Batman Week starts with Norm Breyfogle

Again I have lined up a few posts about the same hero so I have decided to try and get a theme here going. It gives the blog visitors an illusion of structure and helps me to really dive into the history of a character. And who could be better qualified to inaugurate it then somebody who has drawn one of the best representations of the Dark Night Detective ?

Especially since he celebrates his 58th birthday. At least I hope he does. I tried to find an update on his medical condition but I could not find any data if it has improved or deteriorated. So I hope he is in good health.

It has been two years since I wrote my last Norm Breyfogle post I went back and re - read it and it has a lot of information for all of my german readers who want to know where they can find his comics - mostly his Batman comics here - in the german version. Yes, sometimes I do write about german comics. Today´s post will be more art centric with not a lot of text since there is not much about Norm Breyfogle´s work on the bat books that hasn´t been said more eloquently then I ever could by others.

And I have also written about it ad nauseum so there is no need for me to repeat it. Most of the pages in this post can be found in the first LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT - NORM BREYFOGLE hardcover which is a book I can only recommend. No matter if you are already a big fan of his work or just want to support him pay his medical bills this is a nice collection to have even if you already have all the single issues. There seems to be a second volume in the workings but so far no release date has been announced.

Man, sometimes I really miss living in Spain because there his entire Batman work has already been collected in thick affordable hardcovers.

Before we come to the art pages by Norm Breyfogle there are two things I want to mention. The first one is for my german readers who might think about buying volume one of the LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT - NORM BREYFOGLE ( to my knowledge there is no german version of it so far ).

Go to a comic shop because if you order it from amazon you will pay more.

I don´t know why but at the moment the collection is at 4 EUROS above the regular in store price at amazon. Now that is not a huge difference but if you can get a discount of another 2 or 3 bucks at your local comic shop things are starting to get interesting. Also if you order from an online comic shop most of them give free shipping with orders of more than 25 bucks and since this is a 50 Dollars book you got that covered. Also some of those online stores give you a free comic book per 10 bucks of your order so you get five free comics alone from ordering this collection.

Speaking of collections, if you don´t want to wait until the release of the second volume to read more Batman stuff by Norm Breyfogle you can find the HOLY TERROR miniseries written by Alan Brennert in the first volume of the new BATMAN - ELSEWORLDS trades. Now I haven´t bought it myself because I have most of the stories in hardcover so unless DC releases it in a hardcover omnibus it makes no sense for me to again spend money on this but if you don´t already own these stories I can only recommend it.

And that´s all I have to say at the moment so let´s get to the comics. 

Now this post should have been up earlier since I had already prepared the pictures two days in advance and I also planned it down to last minute - go to bed early, get up early, draw on my comic for a few hours and then do the post - but as usual something threw a monkey wrench into the works and the whole plan went to the crapper. In this case it was a beer and anybody who tells you that alcohol is not a solution has not paid attention in chemistry class. Anyway, I do not know if it was my long soberness or if it was just a cheap brand but I had stomach cramps all night and on top of that I was pretty drunk so instead of watching all the episodes of Are You Afraid Of The Dark ? that are taking up space on my laptop I did a re - post of last years post of cult siren Jolene Blalock which was supposed to be a quick post. At first I just wanted to change one or two things that I was not happy about but then I started adding more pictures of Jolene Blalock because there were a lot of her as T´Pol but not a lot of her as herself. And then I started adding new videos so it´s worth doing  a new version and to make a long story short in the end it took me until ten o´clock in the morning to finally finish the post because I could not decide on the fifth video. The bad part is that it delayed this post but the good part is that there will be a new version of Jolene Blalock´s cult siren entry - next month. Which is when her birthday is so to all who are wondering what happened to her post, it will be up at the right time.

So I woke up very late and felt like crap but now it´s okay and the only link I have is an article on FUNNY BOOK FANATIC about Norm Breyfogle´s work on Prime and his further career and I am not so sure if I have not included this in a previous posting. The birthday list is equally short with only two candidates of which the first is Andy Kubert, another artist connected to the Bat - titles. He celebrates his 56th birthday and while he and his brother are very busy at DC right now when I started reading US comics all three of the Kuberts were almost exclusively Marvel ( the sons a bit more than the father ) and working on the x - books and Ghost Rider.

We also have Jeff Smith, one of the pioneers of independent comics in the 80s who turns 58 and - at least to my knowledge - never worked on Batman. There is however the fantastic Shazam and the Monster Society of Evil 4 issue mini series he did ( which I completely forgot, sorry ).

He is of course best known for his work on Bone which for me was a wonderful and frustrating experience - at the same time. Wonderful because it´s one of those books where everybody tells you you have to read it because it´s so good and you just don´t want to read it because you already have so many other books to read but then you finally cave in to find out what all the hype is about and then you find out that it IS actually that good. Frustrating because I was reading it while it was still coming out and even though I was late to the party - as always - and got the first issues I was missing in trade ( through which I just plowed ) waiting for every new issue to arrive in shops was just pure agony. Of course once a new issue found its way into my pull box I was happy again.

Which only lasted about five minutes - which was the time it took to read the whole thing - then it was back to frustration again. Now a lot of people say that a comic that you read in five minutes is not worth what you pay for it but let me tell you that any issue of Bone is like a master class in how to make comics so it´s totally worth it. And I am even going so far as to say that the quicker you read a comic the better it´s written.

In most cases. With Bone you read an issue in five minutes because what happened in the issue was happening so fast but afterwards you wanted to know more. With Today´s comic books there are some you read in five minutes and it seems like an eternirty. Anyway, I never read Rasl, mainly because I don´t buy into the romanticizing of robbery ( anybody who got something precious stolen know that there is nothing glorious about stealing ) so I always have problems when the main character is a thief.

But who knows, I think the series is already finished so maybe I just need somebody who convinces me - again - to give Jeff Smith another chance. 

Since we have such a short birthday list Today I got free choice with the videos so I´m doing an almost complete all - Batman entertainment section starting with one about Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle´s groundbreaking run on the Batman titles for my spanish readers.



I always like to include at least one video that is a bit longer so here is Batman - City of Scars a fanfilm that I bookmarked so far back that I didn´t even remember when. In any case it´s better than the actual DC movies.



Speaking of DC movies, Mask of the Phantasm is a good example of how perception can become reality. The animated movie was originally slated to be a direct - to - video film but when the higher ups saw the incredible quality of the movie they decided to bring it to theaters. Somehow that enthusiasm didn´t go hand in hand with any kind of big promotion and when the film underperformed because almost nobody knew of its existence or even that it was in cinemas it undeservedly was forgotten.



We continue with the breast .... I mean best of Batman and a video with cosplay girl extraordinaire Angie Griffin a.k.a. Miss 41E Busenwunder.

What drives me crazy - besides the fact that her breasts are 100 percent real - is that she also would have been a better Catwoman than Anne Hathaway. I mean, compared to Anne Hathaway even Halle Berry did a decent job playing family friendly not Selina Kyle / Patience Phillips.



Deciding on the last video was a struggle since none of my bookmarked music videos are really Batman related so that in the end I decided to go with some unadulterated k - pop action with the flexible 4Minute girls.

Now longtime readers might recall that about a month ago I posted their video for the smash hit Hit You Heart plus their best live performances. Well, here are an additional four videos that did not make the cut.






New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

Stupid stupid rat creatures.

Spanish comics - special all women edition

Once again I´m writing kind of a buffer post in - between two DC - centric posts ( Tomorrow is Norm Breyfogle´s birthday so I´m doing a Batman post ) but I´m also taking the chance to post more spanish comics. Just to remind my readers that it´s not all about tight spandex, masks and capes.

Man, I really get nostalgic for the times when comic books - or better said tebeos - cost 5 pesetas. Now I did my last post about spanish comics four weeks ago and I don´t know how readers liked it since there was not that much response to it. Nevertheless I had the feeling that the women were a bit underrepresented in that post so I´m doing an all women post Today.

And that´s not part of any SJW agenda just to be clear. I´m not trying to make any kind of statement here about how badly women in comics were written back then and how much better they are as characters now or how firmly the male comic creators had everything in their grip and were trying to impose their beliefs onto others. If you want to read that kind of stuff I´m sure you can find plenty of articles about how we still live in a male dominated world or how everything bad that happens is the fault of white caucasian heterosexual males on the internet so I don´t have to join the bandwagon. I´m still paying for every comic book I read out of my own pocket and get no review copies from any publisher - not even the smallest independent comic companies seem to deem this blog worthy of their attention - so I don´t have to be careful that everything I write is politically correct and in line with the SJW guidelines. Nevertheless I have tried not to include too many strips from the same artist but only because I wanted to present the widest range possible. At first I was tempted only to include strips with hot attractive women but since I am hoping to do two or three follow up post ( there are a few artists where I have found a handful of strips ) I have tried to include strips with females of all age groups from young girls to old hags. And I really mean old hags because one of the strips in this post is called Doña Urraca and that name has become a synonym for an old unattractive woman - or hag - in the spanish language.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a quick post so let´s get to the comics.

There are two birthdays from Yesterday I want to mention the first being german author Karl May. When I was growing up there were two writers whose work you had to read, the first one was Jules Verne and the other was Karl May. I have mentioned Karl May and Winnetou ( and especially Elke Sommer´s cleavage in Unter Geiern which left a lasting impression on little Subzero ) in a few posts but I only got around to do a post on Karl May with a special emphasis on the Winnetou comics in 2016. So far I have not made a follow up post because for once I´m not that versed about Karl May and I mostly know the movie adaptions they have made of his books.

Also I don´t have any good material about the comic adaptions at the moment. Anyway, I´m sure that you haven´t read the last of Karl May or Winnetou on this blog and they may just pop up when you least expect it.

In my last post we had Playmate of the Month Of April 1986 centerfold Teri Weigel who celebrated her 55th birthday so Today I have to mention another Andy Sidaris related anniversary. Penthouse Pet Samatha Phillips who played Samatha Maxx, the buxom blonde with the high squirt factor in The Dallas Connection ( a.k.a. Deadworks ) and holds the record for getting her nude pictures published in the most countries turned 52.

Well - rounded in more than just the physical sense, Sam is a woman for the new millenium : she´s ambitious and she´s busy and not above using her spectacular naked body as fame currency. Sam has been a member of an all girl rock group, The Lykettes, a talk show host, a reality tv host, radio DJ, a spokesmodel, she has hosted any kind of show that exists on the planet and she became a pop icon as one of the most sought after models of the 80s. However the walking blow up sex doll template reaped the greatest exposure in the realm of sexploitation quickie flicks thanks to her rack - tastic 34D - 26 - 35 measurements and is famous for producing the Busty Cops movie series starring all of her buxom centerfold friends.

Sadly she was only in one Andy Sidaris movie but you can see her naked in classics like Hot Springs Hotel, Passion Cove, Bedtime Stories, Fallen Angel, The Regina Pierce Affair, Passion´s Obsession and Sexual Malice.

We continue with more hot sexbombs as Today´s first birthday is Alison Armitage who turns 53. She is best known as Brittany York, the Playmate Of The Month for October 1990 and the main eye candy on 90s wannabe Baywatch clone Acapulco H.E.A.T. which Subzero watched religiously.

Especially playmate Alison Armitage made me watch more episodes than was healthy and I never understood why she didn´t get more screen time than Catherine Oxenberg. I mean, the producers had to pay her anyway and to just have her in a few short bits in most of the episodes must have been a waste of money. Maybe I am naiive but to me that sounds like you got two weapons - a pointed stick and a gun - and always use the stick. If it was me after a few times I´d say f - word the stick and go for the gun right away. But that is probably one of the things that are done because they have always been done that way and therefore nobody questions.

Because of that it was extremely difficult to find an episode with Alison Armitage doing more than just a short appearance ( I can´t believe how many episodes of Acapulco H.E.A.T. are on YouTube - which won´t last ).



Apropos centerfolds, our first candidate in the Dearly Departed section is Tony Randall whom I know from two things : The Odd Couple - or how it´s called in Germany Männerwirtschaft - with Jack Klugmann which was based on the original movie with Jack Lemon and Walther Matthau and Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Who in my opinion is one of the best actresses in Hollywood since she somehow managed to pull off a wholesome and family friendly image having the body of a playboy bunny.

No less talented was Rock Hudson who convinced the entire world he was not gay. Fun fact : in the movie Rock Hudson plays a straight womanizer who tries to score with Doris Day by pretending to be gay which made the scene very interesting after the fact. One wonder if Rock Hudson had a lot of fun playing this or if he was walking a thin line between not appearing gay enough and being careful not to appear too gay. Anyway, of course I could not find any good clips from Pillow Talk apart from the one I already posted so I went in search of other clips with Tony Randall. Which is often the most interesting part of writing this section because I always learn new things. For example I didn´t know that Tony Randall played Hercule Poirot in The Alphabet Murders. As usual I could only find the spanish language version of the film but I think it´s fitting for Today´s topic.



Also no longer with us - except through his movies and his music - is the singer with probably the coolest name ever Johnny Cash. Normally I would have to look for a video since I became a fan very late in my life but just the other day I found out that Johnny Cash recorded songs in german.



We come back to sexbombs but this time to the animated version as Today is also the anniversary of Tex Avery who not only was one of the best animators but also made a lasting impression in pop culture with Red.

Some people will probably try to tell you that his greatest accomplishment was the creation of the Looney Tunes characters but while that may have had lasting repercussions his creation of a sexy jazzy version of Little Red Riding Hood not only revolutionized cartooning but laid the groundwork for a lot of female characters in movies or on tv - animated or otherwise.

Again for some reason you can´t find any full Tex Avery cartoons with Red on YouTube. There are plenty of complete episodes of The Tex Avery Show - and I even found an episode with a sexy cowgirl - but I want to include a video with Red and this one has at least a full performance with her.



I´m also including this video because it shows more scenes from the cartoon and it also explains what was so special about Tex Avery´s approach to cartooning which at that time was dominated by Walt Disney.



Now I don´t know how SJWs will rate this post because on one side it has a lot of women in comics but because I´m a man I´m surely exploiting and discriminating them in some sinister way. There is also the high number of sexbombs which is probably not only offensive to the ones I am featuring but also to all women worldwide. As much as that might speak against me I am not entirely sure how they will react so to help them make a definite decision here is a video that was brought to my attention by my brother of all people. I am not sure if I agree with all of this guy´s political views but he makes some valid points about Today´s society that has become alarmingly more racist in recent years. We are at a point where people are discriminated because of the color of their skin and what´s even worse is that we are led to believe that it´s okay just because the people who are discriminated are white and the people who discriminate them are black.

And you can substitute white people with male and black people with female. Or heterosexual and gay. Like the french say : the more things change the more everything stays the same with the only difference being that Today´s Nazis paint themselves as the oppressed party and victims.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

If two persons always think the same then one of them is redundant.