The reason why I´m even doing this post Today is that I am waiting until I can watch the newest episode of THE FLASH and since I already have all the stuff for this post prepared I thought I could at least post the main part. As the rest of the post can take a few days to finish. Now Today I got vol 9 of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS - FANTASTIC FOUR that I ordered from amazon´s new & used books section for half price and as it so often happens it was not in pristine condition. There was a special plastic dust jacket above the original dust jacket because somebody had cut into it and from the looks of it this was not new as advertised but rather used. The first two pages are also damaged and you can see that the book has been read a lot. Mind you, I´m not complaining. When you buy from the new & used books section it always is a game of chance and sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. Unless the book is in really bad condition or there are pages missing I don´t send them back. And while this copy had a lot of wear and tear all the pages are there and apart from the dust jacket - that I fixed with duct tape - it´s condition is good enough.
Aside from this book I ordered another vol of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS - FANTASTIC FOUR but the other one will not arrive until in two or three weeks. Now I got both at half price but I thought this one would be the one I´m not so excited about. It´s been a while since I read these stories - probably through my brothers ESSENTIAL phone books - and I didn´t remember anything about them. So I bought them mostly as collateral or to give them as a gift when I don´t have the time to buy one. Which I now can´t do because of it´s condition. Aynway, Today I read the whole thing in one sitting because I couldn´t put it down. I don´t know if I have mentioned that I am currently trying to make comics again because I have the feeling the support from the jobcenter is slowly running out. But as someone trying to get an idea for a comic this was like a masterclass on how to do it. There are so many problems you face when you are trying to put pencil to paper but here you see how Jack Kirby solves them all.
And let´s not forget Stan Lee´s writing. He often gets flack for taking credit for other people´s work or at least not giving enough credit where credit is due. But man, this guy can write. Anyway, the issues in volume 9 from MARVEL MASTERWORKS - FANTASTIC FOUR are number 82 to 93 and I was so hyped after reading them that I needed to put this fantastic art on the blog ASAP and not wait until the next anniversary of Jack Kirby´s birthday which seems to be the only time when I get to do these posts.
As always there are a few websites I want to link to and people I have to acknowledge starting with Dan Greenfield since I used five original pages from his preview of Jack Kirby´s Fantastic Four Artist´s Edition ( which I will only be able to afford if I win the lottery ) on 13TH DIMENSION in this post. That website should be familiar to frequent visitors of TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN as I have linked to it many times and you can always find new cool stuff there like The Top 13 Star Wars Variant Covers or The 13 Greatest Horror Comics Ever . And if you decide to check out any of his other posts you can mention in the comments that Subzero sent you.
I don´t know how big the odds are to have two guys with the word field or feld in their name in the same post but KLEEFELD ON COMICS has a few cover homages to Fantastic Four 82 and I might just do one of my popular DEJA VU post on this subject in the future. Since this post is about comic book art here are a few links for the PENCIL INK blog where you can find the obligatory cover and one page of interior art from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby´s Fantastic Four 83 , Fantastic Four 86 and Fantastic Four 93 as well as Chris Claremont and John Byrne´s X - Men 112 , X - Men 114 and X - Men 115 plus Marvel Spotlight 6 featuring Ghost Rider by Mike Ploog to whom we will return in a few moments ( Ghost Rider, not Mike Ploog ).
Now something that is only loosely connected to this post ( to Fantastic Four issue 91 to be exact ) is Doctor Glen Downey´s article Everything I Know I Learned From Comics on the SEQUART website and it is reassuring to know that I wasn´t the only boy who read those Trixie Belden books.
I think it is kind of fitting that we start Today´s short but star studded entertainment section with Chloe Bennet´s 26th birthday who is best known for her role of Skye / Daisy on Marvel´s Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. as Nick Fury and his secret spy organization always popped up in issues of Fantastic Four. Chloe´s is undeniably grade - a future wife material as you first fall in love with her character, then you begin to realize her hotness and it´s as early as episode three of the first season where she becomes this ultimate woman where you go : " Bathe her and bring her to me. She will make a wife AND a mistress and I think I will tame this one myself. "
Now you might think this is once again my obsession with asian women at work but that´s not it since I thought she was hot long before I found out that she is half chinese. She also is very funny which makes her my kind of dream girl although I don´t know if she´s into guys who are twice her age.
Right now I have fallen behind with a lot of my favorite shows like iZombie or Sleepy Hollow and especially Marvel´s Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. I guess I´m afraid that they will punk me like in the last season where there was this giant buzz on the internet that Ghost Rider would be in it and I was so pumped to see Ghost Rider on that show - and then we got this new Ghost Driver nonsense. Now don´t get me wrong, the special effects were pretty decent and at least better than the last movie version ( since it is probably impossible to do a version of Ghost Rider that is worse ) and the character was interesting enough but I have a hard time being scared of a guy with a flaming skull who drives a car. I mean, when it´s a demon on a motorcycle you get the impression that he is going to get you any second.
But when he´s sitting comfortably in a car the danger doesn´t seem so immediate. You almost automatically go : " Well, that is a skeleton with a flaming skull BUT he has to get out of the car first. " It´s not a motorcycle where he doesn´t have to get off to injure you since he can just drive by and grab you. As long as he is behind the wheel you can delude yourself into being able to escape. Because he´s still in the car. Even if he gets out of the car, a demon who drives a car is probably not as badass as a demon who drives a motorcycle. So even if he attacks you you can go : " Well, at least he´s not one of these scary biker demons. Those are really violent. But this one, I can reason with him. We both drive cars. Maybe if I can get him a discount on repairs. " Because the other thing is when his skull is on fire why doesn´t he burn up the driver´s seat ? With all the changes they made on this show and in the Marvel movies you just know that somebody wanted that The Fast & The Furious money so they went with the new Ghost Driver crap instead of doing the classic version that just kicks ass.
Or the 90s version by Javier Saltares and Mark Texiera. That would have been the best. So yes, I haven´t watched any episodes of the current season of Marvel´s Agents of S. H. I. E. L, D. I was looking on amazon if the first seasons are cheaper now but I guess I will have to wait until there is another special sale with bargain prices for DVDs or BlueRays.
Coming back to Chloe Bennet, at this point it is common knowledge that she has a past as a popstar and while she always cringes about it and calls it the five minutes she was a k - pop star you have to consider that most of us lowly Alpha Primitives don´t even get those five minutes of fame.
What is a bit crazy is that I have mentioned Chloe Bennet four times on the blog so far but never on her birthday. Some reader think it would be better if I skipped all the stuff about celebrities and birthdays but these are the only occassions where I am reminded of all the things I forget and see what certain people - in and out of the comic business - are up to.
Which is why I added the following clips from Jimmy Kimmel ( why can´t they just make one video with her full appearance instead of these short clips ? ). I don´t watch as many talk shows as I used to but I catch one here and there and the reason why I like them is that you always learn new things. And just when I thought she could not be more perfect we learn that besides being an actress, a talented singer who is funny and hot she also okay, I´m not going to put any double meaning here, she can play the saxophone too which may be the sexiest instrument on the planet.
Staying in the realm of geek culture we are making the transition from american super heroes to british timelords with David Tennant who turns 47. He is one of the most popular Doctors of New Who and he also was my favorite Doctor. When the series started in Germany they showed season one continuously but I think somewhere between season two and season three they changed the schedule which they do every time the ratings doesn´t meet their expectations. On the other hand some shows - mostly the ones I have no interest in - manage to stay fixed at prime time spots for years. In any way it wasn´t before I found The End Of Time on the internet that I was really hooked and then went back to find all of David Tennant´s episodes. He became my Doctor and every time the series was on hiatus I went back to watch the classic episodes. At this point I think I have seen all that are available ( and let me tell you it´s a chore to watch some of the restored ones, I pretty much prefer the animated versions ) so I have to find something else to tide me over until autumn when the next season starts. So far there has been a lot of negative vibes because the Doctor is now female but I will wait and see before making any kind of judgement. I mean, how bad can it be after what Peter Capaldi had to suffer through ? It was only in his last episodes that he really got to show his full range. Sometimes I feel the writers are very good at sending off the Doctor but don´t know what to do with him in the regular episodes.
I know that David Tennant has played other roles aside from the Doctor since he appeared in Jessica Jones - and I have written about that on the blog - but it´s the part that sticks with people. Which is why I initially wanted to post a Doctor Who video with David but I either already posted all of them or deleted all of those bookmarks. Either way I couldn´t find any but luckily I had bookmarked a video that shows all of the roles he has played. One of the reasons why I think he was such a good Doctor is that besides being a Doctor Who fan since he was a boy is his ability to go from hilariously funny to super confident and heroic or deadly serious and scary powerful at the drop of a hat. One of these days I really have to start watching the first season of Broadchurch which still waits on my desk.
One reason why I could not find a good Doctor Who video with David Tennant is that there are almost no complete episodes on YouTube. So when I found Revenge of the Cyberman I had to put it on the blog ASAP.
It´s a story with Tom Baker who is probably one of the few Doctors who is even more revered than David and the lovely Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. By the way, if you haven´t seen The Sarah Jane Adventures yet check them out. Besides being targeted at kids it´s a pretty decent series and there is even a guest appearance by David Tennant. When I watched that it was like finding one of the lost Doctor Who episodes.
Since we already have Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel in this post why not complete the late night talk show host trifecta with Conan O´Brien who celebrates his 55th birthday ? He often proclaims that he was a geek in school but while I have no doubt that he was bullied because of his looks the lack of basic comic book knowledge suggests he has not read that many comics in his life. With that said I could have added another video with a sexy female from his show ( or one with somebody from the cast of Doctor Who ) but since there are so many super hero movies being made every year now I chose one where he gets transformed into a super hero himself. Or at least into what people nowadays THINK is a superhero.
Usually I prefer videos where you see some art over ones where it is just one guy talking but I have already posted all documentaries about Jack Kirby and this one is a bit more upbeat than The Sadness of Jack Kirby.
This is also not really something new since I already posted some of the original episodes and one of the german dubbed episodes - where you get the bonus of hearing the german voice of Homer Simpson as Ben Grimm - but I haven´t posted a spanish episode yet. Once again I have to mention the Thing who in Spain is known as la mole which doesn´t have anything to do with tacos. And even though it sounds like the english word mole it has a different meaning ( otherwise he would be the Mole Man in spain ). The word means either bulk - which sounds almost like Hulk - or mass which also is very near to the spanish translation for the Hulk la Masa.
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A word to the wise ain´t necessary - it´s the stupid ones who need the advice.
2 comments:
The thing about Stan Lee was that he has an awful memory. It is why you get Peter Parker, Paste Pot Pete and so on...it helps with name recall. Mainly it is people in comics or other media who say "Stan Lee created...." and he himself -there ARE plenty of interviews in print and on You Tube- states "Jack and I" or "Steve and I" -he has always given credit where credit is due. You'll note in interviews if asked about a certain character and someone says "When you created---" he'll respond "If you say so!" There are a lot of comical incidents such as when he told people at Marvel Iron Man HAD to have a nose on the helmet. Months later "Who put that nose on the helmet -it looks awful!" or his Alter Ego interview with Roy Thomas where Roy basically answered all the questions because Stan could not remember. He's said many times it isn't a matter that concerns him and people kept panicking over his forgetfulness: "I've always been like that!"
I watched Jim Starlin on an interview recently when he mentioned Stan and the "Marvel method" and how, while explaining a scene Stan would jump onto the desk and act it out.
People like Alan Moore like to paint Lee as a villain yet Moore never worked for him or dealt with him. He even lies about Lee's own experience in comics.
Now we have Stan shocked and puzzled at 95 as he is the centre of lies -against him, or about his situation. This is how we repay heroes who MADE the comic industry.
I don't catch any of the TV shows as I have no TV and nothing to play DVDs on so I only saw Agents of SHIELD up to season 3? I did enjoy it. I also enjoyed Ghost Rider 1 the movie.
Oddly a Ghost Driver is NOT that scary. There was an old episode of Kolchak: Night Stalker in which a biker gang was haunted by a headless motorbiker -motorcycles can chase you into a lot of corners without hesitation. In a car? "Wait a minute I need to see if I can find a parking space....have you got change for the parking meter? HEY! Where did you go??!"
Yeah -get back into comics, Man. Suffer loike the rest of us! LOL!!
There are a few horror movies with cars but it´s mostly cars that have no driver. That is much scarier than a car with somebody behind the wheel even if it is a guy with a flaming skull. The whole car thing makes it less frightening because that´s what your Dad drives.
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