Now because the great late Al Williamson has worked on several series I could have made a post about his issues of STAR WARS, his work on BLADE RUNNER or the famous EC horror comics but instead I decided to pimp one of my favorite runs on DAREDEVIL. Most of it has been reprinted in the Epic Collections A TOUCH OF THYPHOID and HEART OF DARKNESS so I hope these still underrated issues finally get the broad attention they deserve.
As it couldn´t be any other way this post has not gone as planned because while I already had all the original black and white art lined up when I was going over the first color pages for the first issue I made the mistake of reading the story. Because Ann Nocenti´s writing is so good that I had to try to get most of issue 252 in this post. So I scrapped the other original art pieces for the next birthday and selected what for me is the main part of the story. To set things up this is an oversized issue - hence the need to select just part of the issue to stay within the 23 pages limit - that is a crossover with the FALL OF THE MUTANTS storyline that was going through the mutant titles. You don´t need to know anything about that event only that there was a big explosion in New York and everybody in Hell´s Kitchen thinks they dropped the atomic bomb and this is the end of the world.
Which was not so far off at that time. And now let´s join the story in progress which is another example how a brilliant writer like Ann Nocenti can turn a mandate crossover into a study about the human character.
Dammit, I had to restart my internet browser because Avira password manager - which is a program I´m not using - kept interfering and has finally managed to erase the last two paragraphs I was working on for the last fifteen minutes. I´ll try to reiterate what I wrote but since I don´t have a photographic memory it will probably come out a little different then the first time. So if this is not as funny, witty or thought provoking as usual I can only tell you that the first version was all that and more.
Now as I wrote before, there have not been a lot of links in my post lately which is due to the fact that after twelve years of writing this humble comic blog there are not a lot of topics that I have not tackled before and therefore whatever links I had bookmarked in advance have been posted long ago. And unless I have to do a lot of research for a post or include a lot of art where I have to give props to original posters the number of links is shrinking from post to post. I still have a lot of links bookmarked but most of them are in connection to posts I plan to write in the future.
There are however the occassional odd findings or rare gems that don´t fit a specific topic and I have decided to include some of them here hoping they will interest or at least amuse my readers. Now one of the reasons why there are so few links in the posts lately is that I don´t have the time to keep up with my own link partners on ye olde blogroll but there are of course some I stumble upon from time to time. Which is my longwinded segueway to DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND which in keeping with the topic of the main part of Today´s post brings us another Marvel blast from the past with The Doom That Came To K´Dhasha - Dheen by David Micheline and Ernie Chan from Claw The Unconquered issue 2.
THE BRONZE AGE OF BLOGS serves up two posts for lovers of black and white art : Mary Perkins On Stage by Leonard Starr and - this should at least make Terry Hooper at COMIC BITS ONLINE happy - The Steel Claw by spanish artist Jesus Blasco ( part 1 / part 2 ) which appeared in Germany in the comic anthology Kobra while its british pendant was called Vulcan.
And speaking about british comics OUT OF THIS WORLD has another post on girl comics from the isle with Marilyn from the 3rd of June, 1961 that has a lot of great black and white art while STEVE DOES COMICS has a post on the first issue of The Titans . Which is not about DC´s New Teen Titans as one might think but a Marvel publication for the UK that was printed sideways and brought such series like the Inhumans, Captain America, Nick Fury, Namor or Captain Marvel over the pond. There is also a post on Savage Sword Of Conan 4 which is a series where the aforementioned Ernie Chan did a lot of inks as well as the occassional pencils for a story.
Since we are on the topic of everyone´s favorite barbarian there is also a post on more black and white magazines from Marvel . I haven´t read all of them that came out but Savage Sword Of Conan is as perfect as a Conan comic for adults could get and even Punisher magazine of which I have a few issues and which basically only reprinted the old Punisher issues was a solid investment. Lately Disney has reprinted some issues of The Deadly Hands Of Kung Fu in omnibus books but even if you are not interested in those there are reprints of other black and white magazines by Marvel like Rampaging Hulk which is included in an ESSENTIAL. Or if you are going through the dollar bins and find some old issues of Planet Of The Apes just flip through the pages because you might find some forgotten art gems.
When you write a blog for twelve years you have the benefit of choosing to address certain anniversaries or skip them if you have already covered them in previous years depending on if you have something new to add or just don´t have the time to go through the long list of celebrity birthdays.
That really helps a lot and Today I have decided to shun most birthdays since I don´t want to repeat what I wrote in last year´s post on March the 22nd. There is however one I just have to mention because it gives me one of the seldom chances to include a few links to old cult siren posts.
So if you are one of the readers who comes here strictly for the comics you might want to skip this next part. I know that there are people who say I should not include this kind of content at all but this seem to be the topics that bring the most readers to the blog and with my low numbers I can´t afford to be picky. Plus, it´s a welcome change of pace for myself.
For those readers that are still with me that celebrity birthday is Hugo Egon Balder who turns 68. He is of course best known as the host of Tutti Frutti and I just love wikipedia because I have never heard it be described anywhere else as a soft - porn tits - out show but I guess it kind of was.
I recently found a website with entire episodes of the german cult show as well as from the italian original Colpo Grosso and while some parts are dated and I fastforwarded in a couple of instances I have to say that Hugo does a pretty good job all things considered. It´s not easy hosting these kind of shows with class and humor without it getting smutty and there are several people who tried and failed. So proper kudos for that, Hugo.
One of the main attractions of the game show Tutti Frutti was of course sexbomb Monique Sluyter, the living blow up sex doll from the Netherlands who not only was in PLAYBOY multiple times but also a big factor in my obsession with Power Girl with her impersonation of Marilyn Monroe .
In the old comics artist Wally Wood kept making Power Girl´s breasts bigger and bigger to see how far he could take it. Or at least that is the urban legend. Speaking of Wally Wood´s version of Power Girl, if you want to see for yourself if there´s any truth to the claim that he supersized Power Girl´s boob you can find the original art for the 17 page story from All - Star Comics 65 at the private collection of James Halperin and you can see them at an even bigger resolution at HERITAGE AUCTIONS . Well, in regards to Power Girl´s gigantic breast size ( let´s not loose track of what is really important here ) fact is that the artists after Wally Wood drew her with normal proportions .... or what is considered normal for superheroines.
Until Bart Sears took over the character, buffed her up and returned her signature breast size - at least until the whole NEW 52 fiasko / retcon.
When I started to read american comics the DC universe was brand new thanks to the Crisis on Infinite Earths fallout and I grabbed all the series I didn´t know which included the two fisted combo of Justice League by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire and Justice League Europe also by Giffen and Matteis, art by Bart Sears and inks by Pablo Marcos whom I knew from his work on Defenders. I don´t know if it was fate but the very first issue of Justice League Europe I got was issue 4 in which Power Girl, Flash and Animal Man share a hotel room as they go to Bialya on an undercover mission. I re - read the issue a few times and I always wondered if these more human - and more horny in the case of Flash - heroes didn´t spend the dull waiting time in a more adult way.
Well, I was young, in my sexual prime and had a lot of spare time in the barracks ( we were three in one room but the others went home after duty so I had the black and white television set with a lot of TUTTI FRUTTI and PLAYBOY LATE NIGHT episodes all to myself which didn´t exactly help my situation ) so I re - read the issue a few times imagining what could have happened if Animal Man would have gotten Power Girl under his control with pheromones. Ah, all the things I would have done to her.
For me Bart Sear´s version is still the definite version of Power Girl and now that DC is back - paddling with their Rebirth initiative and restoring many things I am of course curious to find out what that means for Power Girl. As far as I know she has not yet appeared in the all new DC universe continuity so there might be a return to her former glory in store for her.
Speaking about the best Power Girl of all times in Justice League Europe, in 2016 I finally managed to do another post about Darick Robertson in which I mentioned the BREAKDOWNS storyline that introduced Power Girl´s famous coconut bra costume. And I just want to say that I still have not given up on a Yaya Han Power Girl coconut bra cosplay ( with the tiniest coconut shells you can find although compared to her huge 40D oppai all coconut shells probably look small no matter how big they are ) as she has already shown that she does a terrific Power Girl cosplay and she certainly has no problem filling out the magical cleavage window.
Longtime readers may be already tired of this but it seems that nowadays I can´t write a new post without mentioning hot sexbomb Becky Mullen .
Besides appearing as Sally, the farmer´s daughter on the first season of Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling and various guest appearances on every major tv show ( of which her most memorable is an episode of Married with Children opposite Pamela Anderson - see GIF above ) Becky starred in various erotic midnight movies including Sinful Intrigue. With all that said german audiences know her best from taking her clothes off on Tutti Frutti . Her biggest contribution to american culture however is Hard Hunted and there are two other actresses from Andy Sidaris movies who appeared on Tutti Frutti , Sandra Wild and Carolyn Liu. I wrote more about this in my special Andy Sidaris edition of Casting the JLA movie post .
Andy is probably THE BEST director of action movies for adults. And his cast reads like a WHOS´S WHO of playmates : Roberta Vasquez , Ava Cadell , brunette Cynthia Brimhall, Dona Speir , Pandora Peaks, Julie Strain , Shae Marks, Samantha Phillips and Julie K. Smith to name just a few of them.
Becky Mullen´s post is a spin - off that used to be in one post with Janet Jones Gretzky , best known for appearing in a white swimsuit in Police Academy 5 - Assignment Miami Beach and real live Power Girl Leslie Easterbrook who had the most famous scene in Police Academy 4 - Citizens on Patrol in which she emerges from a pool in a wet t - shirt .
Coming full circle the post also included Monique Sluyter and the Tutti Frutti girls but that part got too long and I had to give it a post of its own which I re - posted in 2016 in a new and better version . I cast her as Fire a.k.a. Beatriz da Costa in the aforementioned Casting the Justice League movie special and before getting a solo post she was regularly mentioned during the annual re - posts of italian mega soccer MILF Simona Ventura .
Now since I have already posted all clips you can find on YouTube of Tutti Frutti as well as various episodes from all the different other game shows Hugo Egon Balder hosted I am including somebody new but don´t worry, with her exotic looks and big chocolate shakes she could as well star as a sex agent in an Andy Sidaris movie as take her clothes off on Tutti Frutti.
While doing the research for Sabrina Salerno I came not only across a lot of videos of boob shaker Angela Cavagna but also latin sex goddess Regina Do Santos. I was completely blown away by her sex appeal and immediately did some background checking. There are however some things where no information is available so I can´t tell you her exact cupsize or on which date Regina Do Santos was born. Which is the reason why I didn´t wait until her birthday to write about her. Because no birthday is known.
What I can confirm is that she was born in 1953 in Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She went into showbuisness very young and recorded her first album with 16 with the group The Black Sisters. Regina then traveled to Barcelona, Spain in 1985 where she appeared in various tv shows like La Casa Por La Ventana, the Angel Casas Show, Paradise Tropical or Por La Manana. Following that she worked exclusively for the Telecinco on Que Tiempo Tan Feliz, Salvame and Pasapalabra and recorded ten albums.
Once again I have selected the best five live performances starting with a red dress with a big cleavage that becomes more generous as we go along until the best two outfits, a transparent number that really leaves nothing to the imagination and a tight fitting black leather suit where the tiny top is not even trying to contain her huge melons. I was thinking of adding the tag of wardrobe malfunction for the final one but it´s not really a malfunction if it does what it was designed to do. And yes, that are no colored pieces of duct tape you can see those are Regina´s dos nipples.
Okay, actually this are six videos but since Regina Dios Santo is wearing the same dress in the first two performances I am counting them as one.
It´s back to comics and since I skipped almost all birthdays of Today I´m trying my hand at a completely Daredevil themed part here. As readers of Erik Larsen´s excellent Savage Dragon and afficionados of Golden Age super heroes know Matt Murdock was not the first crime fighter to use the monicker of Daredevil so here is some knowledge about the original boomerang wielding vigilante who outsold even Superman and Batman.
Speaking of firsts, some of the younger readers might not know that although the current Daredevil series is quite excellent - especially the episodes guest starring the Punisher - it wasn´t the first time that old hornhead slung across the small screen. That ´s right, after the end of the tv series three tv movies were produced to lead into a new series and which featured two other Marvel heroes. The Incredible Hulk Returns brought us a stoner´s version of Thor and The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk featured Daredevil or how he was called in german Der Ritter, the Knight.
The movie has a few problems one of them being Daredevil´s costume. And not so much the fact that it is black instead of red like in the comics - which they totally swiped the look for the Netflix show - but that the design clearly tells you that the man who is wearing it must be blind.
So giving up your greatest tactical advantage - not a great idea, Matty boy. Another thing where the movie loses points is the Kingpin who doesn´t look like the Kingpin. As the story goes John Rhys - Davis ( whom the older readers might know from SLIDERS with sci fi sexbomb Kari Wuhrer )
had no idea how the character he was going to play looked in the comic books and when he found out he refused to shave his head - or wear a prosthetic. In any case, with the way the current Marvel movies are going even the " Odin ! " Thor from the tv shows is more of a real Thor than the latest Disney princess version and likewise The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk looks pretty good. Here is a clip with Rex " Street Hawk " Smith and he´s one intense Matt Murdock. By the way, the third tv movie The Death Of The Incredible Hulk was supposed to feature She Hulk - Brigitte Nielsen after her She Hulk movie fell through - but that wasn´t happening. Later on Iron Man was announced as the new co star but that also got nixed.
Where Daredevil looked like Daredevil and Kingpin looked like Kingpin was the animated Spider - Man series. Here the only character who didn´t look like his comic book counterpart was Peter Parker. Which was one of the reasons why I didn´t watch that many episodes. In the comic books John Romita Sr. already had changed his look from puny bookwormish Parker to a more athletic teenager who could believably hang out with such hot babes like Gwen Stacy or Mary " Go Go Girl " Jane Watson. But in the cartoon they amped Peter up even more who now looked like a jock on steroids.
Besides that the cartoon show was a lot of fun because not only did they always have different takes on the characters we all knew and loved - thus generating an interesting Elseworlds or better What If ? universe like the mega popular X - Men cartoon - they also threw in everything including the kitchen sink and so each episode was paced at breakneck speed and crammed with as much comic book goodness as they could get away with.
To come back to our topic here is a video about an issue of Daredevil by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr and Al Williamson that´s actually included in the Epic Collection Heart Of Darkness which I highly recommend as well as A Touch Of Thyphoid. With those two out the only Daredevil issues by John Romita Jr that are not in trade are issues 250 to 252 but I guess they will put that into another Epic Collection which probably starts with issue 236 since it was Ann Nocenti´s first issue on the title and thus far they have rather leaned towards collecting runs of writers than of the artists.
This would have been the end under regular conditions but because I have written so long on this post I wanted to add a little something something extra for my faithful readers who hung in there. And because there are some things that I have to put on the blog as soon as possible. A few months ago I found out that like Tex Wiler another famous italian comic book series was adapted as a movie but so far I hadn´t found Diabolik.
Well, not only are there a lot of documentaries and reviews about this movie that has become a cult classic since its release in 1968 you can also watch the complete movie. Here is the english language version and I will write a bit more about the background of the most famous comic book in Italy when I continue with the spanish version and other Diabolik videos.
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If you didnt see him .... he´s there.
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