Normally when I do these posts the problem is finding enough material but with one of my favorite writers / artists and the plethora of books he has done the problem here was that I had too much material. I mean I could make dozens of posts about John Byrne and I have already written about him ad nausea so my readers probably know all I have to say about his comic books. Okay, how can we bring it down to a manageable number ?
First off I thought about all the special John Byrne art pieces that I set apart from the main John Byrne folder and which I always plan to post.
So I went through all my folders and at the end I had more than a dozen pictures which is not enough for a post and most of them were in black and white. I thought about doing one of my popular black and white posts but since I prefer to include the color versions that limits the amount of pictures to ten which would have been impossible. If you think choosing something between 20 and 30 pictures of everything John Byrne has ever done try to pick just ten of them. So then I went through all of the John Byrne stuff I already had in a special folder looking for art from his series. Since this is a birthday post I thought I should include his best series - which is totally subjective. And I also tried to use as many foreign versions of covers so that I would not use art I would need later on.
With that I got more art pieces but the selection was a bit arbitrary. Plus the black and white art and the splash pages didn´t really go well with the covers so that I decided to go with just putting covers in the post. Also since I had to get it down to a manageable number - and since it is my post about John Byrne - I decided to concentrate on the series I have read and enjoyed. So I picked some covers of iconic issues but most often than not issues that were special to me. So for instance you will not see the cover of the most iconic issue of ALPHA FLIGHT or the one which has the best story but rather the issue which was the first american issue I ever bought at a railway station newsstand. Before that I never knew that you could get american comics from there and it opened a whole new world of reading comics to me. So that one issue will always be special for me.
So to make it short - since I have to do another post in a few hours - I managed to narrow it down to 40 covers which I am splitting into two post, this one which is mainly DC covers with a few from other companies like IDW. One reason is that with 40 covers it would have been one hell of a long post, the other is that by doing two posts I can do entertainment sections since I have a few to catch up to from the last few days. Anyway, here are some of John Byrne´s comic series which have brought me much joy over the years. Maybe you will find a few that you want to check out.
Oh, since I only included covers by John Byrne there are none from books where he did the interior art but had covers by somebody else like his ALL NEW ATOM. Which doesn´t mean I didn´t like it. Also his LEGENDS mini series is just celebrating it´s 30th anniversary with a new edition.
As promised we start Today´s entertainment block with the birthdays from last Sunday and the ungodly hot Olivia Munn who turned 36. She is one of the celebrities that make no secret of being a comic geek and as unbelievable as it sounds I have heard she´s even prettier in real life.
Another incredibly sexy woman celebrated her birthday, spanish tv host Berta Collado who is just one year older with 37. I thought I had a video bookmarked from her appearances on Se Lo Que Hicistes but I guess I was to distracted by her sex appeal. Since it will undoubtly take me some time to find some good ones here´s an animated GIF of Berta in various outfits I made since I didn´t like any I found online. Can you believe it ?
And we stay in Spain. Tom Cruise had his 54th birthday on Sunday and while I already posted the video with him squaring off against Jimmy Fallon in a lip synch battle ( read where Tom wiped the floor with Jimmy ) here is a video from the spanish show El Hormiguero ( the ant hill ).
The last anniversary from last Sunday was Franz Kafka´s birthday. His books have been adapted into all kind of media and quite a few interesting comics by artists like Robert Crumb or Peter Kuper.
It´s been a while since I posted a video about comics in german - auf deutsch - but here is one from german tv on the occasion of an exhibition of various graphic novel adaptions of Franz Kafka´s work in 2014.
There were only two anniversaries Yesterday I want to mention. The first is Ute Lemper who turns 53 and I guess she is not very popular anymore since it was extremely difficult to find any pictures of her at all.
There are on the other hand too many videos of her on YouTube to look through them all so because I´m keeping the music video for another candidate here is an episode of one of the best talk shows on german tv.
And I just have to mention Gina Lollobrigida´s 89th birthday. She really deserves the title cult siren. I spend a few hours looking through a website for GIFs but in the end I decided that I like this picture better.
I thought I could add one of her classic movies but neither Fanfan La Tulipe nor Solomon and Sheba are to be found and even her dance as Esmeralda on The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is almost impossible to find. Which by the way must be the book of Victor Hugot that´s been adapted the most times. But just when I thought I had to settle between Guillermo Del Toro´s musings on The Hunchback and Hollywood remembers Gina Lollobrigida I found something from a tv show I actually watched. And watching the series actually paid off as I got to see douche Lorenzo Lamas getting his ass whupped by the butler. That´s for all the episodes of Renegade I had to suffer through to see Kathleen Kinmont´s booty.
Which brings us finally to the present day with only two important dates the first being Bill Waterson, the genius behind Calvin and Hobbes who turns 58. You know excellence when everybody agrees how great it is.
If you haven´t tried this you´re missing out on a wonderful comic with a lot of fun and adventures as only an over imaginative child can have it. No matter if it´s about turning a cloning machine into a time machine by changing the label on a cardboard box, fighting off evil aliens as space adventurer biff or getting the cool hairdo for the school photograph with the right amount of biskin. I remember my brother tried to write one of this typical hardboiled detective stories and despaired when he read how easily Bill did it in just one page. Anyway, Bill ended the strip in 1995 but we still have the collections to re - read. I was looking for a video but all I found was either 3d animation that didn´t really look like the comic strip or minimalistic ones. Maybe there will be a movie in the near future.
Our second birthday of the day is Huey Lewis who turns 66. Since I could not decide for one of his songs here´s a concert with his best tunes.
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