Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Two - In - One Tuesday with Steve Gerber !

In honor of Steve Gerber´s birthday here are some of the comics on which the co - creator of Omega The Unknown and Howard The Duck who also is responsible for resurrecting The Guardians Of The Galaxy from comic limbo ( so if you liked the movie you have him to thank for that ) worked on.


I know that the number of birthday related comic posts have increased and some of my readers might want to get back to the more topic related posts. But for me it´s a chance to decide what to write about next or put some of the stuff on the blog that accumulate so easy and I don´t get to use otherwise. So I hope you can bear with me. If you have read a Steve Gerber comic you know that he is known for his blend of the strange and the funny but also the political topics often used in the form of satire.


Now you are probably tired of me always mentioning the same websites in the links section but I cannot help it if they are totally Airwolf. Another reason is I do not have a lot of time to surf on the interwebs so the first ones I check are the ones from my own blogroll. But it is not like I do not mention other blogs : when I find important or interesting material - and if it somehow remotely fits with the topic of the post - you will see it here.

And speaking about my trusty partners from the blogroll, again I have to mention DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND and hope old groove doesn´t mind me using the splash pages from Defenders 37 , Dracula Lives 1 , Marvel Presents 4 , Omega The Unknown 1 , Rampaging Hulk 9 or Metal Men 45. The site has a plethora of magnificent posts and if the links above can´t satisfy your hankering for more great Steve Gerber stories check out Hands Across The Water Hands Across The Sky from Sub - Mariner 58 , Vengeance Of The Molecule Man ! from Marvel Two - In - One 1 and Silent Night Deadly Night from Marvel Two - In - One 8 and The Return Of The Living Mummy ! from Supernatural Thrillers 7 . There is more Morbius madness in Lighthouse Of The Possessed from Vampire Tales 4 and Blood Tide ! from Vampire Tales 5 , more Defenders daring do in For Sale : One Planet Slightly Used ! by Len Wein, Sal Buscema and Klaus Janson from Defenders 13 and comics masters Paul Kupperberg and Joe Staton serve up more dangerous delights with the dazzling daredevils known as the New Doom Patrol from Showcase 94 , Showcase 95 and Showcase 96 .


There are still more people to thank like Duy Tano on THE COMICS CUBE who provided the color page from the Savage Dragon / Destroyer Duck crossover or Mark Ginocchio at CHASING AMAZING who has a post on Steve Gerber´s Spider - Man Team Up 5 which is the Marvel part of that crossover in which Howard the Duck and Spider - Man team up with Destroyer Duck and Savage Dragon and in which Steve Gerber stole his creation Howard the Duck back from Marvel ( you might have seen the video about that I posted not that long ago ). Now Steve Gerber´s output at DC was not as much or as prolific as his work over at Marvel however I would be remiss if I didn´t mention that the splash page for the brilliant Phantom Zone mini series he did with Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga was found on SUPERGIRL COMIC BOX COMMENTARY and speaking of Krypton´s number one crime penitentiary, DC COMICS ARTISTS has The Untold Secret History Of The Phantom Zone with everything you´d ever want to know.

Since I still haven´t managed to finish the Cassandra Peterson / Elvira birthday post despite my best efforts I couldn´t post Yesterday so I have to squeeze those birthdays in here starting with swedish supermodel / actress / singer / former professional skier ( what hasn´t she done ? ) 36C Playmate Of The Year 1997 bombshell Victoria Silvstedt who turned 42.


One of my favorite late night show hosts, Jimmy Fallon, also celebrated his 42nd birthday although probably not together with Victoria Silvstedt. He probably wishes he could have - but don´t we all ? Anyway, I´m taking the opportunity to post a video that I couldn´t fit into Elizabeth Berkeley´s solo bithday post ( which she finally got this year after always being included in my birthday posts about Tiffani Amber Thiessen ) and I´m even restraining myself from including the usual stripper pole GIFs.



Yesterday was a really good day for playmates as Julianna Young, Playmate of the Month November 1993 turned 56. When she did her first pictorial she was the second oldest playmate in PLAYBOY history with 33 years but I didn´t mind since I was 26 myself at that time and I´ve always had a thing for more experienced women with huge breasts so I had no problem with this Power Girl lookalike, especially in light of her big 38E double airbags.


Besides her huge implants Julianna is also known for being one of the first playmates with a trimmed pubic area. It was a long time before all of them adopted this fashion and now its weird to imagine the women otherwise. 


Here in Germany people always have to make a strict distinction between what is lowbrow and what is highbrow while I make no such evaluations of entertainment validity on this blog so I don´t have to come up with a clever segueway from playmate Julianna Young to german cabaret artist Richard Rogler who celebrated his 67th birthday. He is a regular on all the big cabaret shows and as such he was a frequent guest on the cult show Scheibenwischer. That show is no longer with us as is the drive behind it Dieter Hildebrandt but there have been new aspirants to the throne which are not half bad. Although I have to say I don´t have as much time to watch them as I used to. Still they can´t fully replace the greatness that was Scheibenwischer so in memoriam here is the final episode.



I wish I had something clever to say about Jeremy Irons who is exactly one year older than Richard Rogler besides the fact that his portrayal of Alfred Pennyworth is one of the few good things in Batman v Superman : Dawn Of Justice. Don´t get me wrong, it´s not that I think it´s a bad movie.

It´s just not a DC comics movie. But it organically evolved from Man Of Steel. It´s the logical consequence of what happens when Superman doesn´t behave like Superman. There is a reason why the Superman in the comics - which means the REAL Superman pre NEW 52 - wears bright colors and gives interviews in the press about what his mission is and why he tries his best not to kill people and why he never fights super villains in populated areas. Because if you wear dark colors, and don´t tell people what you plan to do and kill people ( even bad ones ) while destroying a major metropolis - pun intended - people tend to not like you anymore. And then they don´t trust you anymore. And if then Batman looses like ninety percent of his brain functions because of sleep deprivation stuff happens like Lex Luthor playing him like he´s the Joker and manipulating him as easy as a ten year old illiterate hillbilly into trying to kill Superman.

Anyway, I´m not really looking forward to the Justice League movie since we won´t see neither the Supergirl nor the Flash from the CW - nor any other heroes from the tv shows - but at least Jeremy Irons will reprise his role as Alfred and Gal Gadot wasn´t as bad as Wonder Woman as everybody thought. Who knows ? Maybe I will really like the Suicide Squad  movie.


Coming back to Monday´s birthdays Paul Williams turned 76 and since I already talked about his music and movies in my last post on him I thought it would be interesting to look at his voice acting activities which are quite a few. He was the ballader in The Secret of NIHM, Brother John on The Legend Of Prince Valiant, Oswalt Cobblepott a.k.a. The Penguin in the Batman and Superman cartoons, Mother of Invention on The Tick, Kujo on Captain Planet And The Planeteers, Mr Cairo on Phantom 2040, Professor Williams on Dexter´s Laboratory and the Hierophant on Adventure Time.

Now after this long litany you probably expect me to select a video from these shows but it will be - as they say - none of the above when I have the chance to post another episode of The Fall Guy with 80s Power Girl Markie Post. Sadly she´s not wearing a bikini which would have been a requirement if I had been the producer of the show. There would be at least one short scene per episode where she has to deliver the goods.


And don´t tell me that´s not realistic because they sure came up with enough excuses to put Heather Thomas in a bikini. From Markie Post I know only of three episodes where she is letting it all hang out but I could be mistaken since only the first two seasons are out on DVD in Germany.

Anyway, back to Paul Williams. In the episode How Do I Kill Thee, Let Me Count The Ways he plays one half of a special investigating duo that Terri Michaels hires in some cases so in this episode they take center stage.



With our last birthdays from Yesterday we stay with cult tv shows as David McCallum who celebrated his 83rd anniversary. He is best known to Today´s audiences as the anecdote encyclopedia Dr. Donald " Duckie " Mallard on NCIS but in his youth he played Illya Kurakin / Maximilian Nexor in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Adam West turned 88 who is best known for the campy Batman tv show and hottie Yvonne Craig was on both shows. 


We start Today´s birthdays with the hundred pound gorilla which in our case is Brinke Stevens who celebrates 62 years and more than 150 movies.

I´m sure I could come up with a comic connection as she has worked with any actor you could think of but the list is just too long. Where actresses are concerned she has worked with most stars you know from midnight movies and her most frequent on screen partners are Lynnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer so I won´t list all of their collaborations. She played with both actresses most associated with the role of needy french high society nympho Emanuelle, with Sylvia Kristel in Private School and Emanuelle IV and with Monique Gabrielle in Love Scenes, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party and Munchies which also featured blonde sexbomb Loni Anderson.

With the former wife of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co creator Kevin Eastman ( I knew there was a comic book connection somewhere ) Julie Strain she was in front of the camera in Bleed, Birth Rite, Delta Delta Die ! and Exterminator City which also featured porn stars Taylor Wayne and Jill Kelly. Brinke also has the erotic movie trifecta on her list : with Shauna O´Brien she was in Over The Wire and with Nikki Fritz she was in five movies. Hybrid, Illicit Dreams 2, The Vampire Hunters Club, Cheerleader Massacre ( which features Samantha Phillips whom you might remember from Andy Sidaris´ classic The Dallas Connection also known as Deadworks ) and Auditions From Beyond with the only missing one, Mia Zottoli.

On the top of her list however are Cassandra Peterson a.k.a. Elvira in Acting On Impulse, Tura Satana in Mark Of The Astro - Zombie, she even was in 24 Hours To Midnight with martial arts legend Cynthia Rothrock.


So instead of going through all of Brinke Stevens movies to come up with a clip I can´t post I´m going with Sworn To Justice ( Blonde Vengeance in german which sounds like a spoof with Pamela Anderson ) in which Cynthia wears some nice lingerie - as seen above. I feel kind of bad for her ( and movie audiences worldwide ) because she always wanted to show more and even do nude scenes but the directors never let her. So in this movie she gets to do a little bit of that although nothing like full frontal nudity.



And just on the slim possibility that the german version might be censored in the impotent .... I mean important parts here is the english version.



Best selling fantasy author George R R Martin celebrates his 68th birthday and someday I might get into Game Of Thrones but with the huge piles of tv series on my to watch list that will probably be like Breaking Bad where I will only start watching when it´s finally finished. We also have italian screen goddess Sophia Loren who turns 82 and really deserves a post of her own. One of these days I might actually find the time to do it.


For this post however we have to settle for a GIF of Sophia as I have decided to spend the last remaining video on the late Christopher Barry, one of the directors on Doctor Who and All Creatures Great And Small. He also directed some episodes of The Tripods which I´m going to post since my readers probably need a break from all the whacky Doctor Who videos.



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