But let´s start in the here and now. It´s Saturday and I am putting the finishing touches on the post so you might think that I am late. I am not.
Because I originally wrote the post in February and had already posted the main part when I realized it was Curt Swan´s birthday. So as I had already failed to do a special Curt Swan post last year - and there was no hurry to put the FLASH FRIDAY post on the blog - I put this post back into the draft folder. So you could say I am early because I wrote this post three weeks in advance. But - when I originally wrote it I was also late. Oh, boy. You see, the same week I had already posted a FLASH issue for Valentine´s Day but the FLASH FRIDAY post before that was back in January. So I do not know if I am coming or if I am going, if I am late or if I am early and if you get the strange feeling of Deja Vue that you have seen this post before than you are right. Whew, did you understand any of this ? Me neither.
Anyway, when I first put this issue of FLASH on the blog I wrote a brilliant intro which was probably the best piece of writing I have ever done on this blog without patting myself on the back too much. It was short but still poignant, witty, extremely clever worded and - might I say it ? - even a bit philosophical. One of this true moments when you can grasp the true meaning of life and I have to admit I had to get a tissue to wipe away a lonely tear, so moved was I. BUT you might say if it was that good why did I erase it ? The answer is : for my readers. Because as much as it might have changed the life of everybody who might have read it back then forever it only worked within the context of when it was originally written and if somebody would read it now it would make no sense and all the meaning would be lost. So it is with a heavy hart that I have to delete such greatness even if I´m sure that the new introduction will not even achieve a fraction of that. But it is all for the sake of my beloved readers.
Now if you have only started reading TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN this year you are probably going " Wait a minute, the special Valentine´s Day post was FLASH issue 129 and this is issue 133 of THE FLASH. Where´s the beef ? " ( okay, nobody who wasn´t around during the 80s will probably use the expression where´s the beef ? but you get what I mean ) and you are absolutely right. The thing is that I already posted FLASH issue 130 , issue 131 and issue 132 which are part of the excellent Emergency Stop written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar so you might want to go back and read those before continuing with this. I also already posted FLASH issue 134 in advance so don´t be surprised if our next issue is FLASH 135. By the way, we are nearing the end of Paul Ryan´s run on FLASH as there are only two more issues left to post. I´m open to suggestions on how to continue - and if to continue at all - the FLASH FRIDAY posts. I think if nobody objects I´d like to continue with Paul Pelletier´s issues from the series.
Anyway, here is finally the continuation from the cliffhanger I posted in July last year, sorry it took me so long. I hope the long wait was worth it.
Today I have no link section beforehand as all the links have to do with the celebrity birthdays which start with Jessica Biel who turns 35 and I hope the german press has figured out who she is by now. Because I remember that when Esquire voted her the Sexiest Woman Alive in 2005 the entire german press was lucid because the title had gone to an total unknown ... at least if you are a reporter in Germany who never goes to see a movie.
Now Jessica has had her ups and downs, the downs being Blade : Trinity ( really, after the first one they just could not get it right ) and the Total Recall remake ( which at least brought new record sales of the original movie and showed that you just can´t make a Schwarzenegger movie without Arnold ) for which she - almost - made up with displaying her goods in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and in Powder Blue.
Although you might want to do yourself a favor and fast forward to the good parts in the last one before you get so depressed you want to kill yourself. Like I said, Jessica has almost made up for her bad decisions, all we need is another movie where she shows her obvious superior stripper skill but this time without the unnecessary drama, thank you very much.
We are staying with great performers - although the more dressed type - as Ronan Keating celebrates his 40th birthday. Going over all my videos from casting shows I realized there is a whole generation out there which only knows Ronan from being a judge on The Voice and The X - Factor and has no idea of his boyband past. I wonder what would happen if one of those girls found out. As for any connections to comics : come on his name is Ronan and his day job is being a member of X - Factor. Nuff said.
We are staying with teen heartthrobs although we make the jump from cult boybands to cult tv shows as David Faustino turns 43. He has been in everything from The X - Files to Batman Beyond and The Legend Of Korra but he is best known as Bud Bundy on hit tv show Married With Children.
Speaking of Married With Children and Bud Bundy, one of my pet peeves is giving proper credit to all the unsung heroines who give their all to provide us viewers with entertainment. For years I have searched for information about the Busenwunder who plays Roxanne, the classmate with the big double airbags Bud lusts after when he celebrates his 18th birthday. If you have pondered the question yourself I can disclose that the girl´s name is Gina Puzo and apparently she quit showbiz after this.
And to stay on this subject, a few days back I posted one of the Thunder In Paradise movies that were shot to get a network to buy the series because I could not find the episode I was looking for. Or rather the episode with this hot bouncing action prone beachbombing bimbo.
As usual I came across this episode while I was looking for Playboy clips of Jacqueline Sheen ( which I ended up not using ) whom we will see further down the countdown. It is episode three of the first season ( or episode four if you count the pilot movie as two episodes ) called Sea Quentin and I think Sting guest stars. The wrestler, not the singer. I could only find a foreign version that has the german dubbing with a voice over in another language which is also not english. So people who only speak english are punked two times but even if you understand german the voice over is so overpowering that you can´t hear the german dubbing. According to her imdb sheet the woman in the red bikini with the integrated bouncing action appeared in six more Thunder In Paradise episodes and her name is Heidi Mark. She was Playmate Of The Month in July 1995, appeared on Baywatch and also was in various episodes of Married With Children.
Which brings us back to David Faustino. I already posted the documentary about the cult television series in an earlier posting so here is a reunion where the actors talk about their experiences. Since I am always mega busy with running the blog I have not had the time to watch all of it.
Next we have a comic related birthday and as a collective sigh of relief goes through my readership I want to pay homage to italian artist Claudio Castellini´s 51st anniversary. I have to admit that I had a hard time to find some artwork from him and going through some of his works I remembered how prolific he was. I am not sure if DC vs Marvel was the first time I saw his artwork but he did a lot of top notch projects for the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four. He also did the Logan : The End mini series which was less than memorable but with the new Logan movie on the horizon Disney may reprint that to make a quick buck with poor clueless comic newbies.
Now my italian is not so good and does not cover much more than what I could get from some episodes of Quelli Che Il Calcio and my tapes of La Blue Girl ( I got the italian version at a really hidden second hand shop because the german version was heavily censored ) but I guess this interview on FUMETTOLOGICA has something to do with Nathan Never.
Longtime readers may remember that I wrote about this series which is published by Sergio Bonelli Editore who also produces Dylan Dog, Martin Mystery and Tex Wyler. I don´t know if Claudio Castellini did any interior artwork but I know he did a slew of covers and you can find a gallery of Claudio Castellini´s covers for Nathan Never at DIME WEB . What I DO know is that he did issues of Dylan Dog although I don´t think they have come out in german yet. Coming back to Marvel vs DC, this is rather about the movies than the comics but Solon Papageorgiou has an article called Marvel vs DC : Defending DC over at MOVIE PILOT , Brian Salvatore at MULTIVERSITY COMICS explains How Marvel Has Succeeded ( By Becoming DC ) and as usual Terry Hooper at COMIC BITS ONLINE has the real scoop on the difference between Marvel and DC ( I will genuinely miss this blog ).
We come to our second playmate, Hope Marie Carlton who turns 51 and she also was a Playmate Of The Month for July although this time in the year 1985. She is best known for playing Taryn in the Andy Sidaris movies where she was later replaced by Roberta Vasquez. Who not only had more curves than her but also contrasted nicely with Donna Speir. I don´t know, the whole combination of the busty blonde with a bustier blonde did not work for me as well as the formula of busty blonde and even bustier raven haired latin sex pot. As coincidences would have it Hope also appeared on Married With Children. Now I would be tempted to do an Andy Sidaris post but I just did the Dona Speir re - post last month and I don´t want to give my readers a case of severe sexbomb overload especially keeping in mind that the re - post of sci fi cult siren Jolene Blalock goes online on Sunday. But fear not if you need more hot babes, I thought I had posted all my Andy Sidaris links but somehow I missed the reviews of Hard Ticket To Hawaii and Picasso Trigger on NOT COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU.
Okay, this is beyond weird. Our third playmate Jacqueline Sheen, who celebrates her 54th birthday was also Playmate Of The Month of July and get this : it was in 1990 which is right in the middle between 1985 and 1995. While I am too confused to know what to make of all this it doesn´t apply to Jacqueline Sheen who has the nickname Action Jackson no doubt because of her sexual appetite and relentless body. And what a body it is.
Not only is it one of the best sculpted in the history of Playboy with it´s perfect 36D - 24 - 34 measurements, she also has those bikini tan lines that drive some men ( me included ) crazy. She was not in Married with Children but she was on an episode of Silk Stalkings, appeared in various Playboy videos and she´s one of the playmates that has been in most Playboy Special Editions with 24 under her belt. There are just so many terrific pictures of her that I had six posts on my old blog to fit them all which made picking just two extremely difficult. Although I had to discard a lot of them right away because you could see something you were not supposed to, you could not see her face or she was wearing sunglasses.
While I am still pondering the ramification of The 5 Year Apart Playmate Trifecta Of July we return to comics and one of the often overlooked or forgotten writers, Max Allan Collins. On his 69th anniversary most people have seen Road To Perdition but are blissfully unaware that it was a comic book before it became a blockbuster starring Tom Hanks and Daniel Craig.
What´s more it was only the first of a trilogy but people also totally forgot this. I know this because the same thing happened to me. After I saw the movie I found out about the comic and I wanted to get some of them - especially after finding out that some of the artwork was done by one of my favorite artists : Jose Luis Garcia Lopez - but then the big DC crossover happened and then the big Marvel event happened and then they raised the prices of comics and then I lost another job and then I had to apply for financial support and then the accident happened and the operation happened - the usual life stuff. Anyway, thanks to this blog section I was reminded of Mister Collins work and to whet the appetite of any future customers out there here is some of Jose Luis Garcia Lopez´ artwork.
Now I did not pick the following links especially for this post because after seeing a video on YouTube about the so - called ten best comic movies ( which were almost all Marvel movies that had come out in the last five years ) and writing about the criminally underrated The Phantom I started thinking about how my list would look like. Which got me thinking about all the great comic adaptions I had seen which were based on european comics like Anacleto - Agente Secreto, Largo Winch, Tex Wyler or comics the younger generation never heard of ( which could be Guardians of the Galaxy or Iron Man from what I hear ) like The Shadow, Flash Gordon or Nick Knatterton. One of the candidates I thought of in the list of movies most people are not aware are based on comics was Road To Perdition but as always other people were faster than me therefore you can find the movie on IFC´s list of 10 Movie You Didn´t Know Were Based On Comics, it´s on the RANKER list of The Best Movies You Didn´t Know Were Based On Comics ( which also includes Dylan Dog ), CINEMASTANCE´s list of 20 Movie You Didn´t Know Were Based On Comic Books, SCREENRANT´s list of 20 Movies You May Not Know Were Based On Comics and last but not least on DEN OF GEEKS list of Top 25 Underappreciated Comic Book Movies.
Speaking about being underappreciated, Bruno Bozzetto celebrates his 79th birthday and I can´t believe imdb states that he is best known for Allegro Non Troppo ( I have literally no idea what that is ) and totally ignore his worldwide success Mr. Rossi Looks For Happiness. I devoured this series as a kid and I still love it. What´s more, back then I did not understand most of its political and social criticism or the funny aspect that Mr. Rossi spends his entire day putting fish in can only to open the same can of fish for every meal. But not only is it one of the best cartoon series for kids and adults alike it also has one of the best soundtracks ever.
Our last birthday shoutout goes to the late James Doohan who is of course best known as Scotty from the Star Trek universe. Since we had a lot of Star Trek videos in the last posts for the birthdays of Jeri Ryan and Gates McFadden ( not mentioning Jolene Blalock´s birthday on Sunday ) I am going to skip that especially since I am running out of videos to post. Still I wanted to acknowledge this anniversary so here are The Origins Of 11 Famous Star Trek Lines from MENTAL FLOSS which I came across while looking for a cover where Scotty is featured prominently. Which was not very easy. After going through all the covers I really got a hankering to look for some Star Trek issues the next time I can do some dollar bin diving.
I totally forgot that DC and Marvel had lengthy runs and I think one was even written by Peter David. Now I don´t want to step on anybodies toes but after writing Star Trek for years you might think a person would lose all inklings to continually put Star Trek references in all your comics.
As always we end the post with a Flash video, this time with the trailer for the Invasion crossover. I have heard that there will be new crossovers but this time only between Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl and Flash although the last one is rumored to feature the Music Meister.
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I get up in the morning when people tell me I have to get up. I eat when people tell me I have to eat. I think when people tell me I have to think. And always what they want me to think. I am a human being whose assured future has already been planned by others.
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