Trying to get into the Christmas Spirit

I really hate it when I´m right, but as I said in my last post : here is my next post and lo and behold it´s Christmas already. So, in spite of being tired I´m again writing a post to bring the world some Christmas cheer.

And speaking about bringing people some Christmas cheer, the Big Christmas Contest I announced in my last post - where I gave away free comic books - is now finally over. Which is not a moment too soon.

EVERYBODY´S WAITING FOR THE MAN WITH THE BAG

I know that it´s more blessed to give than to receive but let me tell you, it´s a heck more work too. Now I´m not saying that it wasn´t a lot of fun to do the contest. All the participants were really good sports and understanding ( which is why I threw in a few unexpected extras in the end ) but I´m glad it´s finally over and I don´t have to do another one until the end of next year. If I decide to do one next year. I´m not sure if that would be as big as this one since a lot of comics from earlier years have piled up this time. In any case it would be much easier - or at least financially less taxing - if I could find a sponsor. And speaking about sponsors I want to give a big shout out to the guys and gals from ANDIS COMIC EXPRESS who managed to ship my last order to arrive at just the right time so that I could add a few extra books like the ( almost ) 100 page thick WORLD OF ARCHIE DIGEST which I didn´t want to include at first since the cover was damaged from rain. But seeing how high the demand was for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issues I decided to throw it in.

That´s another thing that really surprised me. The issues from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY were much more in demand than the comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG - past AND present. I guess that indicates that there are still a lot of german comic fans out there who can´t get their hands on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics as easy as myself. Which is something I will have to keep in mind for future contests. I will need more FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics and I will DEFINITELY need more AXE COP.

But as I said, that´s something to ponder for another year, right now I´m just glad it´s finally over. Initially I had planned to do a special letter to all the participants with a mindblowing drawing by liddle old moi where I would be very eloquent and generous and witty and whatnot. In the end I decided that as nice as that would be it would really just serve to inflate my ego and the people who had entered the contest would much more prefer to get their comics before Christmas instead. So I spent most of last Friday bagging comics, going through my stuff for old envelopes that I could use, getting all the packages ready and bringing them to the post office in town. I was even lucky enough to finish all that at the right time because they went out the same day. And thanks to the hard working people at the post office ( and I know what I´m talking about since I used to work there myself ) some of the packages arrived the very next day.

Up to this day I have heard from all people who entered the contest but one and all the comics arrived undamaged and everybody seems to be pleased with what they got. I almost got rid of all of them ( there were some comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG where I had multiple copies that weren´t as sought after as I thought ) and most people got all the comics they were interested in so all things considered I would label it a success.

So I want to say thanks to all the people who participated in the contest, I hope you do enjoy the comics and have a wonderful Christmas. And to all the people who didn´t participate or wanted to and haven´t gotten around to do it I have to say : Sorry, folks, it´s done. There are no comics left. Better luck next year - or whenever I decide to give away comics from my own collection for free. How do I know I´m NOT crazy, again ?

BUT THAT WAS LAST FRIDAY - WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT ?

You are of course absolutely right. And I really tried on various occasions to do a new post after my last one but there always was something else to do - like getting some last minute Christmas presents for instance.

Longtime readers of my blog ( all three of them ) might remember that I usually do most of my Christmas shopping at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse that takes place just before the holidays but this year there was none ( for those of you who have been wondering why there have been no posts about this years Stuttgarter Comicbörse ). Which is the reason why getting Christmas presents this year was much more difficult for me. For those who want to know what happened : this year the place where the Stuttgarter Comicbörse always takes place was renovated and apparently the people who usually organize the whole shinding were unable to find another venue for the comic fair - or they just didn´t care and didn´t want to go through all the trouble of filling out papers and work and stuff.

Be that as it may, deprived of my usual source of printed Christmas joy, I had to look for other ways to find some gifts. I had already ordered some from amazon like books or shirts, which put a big dent in my budget.

Because normally I just order comics or the occasional DVDs when amazon has one of their " 2 tv series for 20 € " sales. And in most cases you get your ordered items in one package and if it´s books only shipping´s free.

Well, the thing with the t - shirts was that I was looking for some very specific shirts and of course they were at three different shops. Which of course means that you have to pay for shipping three times, they arrive at three different dates and you don´t get a bill which you can pay when it´s convenient for you. Instead they draw the money from your account forehand so that´s the last time I ordered more than one t - shirt from amazon at the same time. Initially I wanted to buy five ( one more for myself and one as a present ) but getting three was expensive enough.

So since I couldn´t find what I wanted at amazon I did what I always do when I need some comics fast and have run out of options : I went to my regular comic shop in Esslingen. In my last post I mentioned that I don´t go there as often as I did in the past or as often as I liked. But whenever I really need some obscure comic, some back issue I erroneously sold or a hardcover that´s long out of print I can always rely on my trustee comic shop. I always say that if you can´t find it there it probably doesn´t exist. I remember how I bought the hardcover of the second volume of Kurt Busiek´s and George Perez´ AVENGERS ASSEMBLE run from a dealer at amazon for 10 or 15 bucks above cover price all pleased with myself to have found this out - of - print gem. Only to find it for the regular price at my regular comic shop two weeks later. In pristine condition to boot.

By the way : please do get the hardcovers from this run. I know that they are a bit more expensive than the trades but they´re worth every cent.

But back to my Christmas shopping. There weren´t many new comics in my subscription box because lately my pull list gets shorter and shorter.

What was even more alarming was that I didn´t find any books outside of my pull list that I could add to my pile of comics to buy. Which was a good thing this time because - as you may remember - I was mainly there to buy some comics for other people. Not myself. Nevertheless it wasn´t a good sign because in all my past visits I found at least a dozen comics to add to my buy pile. But this time there was really nothing from DC or Marvel that was anywhere near interesting. Even worse I was put off getting the issues of Joe Madureiras for SAVAGE WOLVERINE after seeing how the inker and colorist totally butchered his artwork. If you think the final product Marvel delivered when he was drawing his first ULTIMATE work was bad - that stuff was like a painting by Rembrandt compared to what they did to his new stuff. I was ready to take a chance on Joe Madureira´s art again after I saw some of his pencils online but they really flushed this one down the toilet. As they do with most books.

Anyway, you can get every book that´s out there at my regular comic shop - if you can find it. Now that they packed all the trades and hardcovers into boxes because they can´t fit it into the shelves otherwise it´s impossible to just browse for a trade. You have to know in advance what you want or you are going to spend a lot of time there. Not that I mind spending a lot of time at a comic shop. Are you kidding ? I live for that. Especially if it´s a comic shop as big as the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where you can get lost for days in the long corridors and passageways that are filled with huge stacks of comics. And this time I had to go down into the catacombs to look for some Avengers comics from issue 300 onwards.

It´s not the most fondly remembered period in Avengers history but after listening to the CGS spotlight episodes on the Avengers in the Chromium Age ( part 1 / part 2 ) ad nauseum I was craving to re - read some of the comics from that period I still had, especially the Gatherers storyline.

COME GATHER ROUND AVENGERS WHEREEVER YOU ROAM

Well, while I was re - reading the whole storyline ( or at least the parts I kept ) I noticed that there where some huge gaps between the issues. Thanks to the good folks at GRAND COMICS DATABASE I checked all the covers and Bob is my uncle if I didn´t have all those issues without any missing. Avengers was one of the books I had on my pull list and I bought all the issues when they came out. I know that some time back - which might be more than a decade ago now that I think about it - I sold some of them but for the life of me I couldn´t remember anything that had happened in those pages. Which should have been the first warning sign.

If you have read a series for a long time and you can´t remember what happened over a period of - roughly - 50 issues ? Not a good sign. You can bet repulsors against arrows that it wasn´t too memorable. But, always the optimist, I wanted to make sure if the period was as bad as people made it out to be. So I made a list of all the issues that might have been of interest and I checked all the issues out between issue 300 and 375, which is the finale of the Gatherers Saga. And while some of the issues I sold weren´t all that bad most of them were either not that important to keep in a collection or outright bad. Yes, I´m not ashamed to say I had totally forgotten how unoriginal, boring and awful some of the stuff was.
 

Add to that the constant change of artists, no clear direction of story, a lot of forgettable and mediocre crossovers like ACTS OF VENGEANCE ( which really has been made into an omnibus by Marvel, talk about totally losing contact with your customer´s demands ), Rage doing a bad and at least ten years outdated impression of Mr T, Spider - Man hanging with the Avengers and then deciding that their adventures were too cosmic and high and mighty for him ( which didn´t really make any sense since he was in all the cosmic confrontations anyway like in the Avengers classic tussle with Thanos where Spidey released the spirit of Adam Warlock from his imprisonment thus basically defeating Thanos ), and of course the leather jackets and you are starting to get an idea why this period has such a bad rep among those of us who have lived the times.

Of course not all of it was bad and if you have listened to the Comic Geek Speak spotlight episodes you know where to look for the nuggets. For me one such big chunk of nugget is as soon as the Gatherer story begins because I´m a sucker for parallel universe stories ever since I read FLASH issue 123, Flash of two worlds ! by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. The story introduced the whole concept of parallel earths to the DC universe and to the comic book world. Everything that happened in the DC universe ever since ( and probably in every other comic company that took the idea of other worlds and ran with it ) has its roots in this one comics. So it´s no wonder it´s so often imitated and copied. Even tv shows like STAR TREK, HEROES, EUREKA, DOCTOR WHO and especially FRINGE owe a great deal to that first comic where two Flashes from different universes were depicted on the same cover for the first time.

I´M STUCK IN PARALLEL WORLDS IT´S SUPERNATURAL

Yes, I love parallel universe stories in any shape or form and the only way to top that is with a parallel universe story in which everybody dies !

Which basically was what the Gatherers was all about. One big " parallel universe in which everybody dies " story, in fact the mother of them all since all the parallel universes get blown up which is where the Gatherers are gathered from. How can you resist such a concept ? Especially when it has some extra stuff thrown into it that seems to come from the writers smoking a lot of illegal substances like the Gatherers using a braindead watcher as their GPS to help them pinpoint possible candidates. Once Steve Epting becomes the regular penciler the show is really up and running and the fecal matter really hits the mechanical environment cooling device, so to speak. There is just one little complaint I have.

Not enough parallel universes dying stuff in it. Okay, you might say how can you do more ? But the thing is that we really don´t see all that many parallel universes which in my opinion was a huge mistake. Don´t tell me how the particular universes of the various members of the Gatherers have died - show me. Don´t tell me what a psychopatic, raping son of a b - word their Vision is. Show me. And don´t tell me that it´s an alternate version of our Vision. Let me think that it´s our Vision and THEN - when I think he has gone off the deep end - make me realize it´s somebody else.

I think that would have really taken the whole story to another level. Anyway, there was some really crazy s - word going on in these days and there always were four or five things going on at once with all kinds of soap opera pining between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro.

Which for me is the part where Schadenfreude becomes a big part of my enjoyment of the issues. Someone once said " Leave it to the Germans to come up with a word for being delighted at other peoples misery. "

Now this has either to do with Schadenfreude being a big part of german society, or just the fact that the germans have a word for everything. The psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when you realize that your own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and circumstances. The germans have a word for that too, my friend. Weltschmerz. Much shorter, don´t you think ? The germans really have a word for everything. That thing you do with your teeth when you get home from work to read that hardcover that was laying on your comic pile for months only to stubb your toe when you are just about to read it because the hot babe next door was skipping rope topless and you walk backwards into a pie ? I bet the germans have a word for that too.

So why the Schadenfreude you might ask. Because I think Cristal only gets what she deserves since she was the one who broke up with Johnny Storm to be with Quicksilver. If you have read issues 131 and 132 of FANTASTIC FOUR you know that this is one of the worst break ups in comic history.

You know, that would be a great idea for a future Valentine´s Day post : Top Ten worst comic book break ups. Back to my Schadenfreude that the marriage between Cristal and Quicksilver was a real trainwreck during every moment of it, Johnny Storm is the most sympathetic character in this. He really shows grace under fire when he wishes Cristal all the best.

Not that he takes it very good when he finds out she cheated on him.

Which is understandable when you put yourself in his place. At that time Johnny and Cristal were separated because Cristal had to stay at the hidden city since they weren´t immune to the bacteria outside of it.

Every time he wants to get Reed to find the city there´s a crisis which is naturally much more important and when he finally finds the hidden city and flies there to live together with Cristal he finds out she has ditched him for the least likeable Avenger. And then her bogus explanation " Oh, he was injured and while I was nursing him back to help we just fell in love. It was an accident. I just wanted to help him recuperate, I swear. "

SHE ACTS JUST LIKE A NURSE WITH THE OTHER GUY

Okay, am I the only one who missed the part that Cristal has some secret healing powers that nobody knew about ? Don´t they have special healers for that in the fabled city of Attilan ? Where did she get the idea she would be better qualified than any of the guys with special powers ? WTF ? I mean, come on, Cristal. Why WERE you there in the first place ?

Okay, to make it short before I totally go on an off topic rant about this ( although it´s already much too late for that ) : Cristal and Johnny were lovers, oh lordy, how they could love, swore to be true to each other, just as true as the stars above. He was her man, but she done him wrong.

Which brings us back to the Gatherers and the Avengers. And the fact that in the whole love triangle ( which is much more a square than a triangle now that I think about it ) between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro those last two I mentioned get no sympathy from me.

Now there are still a few things left for me to say about the whole Gatherers period, but I´m afraid I have to leave all that - as well as the rest of my recounting of my visit to the comic shop - for my next post.

Leave it to me to start with the Christmas spirit, continue this with one of the worst periods of Avengers history ( although what followed was even worse, but, hey, even this was put into the big THE CROSSING omnibus so Marvel really is getting desperate ) and end up with the worst break up in comics history ever. Only on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas even if it didn´t snow here in Germany. Nevertheless, we still have pretend snow like in this festive picture of british Big Brother participant Sophie ( I´m always ) Reade that I´m posting in answer to a special readers request. Now if that doesn´t help to cheer up your yule log I really don´t know. Boooing !

Apropos Boing ! , a girl that made a huge BOOOOING ! in the pants of all male movie goers from the 80s is cult movie sexbomb extreordinaire Joyce Hyser who celebrated her 56th anniversary just four days ago and to whom I wanted to give a belated shoutout. And before you ask : you 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 where she shows her incredibly big ..... talents. That´s Christmas Spirit !

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 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 her wonder twins especially after a female friend told her : " Honey, WITH THOSE BREASTS if you GO TOPLESS in that scene, NO ONE you meet will EVER look you 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. This is what I call " poetry in motion ".

So the thanks of an entire generation of hormone driven boys is yours for logic winning over superstition. Or naked breasts winning over whatever.

Now before I can finally put the bow on this one there is still the matter of the video at the end of the post. In my last post I included the first part of the three hour long PBS special about superheroes. Sadly the second part has been deleted from YouTube so I hope you watched it already.

I already mentioned their ten part documentary series about American Cinema so I won´t post that and I´ll safe the video about the columbian comic for another post when it´s more appropriate. Now for something a bit more related with Christmas I thought about posting IT´S A WONDERFUL LIFE, one of the indispensable Christmas movies which I haven´t seen so far in my tv guide. But instead I´m posting one of my favorite Christmas movies : ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS with the great, late Jim Varney playing the part of Ernest P Worrell, the role of his life. 

Wait, there´s more. Because I have already overhauled this post a few times I want to add more videos. The first one is the Bob Hope Christmas Special from 1967 and the two reasons why I am posting it are that I´m a big fan of Bob Hope and sexbomb Raquel Welch who appears on the show.



Another video I wanted to add is the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL which most people have heard about but only a select few have seen. I didn´t think I would find this since George Lucas has tried everything to erase it from existence but the embedding is disabled so you must watch it here .

Christmas and the Peanuts go together like peanut butter and jelly ever since the first Christmas Special that set the standard for all Christmas Specials to come. I couldn´t find the original one nor Charlie Brown´s Christmas Tales but here´s It´s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown.



I always try to include the more eclectic stuff that you don´t find on other blogs so here is the Christmas episode of CASPER, the friendly ghost.



Now the last one belongs more into the " I can´t believe they did that ! " category but there really is a He - Man & She - Ra Christmas Special.



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

What will be my husband's trade?

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

It´s more blessed to give than to receive

It´s been a long time since my last post, in fact so long that Christmas is right around the corner. So, since I can´t put it off any longer it´s time to announce The Big 2013 Christmas Contest of Tales From The Kryptonian.

And when I say " contest " I mean just a convenient excuse for me to give away free comics. Yes, I must be crazy to do so but, hey, it is Christmas ( and when I say " it is Christmas " I mean " I´m so busy with stuff right now that when next I have the time to do the next post or check my e - mail it WILL be Christmas " ) and how do I know I´m not crazy ?

So right now you are probably thinking about all those fantastic comics and trades and hardcovers I´m handing out, which will be gazillions and the newest stuff and just beyond cool. But you can hold it right there buster. As longtime readers of this blog know, all the comics and trades and hardcovers I review on this very blog ( although there haven´t been that many reviews lately ) I have to buy from my own pockets. Except the comics I get sent by the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS ( and when I say " the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS " I mean " One man band Terry Hooper " who, in his infinite kindness, not only sends me these comics for free - and which I don´t review as often as I should - but also never tires of plugging this blog ) I don´t get any comp copies so there will be none among the comics I´m giving away.

When I said that I will give away free comics that´s exactly what I will do. Meaning that instead of hoarding all the free comics I get from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG and the likes, I´m giving away all those comics I don´t want to keep. I always saw those events as chances to check out series I don´t know or to remind myself of the great comic series we often tend to forget with all the super hero drama and reboots and relaunches and new 52s. So unlike other comic readers - especially in Germany - I don´t have to get ALL the comics of GRATIS COMIC TAG or FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, just the ones I find interesting.

Not that there´s anything wrong with those guys who want to have them all. Hey, any comic reader who doesn´t understand the primal collecting instinct should give away his comic club membership card right away.

Because collecting comics is what we all do, right ? It´s just the kind of comics that we collect where we differ. But back to the free comics : every year I intend to do a post ( and when I say " a post " I really mean " a series of posts " because I can never fit it into a single post ) about all the free comics I DO get and more often than not it doesn´t work out. Now, unlike some of the other comics I review, the comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG have kind of an expiration date since you probably don´t want to read about last year´s free comics.

So once the year is over that ship has sailed the port so I don´t have to keep them any longer in the hopes that I will review them later. Even if I did, nobody would want to read it anyway. This year I have been lucky enough to get almost every comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG I wanted to check out and since I have already chosen the ones I´m going to keep, I will give the rest away. Now you are probably asking yourself where I get my free comics that I can pick and choose and even afford to give some away. Well, for GRATIS COMIC TAG I have my regular comicshop, the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where they always have all the issues and they are always kind enough to reserve the ones I want. I also got a lot of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics from them the first time I participated ( the final post of that years series on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY is still the most popular post of this blog ) but the second time was when they moved the entire shop and some of the issues I wanted got lost and it took a few months until I had a handful.

So I´m not doing the whole list thing since I don´t go there as often as I used to which might have something to do with the quality of current comics ( and when I say " the quality of current comics " I really mean " all that crap that the big two are publishing " with all the constant Marvel NOW restarting and renumbering and the whole NEW 52 s - word that for the most part is so horrible I won´t even go into detail how bad it is ).

My, how the times have changed. Just the other day I was reminiscing how I used to take weekly trips to my comic shop ( the one where I used to buy my comics before the German Customs Authority drove it out of business ) to get all the new comics. It was the highlight of my week after a lot of work and sometimes I would even make another trek during the week. Now I´m down to one trip every two or three months because my pull list is getting shorter each month. But back to them free comics.

There are a lot of comics that I read that are not on my pull list - for various reasons - and for all those plus the comics my comicshop misses I go to an online comicshop ( ANDIS COMICEXPRESS ) where you get one free comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY or GRATIS COMIC TAG for every 10 EUROS of your comic order. Now I don´t order crazy amounts of comics there so I get dozens of copies of free comics. But I order there anyway and if I get two or three free comics with each shipment that makes a nice bundle of them. Mind you, for years I did order my comics there without knowing that you can get free comics without doing anything special. It´s not like I have to pay extra to get those comics so I don´t have any problem with giving them away once I´m done with them.

Which means that I read all the comics and - except a few exceptions where I ordered two copies - they are not in mint condition anymore.

It´s not like I used them to build a dam or kill a wild beast either it´s just that some of them might not be in the best condition and I´m only mentioning it because I know that some people are peculiar that way.

Okay, you´re probably already bored by all my ramblings and your next question would be what you must do to enter this Big Christmas Contest .

The answer is : nothing. Or not much.This is the third time I´m doing this contest and the first time I gave my readers a small assignment which didn´t go over to well. So the second time there were no strings attached, readers just had to sent an e - mail or contact me on the forums where I´m going to post similar announcements. Now my brother thinks I should give my readers herculean tasks that they must perform in order to qualify for this contest. And it should be really hard too and if it doesn´t help the entire comic industry or at least helps promote this blog I shouldn´t do it. Which - at least in my opinion - goes against the very idea of giving away free comics without any ulterior motive. Because it´s Christmas, remember ? Or at least it will be when I do my next post. 

So you don´t have to do more than write me an e - mail to the address you can find by clicking the " about me " link. Or, if you are one of my german readers you can contact me via the forums. And if you can´t figure out how to do that just use the comments section but don´t put any links in your answer because the it will be flagged as spam automatically. Of course you may not want to put your address in a section that everyone can read so you might not want to use it.

Forget I said that. Bad idea. Don´t use the comments section. Not good.

So, without any further ado because I want to finish this post which is longer than expected as it is ( since blogger is on the fritz again and doesn´t show the pictures right so I probably have to correct this later as restarting without add - ons and clearing the cache history didn´t help ) here is the list of the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics of 2013 :

VALIANT HARBINGER WARS, VALIANT MASTERS, THE STRANGERS from Oni Press, MOLLY DANGER / PRINCELESS from Action Lab Entertainment, KELLERMAN / L´AMOUR from Villard Books, FUBAR from Alterna Comics, INFINITY, STAR WARS / CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT / AVATAR from Dark Horse, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL, RAMAYAN RELOADED from Liquid Comics, MARBLE SEASON from Drawn & Quarterly, GRIMM from Dynamite, WORLDS OF ASPEN and ENDANGERED WEAPON B from Markosia.  

Now because I didn´t get around to do this contest last year all the comics from that are still in the pot but not in separate sections for each year, especially since there are a few where I don´t know from when they are. So even more FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics : VALIANT 2012, TOP SHELF KIDS CLUB 2012, HALLOWEEN COMICFEST 2012 BATMAN ADVENTURES / SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU FLIP BOOK, PEANUTS / ADVENTURE TIME WITH FINN AND JAKE FLIP BOOK, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL / SPONGEBOB COMICS FREESTYLE FUNNIES FLIP BOOK; MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, WORLDS OF ASPEN 2011, THE DARKNESS : CONFESSION, FRACTURED FABLES, WELCOME TO RADICAL UNIVERSE, GREEN LANTERN ORIGIN / FLASHPOINT SPECIAL EDITION and CYBER FORCE 5.

There are also Halloween mini comics I´m giving away, but keep in mind that as mini comics they are smaller than the other comics : AXE COP, HOT STUFF THE LITTLE DEVIL, BONE and TOYS IN THE BASEMENT.

And for my german readers - which are the ones who will most likely benefit from this contest since it´s cheaper for me to send these comics to people here - here are the comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2013 :

BEFORE WATCHMEN : ROHRSCHACH, BENNI BÄRENSTARK - BENNI MACHT DAS RENNEN, SUSKE UND WISKE, MONSTER ALLERGY, KOMA, DOPPELTES GLÜCK MIT DEM ROTEN AFFEN und WELTEN DES SCHRECKENS. The issues from 2012 are EWIGER HIMMEL, PIRATENGOLD, DON QUIJOTE, COSA NOSTRA, ZOMBIES, THORGAL, BONGO COMICS FÜR UMME, SWEET TOOTH, DONALD DUCK, DER VAMPIR VON BENARES, COMIC GIRLS, FRÄULEIN RÜHR MICH NICHT AN, DIE PAUKER / DIE ZAUBERSCHULE FLIP BOOK, DIE WELT DER SCHLÜMPFE, DIE KATZE DES RABBINERS, ZUCKERFISCH and HORRORSCHOKER. From 2011 BLACKTOWN, ICOM and CANARDO, and from 2010 HORST, COURTNEY CRUMRIN, CUBITUS, AMELIA IST DIE GRÖSSTE, DONJON and ZWERCHFELL A - GOGO. Quite the list.

So that´s it for the Christmas Contest and I hope you find something you were looking for. I will be doing reader´s requests which means that I will do another order before the end of the year and I will go to my comic shop where I might be able to find a copy of a book that´s not on the list.

The last time I did the contest the deadline was around Christmas but since I only managed to announce it shortly before this year there will be no deadline for now. I will start sending the comics out as soon as I have some participants and we´ll see how far we come with the comics I got. You can ask for as many comics as you like and if nobody else is interested in the comics you want you´re home free but keep in mind that other people might want some comics too so don´t be too greedy. Yes, I want to get rid of them all eventually but we can all share now, can´t we ?

BEFORE THE YEAR ENDS AND CLOSING TIME

I haven´t been as active as I wanted to be this year due to some things that interfered as always. I´m not sure how many - if indeed any at all - posts I can manage before the year is over but in any case I wanted to enter this picture for EL BLOG DE JOTACE´s annual BIG CULO DAY ( which is a wonderful tradition ). As usual I have no idea who the woman with the spectacular backside is but we need more booty on comicblogs.  

One thing I managed to finish are the episodes of DOCTOR WHO I was missing. There was one serial THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMAN that was too big because it was 4 episodes in one but I managed to solve that problem.

Right now I´m in the middle of the Tom Baker episodes and when I´m finished with all the classic episodes I´m going to backtrack to the William Hartnell and Patrick Throughton episodes I haven´t seen yet. I wanted to watch the colour episodes because I was a bit tired of black and white and I didn´t want to wait until I had all the serials where so many episodes were either reconstructed or animated. So I started with the first Jon Pertwee serial SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE and am binge watching forward until I run out of colour episodes. And DOCTOR WHO specials.

As for the 50th anniversary special THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR I didn´t like it on my first watching which - as I found out later - does have something to do with the german dubbing because the guy who speaks the Doctor ( or the Doctors as in plural ) is really bad. It was much better on the second viewing in the original language and hearing Matt Smith, David Tennant and especially John Hurt in their original voices adds SO MUCH to it it´s not even funny anymore. So if you ask me I loved it and I will probably watch it again before the year is over. Because the one brother who is also a DOCTOR WHO fan hasn´t seen it yet ( he bailed on the DOCTOR WHO marathon FOX was showing before the anniversary episode so he´s also missing the last two episodes of the season ) but even when I can´t persuade him I´ll probably still watch it - alone if I must.

Today´s video at the end of the post is not related to Doctor Who or free comics. Instead it´s a documentary about superheroes from PBS.

It´s the first part of a 3 hour special on PBS about superheroes. I don´t know if there is anything that wasn´t covered in previous documantaries but the fact alone that a tv station is willing to do a 3 hour event about superheroes - hosted by Sabretooth Liev Schreiber - does my heart good. It´s a really entertaining and informative documentary and you also can find part 2  : GREAT POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY and part 3 : A HERO CAN BE ANYONE on YouTube. Right now I´m watching AMERICAN CINEMA, a 10 part series about - you guessed it - the american movie industry which is also terrific and which can also be found on YouTube.

So here is the first part : Truth, Justice and the American Way. Enjoy !



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Enter : Die erstaunliche Spinne !

It´s been two weeks since my last post and as usual I have been more than busy. I thought about doing the big announcement for the Christmas contest that I decided to do, despite all the trouble it takes, but let´s continue with where we left things off : namely the german comics with Spider - Man. Or like he was called in Germany DIE SPINNE ( the Spider ).

A TALE OF TWO SPIDERS ( WELL, TWO SPIDER - MEN, THAT IS )

Now I´m sure I have mentioned it before but - as some readers may know - there is  a british comic character called The Spider, who was published in the british comic magazine Vulcan and in Germany in KOBRA comics.

I´m no comic historian but there must have been a lot of confusion because of translations where both characters were called Spinnenmann. What I DO know is that in the end The Spider ( who began his career as a supervillain and became a superhero later on ) was called Spiderman in Germany and Spider - Man ( who was a superhero of whom the general public thought he was a supervillain thanks to The Daily Bugle ) was called Die Spinne. Much later, when KOBRA wasn´t published in Germany anymore Spidey was called Spider - Man but mostly inside of the comic or somewhere below the title. They put things like " New York´s big superhero Spider - Man called DIE SPINNE " on the cover where the last two words were the big logo since that was the " brand " if you will that people were familiar with. So, yes, there were two different Spidermen published in Germany and eventually both of them dressed in black.

Which brings us back to the original Spider - Man Peter Parker and his black costume during SECRET WARS II. Because, like I said, I mentioned the whole Spider - Man / Spider / Kobra thing already a few times.

TALKING ABOUT MY GENERATION´S SPIDER - MAN

I only threw it in here on the slim chance somebody might mention it in the comments or hasn´t read any of my previous posts where I touched on that subject. Okay, back to my last post on SECRET WARS II where I talked about Spider - Man´s new black costume. I said that this was the look of " my Spider - Man " which - as you might guess - lead to some comments so I wanted to clear that up. When I wrote " my Spider - Man " I didn´t mean the first Spider - Man I read as a kid or the Spider - Man I grew up with but I meant the one that was around when I started reading US comics in the original format. I finally was not only able to read them but I also had found a place to buy them and because they were many years ahead of the german publications a lot of things were different. Like the new black costume. Which Spider - Man wore in the first american Spider - Man issue I ever bought, AMAZING SPIDER - MAN 292.

Not that you see much of it on the cover since Spidey is squished by another Spider - Slayer in a long line of unsuccessful Spider - Slayers.

So when I started reading the real, un - translated wallcrawler he had this cool new costume and being the unexperienced comic reader I was back then I thought this costume was around to stay, this was the new look.

I know, this sounds naiive from Todays perspective but back then things like this DID happen. Superman wore a different costume than when he first appeared, Iron Man had gone from a garish grey to a golden and then golden and red armor and Daredevil had changed his first yellow and black costume to a new, all red costume. So things like a superhero changing his threads were not that uncommon. And I really liked the new costume. I thought it was a great look as far as a redefinition of an old costume goes and I was in for the whole ride, I ate the whole saga with the black costume up. It didn´t last forever and eventually they went back to the classic red and blue costume ( although they alternated between the new costume and the classic one for a while ) but I was okay with either one.

Of course when I think of Spider - Man ( and I´m not talking about the train wreck that the current series is ) I DO think back to those first german comics I read and it´s the classic costume. And - as you can see from the first picture on this post - it´s John Romita´s Spider - Man.

Sure, I eventually read all of Steve Ditko´s Spider - Man and I don´t want to take anything away from that. It´s a great period of the title and absolutely mindblowing. But the part I really enjoyed was when John Romita took over the book, the whole thing with Mary Jane´s first appearance, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy´s rivalry about Peter but most of all Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko and the Stone Tablet Saga.

 
I always felt that Spider - Man was at his best when he was fighting street level criminals and you just can´t get better street level criminals than in the various GANG WAR storylines involving such classic antagonists like Kingpin, Hammerhead, Silvermane, Man Mountain Marko and Intrigo.

Who the what now ? Yeah, I guess readers outside of Germany are not familiar with that particular villain from the GANG WAR stories since that was the name he had over here. Probably to make him more intriguing ?

INTRIGO was of course Kingpin´s son and in the original version he was called The Schemer which I have to admit does not have the same ring as Intrigo. I´m not saying that´s a good thing or that´s a bad thing.

But this was my comfort zone in regards to Spider - Man if you want to call it that. I loved the whole soap opera schtick of the series. And when I say series I´m refering to the german editions by the Williams Verlag.

THE TROUBLE WITH READING DIE SPINNE

Now the Williams Verlag was not the first publisher to publish Spider - Man in Germany. There was another one, the Bildschriftenverlag who published Marvel Comics including Spider - Man under the label of HIT COMICS. A period which I was lucky enough to miss almost completely.

When they did the whole Stone Tablet / Gang War saga in DIE SPINNE the Schemer / Intrigo was called Der Tüftler ( which means the tinkerer a name that was already taken in the proper Marvel universe ) in issue 225

which was changed to Der Täuscher ( the deceiver ) in issue 227.

The initiated german comic reader naturally knows all about this dark period of german comic publishing history but I guess you have to explain this to newer comic readers in Germany as well as to readers outside of Germany. To say that the art in which the Bildschriftenverlag published Marvel Comics in Germany was problematic may be the understanding of the century. From jumping over issues to printing issues out of order to missing pages, rearranged pages, really appalling redrawn covers,

horrible translations of the character´s names like HALK for the Hulk,

Die X - Männer or X - Menschen for the Uncanny X - Men

or Teufelskerl Devil - Man for Daredevil ( what a stroke of genius )

this company did the whole nine yards of publishing horrors possible.

So I was really glad that I came in long after that when the Williams Verlag started publishing the Marvel Comics and you could actually read books in the right order. Which is not to say that everything was perfect and there weren´t some strange translations of names like Doctor Doom who was called Doktor Untergang or Doctor Strange whose name in the german comics was Doktor Seltsam. There were some weird things like covers that were changed or the whole Namor / Submariner / Aquarius thing.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAMOR WOULD SMELL AS SWEET

It´s been a while since I read my issues of DAS SAGTE NUFF ( the best german publication about all the minutia detail of the chaos that was the publishing history of the Bildschriften Verlag ) so I´m not sure who came up with the whole thing. Fact is that Namor´s name always changed.

On the cover. Back then comics had back up features but unlike some comics that had special back up series produced for them in the german comics they just took regular series - mostly series that could not sustain their own title - as back ups. And since those series were never intended as back ups they didn´t have the required length which meant either dividing the issues into various parts or just cutting stuff. When the sales on THOR became unprofitable it became the back up in DIE SPINNE but when the series started it was Prinz Namor who filled up the issues.

Or Aquarius. Depending on which day of the week is was apparently. Because there is no discernible method to this. No recognizable pattern.

It may be Prinz Namor on one cover and Aquarius on the next without any rhyme nor reason and I really don´t want to speculate on that.

IT´S THAT OLD SPIDER - FEELING OF DEJA VUE AGAIN

Now as some of my more regular readers know this is the part where I usually post homages to classic comic covers but in this post I´m posting something a little bit different. Does this cover look familiar to you ?

Now, as you can see this is the cover for DIE SPINNE 1 by the Williams Verlag, which did not include the first issue of the AMAZING SPIDER - MAN but instead contained issue 15 of AMAZING FANTASY, the first appearance of Spider - Man. They continued with the regular series from the second issue onwards which is the reason why the german numbering is not the same as the american numbering unless they had to split an issue.

I´m not sure why they didn´t go with the original cover ( especially since they went with all the following covers ) but maybe they didn´t find it exciting enough to lure in new readers. The left part with Spider - Man is from issue 98 of AMAZING SPIDER - MAN ( minus the Green Goblin )

 
which finally did appear in its original version more than 8 years later when it was published as issue 99 of the german title DIE SPINNE.

And this brings us once again to the end of Today´s post. There were a few things I wanted to add before putting a bow on it and which will have to wait until I do my next post on DIE SPINNE but all things considered I think this one went really well without going into too many tangents.

DOCTOR WHO UPDATE, COMIC PIMPING AND PUTTING A BOW ON IT

I didn´t get to do a lot of posts the last two weeks because I was busy with the classic episodes of DOCTOR WHO. The plan was to finish up with the episodes I´m missing until the big 50th anniversary episode but since that will air Tomorrow ( simultaneously around the world ) I won´t.

Here in Germany FOX is airing the last episodes from the current series followed by THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR which I probably have to suffer in the german dubbing. So I will have to wait some time until I can watch it in the original version by which time I will hopefully have finished with the classic episodes. For those of you who want to bridge the time until the special airs who haven´t already seen it here´s THE NIGHT OF THE DOCTOR, a little mini episode starring Paul McGann. Possible spoilers.



As for my own watching of classic Doctor Who right now I´m finishing with season nine which is in the middle of the Jon Pertwee episodes.

Which means it´s a whole season before I can watch Sarah Jane Smith make her entrance in THE TIME WARRIOR of which I found a making of. Now, with the part of finding all the black and white episodes I´m in the middle of the third season which is where a lot of episodes are missing and you have to watch the animated or reconstructed versions. Bummer.

Before coming to the video at the end of the post I just have to mention that Today is the 55th birthday of movie cult siren Jamie Lee Curtis.

At the beginning of her career Jamie 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. Later on she was known for her impressive set of lungs....but in a different context. To be precisely her 34C - 22 - 34 measurements. When she finally did lose her " Scream Queen " title, it was in exchange for the name " The Body " ( which is also Elle MacPherson's nickname ) thanks to her revealing roles in 1985's PERFECT and TRADING PLACES.

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 ). What is really remarkable about Jamie is that she did her best striptease very late in her career in the Schwarzenegger flick TRUE LIES.

In fact it's so popular that it's almost impossible to find pictures of her that are not stills from that scene.

She even won a poll for best striptease in 2007. 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 I couldn't let this opportunity pass to whish her many happy returns. Be sure to check out my MOVIE CULT SIREN JAMIE LEE CURTIS post that I did last year at length and where you can find more pictures and stuff.

But nevertheless, before finishing this I wanted to pimp a comic I just ordered from amazon.de at a real bargain price to my german readers.

It´s IDW´s STAR TREK - THE JOHN BYRNE COLLECTION hardcover, a 480 plus pages book that has a regular price of 50 Dollars and is available from amazon.de for less than 20 bucks at the moment. When that thing arrived at my home I almost fell over at one side because it´s so heavy. If you are a fan of Star Trek or John Byrne ( which I am both ) or like me you bought the Doctor McCoy miniseries for yourself but ended up giving it away as a Christmas present this is the book for you. It contains all four miniseries John Byrne did for IDW and two of the trades will already cost you more than this book so if you haven´t already gotten three of them this is your chance. There are 6 copies left but don´t wait too long.

Today I´m putting two videos on the end of the post. It´s been longer than usual since my last post and the first one is really short. It´s an animation of various commissions John Byrne did which I´m putting here to show why I still absolutely love John Byrne´s comics. Check this out.



The second video is the continuation of THE TERROR OF THE SUPER FRIENDS I started in my last post. After I survived the horror of THE PIED PIPER FROM SPACE the next episode ATTACK OF THE VAMPIRE serves up a real blood - curling story and once again scared the whatnot out of me.

In the story none other than Dracula himself wants to achieve world domination by turning people into - zombies. Which doesn´t make a lot of sense since it would be easier if he turned people into vampires. I mean, he´s a vampire so wouldn´t he turn people into vampires to take over the world ? You could argue that it´s a kids show so showing Dracula turning people into zombies by blowing a magical powder on them is not as frightening as having him bite people. But then he could also turn them into vampires by blowing some magical powder on them. It´s not like this stuff is scientifically accurate. And it´s scary however you do it - because it´s vampires for God´s sake ! Once you have crossed that line there´s no paddling back.I mean what´s the thought process behind this ? Oh, we´re going to do vampires but we won´t make them scary because it´s a kids show ? Dude, this is WALKER TEXAS RANGER all over again.

Okay, two last things I want to mention before the clip : first up, since the whole Justice League ( and when I say Justice League I mean Super Friends ) get turned into vampires does that make a Bat - Batman out of Batman or a Batman - Bat ? Or maybe just Vampire - Bat - Man.

And is it a strange coincidence that the zombie version of Superman

looks exactly like the pre - Supergirl Matrix character in Action Comics 644 when she goes crazy and ends up thinking she´s Superman ?

As with the previous SUPER FRIENDS episode I couldn´t find the full video but I think these highlights ( and when I say highlights I mean .... well, I´m not sure. Maybe these are the highlights ) give you a good idea.



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