published by the publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore along with other well known comics like TEX,

NATHAN NEVER

and MARTIN MYSTERE.

Even Umberto Eco outed himself as a fan of the comics with the scurillous ghosthunter and heartbreaker : " Homer, the bible and Dylan Dog are so good that I read them every day. "

I already wrote in detail about Dylan DOG in this post so I won´t bore you with that and concentrate on the movie.

Like I said, the movie uses elements from the comic series, and according to some internet websites Rupert Everett was the source for Dylan Dog´s look. So it could be a case of art imitating life imitating art although the trademark red shirt was changed for a white one.

DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE ( or CEMETERY MAN like it´s called in America ) is a gruesome slapstick / romantic comedy / provincial satire / existentialist fantasy amalgamation which proved a popular success in Italy.

United States distributor October Films changed its title to Cemetery Man and saddled the film with a campy ad campaign, finally releasing it on April 26, 1996. In the US, it received mostly negative critical reaction,small theatrical distribution and a frequently delayed Region 1 DVD release. The film missed popular success, but found a stateside cult following over time, via home video. Renowned director Martin Scorsese called Dellamorte Dellamore one of the best Italian films of the 1990s.

It tells the old story of boy meets girl, boy has sex with girl on husband´s tomb, husband comes back as zombie ( during said sex ), bites girl who comes back as a zombie too and gets killed by boy. Then boy meets another girl who looks like the first girl, but turns out to be a prostitute, meets a third girl who also looks like the first girl, takes drugs to become impotent because the third girl has " penis phobia " only to learn afterwards that she has overcome her fear by being raped by her boss and now pretty much likes sex and wants to marry her boss.

But they can still be friends in a platonic kind of way, right ?

And if that sounds weird keep in mind that I haven´t even told you that said boy, Francesco Dellamorte, works as the local cemetery caretaker ( hencefort the english title ), that he carries a gun to kill the buried a second time when they return seven days after being buried as zombies and that one of Francesco´s hobbies is reading phone books.

" I have only read two books in my life. One I never finished, the other was the phone book. "

The movie is full of such great lines, brilliant ideas and takes turns in new directions when you least expect it. Zombies are almost done to death nowadays but this movie is more than just a simple zombie flick.

But let´s not forget the sex part of the movie which at no moment feels gratious. Anna Falchi, aside from being a stunning, sexy beauty with those pouty lips and curvaceous, hour - glass figure, plays three different roles and even gets to be one of the undead. It’s easy to see why Rupert Everett’s character falls so hard for her and repeatedly.

From DEEP FOCUS´review of the movie :

The movie never stops moving, twisting and turning its way to an oddly existential climax. The scenario, concentrates on the human characters rather than the zombies, and gives as much play to turmoil of the spirit as it does to the carnage that spills from the body. The world of Francesco Dellamorte runs parallel to George Romero's zombie apocalypse. Like Romero's trilogy, and quite unlike many of its imitators, Dellamorte Dellamore is a zombie movie with character.

Francesco is a misfit and a nihilist, but he's also a remarkable Everyman who commands our attention and our sympathy as he slouches toward the inevitable. Along those lines, the movie exhibits a well - developed sense of humor that goes a long way toward eliciting the viewer's sympathy. The characters aren't very pleasant, but you start to identify with them in spite of yourself. By the time the movie is over, their predicament almost seems to take on mythic proportions.

So DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE is definitely a movie to check out if you haven´t already seen it.

Another reason why I wanted to write this post - aside from having an excuse to mention DYLAN DOG on the blog - is that the movie with Brandon Routh that I mentioned has been finished.

I haven´t seen it yet and they made the usual changes but apparently Brandon Routh knew the comics before and the rest of the crew seems interested in doing a good adaption of the comic.

The usual links to acknowledge the various resources without whom the making of this post would not have been possible :

cemetery man imdb

/ cemetery man wikipedia

cemetery man synopsis by arte ( in german )

cemetery man review reverse shot

/ review radiator heaven

As always I´m closing this post with another video and as this is all about DYLAN DOG here´s a clip from the first DYLAN DOG PC game LUNA PARK.

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

Somebody is stealing my crimes.

And a Happy All Hallow´s Eve to you !

2011-10-31T12:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome, my fellow ghosts and werewolves, vampires, zombies and other creatures of the night. Happy Sammhain, praised be the Goddess and all hail to the Green King and all things fertile and growing.

Another year has passed and we meet again on All Hallow´s Eve, the night when the boundaries between the living world and the spirit world are at their thinnest and contact is possible. After Saturday´s long post I didn´t expect to do another one Today especially because I spent most of the day trying to phone some people to get information concerning my new job. I couldn´t reach most of them which on the other hand means I´m not working Today so I can spend the night with the things you ought to do on Halloween.

Man, I was so busy with the new possible new job that I almost forgot Halloween. I had to go to the supermarket really late and when I was finally there it took me at least 20 minutes to find the Milka Oreo bars. Yesterday I watched another episode of SLEDGE HAMMER while trying my first Milka Oreo and this could become my new favorite over Milka Daim.

So I remembered to buy more chocolate but I was totally surprised that some kids were actually Trick or Treating in my neighbourhood. So I wasn´t prepared and by the time I thought about giving them some free comics they were already at the next house. Yes, I think it will be still a few years until Halloween totally catches on here in Germany. Like I said I already did a bit of Pre - Halloween partying on the weekend because german tv stations show all the horror movies during the weekend even if Halloween DOES NOT fall on that weekend.

Which on one side defeats the purpose of the Halloween special since it´s not shown ON Halloween. On the other side it´s nice that they are making an effort to celebrate Halloween at all and Yesterdays CRIMINAL MINDS episode took place during Devil´s Night. Normally they show the Christmas specials on Easter, the Easter specials on Summer and the Halloween specials in May on german television. I think one of the few exceptions are the SIMPSON´S Halloween specials which are shown around Halloween. I guess it´s because they have such a huge fanbase here since they sell ten times as much copies of the comic than in America.

I used to buy all the various comics, mostly the ones with Radioactive Man but apart from the spanish issues I only buy FUTURAMA from time to time and the BART SIMPSON´S TREEHOUSE OF HORROR specials. The german editions of comics like FUTURAMA even have an extensive glossary section because you have to explain things like Neil Gaiman´s Dream, the Speed Force or DC´s various speedsters to the german non - comic reading audience.

I think that´s one of the things why the Simpson comics are so successfull here : the people who translate them expect you to be familiar with the simpson characters but not much else. So anybody can enjoy the comics no matter at which entry level they are.

But back to Halloween. Aside from my last post, where I put all new Halloween things I have already done posts on hot horror hotties , HORRORSCHOCKER , Krabat , the DARKNESS and DYLAN DOG , Richard Corben´s HAUNT OF FEAR : EDGAR ALLEN POE , Richard Corben´s HELLBOY IN MEXICO , part 1 , part 2 and part 3 of my ELVIRA posts and last year´s grindhoouse horror comic double feature time I want to spotlight 2 comics that are guaranteed to give you goosebumps : BATMAN - THE UNSEEN and HELLBOY - THE CROOKED MAN and OTHERS.

Right now I´m sitting in my room with the lights out listening to another episode of GEISTERJÄGER JOHN SINCLAIR. THE JANUSHEAD KILLER is a big fan favorite and I thought maybe some of my readers who haven´t tried the new audioplays, or who have already listened to a few of them but don´t have that particular audioplay, want to join in on the fun. To tell the truth I was on YouTube looking for some clip to watch while listening but I found the whole thing in one video. No picture except the cover but the important thing is the sound. So without further ado : John Sinclair - Der Mörder mit dem Januskopf.

Another REALLY scary thing I found is somebody´s casting for the villains in the big AVENGERS movie that´s coming up. Since everybody who saw the THOR movie already knows the cosmic cube is involved somebody thought that 80s villain / all powerful entity the Beyonder might make an appearance.

Yah, who better to play a mad and omnipotent malignant cosmic entity than the Hoff ? And you know that the movie is going to be sold out all over Germany. Man, those tickets are going to sell better than Sauerkraut with Schnitzel, mein Freund !

To compensate you for that shocker here´s another one but in a good way. Guess who´s the newest addition to Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 ? I´m giving you a hint. It has to do with the three Fs : fur, flying and firing and it´s NOT a ferret.

The next two episodes of SUPERNATURAL are on in a few minutes, so I hope you have a lot of fun tonight, and that you get a lot of candy when you´re trick or treating. And that you picked the right costume IF you´re dressing for the occassion.

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

In preparation for Halloween

2011-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

It´s been quite some time since my last post but something always came up when I was just about to get started. That´s so typical, I even change the look for Halloween but then don´t get to benefit from it.

By the way how do you like the new look ? So far I have had a few comments who have said that they like it better than the normal look. So what do you think ? Should it become a permanent thing ?

Today I´m feeling like I have been run over by a truck ( and a very large one at that ) because Yesterday I was at the Stadionbad for a job interview as addition to the sauna cleaning staff and at the evening I worked with the cleaning crew to see if it´s something I can do.

As it was the first time that I went back to cleaning work I´m not accustomed to it yet but maybe I´ll have a regular job soon. The only negative is that I´m not sure if the busses are still running when I finish work after midnight but I could go there by bus and then walk back to Neckarweihingen. That would be better than having to drive all the way with the car at night since I´m night - blind. Another negative is that IF I manage to get the job I will never hear the end of it since my brother told me to send the application. On the other side a job means more money for comics.

Usually I´m doing a comic news and links post for the weekend but this time I´m doing it a little different because I´m posting stuff for Halloween. I wanted to do a big one on Halloween but since that doesn´t fall on the weekend this year I will probably be busy with other stuff. Which also means that there will be no talk about DC´s new 52 in this post. Yay !

QUOTH THE RAVEN " NEVERMORE "

For those who haven´t kept up with the bloggers on the blogroll GOLDEN AGE COMIC BOOK STORIES is doing a series about Edgar Allan Poe adaptions to comic and art and has such great post like Bernie Wrightson´s Edgar Allan Poe portfolio

or the poem THE RAVEN illustrated by the great Gustave Doré . I wanted to add one of Gustave Doré´s illustrations as an example but I would have had to cut it in size in order to post it and that wouldn´t do the intricate and elaborate linework by the great master any justice. Just head on over to GOLDEN AGE COMIC BOOK STORIES and marvel at his craftsmanship.

There´s also a post with Richard Corben´s comic adaption of the same poem from CREEPY 67 published in December 1974

and one with all black and white Edgar Allan Poe adaptions by Warren publications including THE TELL - TALE HEART by Reed Crandall ( Creepy 3, June 1965 ), THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO also by Reed Crandall ( Creepy 6, December 1965 ), BERENICE by Jerry Grandenetti ( Eerie 11, September 1967 ), one of my favorite tales of all times THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH by Tom Sutton ( Eerie 12, November 1967 ), THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER also by Tom Sutton ( Creepy 20, May 1968 ) and - last but not least - THE BLACK CAT once again by Berni Wrightson ( Creepy 62, May 1974 ).

All of the stories are worth reading if you haven´t read them previously but I think the story by Bernie Wrightson is the best known of the lot because it has been reprinted a few times. I first read it in the color version in Pacific Comics´ BERNIE WRIGHTSON - MASTER OF THE MACABRE series that had just loads of Wrightson goodness.

Over at GREAT CAESAR´S POST Max Romero continues his COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN, presenting the most horrific movie scenes and Ol´Groove from DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND has 13 cool and creepy Werewolf by Night covers by Monster Master Mike Ploog.

WAY OF THE GUN

Not really Halloween or horror related, but interesting nevertheless ( and twice as interesting for people outside of Germany ) : aside from CHRISTOPH ROOS´ usual pop culture assortment of posts about Bruce Lee´s FIST OF FURY, turkish cigarettes, Juanita Banana, collectible cards, alien abductions or the newest illustrations of BUCH DER SCHATTEN there´s currently a western motif going on with topics like the different kind of holsters

colts and other revolvers

gunslingers , the cult classic A FISTFULL OF DOLLARS , german western movies or Carl Lindeberg the best known illustrator of Karl May ( Germany´s most famous western writer ). Always fascinating, surprising and also a source of great research material you won´t find anywhere else so be sure to give it a look.

SINCE WE GOT BLOOD AND VIOLENCE ALREADY COVERED

I wanted to do this post Yesterday but since there were two celebrity birthdays I thought I could wait one more day because I´ve had some complaints about too many hot babes on the blog. And I was busy with the job interview stuff.

The first one was Jami Gertz ( 46 ) who was in such 80s movies like BELOW ZERO and is now the hot Mom on STILL STANDING. She appeared in the vampire movie THE LOST BOYS ( so it´s kind of fitting for Halloween ) which also had a comic version

and the other one was Lauren Holly ( 48 ) best known for playing new director Jenny Shepard on Navy CIS who also was on the family show PICKET FENCES that - probably still sells on DVD thanks to a dream sequence in which she appeared in a bikini.

I thought I had my bases cover but fate is a fickle thing. What´s the old saying : Life is what happens while you are making other plans. Today there are also two hot actresses celebrating their respective anniversaries so, to paraphrase one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, what the heck : Winona Ryder who appeared in one of the best DRACULA adaptions by Francis Ford Coppola turns 40 Today

and Gabrielle Union, who starred in the tv series LIFE and FLASH FORWARD, has her 39th birthday. Feliz cumpleaño to all four.

THINGS TO MAKE YOU WANNA SCREAM

I have mentioned the SPIKE TV SCREAM AWARDS 2011 in my last post and I know it´s been some time since they were aired but in Germany they weren´t broadcasted this year. Usually pro 7 shows it live but this year they didn´t for some strange reason. Maybe the audience was too low, which may have something to do with the fact that THEY NEVER ANNOUNCED IT IN THE TV GUIDE so the only ones who could really watch it were the unemployed, nightowls and other persons with sleeping disorders.

So for all who haven´t seen them - yet - and intend to rectify it on Haloween here are some download links for the show : here , here or here .

As for my own Halloween celebration, I have got my midnight snacks ( Milka Daim and the new Milka Oreo ), my horror audio with the third part of GEISTERJÄGER JOHN SINCLAIR - DIE ULTIMATIVE HORROR SAMMLUNG, some horror reading material with volume 70 of CASE CLOSED that includes the flesh curling story CURSE OF THE DEMON DOG, the newest issue of HAMMERHARTE HORRORSCHOCKER ( preview pages ) with its usual collection of spine - tingling horror tales

and the second trade of Chris Roberson´s and Mike Allred´s emo / hip / avantgarde I ZOMBIE. I had hoped to do a review of the first two trades for Halloween but it´s probably not going to happen.

What´s definitely going to happen is the next episode of DOCTOR WHO which looks like it´s going to be a real screamer. I tried to watch some episodes during the week but I just never got to it. And I really have to start watching them as they are clogging my hard drive.

HAMMER HORROR

What I have been watching the last days is the 80s cult tv series SLEDGE HAMMER starring David Rasche as Sledge Hammer that I got on DVD.

I have to confess that I mainly bought it because it was a bargain ( both seasons for 10 bucks instead the usual 20 ) and the sultry Anne Marie Martin who plays Sledge´s partner Dori Doreau

but so far it´s really entertaining. Since I´m used to the german dubbing I´m watching the german version which is especially interesting because the parts that were cut out for tv are in the original english version. So when you´re watching it and they are suddenly talking in english you know those are the parts that were cut out.

In the first episode there is an entire scene that was cut for television in which Hammer interrogates a criminal by pouring hot coffee on his legs and then do his own impression of sharp shooter Wilhelm Tell - although his version includes a gun and ballons. Like I said I haven´t watched many episodes but I´m looking forward to the highlight : the episode MODEL DEAREST in which Dori infiltrates a model agency that´s really white slavery ring and in which Sledge Hammer almost blows her cover. And the criminal organisation is not the only thing that gets uncovered in the episode. Holy bikini atoll, Batman !

So that´s all for today as I´m already running late again to wrap things up. If I don´t manage to write another post before Halloween I´m wishing you a splendid time and like they always said in the COUNT DUCKULA cartoon : " Goodnight out there...WHATever you are ! "

Today we got two clips. The first one is the intro for COUNT DUCKULA, one of the funniest horror cartoon series ever. The comics are equally hilarious and if you find them in a dollar bin you should get them.

This is where Peter David got his " And don´t call me Shirley. " from that he so blatantly used in most of his comics. The second clip is the episode MODEL DEAREST from SLEDGE HAMMER. I tried to find a clip with just the part with Dori in it but no such luck.

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

You all laugh because I am different. I laugh because you are all the same.

Today just some public announcements

2011-10-18T01:26:00.001-07:00

Since I spent most of my weekend writing the last two posts and Yesterday I was busy doing things in Ludwigsburg Today´s post is just going to be a short post with some public announcements.

STUTTGARTER COMICBÖRSE RETURNS ON NOVEMBER THE 26TH

I don´t think I have to mention it to my german readers but for all those who haven´t looked so far or who have forgotten : like usual the Comicbörse Stuttgart is once again taking place 4 weeks before Christmas, just in time to do some early Christmas shopping.

I know it´s where I like to do my christmas shopping because it´s one of the few places where I can get those expensive german hardcover comics with some kind of discount. Even if they are only for my own collection a visit always pays off, may it be to get comics at a discount price, get some comics signed by comic artists ( I hope I can get a signed copy of the new HARTMUT comic that´s out ) or meet and greet with the usual suspects.

The event is - of course - taking place at the usual locality of the DGB Gewerkschaftshaus in the Willi - Bleicher Str. 20 and you can get there via public transport.

AMAZON GERMANY SLASHES PRICES

Speaking about discount prices, this is another announcement solely for my german readers. Amazon.de is doing a sales campaign where you get three english books for 15 EUROS. Normally I wouldn´t mention this on my blog but besides a dozen discworld novels there are also some comic trades among those offered and the campaign ends at the end of this month.

Going through the books I just ordered volumes 13, 14 and 15 of FABLES since it´s a series I was half - interested but never had the budget to try it. Okay, those may not be the best trades to start but at 5 bucks each, it´s worth a try.

There are other books in the mix I wanted to order like BATMAN - THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, BATMAN - YEAR ONE, GREEN LANTERN - NO FEAR, GREEN LANTERN - REBIRTH or GREEN LANTERN - THE SINIESTRO CORPS WAR Vol 1, but since I already have them in another form I opted for comics I don´t own already.

Originally I wanted to also get THE UNWRITTEN Vol 1 - TOMMY TAYLOR AND THE BOGUS IDENTITY since it seems this could become my new VERTIGO BOOK to follow but you can only get 3 books for 15 EUROS so I opted for the FABLES pack. Also with a price of 8.40 EUROS it´s much more affordable regularly than the FABLES trades which go for 11 bucks. Other trades include 100 BULLETS Vols 1 and 2, Alan Moore´s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN Vols 1 and 2 and PROMETHEA Vol 1, Brian Wood´s DMZ Vols 6 and 10, and NORTHLANDERS Vols 1 and 5, Charles Burns BLACK HOLE, JACK OF FABLES Vol 9, PREACHER Vols 2 and 3, THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE, Y - THE LAST MAN Vols 4, 5, 6 and 8, RED ROBIN - THE HIT LIST and BATMAN - BATTLE FOR THE COWL.

Not really the newest releases but you may be able to close some gaps in your collection or start some new ones. As always these books go fast so don´t wait too long and use the links : all books / comic trades

TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN CHRISTMAS CONTEST RETURNS

Because of the huge success of last year´s big Christmas Contest I have decided to give away even more free comics this year. The big announcement with the list of comics I´m giving away will follow, but I just wanted to remind my german readers that a whole bunch of comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 will be among them.

I still haven´t finished my reviews but if you want a certain comic like PROFESSOR BELL, UNGEBREMSTER SPASS, DER SKORPION, PEANUTS, THE GOON, DER TOD UND DAS MÄDCHEN, POLLY UND DIE PIRATEN, DIE MÜLLERS, TALES FROM THE VAULT OF THE GRINGO, HOLZHOF COMIX, COMICS FÜR ALLE, GREEN MANOR, DIE UNGLAUBLICHE REISE DER ABRAFAXE, DER COMIC ZUM FESTIVAL, BONGO COMICS FÜR UMME, THOR, GREEN LANTERN, ZARLA, MONSIEUR JEAN, BOULE & BILL, CANARDO, DIE SCHLÜMPFE, WEISSBLECHS GRATIS GEISTERSTUNDE or DIE TOTEN just let me know and I´ll see if I can reserve you a copy.

As usual there are also going to be a few comics from last year´s GRATIS COMIC TAG and FREE COMICBOOK DAY in the bag to give away. Sorry, no comics from this year´s FREE COMICBOOK DAY since I still haven´t gotten any from my local comicshop. I got some from online comicshops but I also have to write the reviews for those and I´m not sure if I can finish them up till christmas.

One last thing since we´re talking about this year´s GRATIS COMIC TAG : I would really appreciate it if somebody could tell me where the story from HOLZHOF COMICS called DER PUPPENKASPER by Gilbert Schwartz, Dirk Seliger and Sacha Wüstefeld continues. I really like the art but I couldn´t find issue 9 / 1740 KASPER LARIFARI - where the story is supposed ti be continued according to the free comic - since the issues are numbered in numerical order and the newest is issue 430 or something. I tried the website but it was impossible to get some information. So if somebody knows where the story continues it would be much appreciated.

JOHN SINCLAIR ULTIMATE HORROR COLLECTION III OUT

I also wanted to mention that the third part of GEISTERJÄGER JOHN SINCLAIR - DIE ULTIMATIVE HORRORSAMMLIUNG has already been released.

Longtime readers may recall that I already mentioned that I was a huge fan of the pulp series JOHN SINCLAIR by Jason Dark who still writes one issue each week and one pocketbook each month. Recently I got back into the series by the really brilliant audio CDs by WortArt and LÜBBE AUDIO who employ the voice actors who dubb actors like Robert De Niro, Pierce Brosnan ( John Sinclair ) or Gillian Anderson ( Jane Collins ).

The audioplays are usually a bit expensive for me but you can get IM NACHTCLUB DER VAMPIRE in a special edition for 1 EURO and the ULTIMATE HORROR COLLECTION include six stories for between 8 EUROS and 10. So if you want to do a special Halloween John Sinclair marathon like me the third collection has just come out and it includes such classics like DER MÖRDER MIT DEM JANUSKOPF and DAS BUCH DER GRAUSAMEN TRÄUME.

CLOSING TIME FOR THE DOCTOR ?

Last but not least a quick reminder that the second part of the sixth season has started. I know i shouldn´t support file sharing but for me it´s the only way to see the episodes since in Germany they stopped after the first season with David Tennant. I have the episodes since I got back from Spain but so far I haven´t had the chance to watch them since my Mom is hogging the tv. Since I have to watch it on my computer anyway and it´s been a few months since I saw the first part of the season I have started again with the first episode so I can see the whole season in continuation.

So far the series has been getting better and better and I´m curious to find out how it ends. Things really don´t look good for the Doctor this time around and the title CLOSING TIME sounds really ominous. Maybe it´s finally time to pay the piper.

By the way, kudos to Matt Smith for winning this year´s SCREAM award for best Science Fiction actor. Other winners were Ed Brubaker, John Romita Jr. and Hugh Jackman. The ceremony will air Today at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Spike TV and you can get the complete list of winners here .

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

" Apollo 11 is your secret weapon ? "

" No, no. It's not Apollo 11. That would be silly. It's Neil Armstrong's foot. "

Yes, these two posts are practically everything I did this weekend

2011-10-15T15:37:00.001-07:00

After so much depressing negative scandals in the DC news section we come to the rest of the comic publishing world which means first it´s Marvel´s turn. Determined to get the readers DC alienated they are putting their heavy hitters on the frontline and are taking no prisoners. Nobody is safe, not even humble comic bloggers.

First I wanted to mention a celebrity birthday that´s kind of comic related : french model Marie - Claude Bourbonnais who has appeared on comic conventions as Susan Storm celebrates her 32nd birthday. So I wanted to use this opportunity to wish her a Feliz cumpleaños ! and to remind my readers who still haven´t googled her to do so or use the link on ComicBits Online to be found on the blogroll. You won´t regret it !

IF YOU CAN´T BE WITH THE ART YOU LOVE LOVE THE ART YOU´RE WITH

It´s no secret that I´m a big fan of Arthur Adams ( as you can see by me declaring October Arthur Adams tribute month ) and I´m lamenting that he doesn´t do more monthly sequential work. He just recently finished his ULTIMATE X work - at least for me since I´m always a few months behind - and although he´s doing a lot of covers and variant covers right now I am already starting to miss his art on the interior pages.

It doesn´t even have to be 22 pages each month and I thought after the good experience Marvel had with him and Frank Cho sharing art duties on HULK they would continue in that direction.

Since cloning still hasn´t reached the point of perfection where you can just clone as many Arthur Adams as you want safely, Marvel has done the next best thing : getting somebody who draws in a similar style. Which in this case means Nick Bradshaw, whose art I first saw on the awesome cover below that you can see in full size in CBR´s article about Adam Kubert and Nick Bradshaw´s POINT ONE variant covers . I think I first came across it on a post on Pedro Angosto´s MAN OF BRONZE blog ( which also can be found on the blog roll ) titled ARTHUR ADAMS IS NOT DEAD BUT LONG LIVE NICK BRADSHAW.

On Friday I was at my usual comicshop and among others I also got issues 39 / and / 41 of ASTONISHING X - MEN that are part 3 and 4 of the MONSTROUS story Jason Pearson started. I´m not sure how this will be collected into tradeform but I think it´s a good idea to have the issues in - between, that are done by other artists because the main artist needs more time to finish his issues, deal with a different story.

I haven´t had the chance to read the issues yet but I like Nick´s art. Like Terry Dodson, who for the longest time got all the jobs Adam Hughes couldn´t take, Nick Bradshaw´s going to be compared to Arthur Adams for a long time - you can see the big influence he has on the art - but if I should describe his artstyle I would propably say it´s part Arthur Adams part Ed McGuiness with a dash of Jim Cheung.

Speaking of Jim Cheung : AVENGERS - THE CHILDREN´S CRUSADE is finally being released in Germany and in it´s unimitable way PANINI GERMANY has picked the worst ever translation for a Marvel title with YOUNG AVENGERS - DIE KREUZFAHRT. I know, some people may once again accuse me of bashing the translators at PANINI because they have the job I would love to have but if you don´t know the difference between a cruise and a crusade you should be looking for another line of work. And for those who say I don´t know what I´m talking about : try translating a sentence like " Pero la gorila estupida era demasiado tarde y el loco brillante tuvo hoyos en cerebros y ahora usted comedores carnosos de uva estaran en un apuro ! " without having the actual comic in front of you, which means you have no idea of the context, and then we´ll talk.

More AVENGERS news : at the Avengers panel at the New York Comic Con new information was released about Avengers - Shattered Heroes with a lot of upcoming covers like this one for Alan Davis´upcoming run on CAPTAIN AMERICA ( pencils for his first issue ) .

The other Avenger related news is that Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley are reuniting for the upcoming AVENGERS ASSEMBLE ongoing series which will feature the same team that is in the upcoming AVENGERS movie. Wow, it took Marvel how long to get the idea to do a comic, that resembled what actually happened in the movie adaption so movie - goers who where unfamiliar with the character could follow it ? Nine years ? That´s what I call quick thinking.

So far I have mentioned a few of my favorite artists so I couldn´t leave the fact that the first preview for UNCANNY X - MEN 1 by Carlos Pacheco is finally available. Carlos is one of my all - time favorites and although he had some bad luck with his inkers in the last few series he looks pretty good again. I think my favorite comic by Carlos is still JLA / JSA - VIRTUE AND VICE with SUPERMAN / BATMAN - ABSOLUTE POWER a close second, because he had already begun to draw superheroes less iconic and more mundane in it. Now with the X - MEN franchise this new look may be more suited as far as I can judge by his Point. One issue with Magneto and the first issue of X - MEN SCHISM - which I sadly didn´t get signed since I didn´t have the opportunity to go to the XII Jornadas de Cómic y Manga de Leganés. Well, I´ll get my Power Girl piece one day.

Till then I´ll have to settle for new issues of UNCANNY X - MEN.

Another favorite artist of mine - oh, I´m the slick master of the segueway, ain´t I - is Ed McGuiness and there is also a preview of AVENGERS X - SANCTION 1 available.

Other Marvel previews of note are ALPHA FLIGHT 5, FF 10, NEW AVENGERS 17 and ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER - MAN 3 and you can follow the link for more Marvel previews .

Staying a bit with Marvel, school´s in with Matt Seneca who gives a detailed analysis of a Frank Miller WOLVERINE page in another installment of YOUR WEDNESDAY SEQUENCE that every comic artist or aspiring comic artist should read. As the bard puts it : " the whole thing is a piece of comics with a wonderful balance to it " and " the directionality of this page is like a thesis on effective flow. "

Just in time for Halloween is an interview with Scream Award nominee Mike Mignola and - another one of my favorite artists - mike Allred, about whose new series I ZOMBIE I wrote in my last weekend post talks in another interview about his unfinished series THE GOLDEN PLATES which is an adaption in comicbook format of the Book of Mormon.

I don´t think I have to introduce Adrian Tomine and Daniel Clowes who speak out about all aspects of their decades - long careers, and there´s a second interview with Daniel Clowes on his new superhero comic THE DEATH - RAY. It seems even the most hardcore non - superhero comic creators can´t resist the allure of superhero comics once they realize that you can tell every story in the superhero format.

Speaking of superhero comics that are not published by the big two, David Hine takes on THE DARKNESS and returns to THE BULLETPROOF COFFIN which was THE best superhero comic published in 2010, called " the WATCHMEN for a new decade " by some comic connoisseurs myself included. As the BULLETPROOF COFFIN sequel is slated to come out in January 2012 you still have time to get the first trade which is really a must read for fans of comics, superhero, rayguns, dinosaurs, or pop culture or any combination of it. And maybe I´ll finally get to write my incredibly brilliant and funny review of the book till then.

Like with most good comic I came late to the party because Ithe initial solicitation got lost in the shuffle of too many monthly books and when I finally read a positive review about it the series was well into it´s penultimate number. Therefore it made more sense to me as a customer to wait for the trade. Johanna Draper Carlson from COMICS WORTH READING has an interesting essay that takles the problems of indy comic series like late books or books that go on indefinite hiatus as one of the other reasons why many readers wait for the trade instead of reading the monthlies.

An example of an successfull indie comic creator is Dave Roman who turned his webcomic / minicomic TEEN BOAT into a collected version in the first part of his interview at THE DAILY CROSS HATCH. And staying on the subject of webcomics on warrenellis.com is an interesting post about the difference between webcomics and digital comics which is not the same. More internet / comic stuff : Graeme McMillan at ROBOT 6´s The Middle Ground number 72 explains Why Previews is still better than the internet, Sean Kleefeld takes a look on autobiographical webcomics and Author Paul Gravett has inaugurated his 1001 comics you must read before you die website .

Going from the producer side of things to the retail part the San Angelo Standard Times has a piece about Tom Moore, owner of Texas Comic Shop, how his passion about comic books became a successful career and Caleb Goellner from COMICS ALLIANCE reached out to a number of comic retailers to ask how they manage to keep stores stable in a down economy and how customers can help to keep their local comic shop open. I have been in a few really fantastic comic shops like FREAKS in Barcelona ( see my posts last months ) and comic shops where you can find almost everything like my current comic shop, the Sammlerecke in Esslingen and the articel has many priceless pointers for comicshop owners and comic readers.

Although I buy a lot of comics online nowadays ( mainly because of the price difference or availability ) I still think the comicshop is the best place to decide what to buy and what not. You can see the actual comics for yourself and hold them in your hand which can be the deciding factor, like in the case of the X - STATIX PRESENTS: DEAD GIRL miniseries. The preview pages looked really x - tremely garish but when I flipped through the pages in the comicshop it looked muc nicer. The comicshop is the best place to check out trades and hardcovers, to see if it´s just a book to read or if it looks sooo good you just have to get it for your bookshelf. And you can see if the art really grabs you.

Another reason why I still go to my comicshop is that I have a pull list there - which is one of the ways customers can help their comicshops - although I don´t always clean out my box like the article suggests. One of the reasons why I don´t do that is that I like to choose which comics to get on each visit, something that my comicshop lets me do. I´m not always in the same mood when going to the comicshop and I also like to read some series in chunks. Right now the last 8 or 10 issues of TEEN TITANS is waiting in my box because there were other comics I was more interested in reading. And to get from Neckarweihingen to Esslingen you have to take the bus and the subway which alone costs 9 bucks ( getting there and back ) so it´s better to be sure that I have some stuff waiting for me in my box whenever I have to go there.

It may be for a regular visit but sometimes I have to go there because I need a certain book or because I have to return some copies my brother received erroneusly. On such occasions it´s nice that I can also get some new comics for myself. Another plus for comicshops is that you can have the best conversations with other customers or employees and I don´t think I can recall any visit to my comicshop where somebody hasn´t told me about a comic series I didn´t know or brought my attention to some up - and - coming writer or artist.

And they are always very generous with prospects and free stuff, in fact I managed to get four more free comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2011 ( which makes up for not receiving ANY of the FREE COMICBOOK DAY comics I ordered this year ) that I can review when I finally get to continue the review series I started. Which in turn means I can then go on to give all of them away for free, probably just in time for this year´s big FREE COMIC CHRISTMAS CONTEST on this very blog.

So like I always say : support your local comicshop.

CLOSING TIME, LAST CALL

It´s almost time for me to go to bed so let´s wrap up this post before the weekend finally is over. You are probably already tired of hearing me promising that I´ll get the ARCHIE trade by Norm Breyfogle as soon as it´s available so i´ll just mention that Archie Comics is resurrecting the NEW CRUSADERS as an exclusively digital comic series. I´m not that big into the whole digital comics thing but I´m familiar with the whole characters from on of their series at DC. I didn´t read the last one they put out ( if that really were the CRUSADER character ) but it´s nice to see these heroes return into digital comics and - possibly - a printed version later on.

Two other series I´m not reading, but that are on my radar, are IRREDEEMABLE and INCORRUPTIBLE and all fans of the books may be delighted to hear that superhero - turned - bad Plutonian is slated to go up against reformed supervillain Max Damage in the upcoming IRREDEEMABLE / INCORRUPTIBLE crossover.

This weeks notable independent previews are for SAVAGE DRAGON 174, a series that is always surprising and that I can´t recommend highly enough,

ELRIC THE BALANCE LOST 4 , which I also mentioned in my last weekend post, IRREDEEMABLE 30 and WAREHOUSE 13 number 2, one of my guitly tv pleasures. Here is the full preview list .

No funny Top Ten lists this time, but here´s a picture where the artist has hidden WALL - E between what is probably every robot in pop culture. I have seen Herbie, Big Guy, the hot Robot from Metropolis, Twiggy, a Cylon, something that might be a Cyberman but definitely a Dalek.

To better search Wall - E click the full size version once again courtesy by Los Comic Geekos.

Finally, it´s been a while since I did my last feature on cosplayers but Today´s candidate is Ormeli ( and again, by Los Comic Geekos ) who does some characters I´m not familiar with but also some I do know.

As with other female comicfans I previously featured on this blog the costumes are really spot on and she takes a lot of effort to get as close as possible to the original look as you can see in her photogallery . It´s definitely worth checking out and who knows - you might even get some ideas for Halloween. As for Ormeli : You go, girl !

Todays video at the end of the post is CBR TV´s an interview with Mark Evanier, partner in crime of Sergio Aragones on many occasions but probably best known for his long GROO series. Mark talks about how comics have changed in the last decade, what a great visionary Jack Kirby really was and an upcoming GROO / CONAN crossover.

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

Welcome to the weekend - I hope you survive the experience !

2011-10-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed I have changed the layout a bit to set the right mood for Halloween. I know I shouldn´t mess with the layout since the last time I did it I couldn´t get the old one back. But since when do I listen to myself ?

I know, you expected to finally read more about D - Gruppe ( me too, fella ! ) but there has been so much stuff piling up since the last weekend that I just had to do another one of my ever - so popular link posts. I hope Terry can forgive but I hope that I can use the time to re - read the D - GRUPPE issues.

As usual let´s start with the DC reboot news and with the one that started the most controversy and like last time there are spoilers abound so skip the parts if you don´t want to be spoiled.

COMIC LEGEND : DC BASED THE NEW 52 ON AN OLD WIZARD ARTICLE

Status : Probably true

You know you have a problem when your whole " new and exciting " approach to relaunching your whole sortiment of comic series is based on an old WIZARD magazine article. Okay, this may or may not be true but it DOES look like when Dan Didio needed some inspiration for the costume designs of the new 52 he just cracked open an old issue of WIZARD magazine ( issue 136 from January 2003 to be exact ). The issue featured an article about how it would look like if DC did an ULTIMATE DC universe since Marvel had just succesfully launched their ULTIMATE line. The costume designs were done by artist Ken Lashey who´s one of the new artists involved in the new 52.

I don´t know if he was compensated in some way because they used his designs as a springboard because so far there has been no comment on this. There is an interview with Francis Manapul, Jeff Lemire and Ken Lashley but it´s not mentioned. I thought I´d share the designs with my readers since it´s making the rounds on the internet, I first discovered it through a link by Los Comic Geekos .

The Batman design is - of course - more akin to the look he has in the movies but they got rid of the shorts like in the rebooted version. Unlike the rebooted version he has the yellow Bat - emblem which they just got back in the comics and of course had to change for the rebooted version. So because this version has the classic Batsymbol it looks better than the new version.

Like the rebooted version the ultimized Superman costume has the red boots with a blue collar and no yellow anymore. But while the rebooted version makes the blue parts look like 80s Robotech gear the ultimized look uses slick unison blue, a stylish version of the S and instead of a boring red belt the red parts are split on both sides giving him a hip and trendy look. In short words : in 2003 they knew how to pimp Superman.

Ultimate Wonder Woman also has hints of what DC used for the reboot : different tiara, the red torso piece that´s more cloth only instead of a skirt she got pants - or trousers depending which day of the week it is.

Green Arrow´s gear on the other side looks very much like the reboot version down to the hood. I´m just not sure if he´s still in the Justice League. Below are the rest of the designs for the Ultimate DC and while Flash and Green Lantern have not yet appeared in new duds it´s still possible. Now you decide how new the NEW 52 really is. The funniest thing about the article in WIZARD magazine is that in 2003 nobody thought that DC would ever do an ultimate version because they were more interested in producing solid books and would never resort to such cheap marketing ploys. That´s showing them, Mr. Didio.

About the whole Starfire controversy there´s nothin new since there is a new interview with Scott Lobdell about TEEN TITANS but he decides not to talk about it.

SEASON OF THE CAT OR JUST A CAT IN SEASON ?

Yesterday I was at my comicshop so I finally had the chance to check out CATWOMAN 1 for myself. And I have to say that everything I read so far is true. While it´s not uncommon that some comics pander to the smallest denominator ( called headlights in some articles ) it is weird that DC comics took that approach in an effort to gain new readership. It´s difficult to imagine that they really didn´t know how the general reaction would be.

I didn´t buy the comic because the art didn´t strike me as particularly spectacular or appealing but it´s solid and Guillem March sure has a hand for the ladies. The scene at the end did seem a bit odd and here are my three reasons for that :

1 - it brings the whole Catwoman / Batman relationship into new territory and once you have taken that step you can NEVER take it back

2 - why did it take place on - panel ? Was there any reason they couldn´t do the usual before / after shots ?

3 - most important : IF you feel the need to go into that direction and IF you have to show it on panel - why did they keep their clothes on ? That´s the most disturbing part for me. Not the Catwoman / Batman sex but the Catwoman / Batman cosplay sex. Who is the target audience for this ?

And it looks like CATWOMAN will continue on it´s new unpopular " ceesecake for ceesecake sake " path as you can see in the preview pages for CATWOMAN 2

NEW ORIGIN OF THE DEADLIEST OF THE SPECIES

But Starfire and Catwoman are not the only female superheroes who have troubled times ahead of them. After the whole pants / shorts ordeal the princess of the amazons is in the news again and this time not for beheading horses but because DC felt the need to give their brandnew Wonder Woman a new origin . After the whole traincrash of JMS´ Wonder Woman story including an altered reality with a new origin it looks like DC´s answer for everything is just hitting the reset button again and again and again. I read somewhere that the definition of a fool is a person who keeps doing the same thing expecting a different result.

MO PROBLEMS MO MONEY ?

And we continue with the problems for DC although in this case it´s one of their own making. Because they apparently earn too much money DC has made a deal that 100 of their graphic novels are now exclusively available in digital form via Amazon´s new Kindle Fire prompting Barnes & Noble to pull said 100 DC graphic novels from their shelves .

B & N spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating said that " Our policy is that unless we receive all formats of a title to make available to our customers, we will not sell those physical titles in our stores. " adding that readers could still order the print books through BN.com or special order them to brick and mortar stores. And on top of that Books - A - Million followed suit . I just hope that the new deal with Amazon covers the losses from Barnes & Nobles and Books - A - Million. Is it just me, or does it look like there are a few moneygrabbers at DC who are just interested in lining their own pockets when it´s time to make a decision, and make a quick exit stage left as soon as possible ? I wonder how you sell the idea of offering 100 graphic novels exclusively on one portal against through every distributor available to a sane person. Simple mathematics should prove that the second option has more possibilities to create revenue.

But maybe they are above such mundane things now that DC Comics dominated the September sales charts and sold over 5 million issues in six weeks . For those interested in the whole number crunching the Mayo Report analyzes DC´s September sales in detail.

“ We did more than just change Superman’s costume and renumber the entire line. We took a huge risk and it’s paying off,” said Jim Lee, DC Entertainment Co-Publisher and artist of JUSTICE LEAGUE. Sure they did. They changed most of the other costumes too, renumbered 52 of their titles and canceled the rest. As for their " huge risks " just read the above parts.

AND THAT´S WHY EVERY CLOUD HAS IT´S SILVER LINING

But not everything must be gloom and doom as Tom Spurgeon offers 9 thoughts on advantages DC may have moving forward . One of his points ( a fresh opportunity for talent development ) may be already on the horizon as there are more changes in the creative rosters than the ones reported in my last weekend roundup : Andy Kubert will do 2 issues of ACTION COMICS and one of the best DAREDEVIL writers ever - it´s when John Romita Jr lured me into the series with his minboggling style, back when the only reply by my borther was " which style ? " - Ann Nocetti replaces the unpopular T J Krul on GREEN ARROW . Not really " new " talent but who knows what´s still to come.

One of the things that I found weird was the selection of artists for the new 52 that had some really odd choices while artists of the calibre of a Kevin McGuire or Jerry Ordway were buried in some obscure anthology title. Lately Jerry Ordway at least had the honor of finishing the last incarnation of the JSA - who probably will not be back in the nearer future judging from the new 52 line up.

But Kevin McGuire just recently proved in the JLA RETROACTIVE the 90s special that he´s as good as ever. I don´t know what it is about this particular incarnation of the Justice League....well, that´s not true. If you want to know, it´s all because of the creative team of Keith Giffen, J.M DeMatteis and Kevin McGuire that whenever a new special or miniseries comes out it´s like it hasn´t been ten years since we last saw these characters. You open up the comic and it´s like you´re timetravelling back to when the last issue came out.

Well, despite all that DC has other creators on their top books and you have to get your Kevin McGuire fix from MY GREATEST ADVENTURE 1 ( preview ) which continues where WEIRD WORLDS left of.

More of Kevin McGuire´s Tanga and Aaron Lopresti´s Garbage Man who are joined by the all - new Robotman, a Las Vegas P.I. with a penchant for trouble and mysterious dames, and a disturbing knack for self - destruction !

And since we´re on the subject of previews, this week includes previews for BATGIRL 2, BATMAN & ROBIN 2, BATWOMAN 2, DEATHSTROKE 2, DEMON KNIGHTS 2, FRANKENSTEIN, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. 2, GREEN LANTERN 2, GRIFTER 2, LEGION LOST 2, MISTER TERRIFIC 2, RESURRECTION MAN 2, THE SHADE 1, SUICIDE SQUAD 2 and SUPERBOY 2 . On the interview side we have new interviews with Scott Snyder on BATMAN, SUPERNATURAL´s Adam Glass on SUICIDE SQUAD , Michael Green and Mike Johnson on SUPERGIRL and NYC GRAPHIC´s interview with Dan Didio before the DC reboot . Enjoy !

Last week we started with Comic Geek Speak´s coverage of DC´s new 52 and this week they finish it with new episodes : week 4 - part 1 / part 2 and the final thoughts . Steve Sunu at ROBOT 6 also continues his series about the new books with the newest installments new 52 pick up week 6 and new 52 pick up week 7 as always full of spoilers so only read this if you have already read the issues ( as if I have to tell you that ).

More reaction to the new 52 are coming in as fellow blogger Get - A - Life - Boy does a pretty good account why some new readers don´t like the Legion ( blasphemy ) and Santiago García does a devastating in - depth analysis of the new 52 ( sorry, it´s in spanish ). One thing he mentions is that the best thing in the new rebboted comics are the Converse ads

but I have to say, for a campaign that is all about CLASSIC HEROES it sure doesn´t use ONE real classic comic picture. It´s made to look like Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez or Bill Finger but any comicfan who has read more than one Batman comic can see they are fake.

So what happened here ? DC wanted some extra money and Converse was too cheap to pay it ? Man, I don´t think it makes any sense to start a " classic " ad campaign with " not classic " comic art.

On a funnier note THE JOY OF TECH has a funny comic about Superman´s problems with google plus that you should definitely read.

After so much to read and listen let´s finish this post with CBR TV´s video with the new 52 creators on elevating their titles’ characters :

Since I only got to cover the DC news in this post the next one will be about what happened at Marvel and all the other publishers since last weekend.

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

Instead of D - Gruppe part 2 : a rant about tv series and more german superheroes

2011-10-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Today, before we start where we left off Yesterday I wanted to mention three female celebrity birthdays. For once because it´s not that often that you have three in a row and especially three that are connected with pop culture. The first one is Michelle Trachtenberg

who turns 26 and is of course best known for playing the sister of BUFFY which had various comic adaptions and even continued the last seasons in comicform.

A few of them were even written by the series mastermind Joss Whedon who also did a definite X - Men run with John Cassaday starting off ASTONISHING X - MEN.

In fact the series hasn´t reached a comparable level of quality ever since. Besides that I always have to laugh when her name is shown in the credits because it just sounds funny to me ( trachten = german traditional clothes, berg = mountain ) . What can I say ? I´m a weird person and I get my perks whereever I can. I also laugh when a name like David Krumholtz or Josh Eisendraht appears on screen.

Anyway, I was a big fan of the series and I had to tape all of the episodes. Because back then me and my two brothers all had jobs so somebody had to record the episodes so that we could see them when we had time for it. And of course the best way to record them with the vcr was to do it while watching it because that way you could stop it when the commercial break began and continue once it was over. That way you could skip the commercials and you could get an additional episode on the tape. I have all the episodes but of course now all the tapes I recorded for my brothers and me are labeled as " mine " because someone has to get rid of them.

Despite being a BUFFY fan I never read any of the comics not even the ones by Tim Sale. I was really curious about the " exclusive to comic " seasons but it never ended up on my reading pile. Maybe now with less DC books on my pull list - since most of what I read has been canceled or rebooted - I can finally track them down.

Today is also the 35th anniversary of Emily Deschanel, best known for playing bestselling Smithsonian squint Temperance Brennan on BONES

where she co - stars with David Boreanaz who played Angel, first on BUFFY and then in the spin - off series ANGEL. One of the best things about ANGEL - besides featuring the hot Carisma Carpenter - was the title song by Darling Violetta which was one of the things I missed most between seasons ( open in new window ). Like BUFFY I taped all episodes and now have to get rid of them somehow.

ANGEL of course also had various adaptions and continued the adventures in comic form and likewise I never read any of them. There´s even one by John Byrne that´s on my Christmas list.

And Today´s third celebrity birthday is Claudia Black ( 39 )

who was on the tv series BEASTMASTER, HERCULES, XENA, FARSCAPE, STARGATE, had a cameo on DRESDEN FILES and starred in the RIDDICK. She´s also a voice actress in the video games LORDS OF EVERQUEST, GOD OF WAR, PROJECT SYLPHEED, UNCHARTED 2 and 3, MASS EFFECT 2 and 3 and on the upcoming JUSTICE LEAGUE - DOOM animated feature ( as Cheetah ).

I have to say while I started watching all new episodes of STARGATE I lost track of it somewhere along the way and never quite caught up. There were some episodes of STARGATE ATLANTIS I watched while in Spain but since I was coming in near the finale it just felt kind of meh. FARSCAPE on the other hand is one sci fi series where I was really excited and I watched the first few episodes and it all went down the toilet very fast. To my recollection almost nothing that happened made any sense, the characters were two - dimensional ( in the best cases ) and you never understood their motivations.

Right now FARSCAPE is shown on ANIXE and STARGATE is in constant reruns on TELE 5 at least three times a day so - who knows ? I might finally catch up on the episodes.

DRESDEN FILES on the other hand is one of THE best tv series ever and if you have the possibility you must watch it. The series was broadcasted in Spain and my brother bought the first season ( and only season you bastards ! ) on DVD so that I could watch all the episodes I missed and there´s only one word to describe it : pure genius. This is as good as you are going to get in front of a tv set with your clothes on.

If you don´t know the series, it´s produced by Nicolas Cage and based on the Harry Dresden novels by Jim Butcher ( just the right name for this gory line of work ) of which a few have been adapted to the comicbook format. So far I have seen one in the german version but because the art was not really good I didn´t buy it. If you are interested you can find more info about the tv series here ( german info ).

Man, first BUFFY then ANGEL and now DRESDEN FILES, this post is really all about supernatural tv series. Which is kind of fitting since October is the month of werewolfes, ghouls and vampires, you know - Halloween.

BUT WAIT ! DER IS MORE !

In my last post I talked about german superheroes and there are two I didn´t mention : one I forgot and one I didn´t even know about. The latter being DER ENGEL ( THE ANGEL ) by Tomppa a.k.a. Thomas Leopold the winner of the Stan Lee Foundation and Todd McFarlane creative invite on talenthouse.com published by THENEXTART.

Lately I haven´t been to many german comic conventions and I don´t think I´ve seen it at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse, which is one of the few comic get - togethers in the nearer area I can attend. Like I said in my last post, I´m not a german comic historian and as I didn´t claim that the list I presented was complete in any way it might be excused that I was without a clue in that regard.

The first issue came out in 2009 and the second issue was released in June 2010 with three issues pending to complete the first five issue storyarc. According to the webpage the story takes place in

Berlin in the year 2029. The townscape has changed completely. Violence in the streets is the order of business. In this melting pot THE ANGEL embarks on his own crusade for revenge but he´s still unaware of the conspiracy, it´s extent and that he will soon be entangled by it.....

There are previews for issue 1 and issue 2 on my comics.de and as far as I could see the art is pretty solid. They also have an interview with Thomas Leopold which sadly is only available in german, sorry. Here is a video where you can see him doing a complete page for the comic :

The german superhero comic I DID read was DER UNHEIMLICHE KAKERLAK ( The uncanny Cockroach ) and I think one of the reasons why it wasn´t on my original list is that it is also part superhero spoof.

Not that it doesn´t do that in a trashy and entertaining kind of way but whenever I´m confronted with such an example of real talent meeting an interesting new premise I wonder how the comic would have turned out if they had taken the matter more serious. I know that not every writer can be the next Grant Morrison but I think that shouldn´t be for lack of trying.

Despite this shortcoming the comic by Undergroundcomix ( which is a hint why they may have felt the need to add a subversive note to the comic ) is quite entertaining in a trashy kind of way and the pocketbook that presents all the stories that have come out so far in black and white isn´t too expensive with 124 pages for 10 bucks. It has a lot of stuff I like to see in comics like sewers, superheroes in sewers, alligators in sewers and superheroes fighting alligators in sewers.

The book has various artists but the pages by Steff Murschetz stand out.

Steff was introduced to a brighter german audience when he did ROCKN ROLL PATROL, an Adults Only funny book about a female rock band that always ends up in some kind of sexual hijinks.

The stories that are collected in DER UNHEIMLICHE KAKERLAK pocketbook have been released online before and evolve around hobo Gordon Sander whose schizophrenic other personality is Der Kakerlak, a superhero whose headquarters is in the sewers. The character of the Kakerlak shows clear influences of other weird superheroes like The Tick or Badger while being his own twisted creature. Various villains try to take him out but he manages to foil their attempts.

What may be a bit confusing for readers is that while Der unheimliche Kakerlak previews for issue 1 , issue 2 and issue 3 are in color the printed version is in black and white. For interested parties there is an Der unheimliche Kakerlak review on Splashcomics ( german ) as well as an interview with Steff Murschetz ( german ) about Undergroundcomix and a drawing tutorial with Steff Murschetz .

So it´s once again time to wrap things up because I can barely keep my eyes open and I´m making more typos by the minute and I didn´t even get to continue on the subject of D - GRUPPE. But the post is already pretty long and I think it may get even longer once I get to re - read the Kakerlak comic.

As I have already embedded the videos of the things I talked about in the post Todays video at the end of the post is FACK SE ENERGIESPARLAMPE ( Fuck the energy - saving bulb ) by austrian rap duo Zwa Voitrottln ( two imbeciles ). Watch it, get addicted to it, spread it !

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