I first skipped it for a post about artist Greg Laroque and his contribution to THE LEGION OF SUPER - HEROES and then it got pushed back again for my latest post about Doug Moench´s brilliant series SHANG - CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU . But Today´s post is about Tom Peyer. His name may not appear on a lot of best comic writers lists but he wrote a lot of books with the Legion of Super - Heroes during what is affectionately - and by some fans not so affectionately - called the Threeboot Legion as well as some of the ancillary titles like L.E.G.I.O.N. 93 or R.E.B.E.L.S. 94 which I enjoyed.
I did a special post for Tom Peyer in 2017 and I still had a lot of covers left from that so making a new post should have been like a walk in the park.
Or so you might think. To add another wrinkle I didn´t want to make it just about one of the many series he wrote so finding the right mix was a bit difficult. And since he worked on the Threeboot Legion and Alan Davis did a lot of the covers I was sorely tempted to do a post mainly with his art but decided against it. Because I have finally enough high quality material for an Alan Davis Legion of Super - Heroes post so I am only going to include one or maybe two original Alan Davis covers in this Tom Peyer post and only pieces where I got a second version of much better quality.
Coming back to the Tom Peyer post that almost happened, I already had selected all the art and was all set to go BUT it was Oscar night and that fiasko delayed it for another day. And when I saw that that day it would have been Greg LaRocque´s birthday anyway I decided the Tom Peyer post was already so late that another few days wouldn´t matter. A few days turned into a few weeks - as so often on this blog - but another thing you can count on is that while some posts don´t get on the blog as planned they are not forgotten, only delayed. And now without any further ado here are some of the comics where you can find Tom Peyer´s wordsmiting.
We start the entertainment section with the birthdays I missed since my last post and on March the 8th we had Cynthia Rothrock who turned 62.
She was not only one the biggest martial arts ladies of the 80s and 90s, the sizzling sexpot was the main inspiration for Mortal Combat´s Sonya Blade.
But the reason why I had to include her in this post is that originally my last post should have been about her. You see, I wanted to finally give her her own cult siren post but then I stumbled over Tylene Buck´s birthday so I decided to do a re - post for Tylene since my last post about her was two years ago and as usual that was that. I thought I could do both posts very quick but that never works out. In any case I would have only re - posted what I wrote about Cynthia Rothrock in this post anyway so it´s not a big deal that I didn´t do a new post. The post had some general thoughts of yours truly about Cynthia but the main part is about Tiger Claws where Cynthia Rothrock plays a female cop who dresses up as a hooker in the opening sequence - and practically showcases her big boobs throughout the movie. So if you have not seen it definitely go and check it out.
When I first saw that movie I was not prepared for Cynthia´s giant double airbags and I wondered when she got such huge melons and where she had been hiding those amazing sweater puppies all the time. I did a bit of research and it´s rumored that she got some 34C - 25 - 34 enhancements.
Today´s SJW´s are always talking about female empowerment but back in the 80s Cynthia Rothrock was living it as she was not only a trailblazer for women - not only was she the first woman to be featured on the cover of a martial arts mag the still undefeated five time World Karate Champion who holds five black belts was the first to win a man´s championship - she also got paid to beat men up. And the better and more thorough she beat them up the more she got paid. That´s like the ultimate feminist dream.
In all seriousness, at a time when most caucasians were cast in Hong Kong movies as either the villains or comic relief she played the main heroine.
Cynthia Rothrock always wanted to do riskier scenes and was willing to show even more skin ( after all what is the use of training your body to physical perfection if you can´t show it ? Especially if you are an actress where your body is one of your main factors determining what roles you get and what you are paid. ) but her agent always vetoed it who for some reason thought it would hurt her market value as a female martial arts star if she did nude scenes. Thankfully buxom Cynthia did manage to get her way in many Femme Fatales issues much to the delight of her male fans.
And she was finally allowed to strut her stuff on screen in movies like Fatal Passion, Undefeatable and especially Sworn to Justice which does not only star Cynthia in the title role of a woman out on revenge but also was produced by her. So you know that it is going to kick ass. It also shows ass since the top heavy blonde is aware what movie goers want and so shows a lot of her body. She even serves up a brief look at her twin trophies in a lovemaking scene. It’s her only skin onscreen to date, so enjoy it guys !
Speaking of busty blondes taking off clothes in martial arts movies, while I´m a big Cynthia Rothrock fan the best part of China O´Brian II is Melanie Good with legs that almost go up to her chin who is better than good. Or is it she is good at being bad since she plays a stripping contract killer ?
Instead of another movie that gets deleted before long here is an episode of Durch die Nacht ( Through The Night ) with Cynthia Rothrock and one of her most frequent on screen partners Richard Norton. His name is burned in my brain since I watched the credits - I think for Shanghai Express - and everything was in japanese kanji when all of a sudden there was Richard Norton in roman letters. Than it was back to the japanese symbols. Man, I was laughing so hard. Durch die Nacht follows two celebrities - who may know each other or not - through one night and the episodes are quite interesting. Like most of the good stuff on german tv featuring art, pop culture things or movies it is produced by the french channel arte.
Deja vu, the strange feeling you have seen or experienced something before. In this case it´s hasian sexbomb Leia Meow which actually was in the aforementioned Tylene Buck a.k.a. Major Gunns post. I thought I was finished but going through my old posts I found out that Rick Steiner´s birthday is not on the 7th of March but on the 9th so this belongs into this post. Anyway, Rick Steiner turned 58 on March the 9th and the thing I always remember is the time they always brought Leia Meow to the ring. Not only did she have a porn name she also had the huge oppais for it.
Leia a.k.a. Kristina Laum was the manager of the Jung Dragons and she always got lots of attention for her hot outfits although she also has wrestling skills and could put a Frankensteiner on Jamie Noble if necessary.
Leia started at ECW under the name of Kimona Wanalaya and besides sharing a lesbian kiss with Beulah her biggest claim to fame was her infamous striptease ( sorry for the bad quality of the videos ) during a long intermission after the ring broke at an ECW event. Also longtime wrestling fans might recall that she was with Rick and Scott Steiner when they were called the Varsity Club. Now I don´t care under which name the Steiner Brothers wrestle since they are a top notch tag team but because of the whole college boys angle Leia Meow dressed up as a cheerleader .
Maybe someone out there can help me out and knows from which match the animated GIF above is and where I can find the video on YouTube.
Coming back to Rick Steiner his brother Scott is the more successful one who became a member of the NWO as Big Poppa Pump. And I could have included one of the many videos I bookmarked with him and his freaks.
But since it is Rick´s birthday I went through all the episodes of Catch Up to find one that included a match with the Steiner Brothers. Man, lately I am really on a nostalgia trip. In my last post I wrote a lot about the glory days of wrestling with sexbombs like Tylene Buck - and the 90s cult strip show Tutti Frutti which among the many women who took their clothes off featured Becky Mullen who appeared in Andy Sidaris movies and the wrestling show G.L.O.W. - and Today we are back to when wrestling was not " sports entertainment " but simply good and clean entertainment.
We start Todays roll call of celebrity anniversaries with Ela Weber who turns 53. Longtime readers may remember her since one of the very first animated GIFs I posted on this blog was of her erection inducing cleavage.
Born in Dettelbach, Bavaria, Germany as Manuela Hannelore Weber like so many others before her Ela had to go abroad to be successful. It´s not like she didn´t try to make it here. Ela appeared in Flieg mit Air - tl ( yep, that´s the kind of witty puns you get from german tv shows ) with Frank Elstner and applied as a host for Peep ! replacing Dieter Bohlen´s ex sex toy the exotic half sudanese Nadja Abd El Farrag. Who pretty much run the show into the ground after Dieter Bohlen´s former blow up sex doll the 34C mega MILF Verona Feldbusch made the show a huge success.
Ela would have led the show to new heights but she quit when the bosses of RTL 2 wanted to have sole control of the videos shown in the show. She also wasn´t happy with the way german shows present women in general :
" They make women come across the television screens as plain Janes. If you see the ladies on the street after the show they are better dressed and have better make up. They are almost glowing. It´s unbelievable ! "
In the late 1980s she moved to Italy where they were more appreciative of her qualities and Ela used her breast assets to the best of her abilities :
" I go completely overboard depicting the femininity of the infamous german Busenwunder. I play the caricature of the blonde sexbomb. "
Ela became famous for her various tv appearances where she displayed her titanic teutonic 36D twin torpedoes be it as a guest on such shows like Quelli Che Il Calcio with italian real life Power Girl Federica Ridolfi and the often re - posted italian mega soccer MILF Simona Ventura or as a member of the cast of such variety shows like Scherzi Aparte and Stranamore.
The former gas station owner turned model / showgirl got her big break as the assistant of Paolo Bonolis and became known to a bigger audience when she started co - hosting the Canale 5 quiz show Tira E Molla.
With such hugely developed star qual - titties it would have been crazy not to use it for the big screen and Ela has appeared in such movies as Uomini Senza Donna, A Spasso Nel Tempo, Mucho Macho and Se Lo Fai Sono Guai where she played the Doctor I wish I had during my rehab.
As a model she used her fascinating features as a spokesmodel for Playtex and her mouthwatering 36D - 24 - 36 measurements that are guaranteed to skyrocket the sales numbers of any men´s magazines can be enjoyed in a nude calendar shoot for Auto Oggi and the german edition of the PLAYBOY.
And she is very popular with the italian viewers - especially the male ones - because of her giant melons which she presents in plunging cleavages and skimpy outfits which have led to various hot wardrobe malfunctions .
With her huge set of lungs it was only a matter of time before Ela turned her attention to singing especially since her body was made for videos.
We are staying with music and another model turned actress, Leslie Parrish who celebrates her 84th birthday. Although I am not 100 % sure about that since her american wikipedia entry states her birthday is on the 18th of March. Leslie started as a talented and promising piano and composition student at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and became a model because it earned more than as a waitress or piano teacher. She was Miss Color TV where she was the human test pattern to check the accuracy of skin tones during broadcasts but it soon became apparent that she was destined for greater things. Her first big role was in the 1959 Lil Abner musical which is the only reason why I knew her name in the first place.
Usually I list some of the birthday candidates credits but then I read that she appeared in more than 100 tv shows including Batman and Star Trek so maybe we can skip this part just for once. Coming back to the first time I saw anything with Leslie Parrish it all goes back to a video with her from the Lil Abner musical I found on YouTube. This was back when the movie people still gave a damn about being true to the original source material.
So far I haven´t found this movie which has a great cast that even includes Julie Newmar and Jerry Lewis in this little scene anywhere.
Speaking of source material, the movie was adapted from the hit 1956 Broadway musical which in turn was - naturally - based on the satirical comic strip by Al Capp that ran for 43 years, was translated in 28 countries and had a profound influence on the way the world viewed the American South. With such a successful basis it´s no surprise this wasn´t the first Lil Abner movie. The first one is from 1940 and don´t let the preview picture fool you it is in black and white. It does feature Buster Keaton.
They also tried to get a tv show off the ground but for some reason it didn´t get approved. You can find a few parts of the unsold tv pilot.
I could write a whole post just about Lil Abner although to tell the truth I don´t know that much about the comic strip except that Frank Frazetta did some of his earliest work ghosting for Al Capp. Anyway, there also was a Lil Abner cartoon and the first ones I found were in black and white but in the intro it said " In Technicolor " so I dug a bit deeper and found one.
Now you might think that it´s difficult to find a segueway from Lil Abner to our next birthday candidate but when Harvey Kurtzman created MAD magazine he was heavily influenced by the art of humor you could find in Al Capp´s comic strip. One of the indispensable contributors to MAD is Al Jaffe who turns 98 and who not only did a ton of the usual parodies but also his famous Clever Answers To Stupid Questions and he earned himself a place in the comic book history books as the inventor of the MAD fold in pages we all love ( you can find 13 of these over at 13th DIMENSION ).
The title of the video below is a bit misleading because while EC Comics William Gaines outsmarted the Comics Code Authority by publishing MAD in magazine form which did not fall under their jurisdiction I don´t think Al Jaffe had a lot to do with it. The video still has some insights about how the first MAD fold - in was created and about Al Jaffe´s work process.
We close Today´s post with a new entry in our Dearly Departed section with Herbert Fleischmann. He appeared in one of my favorite series Graf Yoster gibt sich die Ehre as well as in Kara Ben Nemsi Effendi, Drei Männer im Schnee, Der Kommissar, Es muß nicht immer Kaviar sein, Tatort, Geschichten aus der Zukunft or Derrick although he is probably known best for his role of Dr. Schiller on the german sci fi cult classic Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Orion.
Fun fact : Wolfgang Völz who played Mario de Monti on Raumpatrouille also portrayed ex - con turned butler / sidekick Johann of Graf Yoster.
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Th´ ideel o´ ev´ry one hunnerd percent, red - blooded American boy !
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