Now what does FLASHBACK FRIDAY mean ? Well, as the kids of Today would say : we´re kicking it old school. Mike Mignola is best known now as the creator of HELLBOY and having a knack at drawing horror but - to tie in to Yesterday´s post - when I got my first issues of THOR by Walter Simonson he was on Hulk. First just doing the covers but after Sal Buscema left the book with one of the longest runs in history Mike Mignola did interiors.
Mike´s stint on the book was rather shortlived because at the end of the Crossroads story line ( which is now finally available in trade together with the two previous stories Pardoned and Regression ) there was a crossover with ALPHA FLIGHT after which the creative teams switched so he ended up chronicling the adventures of Canada´s super hero team.
He did a number of comics at Marvel but his biggest claim to fame is probably drawing the very first ROCKET RACCOON mini series written by the great Bill Mantlo who also was his collaborator on HULK. A few months back I got the ANNIHILATION CLASSIC hardcover from amazon for 9 bucks which is a real bargain price for a 30 Dollar book but the main reason for me to buy it was to finally have the complete ROCKET RACCOON mini series in a nice hardcover. Man, that series is so much better than what they are currently doing with the character. On one side it´s sad but on the other side anything that brings money to Bill Mantlo is okay with me.
So to come back to the question I posed myself, in this post you will not see any HELLBOY art or work from Mike Mignola´s other horror work but rather something from the series he did before he became famous and a well known artist. Most birthday posts will probably be full of HELLBOY stuff and I want to showcase the Mike Mignola I grew up with. And who knows ? You might even be inspired to check out some of his earliest work while you are waiting for the next HELLBOY mini series to be finished.
Once again there are a few people to thank without whom I couldn´t have made this post - or at least it would not look nearly as good - starting with Piperson at THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES whose Mike Mignola birthday post from 2014 not only provided the black and white page from Rocket Raccoon but also has more excellent examples of Mike´s magnifique work.
Now originally I wanted to add more pages from Cosmic Odyssey but being the perfectionist that I am I went looking for better scans and ended up with more than I bargained for so that this great story will be featured an upcoming DEATH IN COMICS post. The series really seems to divide the readership and there are some who really can´t wrap their head around it like the reviewers at BRONZE AGE BABIES who have posts for all of the issues ( issue 1 / issue 2 / issue 3 / issue 4 ) while the guys at COMICS BULLETIN clearly did get the story as it is analyzed in all of its aspects by different writers ( part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 ) . I won´t even try to summarize it in a few short sentences, you have to read it for yourself. More praise comes from Danny Djeljosevic at YELLOWED PAGES who even goes as far as to proclaim that Cosmic Odyssey Is Basically 24 By Way Of Infinity Gauntlet and it also gets a very good review from Brad Hawley at FANTASY LITERATURE . I´m not forgetting my spanish readers who can check out COMICS VORTEX to read more about the series and Jared at DENTRO DEL LABERINTO has another review of Cosmic Odyssey. Now I might be biased here but it seems that american readers have more problems grasping the series while it tends to rated more favorable in Spain. Last but not least, AROUSING GRAMMAR has an entire post dedicated to - spoilers ! - The Time John Stewart Blew Up Xanshi.
Strangely enough Today´s birthdays start with two playmates, ukrainian model and Playmate of the Month Miss February in 2002 Anka Romensky ( 34C - 23 - 35 ) who turns 35 and Kimberly McArthur ( 37E !!! - 22 - 24 ), Playmate of the Month January in 1982 who celebrates her 53rd birthday.
Kimberly McArthur appeared in an episode of Magnum P.I. as a lady in a hot tub but she is best known for her role in Andy Sidaris´ first official Babes, Bikinis and Bullets movie Malibu Express. Now while I DO post pictures of sexy babes I try to keep these post safe for work which is why I´m not posting any of the pictures of Kimberly McArthur which is a shame because - daimn ! - that woman is built to play Power Girl. I did however find two pictures of Anka Romensky I can post and this is the tamer one.
Speaking of tamer versions, if you have seen this post before it was finished you might have noticed that I changed the video below. Originally I included the Playmate Play - Offs from 1986 which is a lot of playmates - including Kimberly McArthur - competing in bikinis and wet t - shirt. While that can be seen as risky because of the wet t - shirts and some nipplage showing I thought it was okay but I watched it and at the end some of the playmates take their tops of. Okay, they are covered in mud so they are not really naked but I thought it´s better to be safe than sorry. So here is another kind of contest involving playmates and Kimberly McArthur and I already posted the first part of this. And if you prefer to watch the Playmate Play - Off you can probably still find the video on YouTube.
Now Kurt Busiek who turns 56 really deserves a post of his own but since I can only do one post per day - and most times making these posts take at least two days - I will have to leave that for another day. Since I already did an Astro City post on Brent Anderson´s birthday it will probably be about Avengers so I can post more George Perez and Carlos Pacheco art.
Today one of the sexiest MILFs in Tinseltown Jennifer Tilly celebrates her 58th birthday and although she appeared in classics as Embrace Of The Vampire ( where her performance is overshadowed by Alyssa Milano´s naked breasts ), Liar Liar or Bound I never got to do a proper post on her.
The brunette knocker knockout has slowly but surely built an impressive resume, including an Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1994 Woody Allen period comedy Bullets Over Broadway. Notorious for her squeaky voice which might alienate the squeamish of ear ( while turning on all others ) and her naturally large breasts, she has often displayed deep cleavage in photos as well as in movies. On occasions she is topless in movies, but rarely in full frontal form, though she did do a fully nude scene during the 2001 Broadway revival of the play The Women. Showing a good sense of humor, she parodied herself in Seed of Chucky in 2004.
Now it was difficult to choose just one video for this post from the many that are available of Jennifer Tilly. Even leaving all the movie clips aside that still leaves her various oversexed appearances on Craig Ferguson or the episode of The Graham Norton Effect ( was this the program he did before The Graham Norton Show ? ) where she is rocking a huge cleavage.
As I already posted a video of Jennifer Tilly making an appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in an earlier post I chose one from a poker tournament and to back this up a little Jennifer Tilly playing poker caught me completely by surprise. At that time they had started to show poker games on tv in Germany and to say the truth I just couldn´t stand it. It was on at least two tv stations and one of them showed them every day. And during every commercial break on any tv station you had to endure at least three commercials about playing poker. So naturally I did not watch any of it and when I found out what I missed I was of course devastated and had to turn to the internet to find clips on YouTube.
What really got me was that everybody was really excited about it which is no wonder since it´s not everyday that Jennifer puts her raunchy rack on display like that. Of course when you use such weapons of mass erection playing poker - and Jennifer had no problems distracting her opponents by showing off her gorgeous breasts - it plays with the imagination and there was a lot of sexual innuendo and play of words concerning that. The list goes from " huge pair ", " top pair ", " big flash " to everything else and words like " poker " suddenly sound like " poke her " and " going all in " had another meaning. To break the others concentration Jennifer made sure to bend over quite often even using the old " Oops, I have to pick up my bag. " excuse to give everyone present a good eyeful of her perfect 36C puppies. It´s a wonder ( or a shame ) they didn´t fall out of her dress.
Now for this post I have chosen the best clip of Jennifer Tilly playing poker and using her big pair to distract her opponents EVER !!! You can see by her smile that she´s fully aware that both guys are staring at her boobs.
The guy she tries to beat acts like he doesn´t notice that she is putting her twin torpedoes on display because he knows that once he takes a peek at her massive mounds of pleasure he is done for. But so does Jennifer who uses every dirty trick in the book like leaning forward, changing positions so she is shoving them in his face making sure he can´t help getting a good eyeful or putting her huge puppies on the table where they are better illuminated all the while thinking : " I´ll get you hard yet. "
They are both dissimulating and it looks like he´s praying for strength not to look at her and to keep his huge erection from breaking the table. I think this is called the cleavage standoff. In the end Jennifer´s clever tactics win : he has given up all resistance and is drooling all over her.
Today is also the anniversary of B. B. King´s birth and initially I wanted to post a great audition of The Thrill Is Gone from The Voice which I had already prepared but in the end I said let´s get a video with the man.
Yesterday we had Agatha Christie in our entertainment block Today it´s Lauren Bacall 2014 who starred in the 1974 adaption of Murder On The Orient Express. She appeared in some of the best known Humphrey Bogart movies like To Have And Have Not, Key Largo, The Big Sleep but also in How To Marry A Millionaire with Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe which I just bought last month but haven´t had the time to re - watch.
I still remember the basic plot and any movie with Marilyn Monroe in the cast is worth watching, she was just the epitome of beauty and elegance - even wearing glasses. That´s one thing I´ve completely forgotten about.
Coming back to Lauren Bacall, as coincidence would have it she appeared in Sex And The Single Girl together with Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood who both starred in The Great Race with our next candidate Peter Falk.
He´s best known for playing the disheveled mastermind Columbo a series that is still on reruns. Something else that is not as often on tv as it used to be but what you can still see from time to time is the aforementioned The Great Race Columbo called The Great Race Around The World in Germany ( Das große Rennen rund um die Welt ) with Natalie Wood as Maggie Dubois, Tony Curtis as The Great Leslie and Jack Lemon as evil Professor Fate. Peter Falk plays Profesor Fate´s henchmen Maximilian Meen and as an interesting fact Denver Pyle whom we all love from The Dukes Of Hazard plays the Sheriff. Also originally Robert Wagner was supposed to play the lead but because he had recently divorced Natalie Wood they went with Tony Curtis. Natalie Wood wasn´t the first choice for the role of Maggie Dubois either but they gave her the part after Lee Remick declined and Jane Fonda decided to walk off to do Cat Ballou.
Initially the movie was a flop and it is known for having the biggest pie fight in movie history. The whole family would always watch it and the scene that impressed me most as a little boy was naturally the one where Natalie Wood rips up her clothes and tries to escape in her underwear.
Speaking of Natalie Wood in underwear you can see more pictures from that scene here, Paco Granados at NATALIE WOOD has a plethora of GIFs from that movie and you can read more about Natalie Wood at JESSICA . Despite it´s initial failure The Great Race is one of the classic Hollywood films and it´s one of the movies I still watch even if I have already seen it a hundred times. Naturally I know only the german dubbing and the thing that first comes to mind even before " Das soll mir der Große Leslie erst nachmachen. " is Jack Lemon shouting " Max ! Drück auf´s Knöpfchen ! "
If you have managed to soldier on until now I think you deserve a reward and what better than a cartoon video from Mike Mignola ? And because I would feel uncomfortable putting one of the animated Hellboy movies on the post here is Amazing Screw - On Head based on a comic by Mike Mignola. As I understand it this was the pilot for a supposed series that never got made and now it is on kickstarter to gain the necessary funds.
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I ain´t no native, I was born here !
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