Originally I had planned to do a post on cult siren Adrienne Barbeau who celebrates her 71st birthday Today but after going through my posts there was just not enough material for that but I will be mentioning her later on in the birthday section. Coming back to Today´s topic Ivan Reis, I didn´t want to do an all DC post so I have looked for other series he did but on the other hand not all of the covers he did for the series are really that great. I still hope I have found a good balance and here are some of the other series Ivan Reis worked on before becoming one of the main reasons why people still read DC despite the poor quality of stories.
I remember when he started at GREEN LANTERN I was pretty excited and this was one of the few instances where DC took my advice and held onto him like the devil to a soul. He quickly became their secret weapon and started on more prolific books doing covers and sometimes interiors.
Then came the NEW 52 reboot and I tried out a few of the books and his AQUAMAN series was one of the few good ones. He also did some covers on RESURRECTION MAN and while I can appreciate that they tried to give this comic book another shot at life, turning it from an original idea into the old Hollywood cliche of the war of heaven against hell with the main character caught in the middle was not the way to go. Ivan then went on to provide art for JUSTICE LEAGUE and the crossovers that spun out.
I´m not sure which book Ivan Reis is on right now since I don´t read many DC books anymore but I´m sure they are keeping him busy. They better.
We start Today´s birthdays with a strange coincidence. On Tuesday Anna Torv celebrated her 37th birthday and Today one of her co stars on Fringe, Joshua Jackson turns 38. I couldn´t have planned it better myself because Ivan Reis actually did a cover for that show. For all who have been living under a rock and don´t know what the ferschluggerner I´m talking about in Fringe there is a parallel universe where things are a bit different. One of the staples is that in the other universe colors shift along the spectrum so everything green is red like Green Lantern becomes Red Lantern and Green Arrow becomes Red Arrow. And Ivan did the Fringe version of the famous cover to Green Lantern / Green Arrow 76 by Neal Adams. I wonder if Geoff Johns got the idea for the Red Lanterns from this show.
Next up is famous bikini model Cori Nadine and it´s hard to believe she´s 47. In the early days of the internet when it was difficult to find pictures of hot women for free websites like FOXES delivered sufficient massitas and Cori was one of the top chicks. She starred in the mega hot Ironman Swimsuit videos. Yes, the ones with the warning for viewers with a heart condition. Which reminds me to see if I can find those videos on DVD.
Celebrating his 52nd anniversary is Chris Larson who produced the tv shows Masquerade, Cover Up, The Highwayman with Flash Gordon actor Sam Jones, One West Waikiki, Night Man ( yes, the series based on the superhero from Malibu Comics ), but most importantly The Fall Guy and if you have read the blog for any length of time you know that I can´t shut up about the last one. Now you probably expect me to tell you all about the hot sexbombs on the show but since I´m currently working on some new GIFs with Markie Post to do an upgraded version of my post about cult siren Markie Post I will only add a bit of Heather Thomas to your weekend. I´ll have to do a post on her when I´m finished with Markie.
Yes, I admit that I watched The Highwayman - all 8 episodes of it - and it was a hoot and a half. Especially Sam Jones´ co star Jacko as Jetto had a funny voice in the german dubbing and he was the real star of the show. His character was a cool mix between Popeye, Mad Max and Herkules.
And we´re staying with hit tv shows as Hugh Laurie from the mega hit House is now 57. I have to admit that I´m not sure if the show is still going as I am currently not watching the episodes. If there are new ones. Here in Germany they start the new seasons, then they stop in the middle because they haven´t dubbed all the new episodes yet and they continue who knows when. In the meantime they show some old episodes and when they finally continue it´s usually 3 episodes a week, a new one, one from a previous season and the third one from, who cares ? Is it any wonder I get confused ? Right now I have too much other stuff to watch on the table but once my schedule clears I will get some seasons of House, starting with season four in which Lisa Edelstein has her sexy pole dance.
Speaking of tv sexbombs, cult siren Adrienne Barbeau who turns 71 also started on all the usual shows like Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Dream On. She had the biggest boobs on sitcom tv during the 70s when she was on Maude and I´ve never seen so much bouncing action on prime time tv.
Like I said in the intro to the post originally I wanted to do a post on her Today but all of my clips with her fell victim to the latest file purge so I have to postpone that until I have found them again. Adrienne Barbeau has starred in such cult classics like The Fog, Escape from New York, Swamp Thing ( the good one ), arguably Creepshow and the Cannonball Run movie, where she played one of the original Lamborghini Babes.
This part of the post really takes me back to my youth with all the tv shows I enjoyed. One thing I watched a lot was Die Hitparade with Dieter Thomas Heck - since there was no other music tv show my parents let me watch - and a regular guest there was Gunther Gabriel who has his 74th birthday. Unlike most people who only sang about love and drinking ( and the problems resulting of mixing those two up ) he tackled the important themes like the man always beating on the poor worker, not earning enough money, driving trucks and the three things a real man needs.
Our oldest contestant in the birthday parade is Gene Wilder with 83 years and you have probably seen the remakes of movies he starred in some with Johnny Depp in the lead like Death of a Salesman, Bonnie & Clyde, The Producers, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. He also was in hit comedies like Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, The Adventure Of Sherlock Holmes´ Smarter Brother, Silver Streak an homage to Alfred Hitchcock´s North By Northwest, The World´s Greatest Lover, The Frisco Kid, Stir Crazy, Hanky Panky, The Woman In Red and Haunted Honeymoon. In See No Evil Hear No Evil - which I saw in a cinema - he reunited with often time partner Richard Pryor but the movie didn´t live up to past glories. It´s still worth seeing for Kevin Spacey as the villain and Joan Severance´s shower scene.
Oh, I´m going to get into so much trouble for that. Now back to comics. Like I said one of the few good books of the NEW 52 was AQUAMAN which had a great run with Ivan Reis and later Paul Pelletier doing the art. As a callback to darker days here is one of Peter David´s worst story ideas.
In contrast WATCHMEN is one of the greatest stories out there and while a lot of hyperbole surrounds the comic now ( I´m not going to call it a graphic novel ) this video makes some interesting points. I know that Ivan Reis only did a variant cover to one of the BEFORE WATCHMEN books but I´ll take any chance to post material about the series. As for why Alan Moore didn´t want to get involved with the new books I have no idea if it was a creator rights thing, a pride thing or a money thing. It´s right that Alan Moore is one of the main creators and DC is making huge profits of it but it was made under a work for hire contract and he´s not the only creator who suffered this fate. And you never hear Gibbons complaining.
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