And make no mistake, he worked on a truckload even if he only did the covers in some cases. Because our last post was a SPIDER - MAN WEEK post I decided to stick to DC titles but even with that limitation it was very difficult to make the final selection. I hope I managed to avoid series that I had in last year´s post but I still tried to include some of his most iconic covers. Last year I also did a THORSDAY post for Rich Buckler but I´m not going to put the link up because there are a few others where I have art from Rich and as longtime readers know I have written a lot of THORSDAY posts and I don´t have the time to go through all of them.
Now as I said I didn´t want to make this another Marvel post or one that has some Marvel stuff in it so there might be another Rich Buckler post in the near future with that. What I am really thinking about is doing a post about all the series he worked on apart from Marvel and DC which includes THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS and the other MLJ heroes but also some ATLAS books ( not the pre - Marvel company, the other ATLAS Comics that Terry Hooper writes about in this post ) and some that are even more obscure.
Now I have included the best original art of Rich Buckler I could find and I also have crammed as many heroes in here that you might only know from movies or tv shows. Naturally my favorites take priority here. And I also included some german covers which are always interesting for the readers overseas. We are starting with the best known ones and make our way through the more obscure to the relatively unknown. Anyway, let´s start.
Apart from the usual thanks to Heritage Auctions, Comic Art Fans, Comixology and I site I can´t name because it´s probably semi - legal but where I have to go to find stuff I can´t get anywhere else we have some links since Rich Buckler worked on so many different books. There are some I keep for future posts that I still hope I can do but here is the rest.
BLACK IS BLACK I WANT MY ROBIN BACK or PROTECTOR THE CHILDREN
One of Rich Buckler´s inkers on the All - Star Squadron ( and a lot of other books ) was Tony DeZuniga and of course I found the interview by Jason Thibault on OPTIMUM WOUND after I mentioned the series Arak, Son Of Thunder ( which was co - created by Tony DeZuniga ) in one of my posts.
I initially wanted to address this in my often postponed New Teen Titans by George Perez Black and White post but CHRIS IS ON INFINITE EARTHS has posts one issue 1 ( by George Perez ) and issue 2 ( by Ross Andru ) of the New Teen Titans Drug Abuse Awareness Specials that I bought last year more out of curiosity and to close a gap in my Teen Titans collection.
They are not the best written Titans comics I´ve ever read but the art is solid and at least they were trying to do something to warn kids of the dangers of taking drugs. You surely won´t see any of this in Todays comics where taking drugs is openly endorsed. For all those who read the Tiny Titans series ( by the way, BEST Teen Titans series in the last 20 year not written by Marv Wolfman ) and wondered who the heck this Protector character was his secret origin is tied to these giveaways. When they were made another company had the license to Robin because they had paid for the rights to use Batman and Robin so they had to come up with a new character to take Robin´s place as leader of the Teen Titans and came up with one of the most generic looking costumes in comic book history.
Now most people have at least heard about the first drug awareness issue and a few like myself may be aware there was a second issue but when I went back to check the posts to link them I found out that there was even a third issue. The art on this was done by Adrian Gonzales and this is probably the Holy Grail for collectors of oddball Teen Titans paraphernalia.
Speaking about cringe worthy moments in Teen Titans history, back in the day between the old Teen Titans and the restarts of the New Teen Titans the powers that be at DC were doing a lot of stuff to get kids reading the book by introducing such characters like Bumblebee and the Joker´s daughter. They also tried to do what the SJWs are doing now which was creating a new black character who would then join the Teen titans only to have a black character on the team - without having any idea what to do with him or what his story ought to be. Naturally Mal Duncan turned into a huge catastrophe but at least DC learned their lesson - unlike the SJWs - and didn´t repeat their mistakes when they created Cyborg later.
Who by the way belongs in the Teen Titans and has no business being in the Justice League of America. So if you want to know everything about Mal Duncan - what a weird name - OUT OF THIS WORLD can hook you up.
Apropos, one of the more obscure books - at least to newer comic readers - Rich Buckler worked on at Marvel is Killraven - although not as obscure as Skull the Slayer or Reagan´s Raiders - so for all who have never heard of him and only know him from his cameo on Guardians of the Galaxy MIKE LUOMA`S COSMIC CRACKLE has a megalong post about his entire history.
We start our - as always highly selective depending on whether there are any connections to hot chicks or any videos I got bookmarked or at least an interesting story I can tell - celebrity birthday rundown of the day with the always delightful Alice Eve who you might have seen in films like The Raven, Men In Black 3 or Star Trek : Into Darkness and who turns 36.
I know that I posted a video with her last year but as far as I can tell this is my last video with her I have bookmarked so unless I can find a new one in the meantime we will have somebody else taking her spot in next years Rich Buckler birthday post. If I get to write one that year. You never know.
We are staying in England as Rick Astley celebrates his 52nd birthday.
Sometimes it´s funny how things work out. I remember that Rick Astley and Kylie Minogue started out around the same time. But while all music critics attested a long and prosperous career for Rick Astley because of his obvious great talent most people said Kylie Minogue would never amount to much more than a one hit wonder. In fact, one of the vj´s at Mtv - way back when they were a music channel - Steve Blame ( the guy who looks like Leghorn´s secret brother separated at birth ) went on record that she was nothing more than a one hit wonder and called I Should Be So Lucky the worst written song of all time. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that for some uncanny reason if you play a Rick Astley song faster it sounds exactly like Kylie Minogue ( or if you prefer it, if you play a Kylie Minogue song slower it sounds exactly like Rick Astley ) which led to the rumour that Kylie was not really singing her songs and that - since they were both under contract at Stock, Aitken & Waterman - it was really Rick Astley. Nobody even thought for a moment that it might be the reverse although Kylie had two big talents of her own as she demonstrates here.
Like I said, funny how things work out as Today Kylie Minogue is the big star while Rick Astley remains just a footnote that only a handful of people remember although I have to say that I always liked his music.
Nonetheless I´m not above shamelessly using the opportunity to link to a tumblr I came across with animated GIFs from her videos Better The Devil You Know and Step Back In Time and her number 2 and number 3 sexiest videos of all times. As you might have guessed from the GIF above my all time favorite is Give Me Just A Little More Time. Ah, what wouldn´t I have done to Kylie " Geile " Minogue if I had met her in my sexual prime.
Coming a close second to Give Me Just A Little More Time is of course I Just Can´t Get You Out Of My Head even if Kylie´s assistant prevented any wardrobe malfunctions during the video. Which is hypocritical as Kylie´s outfit is made for that. It´s the prototype " f - word me " - dress and the closest thing you get to going full frontal while being dressed.
Anyway, Kylie´s performance has been often imitated but I really don´t want to say that it has never been duplicated because there are some versions which maybe don´t surpass it but come very close. As always I´m letting you be the judge. I already posted Anna Simon´s bonerinducing version from Tu Cara Me Suena but for all that missed it here it is one more time together with the stunning performance of Rocio Guirao Diaz.
Also born on this day was another pop culture icon, Patrick Macnee, who is of course best known as John Steed in Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone where he was the constant to an ever changing crime fighting duo and sometimes trio although the classic version was his partnership with Emma Peel played by the just divine Diana Rigg. Yes, I always had trouble calling the series The Avengers because for me that team was Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, the Vision and the likes. I remember when I first saw something about The Avengers tv series in one of the first orderbooks and thought I had found a lost gem of tv entertainment about the World´s Mightiest Heroes. Picture my disappointment when I found out that it was only a normal team of spys without any superpowers. The humanity of it !
Now as I have already posted all my Diana Rigg videos and it´s Patrick Macnee´s birthday anyway I should include something about him.
I´ve already added the documentary about The Avengers elsewhere on the blog but there is another series in which he appeared that I am a bit more familiar with since it aired in the 90s. Yes, as many readers know I am fond of what other people may consider the trashy side of pop culture.
Make no mistake, Thunder In Paradise definitely falls into that category.
Compared to this Acapulco H.E.A.T. is like Shakespeare although like all good ( or is that bad ? ) shows from the 1990s it includes a certain amount of hot bikini babes which they go to great lengths to make the viewers aware of them as they put it right in the intro of the very first episode.
Well, I think it´s the first episode. I didn´t have the time to go through all videos of Thunder In Paradies on YouTube so I bookmarked the three longest one that have the best quality and this is the last one of them.
After this I will have to look for others. By the way, the brunette sebomb in the yellow bikini from the first video I posted looks a bit like Teri Weigel before her boob job. Can anybody out there confirm or deny that´s her ?
As for why there are so many random bikini babes in shows like these, the bikini babes serve two purposes here ( and I´m saying this without any double meaning ) : the first one is to keep the male audience who was clearly the main target here hooked. A famous crime fiction writer once said that if things get too boring you send in two guys with machine guns.
The same principle works with televison shows, dudes and bikini babes.
The second purpose is to get an actor of the caliber like Patrick Macnee with a pedigree on a show like this and to keep him interested. Some people may scoff at this but including a lot of hot women in a show does wonders for the morale. If you don´t believe that ask yourself : if you had the same job but were surrounded by hot women in swimsuits would you not be happier at the end of the day ? Now one of the things I noticed when I went through all the videos is how colorful everything was back then. The comic books were like that and definitely the tv shows. And you may say that I just included this for the hot bikini babes or maybe Carol Alt but that´s not it. If you are looking for intellectually stimulating stories portrayed by the greatest actors America has to offer you will be disappointed. But if you want to see a highly entertaining show with tons of wrestlers guest starring from their heyday and cheap special effects you have come to the right place. This show was produced by the guys from Baywatch and Hulk Hogan quit the WWF to film the series. He then met with Eric Bishop and after the end of the show he went to the WCW.
Now originally I had another episode of The Secrets of Isis here since I grab every opportunity to put more out there but because I then found out that I did indeed have one last video left of Thunder In Paradise I took it out again because they were both from tv shows. Instead here is a video about Esteban Maroto. I always like to include videos where you see creators draw and he really deserves the title comic artist. With all the noise about american super hero comics I sometimes forget that there is a big part of the european comic market that has nothing to do with capes or spandex which is just as valid and sometimes even has better artwork.
Likewise I changed this video because I want to safe the clip from Super Friends with Wonder Woman for my upcoming post on Mike Deodato´s run on the book. This is a compilation from The Beasts are Coming, one of the creepier episodes of the show and while it says part 1 there is no need to search on YouTube for part 2 because there is no part 2. It´s all a scam !
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