But for me the first thing I think about when I hear the name Mike Mignola is not Hellboy. Being a somewhat older comic reader I remember when he worked on mainstream super hero books. The Mike Mignola I discovered when I started to read american comics drew The Incredible Hulk, Alpha Flight or the first series about a gun toting flying space squirrel. Yep,nowadays probably nobody remembers that it was Mike Mignola who helped bring Rocket Racoon to a wider comic reading audience. But I wrote about this in great length in a post on Mike Mignola I did in 2016 .
He also drew some astonishing covers for CLASSIC X - MEN or how it was called at this point X - MEN CLASSIC. I have no idea why Marvel Comics decided to flip the title. I mean, I can understand that they changed WEST COAST AVENGERS to AVENGERS WEST COAST. That way people who read the AVENGERS and who might not know that they had a secondary title might find the book more easily. Anyway, they have done a reprint of CLASSIC X - MEN. Well, kind of. For those who have never read the series, this came out at a time when comicbook companies did almost no trades or hardcovers except for the essential ones like THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA or THE JUDAS CONTRACT. So the only way to get back issues of UNCANNY X - MEN was to buy the actual back issues. Which were very expensive.
So Marvel Comics launched a series that reprinted the issues. BUT instead of just reprinting the issues Chris Claremont went back in and added extra pages with new content that was meant to flesh out the character better and correct any continuity or story errors. And as the icing on top they also did back up stories for those issues that originally had less than 22 pages. Yes, some people may not know this but when the new X - Men team started the regular comicbook issue had 17 pages. So don´t you complain that it´s difficult to write a good done - in - one story in 22 pages because Chris Claremont did it in 17 pages. Anyway, coming back to the omnibus, while reprinting the back up stories - which have some great art by such artists like Brian Bolton or Jim Lee - is pretty easy it´s the extra content that is the problem. Either you put in the full issue ( which feels like a cheap way to resell the UNCANNY X - MEN omnibus volume 1 to 3 ) or you just reprint the extra pages and what was changed with some comments ( which makes it a bit hard to read because you need the other omnibus ). Marvel decided to go with the second option because otherwise they would have lost the few readers they still got but it´s not the perfect solution. I think one reviewer said it best, comparing the book to the extras on a DVD or the director´s cut. In any case the series had really beautiful covers by such great artists like Arthur Adams, Steve Lightle, Adam Hughes or Mike Mignola which brings us back full circle.
As for Mike Mignola´s HELLBOY universe I have to confess that I fell a bit off the bandwagon. I was buying the german hardcovers as presents for my brother on a regular basis ( they are smaller than the US trades but Mike Mignola himself has gone on record that this is his favorite reprint format and who am I to argue with such a master ? ) but I kind of lost track after THE WILD HUNT. Probably because it was not drawn by Mike Mignola. Now I don´t mind some of the artists who have illustrated some of the HELLBOY stories, especially when it´s someone of the caliber of Richard Corben. But I keep putting off buying the new HELLBOY stuff.
I also have a few of the german B. R. P. D. hardcovers - which I got dirt cheap from the comicbooks per kilo section of the Sammlerecke in Esslingen together with a HELLBOY hardcover by Richard Corben - but I don´t think I will read those on a regular basis unless I find more in the bargain section. Speaking about the Sammlerecke shop in Esslingen and bargains, last weekend ( well, actually this weekend from the time this is dated but last weekend from the time I am writing this ) I went there because they were celebrating BATMAN DAY - 80 years of Batman - and usually I don´t make the long trek out there very often. But they had a special sale where a lot of US trades were half price and I may do a post on my comic haul from that day but among the few books I got were the 2nd and 4th hardcover of the BALTIMORE series, written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden and drawn by Ben Stenbeck, THE CURSE BELLS and CHAPEL OF BONES. I had read something from the series in a FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issue and always meant to try out the series. Now I won´t say it´s reinventing the wheel where horror comics are concerned ( since I also did buy the first hardcover of EC Comics classic but lesser known SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES which did that ) but it´s solid horror entertainment with fantastic art and if you like HELLBOY you will definitely enjoy this.
And with a price of 25 bucks for two hardcovers I really can´t complain.
Coming back to our birthday list you can find more candidates from the 16th of September in the aforementioned Mike Mignola post which also include writer Kurt Busiek. Whom a lot of people - myself included - still get mixed up with Mark Waid. Just remember, Mark Waid is the guy who is going crazy on social media. Anyway, when I did a tribute post for Kurt Busiek in 2017 initially I wanted to do a post about all the series he has written - most of which I have read with great enthusiasm. But I quickly came to the realization that I don´t have a lot of material one some of them - like THUNDERBOLTS, UNTOLD TALES OF SPIDER - MAN or POWER COMPANY - while I´ve done numerous posts about others like ASTRO CITY .
So instead I did a spotlight post about Kurt Busiek´s run on AVENGERS with George Perez since that gave me an excuse to put more George Perez art on the blog. I still have enough original art for an entire series of posts on this book but as always I still have to prepare a lot of stuff like looking for all the color pages that correspond to the black and white art.
Also I don´t want to cram it in here with the Mike Mignola art since it deserves its own post. Which I hope will not be too far into the future.
Anyway, the Kurt Busiek post also has some choice anniversaries from the 15th and 16th of September and speaking of which I wanted to include one more birthday from Today since it not only falls into the category of cult sirens but also delves into horror movies, one of my favorite subjects.
One of the sexiest MILFs in Tinseltown Jennifer Tilly celebrates her 61st birthday and although she appeared in classics as Embrace Of The Vampire ( where her performance is overshadowed by Alyssa Milano´s naked breasts ), Liar Liar or Bound I never got to do a proper post on her.
Sexbomb Alyssa Milano ( who got two entries on this blog, the main post and the bonus round with her best episodes on CHARMED ) is of course best known as the most charming, sexiest and all around greatest of all the Halliwell witches, Phoebe Halliwell on the cult tv show Charmed.
According to some interviews she gave later she wasn´t so keen on some of the sexy outfits but Alyssa was the main reason why guys watched the show, it was all to see her shaking her hips as a sultry belly dancer with her tits hanging out or an almost naked mermaid. Also Alyssa was busy taming male co - stars Julian McMahon and Brian Krause as her personal sex slaves.
I did a re - post of Alyssa Milano´s cult siren entry on her birthday in 2016 and it is weird that she is trying to make herself the feminist figurehead of the Me Too movement with such actions like a proposal of a sex strike.
I wonder whom she is trying to make forget her nude roles, us or herself.
From the moment she showed her perfectly shaped tits to the world on Outer Limits - thanks to the lower restrictions of the Sci Fi Channel - it was clear this blow up sex doll was born for porn which she proved with her completely uninhibited sex scenes in Embrace Of The Vampire .
Which brings us full circle to horror movies and cult siren Jennifer Tilly. The brunette knocker knockout has slowly but surely built an impressive resume, including an Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1994 Woody Allen period comedy Bullets Over Broadway. Notorious for her squeaky voice which might alienate the squeamish of ear ( while turning on all others ) and her naturally large breasts, she has often displayed deep cleavage in photos as well as in movies. On occasions she is topless in movies, but rarely in full frontal form, though she did do a fully nude scene during the 2001 Broadway revival of the play The Women. Showing a good sense of humor, she parodied herself in Seed of Chucky in 2004.
Now I am not sure but I think the last Chucky movie I saw was Bride Of Chucky. I don´t think I have seen Seed Of Chucky and I´m definitely sure I have seen neither Curse Of Chucky nor Cult Of Chucky. Wow, I really do fall behind on my horror viewing and writing this section most often than not is my only way to catch up. Coming back to Jennifer at first she thought her career was over when she did her first Chucky movie but it seems that she has now embraced her new fan base. Together with her appearances on Family Guy she has really reinvented herself for a new generation.
Now last year I decided only to post one video of Jennifer Tilly which was extremely difficult. Even leaving all the movie clips aside that still leaves her oversexed appearances on Craig Ferguson´s Late Late Show or the episode of The Graham Norton Effect ( was this the program he did before The Graham Norton Show ? ) where she is rocking a huge cleavage.
But in light of the fact that I still have most of the Jennifer Tilly videos I bookmarked last year I am not even trying. Which brings us to the topic of the poker tournaments and to back this up a little Jennifer Tilly playing poker caught me completely by surprise. At that time they had started to show poker games on tv in Germany and to say the truth I just couldn´t stand it. It was on at least two tv stations and one of them showed them every day. And during every commercial break on any tv station you had to endure at least three commercials about playing poker. So naturally I did not watch any of it and when I found out what I missed I was of course devastated and had to turn to the internet to find clips on YouTube.
What really got me was that everybody was really excited about it which is no wonder since it´s not everyday that Jennifer puts her raunchy rack on display like that. Of course when you use such weapons of mass erection playing poker - and Jennifer had no problems distracting her opponents by showing off her gorgeous breasts - it plays with the imagination and there was a lot of sexual innuendo and play of words concerning that. The list goes from " huge pair ", " top pair ", " big flash " to everything else and words like " poker " suddenly sound like " poke her " and " going all in " had another meaning. To break the others concentration Jennifer made sure to bend over quite often even using the old " Oops, I have to pick up my bag. " excuse to give everyone present a good eyeful of her perfect 36C puppies. It´s a wonder ( or a shame ) they didn´t fall out of her dress.
Now for this I am re - posting the best clip of Jennifer Tilly playing poker and using her big pair to distract her opponents EVER !!! You can see by her smile that she´s fully aware that both guys are staring at her boobs.
The guy she tries to beat acts like he doesn´t notice that she is putting her twin torpedoes on display because he knows that once he takes a peek at her massive mounds of pleasure he is done for. But so does Jennifer who uses every dirty trick in the book like leaning forward, changing positions so she is shoving them in his face making sure he can´t help getting a good eyeful or putting her huge puppies on the table where they are better illuminated all the while thinking : " I´ll get you hard yet. "
They are both dissimulating and it looks like he´s praying for strength not to look at her and to keep his huge erection from breaking the table. I think this is called the cleavage standoff. In the end Jennifer´s clever tactics win : he has given up all resistance and is drooling all over her.
Since these kind of videos disappear very quickly on YouTube I want to include a few more of Jennifer Tilly´s breast poker playing videos I found while doing the research for this in case I have to replace any of them.
To bring it back to the main topic of the post - Mike Mignola´s mainstream work - here is a video about the graphic novel TRIUMPH AND TORMENT ( and this is a real graphic novel not just a collection of single issues as every comic is now called a graphic novel since even after decades of comicbooks being the main source for movies and tv shows people are embarrassed to get caught reading a comicbook ) with Marvel´s two doctors : Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom. The story was penned by Roger Stern who also did one of the best AVENGERS runs in history ( including the instant classic UNDER SIEGE story and the sadly underrated ASSAULT ON OLYMPUS ) about which we will talk more in our next post.
Although we kind of have the movie video covered with Jennifer Tilly´s Chucky interviews I want to include a complete movie because it´s a rare find. It´s The Broken Arrow ( or rather Der gebrochene Pfeil since it´s the german version ) with James Stewart and cult siren Debra Paget who some of my readers might remember from Fritz Lang´s double feature of The Tiger Of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb. Especially the second one has gone down in erotic movie history because of Debra´s ultrasexy dance in a barely there outfit that only got through the movie censors of that time through a miracle since it left nothing to the imagination. With her mega raunchy performance sexbomb Debra Paget shot entire generations of prepubescent boys into puberty prematurely and it´s no wonder that she received more horny fan letters than such ultimate silver screen sex icons like Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe after the movie hit theaters.
Debra doesn´t have a sexy dance scene in the movie, probably because she was only 15 when the movie was shot. The film is known for being one of the first major Westerns since the Second World War that portrayed the Indians - or better Native Americans how we say now - sympathetically.
Okay, I couldn´t resist including a few more videos with Debra Paget but only because I thought I had posted more with her. First up is another sexy dance of her and this one is from the movie Princess Of The Nile.
This is just one of the plethora of remixes of Debra Paget´s snake dance from The Indian Tomb on YouTube. The reason why I chose this particular video is that it really has a high quality and because it also has her ( a bit less sexy because also more clothed ) dance from The Tiger Of Eschnapur so you are getting two Debra Paget dance numbers for the price of one.
And last but not least here is a mind blowing re - enactment of the iconic sexy snake dance by the stunning Krystal Tini in homage to Debra Paget.
Because of Debra Paget I wanted to keep the Arabian Nights theme going and include an episode of the Sindbad cartoon I watched as a kid. But I could only find four minute clips. Although as I learned from my research, even if I had found a full german episode of the show it would not have been a complete episode. Because apparently they showed only 42 of 52 episodes in Germany and to add insult to injury they cut up the last 10 episodes, put parts of them into the other episodes which in turn often led to a lot of errors. And they also translated them all wrong. Sigh, the beauty of german tv entertainment. Thank you very much, ZDF people !
What I did find were a couple of completely different Sindbad cartoons. This one has much better production values than most of the other ones.
And apparently the Hanna - Barbera company had a show called Sindbad Jr. And His Magic Belt. When the heck did this happen ? This is priceless !
And then there was the tv show The Adventures Of Sinbad that aired after Hercules : The Legendary Jourenys and Xena became such huge succcesses. Originally I wanted to post the first episode and I only found the first part of it. Now the best part of the show was all natural big breasted 36C - 26 - 36 thoroughbred horsebreeder Jacqueline Collen ( whom you might have seen on other tv shows like Conan, Hercules or Pacific Blue ) even if she never showed her breast features to the fullest !
But she was not in the first part of the first episode so I went looking for another one and I swear I did not plan this but the first one I came across not only had much more of Jacqueline Collen but also Bret " The Hitman " Hart so I just stopped looking because there´s nothing that surpasses the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be, brother.
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If you got a name like Barack Obama, you´re supposed to fight.
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