Sunday Surprise with Jack Kirby´s Sandman

As I already mentioned in my last post, before I decided to post the full issue of SANDMAN 54 my plan was to do a post with original art by all the great artists who have worked on that title. And while I still want to do that post Today we are going to talk a bit about Jack Kirby´s Sandman.

Now as you may or may not be aware, when Neil Gaiman made his original pitch for THE SANDMAN he didn´t just create him out of thin air. What he proposed was a revamped version of the second super hero called The Sandman created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby who - ironically enough - was only scheduled for a one time appearance but got five more issues.

The reason why it´s ironic is that Neil Gaiman´s pitch was just for an eight issue series but the story just kept expanding in Neil´s head and there was always another part to tell until the series concluded with issue 75. 

Before we go further in medias res you are probably wondering who the first DC super hero who bore the name of The Sandman was. Which is no mystery for all fans of the Justice Society of America since it is Wesley Dodds who has not only appeared within the pages of the JSA´s own comics but he also had a very successful solo series and has appeared in various cartoon shows as well as on various tv shows like SMALLVILLE.

So when I read Neil Gaiman´s THE SANDMAN I knew of Wesley Dodds from the CRISIS crossovers I had read in my youth and from INFINITY INC which was one of the favorite series of my brother. Mind you, this was before the relaunch of the Justice Society of America by Geoff Johns and David S. Goyer and before I could get my hands on the SHOWCASE PRESENTS : ALL STAR SQUADRON. But I had a general idea who Wesley Dodds was.

Garret Sanford though was a blank page for me. I had no idea who he was or that he even existed before I saw him in Neil Gaiman´s SANDMAN series. This was in the days of pre - internet so you could not instantly google something and at first I thought that he was just a character Neil Gaiman had made up. But Neil being Neil not only did what he was tasked to do by DC - namely come up with a new version of the hero Sandman - he also integrated all the previous versions of the character into the story.

A lot of people think that SANDMAN is its own thing outside of the DC universe but in fact the book is peppered with references to DC series and you have such well known characters like J´onn J´onnz, the Martian Manhunter or John Constantine make guest appearances in early issues.

You also have Cain and Abel appear throughout the series who were the hosts of DC´s horror anthologies HOUSE OF MYSTERY and HOUSE OF SECRETS, Scott Free a.k.a. Mister Miracle shows up, one of the items Morpheus has to retrieve in the first story arc ends up in the hands of the old Justice League of America villain Doctor Destiny ( I always suspected that one reason why Neil Gaiman worked him into the story is that his name has two Ds since all the names of the endless also start with the letter D ), heck the entire issue 20 is about Element Girl from the Doom Patrol. So Neil Gaiman´s SANDMAN is deeply grounded in DC history.

So it should have been no surprise that the Sandman in the red and yellow costume was a character that already existed. In the SANDMAN series I think he first appears in issue 11 in the dreams of Rose´s missing brothers which looked a lot like Windsor McKay´s LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND.

Later in issue 12 we have this Sandman make a full appearance but it is not Garret Sanford but Hector Hall who became the Sandman Sanford´s death. Hector Hall had been the Silver Scarab previously and after Sanford killed himself Hector Hall used his body since his own had been destroyed but it was revealed in the SANDMAN issues by Neil Gaiman that he was really dead and he was reincarnated as the new Dr. Fate. Because comics.

Anway, in issue 12 we also have Sandman´s henchmen Brute and Glob ( or are they ? ) and Hector Hall´s wife Lyta Hall who is pregnant and her son Daniel will play an important role in Neil Gaiman´s SANDMAN down the line. But I´m afraid that will have to wait until our next SANDMAN post because this one is about Joe Simon and Jack Kirby´s SANDMAN even if I have not read the series yet. Emphasis on " yet " because SANDMAN issues 1 and 4 to 6 are part of the DC UNIVERSE : THE BRONZE AGE BY JACK KIRBY omnibus ( issues 2 and 3 were drawn by Ernie Chan so they only included the covers by Jack Kirby ) that I recently bought from amazon Germany.

And I wanted to go over the contents of this book. When this book was first announced I thought it was just a new version of THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS - VOLUME TWO which I had bought as a birthday present - also at a bargain price. But it´s much more than that. The 2nd Jack Kirby omnibus collects Jack Kirby´s stories from BLACK MAGIC 1 to 8, 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL 5 featuring Atlas, 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL 5 featuring the Manhunter ( the one Robert Kirk from the Walter Simonson series is based on, not the Martian Manhunter or the Manhunters from the MILLENIUM crossover ), 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL 6 featuring the Dingbats of Danger Street, RICHARD DRAGON - KUNG FU FIGHTER 3, KOBRA 1, THE SANDMAN 1 and 4 as well as the covers for issues 2 and 3, THE BEST OF DC 22, SUPER POWERS 1 to 5, DC COMICS PRESENTS 84 and issues 1 to 6 of the second SUPER POWERS series. All in all 624 pages of Jack Kirby goodness for a regular price of just 40 bucks.

The new DC UNIVERSE : THE BRONZE AGE BY JACK KIRBY omnibus has a regular price of 150 bucks but it also clocks in at a whopping 1472 pages.

So the question on everyone´s mind is : should I buy it if I don´t have the other omnibus and if I already have the the other omnibus is it worth it to upgrade ? To which I would answer in Radio Eriwan fashion : it depends.

Like in the previous omnibus there is " filler material ", stories that are only important for true Jack Kirby completists or material that would not appear in a collection of its own and which is used to fill out the volume.

But at least they tried not to repeat too much material. In the new book we have Jack Kirby´s stories from IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB 1 and 2, SPIRIT WORLD, FORBIDDEN TALES OF THE DARK MANSION 6 and WEIRD MYSTERY TALES 1 to 3 which are new. The material that is the same in both books are the 1ST ISSUE SPECIAL issues, KOBRA 1, RICHARD DRAGON - KUNG FU FIGHTER 3, the SANDMAN material ( which also includes THE BEST OF DC 22 as it contains a story that was originally slated to appear in SANDMAN issue 7 ), DC COMICS PRESENTS 84 and the two SUPER POWERS series.

Now comes the new material which I guess is the deciding factor if you should buy this. If you already have the OMAC hardcover or THE DEMON hardcover probably not since both series are included here. If - like me - you have none of those and don´t have the previous omnibus you might want to think about because you also get issues 151 to 162 featuring THE LOSERS. As usual you have to make up your own mind if you need this or not and to tell you the truth I don´t know if I would have bought it if it hadn´t been offered for 27 bucks. And that´s wraps up Today´s review.

We only have a few links Today but as always the fine folks over at THE PENCIL INK BLOG provided the cover plus a page of interior art from SANDMAN issues 4 , 5 and 6 and for those who have gotten a hankering for the red and yellow Sandman you can read the full issue 6 with pencils by Jack Kirby and inks done by Wally Wood on THE BRONZE AGE OF BLOGS .

Originally I wanted to include part two of how Jack Kirby created his Fourth World Saga at DC Comics but I think I will hold onto that a bit longer. But don´t fear, since I mentioned Little Nemo In Slumberland in the post here is a video for those that are unfamiliar with the comic strip.



While I have already put most of my Neil Gaiman videos in the first part of it there are still one or two to post. For this occassion I have chosen one about the three books that changed his life to show that we all start out as fans. I would like to say that I had a similar experience but in my case it was quite the opposite because very early on in life I read an article about how you can´t make a living in Germany as a comicbook artist ( which was written by a very embittered comicbook artist but I didn´t know that at the time ) which I believed and which kept me from pursuing my true purpose in life for many decades. I hope I can still make it happen though.



Returning to the asian sensation theme I wanted to post something new with the funny and sexy Jenny Babas. Originally I wanted to include the next chapters of Daddy Issues since it is her breast serial but going back to the older posts I realized that so far I have only posted the first three and she is already at chapter seven . So I´ve decided to include just one video with her but for all those that have fallen behind here are the links to chapter 4 , chapter 5 and chapter 6 of Daddy Issues. Anyway, here is Jenny in part 2 of That One Hoe Friend That Flirts With Everyone which I also picked because of the preview picture. I know the situation is played for laughs but Jenny´s hasian ass would be more than enough to make me cream my pants. Especially when she´s rubbing her juicy oppai in my face.



Speaking of ridiculously talented asians with an ass that just won´t quit it has been quite some time since I posted a video from k - pop band Miss A and more than two years since I posted their top five live performances .

As always I am late to the party here because Miss A - a South Korean girl group based in South Korea formed by JYP Entertainment in 2010 - has already disbanded. The group started with four members, but Meng Jia left in May 2016 while the other three remainded : Suzy, Fei and Lee Min Young who is the most important member because she´s my favorite.

Although I might be in the minority here because ti seems that so far Suzy and Fei have been the big fan favorites with Miss A followers while Min ( I will be using the abbreviated version of her name for most of the rest of the post ) only seems to have gotten more attention starting with the Good Girl Bad Girl video where she showed how incredibly flexible she is.

Now I am not saying that my taste is especially eclectic as I immediately was drawn to Min and you have to keep in mind that the first thing I saw of Miss A were their life performances of Hush where Min is already much sexier - at least according to what I could read on the internet. Anyway, in the Hush live gigs Min clearly stood out, not only because of her haunting voice ( which according to the in - depth vocal analysis on AMINO is the best in the group ) but also because she´s the first one you see and she is absolutely stunning. Especially with the shiny blue outfits which are very effective in bringing across her sexiness while still looking classy. Adding to that look is the jewelry which is a cross between a posh necklace and a sado maso slave chain which instantly reminds you of 50 shades of Grey type of sex practices. On top of that the blue outfit fits like a second skin that does not leave much to the imagination so when Min pulls out her best stripper moves you get the urge to chain her up in your bedroom.

In November 2017 Min left the group which was officially disbanded in December 2017. Since then she has appeared in a movie and a musical.

At first I wanted to include the rest of the live performances of Hush but instead I´m going with their top five performances of Bad Girl Good Girl ( I bet when Min is good she is very good but when she is bad she is even better ! ). Firstly because I don´t want to repeat myself but also because of Min. Who not only has some nice outfits but also shows she can spread her legs like a fillipino hooker. Daimn, girl ! Diana Rigg would be proud !

Can you imagine coming home and finding this blow up sex doll waiting in your bedroom doing the splits ? I hope her boyfriend gives it to her 24 / 7 the lucky stiff. Stiff being the operative word here because a sex freak like Min will keep you constantly erect with her superior asian lubrication.







I think there is an upside to the brake up of Miss A. Now that Lee Min Young is concentrating on a solo career in acting maybe she will take on roles that are a bit more risque. I could totally see her in a live action version of Urotsukidoji II - Legend of the Demonwomb as Negumi.

Okay, maybe that is reaching a bit high. Time to bring it down, Subzero.

But who knows ? Asian cinema is often imitating american movies so a korean version of Showgirls ( just not as tame as the american original ) might not be out of the question. Min already has the moves down to pat.

In any case I hope we haven´t seen the last of Lee Min Young ( although keeping up with her via internet is difficult since there seems to be an actor with the same name who always comes up when I´m Looking for Min ) and maybe they can put a scene like the one below in her next movie.



Speaking of asian cinema, we are staying with ladies with impressive moves in Eight Strikes Of The Wild Cat from The Wu Tang Collection. I´m not entirely sure what the connection with the rap group is though.



Finding a tv show that fits the topic of the post can always be a difficult task - especially when you don´t want to repeat yourself too often - and since there are none that I want to put on the post immediately I am posting one for my spanish readers. One of the series included in the DC Universe : The Bronze Age by Jack Kirby omnibus is In The Days Of The Mob so here is the first episode of The Untouchables - the tv show. And don´t let the color preview picture fool you, this is in black and white.



We are closing out with a cartoon that I  have already included in various posts before and I hope it has finally found a permanent home here.



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Things need not have happened to be true.

Happy birthday cosplay goddess Yaya Han !

As I promised here´s my post paying homage to this incredibly talented lady and I know that I am late but I wanted to have at least one comic related safe for work post just in case anything goes wrong with this post.

And since the safest bet to achieve that is not to write too much - and because I am constantly writing about Yaya Han - I´m not going to say too much and let you guess what connects the pictures I chose for this post for yourself. My regular readers already know the answer anyway and all other just have to go over my latest posts. Now like in my comic related posts I have kept it down to 23 pictures ( exceptions are posts with black and white original art since I always try to include the color version of it but only count both pictures as one ) and after I was done I was a bit embarrassed because I have posted pictures from at least half of these cosplays before and never noticed that thing they all have in common.

I guess I´m getting old or I just was too preoccupied with the other thing I mentioned to notice. Anyway, that is enough mysterious talk for now and before we come to the pictures of Yaya Han - which is the part you probably can´t wait for - I just want to mention again that even if one is in peak physical form the body does not stay that way forever and I know from personal experience that when your body starts to deteriorate it´s not fun. So if you want to capture something for posterity do it now. 

So far I have made five posts on Yaya - two of them are pretty safe but the other three are absolutely not safe for work - and I keep mentioning her on various JLA casting posts and any other posts involving asian sexbombs like Kiana Tom, Ava Cadell, Akira Lane, Miko Lee, Gail Kim or Minka and I swear the completely NSFW BIG YAYA HAN POST is still in the pipeline.

Today I just want to address a few birthdays, some of them new, some of them callbacks to stuff I mentioned in previous episodes. With our first candidate we have a bit of both because Matt Ryan - who celebrates his 37th birthday - is currently playing DC´s magic con artist supreme John Constantine on Legends of Tomorrow but he has also guest starred in episodes of Arrow. He may become a regular on that show but as much as Constantine is an interesting character his own show didn´t last very long.

I know that I pimped it when it was still on tv but if you have missed it I urge you to give it a try, especially if you liked his appearances on other CW shows. As I said there is the thing that for some reason every tv show that is about magic or demons has to involve a war between heaven and hell with the hero stuck in the middle. But aside from that it´s a really well made show that could have lasted longer if you look at what´s on tv.



What is not on tv - or at least not on regular tv as far as I understand - is the new animated digital series Constantine - City of Demons. Although calling it a series is probably too much since like The Sword of the Atom - which we had in our last post - the episodes are really short ( around six minutes ) and you can basically see the entire thing in an hour. I don´t understand why DC keeps chopping up these cartoons but I´m just glad that they continue his story somehow. So far five episodes have aired.



Who got plenty of exposure - although not as much as I hoped - is german sebomb Ruth Moschner who turns 42 since she started her career on Freitag Nacht News. Which was as much critique on politics and politicians as you are ever going to see on german tv. Unlike America, where you have shows like The Daily Show where politicians are called out for their bs in Germany you can only do that as long as it´s supposed to be in the form of a joke or satire. Any real deconstruction of politicians gets you taken off tv very quickly. Anyway, back to Ruth Moschner, despite playing Secret Agent DD on Freitag Nacht News it´s not known if she really is a DD as the only thing that I could find out about her breastsize is that it used to be more. I am never quite sure where Ruth stands because on one side she openly talks about sex but on the other side she also openly said she would not do PLAYBOY pictures until she´s a granny. Yes, I keep coming back to the subject of doing these kind of things when your body is in it´s prime but like Yaya Han Ruth should consider that the way she feels about this subject might change when she´s older and then it´s too late to do any pictures to compare them with the current shape your body is in.



Here is an odd clip from when Ruth Moschner was on Stefan Raab´s talk show and tried to get him to touch her boobs to confirm that they are real and that she never had any plastic surgery. Now there are two things I find odd. First off, for a woman who makes a big secret of her cupsize she goes to great lengths to prove her breasts are real. And I always suspected that Stefan Raab always talked a good game but then whimped out when push came to shove because from the way he tries to avoid touching the breasts of a very sexy woman you could almost think that he´s gay.



And we are staying with sexbombs on german tv with someone who has been on the blog before. Unlike Ruth Moschner Simone Thomalla who celebrates her 53rd birthday has posed nude in PLAYBOY and she also showcased her physical attributes in various movies and the neverending crime show Tatort although she is most famous for participating in the ALS ice bucket challenge. She wore a very thin white shirt and as was to be expected her boobs were completely exposed. What was not expected was in which phenomenal shape her breasts were in and everybody was commenting on how fantastic they are for a woman of her age. Longtime readers may remember that I mentioned the whole thing in this post .

Simone was 49 at that time and there was a bit of a scandal - like always with these kind of things - and there were a lot of wild accusations from shameless self promotion ( which it was and it obviously worked ) to exhibitionism. Which sounds weird to me because where is the problem with a stunning looking woman getting naked ? It was a bit ridiculous since Simone Thomall had already been naked in PLAYBOY at that point anyway.



Speaking of which, while Simone Thomalla´s nude pictorial is spectacular she did make the mistake of not doing nude pictures at a younger age.

Like I said, you have to do nude pictures while you are still young and in prime form and I think the latest one should wait is 36 ( hint, hint, ja, ja ).

Next we have another callback to a post although this one is rather recent. It may be just a weird coincidence but in my last post I wrote about Rihanna´s sexy dance scene in Luc Besson´s comic adaption Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets where I mentioned that Rihanna´s first outfit in that scene ( which is my favorite ) was of course inspired by Liza Minelli´s look in the movie Cabaret. Well, Today Joel Grey turns 86 who was the master of ceremony in that movie. He also played asian martial arts master Chiun in Remo Williams : The Adventure begins.

Here is another clip from Rihanna´s dance scene. It is of higher quality than the clip in my last post but the reason why I did not include it then is that the beginning of the scene is missing. Nevertheless I wanted to put it on the blog for those who are still undecided about seeing the movie.



Speaking about Valerian and Laureline, last month I ordered one of the collected editions but the information on the website was wrong so I got the wrong book but because it got damaged I did not send it back. I have gotten the right one in the meantime - although this put a big dent on my comic book budget but allowed me to get one of my holy grails of comic book collecting - but in the meantime I took a look at the stories that are in the book that I got sent in error. Well, it includes Ambassadors of the Shadows which is one of the stories that was used as source material for the movie ( the other being obviously The City of a Thousand Planets ) and I don´t know why people are giving the movie such bad reviews since all of the stuff from the comic ended up being in the movie : those blue aliens whose homeworld is endangered by the war of the humans ( the only difference is that in the comic they manage to interfere before their planet is destroyed ), the little critter who can replicate things and is the only one left of its kind, the squid thing Laureline puts on her head to find Valerian, the shapeshifters although in the comic Laureline is the one who merges with her to take on the look of those heavy aliens, the Shinguz, that Valerian and Laureline are separated and even the opening sequence of how the city comes into being. In any case, since I talked a lot about the movie I thought it about time to lay down some knowledge about the comic. Because one of the reasons why I did not send the book back that I got erroneously - besides being too lazy - is that there are no bad Valerian and Laureline albums and every adventure is a visual feast.



As has become the norm here ever since I promised to cut down the perv factor on the posts involving Yaya Han here´s another selection of five mindblowing performances of a k - pop band and in keeping with the topic of Today´s post I found it appropriate to bring you the best versions of Nine Muses haunting smash hit ( which is going to be stuck in your head for days ) Sleepless Nights. I have to say, I have had more than enough sleepless nights lately - which in turn leads to more posts on the blog - but I would not mind another one if I could spend it with these lovely ladies.







Now if you also suffer from insomnia there´s nothing better to get you through the night than some old school anime and here is Starbirds - The Movie for my spanish speaking readers. I know that in my last posts I have kind of ignored my other visitors but I have just found a bevy of these and there is not always another language version available. Plus this content never lasts long so I want to put it on the blog as quickly as possible.



I could not end without a Yaya Han video and since this is all about the costumes here´s the recap for 2016. I can´t believe this post went off without any hitches. Now if I could only finish my other Yaya Han post.



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I don´t believe showing skin or being sexy is objectifying a woman, I think it´s actually the opposite.