Instead of STAR WARS : Subzero rambles on

I wanted to do a special post for STAR WARS DAY ( May the 4th be with you ! ) but since I still haven´t read the first STAR WARS : THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS omnibus which I bought right after finishing my Master of Kung Fu Monday with Gil Kane ! post I can not write a review on that.

Yes, I really need to listen to myself more. In that post I said that volume two which was in the bargain books section for 75 EUROS would not stay long at that price and as soon as I finished the post it was back at 110 EUROS. So I went and got the first volume - which is still at 70 EUROS - right away. I haven´t read it yet because I want to wait until I have all three volumes so I can devour them in one go. The plan was to get the consecutive volumes over the course of a few weeks as soon as I got the money - because my mother would flip if both arrived on the same day. As usual I hit a bit of a snag. Another book I had my eye on for quite some time - the SPIDER - MAN BY ROGER STERN omnibus - was offered at a real bargain price by two dealers. With over 1250 pages this book is really worth the 125 bucks price tag so to find it offered for a measly 71 EUROS, including 3 EUROS for shipping was a real opportunity and after missing my chance with the second STAR WARS omnibus I just had to react. The only problem was that it was offered by two dealers, one was a completely new dealer so there were no dealer ratings yet and the other one had a few negative reviews. The book from the new dealer was a new copy but seeing as nobody else had ordered from him so far and the shipping from India took a very long time I went for the other dealer. That book was only in good condition, not new and there were a few negative reviews but at least I knew people had dealt with him before. It might have been the right decision as I haven´t seen books by the dealer from India since.

Aside from this omnibus I also ordered three Epic Collections, Daredevil - A Touch of Thyphoid by Ann Nocenti and John Romita Jr and Iron Man - The Enemy Within and Iron Man - Duel of Iron by Denny O´Neill and Luke McDonnell. I know that I already have all the issues from the DAREDEVIL trade but lately I have flipped through my old issues and the printing quality is not as good as the DC Baxter issues. Having recently read the DAREDEVIL issues in the X - MEN : INFERNO CROSSOVER and MARVEL VISIONARIES : JOHN ROMITA JR I have to say I would like to have all the issues in a nicely printed hardcover but seeing as such a book is not available the Epic Collection is the next best thing. As for the IRON MAN trades, back when I first found issues of american comics at the kiosk at the Rathaus bus station in Ludwigsburg there were some IRON MAN issues where James Rhodes had already taken over the mantle of the Iron Man.

There also was MARVEL COMIC SONDERHEFT NR 17 by german publisher Condor Verlag in which James Rhodes teamed up with the Eternals.

So while I have read bits and pieces from Tony Stark´s second bout with alcoholism I never read the full story and it would be nice to fill in the gap between the IRON MAN BY MICHELINE, LAYTON AND ROMITA JR omnibus ( man, I´m so glad I bought that when it was offered for just 57 EUROS at amazon - longtime readers may remember that I pimped it heavily on the blog ) and the Epic Collection Iron Man - Stark Wars. Okay, there may be a few issues missing between them so maybe there will be another trade for that but that would fill a huge gap in my Iron Man collection. And who knows ? Maybe it will even get me to finally read the Iron Man omnibus.

Now with these three books and the SPIDER - MAN omnibus you might think I had enough on my plate but since those books wouldn´t arrive for at least two weeks I did another order at one of my online comic shops which still had a super sale going on. I already ordered some of these bargain comics which I mentioned in this post ( which is mainly about old Valiant comics ) and this post ( which had much more trade paperbacks and hardcovers ) and while all the trades had gone back to their old price there were still some single issues left. And seeing as nothing good lasts forever I bought a few more. I had to drop at least a dozen of comics because there were some where I was not such if I really wanted them or just added them because they were at a low price or if I didn´t already have those issues. In the end I ordered 42 comic for 23 EUROS, mainly Milestone books like HARDWARE and ICON and a lot of HARDCORPS from Valiant. Right now I´m still waiting for any of the orders to arrive but keeping my track record in mind when it comes to these things they will probably arrive on the same day finally giving my Mother an aneurysm.

I know I should probably not order that many comics - or spend that much money on comics - since GRATIS COMIC TAG will be next Saturday which means I will have to make the long, strenuous trek to the Sammlerecke in Esslingen to get some free comics and the new issues of SAVAGE DRAGON that have accumulated since my last visit. And let´s not forget 2016´s FREE COMIC BOOK DAY which is this Saturday. Which is one of the reasons why I ordered from the super sale instead of making the usual order from my regular online comic shop. You see, the last few years I have done THE BIG CHRISTMAS CONTEST on Tales from the Kryptonian which is really not a real contest at all and just an excuse for me to give away free comics.

Which are for the greatest part the free comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG. During the last two contests I have noticed that most of the people who applied for the free comics were much more interested in FREE COMIC BOOK DAY than GRATIS COMIC TAG issues.

Which sounds logical as those issues are probably much harder to find than the german free comics you can find in german comic shops. So I have decided that I will probably get the few comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG that really interest me like JOMMEKE, Weissblech´s ZOMBIE TERROR, Hugo Pratt´s CORTO MALTESE, BEAT COMIC WUNDERTÜTE, SHERLOCK HOLMES UND DIE ZEITREISENDEN ( last year´s issue was really good ) and maybe a few classics like THE SMURFS and LUCKY LUKE but apart from that I will get as many comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY as I can.

Now you may ask yourself where I get all these free comics - and readers who have already participated in one of the contest and know the answer may skip this part - but I get the customary six free comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG from my trusty comic shop in Esslingen and if there are two or three additional issues I need I can also get them there. There rest I get from my regular online comic shop where you get one GRATIS COMIC TAG or one FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issue for every 10 EUROS of your comic order. Now you don´t get that many free comics from one order - unless it´s something like the SECRET WARS II omnibus which I couldn´t find anywhere else and had to buy for the full price which netted me 11 free comics at once. But doing a few orders here and there the free comics sum up and for years I didn´t know this so there were dozens of free comics I was loosing out on. So this is where I get my free comics.

But the thing is that I already have all the comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2015 I´m interested so until the new FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics arrive it makes no sense to place an order. And there are so many trades or comics like the collected editions of NATASCHA and YOKO TSUNO I would like to buy but unless there was a way to order comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2016 and have them delivered as soon as they are available I won´t. I just hope that the shop will get issues from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY this year. Usually all the new issues are announced ready for pre - order but this year neither FREE COMIC BOOK DAY nor GRATIS COMIC TAG comics can be found anywhere on the website. I hope they are just waiting until they have the actual comics before putting them online because otherwise this would throw a monkey wrench in my plans for THE BIG CHRISTMAS CONTEST. Not mentioning that I really enjoy being able to read all the series I would not bother with thanks to all the free comics.

Be that as it may, in the hopes that the free comics DO arrive in due time I´m laying off placing orders at that online comic shop concentrating on the occasional bargains found at amazon or other online comic shops. Another option would be to visit the Sammlerecke in Esslingen more often and check out their used comics per kilo section for comic hauls but right now my health doesn´t allow me to make the long journey that often.

Wow, I really didn´t talk much about the STAR WARS comics except the omnibus books at all did I ? To make up for that and so to have a little tribute to the biggest space opera here are some original art samples.  

Sometimes it´s uncanny how I can find videos for all the birthdays I put on the blog at the drop of a hat even when I go through the wrong ones.

That´s right, attentive readers may have noticed that I didn´t list the birthdays for May, the 3rd but instead I listed the ones for April, the 3rd. So since I don´t want to go back and mess with Yesterday´s post - and because there is only one birthday from Today I want to mention ( as the other two would only get me into trouble ) here are Yesterday´s celebs.

We start with Christina Hendricks known from MAD MEN who turned 41.

I know, that´s unforgivable. Not only did I cast her as Maxima in my first ever Casting the Justice League of America Movie post I also made a bookmark in the hopes of doing a solo post on her birthday in 2016.

To make up for my incredible snafu go to THE STIR which has 14 Times Christina Hendricks Totally Nailed Exactly How You Feel , Josh Robertson at COMPLEX who has the 30 sexiest GIFs of Christina Hendricks ( you might shut down your other windows to see this one as it tends to take up all your available memory ) and you can find a few more Christina GIFs at FOR THE LOVE OF GIF . Thanks for the mammaries, Christina !

But it gets even better. Yesterday was also Bill Sienkiewicz´ 58th birthday.

The man whom I dubbed " the world´s fastest artist " because I didn´t like his style when I started reading comics ( my ignorance ) is of cause famous for his work on such titles like DAREDEVIL, ELEKTRA and - thanks to the Epic Collections - MOON KNIGHT to a new generation of readers. 

This is one I looked up and I chose it because I always felt that Bill was better suited to ink artists who hadn´t developed their style yet or who had some flaws in their art. In my opinion he overpowers most artists which can be really annoying if you buy a comic for a specific penciler.



I´m not finished putting my foot in my mouth. Comic legend Denny O´Neil turned 77 and I had this video all ready to go for a few months now.



Yesterday would also have been the 83rd birthday of legend James Brown.



Since the STAR WARS video I had lined up has been deleted here is the only birthday of Today I can mention : Schlager singer Trude Herr. 



I did mention it in the post but I´ll take any excuse to post another CORTO MALTESE video. Not that there are that many of them left.



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I am your father, Luke.

It´s the return of the Big Christmas Contest

Like promised in my last post here is the official announcement of the Big Christmas Contest on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN. Longtime readers might remember it since I didn´t do this last year for various reasons.

But after making a quick inventory of last year´s remaining free comics and thanks to the SECRET WARS II Omnibus, which on it´s own netted in eleven free comics I decided it´s time to resuscitate this tradition and bring some Christmas joy to some readers and other comic afficionados.

Now you might ask yourself : What is this guy talking about ? Christmas Contest ? We are in November. That´s a  bit early. And you would be right.

But the thing is that it´s already the 17th of November and lately the weeks seem to pass faster and faster. And before you know it Christmas is here and I haven´t gotten around to do this. And I want all the comic books I´m giving away to be in the hands of comic readers if not before Christmas than at least AT Christmas. The last time I did this contest was in 2013 and I only got to announce it on the 13th of December which was really late. So this year I´m trying to get a head start so that I can maybe add a few copies to the giveaway pile. Because last year at this time I had finished all my Christmas shopping while this year I haven´t even started yet. I have my eye on a few items but so far I haven´t done any actual shopping which means depending on which store I have to go to for the Christmas presents there might be free comics I can add to that pile.

Because so far there are only the ones I thought people might want but that way I know which ones are actually in high demand. And speaking about being in high demand, longtime readers might notice there are not that many comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG on the list like in previous years. The reason for that is that the comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY are much more coveted here in Germany so I just get the ones that interest me and order FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics whenever possible.

But I´m seeing that I´m already am going into too much detail without explaining what this is all about. Thankfully I already did this a few times so I can paraphrase from my old posts. Again - longtime readers can skip this part and go right down to the list below - while the new readers ( I live in denial ! ) are probably interested in the specifics of this contest.

And when I say " contest " I mean just a convenient excuse for me to give away free comics. Yes, I must be crazy to do so but, hey, I´m an old fart who mostly reads old Bronze Age comics and rambles about Gespenster Geschichten, Markie Post and Yaya Han so how do I know I´m not crazy ?

So right now you are probably thinking about all those fantastic comics and trades and hardcovers I´m handing out, which will be gazillions and the newest stuff and just beyond cool. But you can hold it right there buster. As longtime readers of this blog know, all the comics and trades and hardcovers I review on this very blog ( although there haven´t been that many reviews lately ) I have to buy from my own pockets. Except the comics I get sent by the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS ( and when I say " the fine folks at BLACK TOWER COMICS & BOOKS " I mean " One man band Terry Hooper " who, in his infinite kindness, not only sends me these comics for free - and which I don´t review as often as I should - but also never tires of plugging this blog ) I don´t get any comp copies so there will be none among the comics I´m giving away.

When I said that I will give away free comics that´s exactly what I will do.

Meaning that instead of hoarding all the free comics I get from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG and the likes, I´m giving away all those comics I don´t want to keep. I always saw those events as chances to check out series I don´t know or to remind myself of the great comic series we often tend to forget with all the super hero drama and reboots and relaunches and new 52s. So unlike other comic readers - especially in Germany - I don´t have to get ALL the comics of GRATIS COMIC TAG or FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, just the ones I find interesting.

Not that there´s anything wrong with those guys who want to have them all. Hey, any comic reader who doesn´t understand the primal collecting instinct should give away his comic club membership card right away.

Because collecting comics is what we all do, right ? It´s just the kind of comics that we collect where we differ. But back to the free comics, every year I intend to do a post ( and when I say " a post " I really mean " a series of posts " because I can never fit it into a single post ) about all the free comics I DO get and more often than not it doesn´t work out. Now, unlike some of the other comics I review, the comics from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG have kind of an expiration date since you probably don´t want to read about last year´s free comics.

So once the year is over that ship has sailed the port so I don´t have to keep them any longer in the hopes that I will review them later. Even if I did, nobody would want to read it anyway. This year I have been lucky enough to get almost every comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and GRATIS COMIC TAG I wanted to check out - one of the few benefits of having two brothers is that you can read three times as many GRATIS COMIC TAG comics - and I have chosen the ones I´m going to keep.

Now you are probably asking yourself where the heck I get my free comics that I can pick and choose and even afford to give some of them away.

For GRATIS COMIC TAG I have my regular comicshop, the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where they always have all the issues and they are always kind enough to reserve the ones I want. Because of my bad knee I have not been there as often as usual this year but before Christmas arrives I probably have to do another visit where maybe I can get a few more free comics. I don´t want to exploit them but I´m sure if there´s one comic somebody absolutely needs I can find a copy there. I got a lot of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics from them the first time I participated ( the final post of that years series on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY is still the most popular post of this blog ) but the second time was when they moved the entire shop and some of the issues I wanted got lost and it took a few months until I had a handful. So I´m not doing the whole list thing.

There are a lot of comics that I read that are not on my pull list - for various reasons - and for all those plus the comics my comicshop misses I go to an online comicshop ( ANDIS COMICEXPRESS ) where you get one free comic from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY or GRATIS COMIC TAG for every 10 EUROS of your comic order. Now I don´t order crazy amounts of comics there so I get dozens of copies of free comics. But I order there anyway and if I get two or three free comics with each shipment that makes a nice bundle of them. Mind you, for years I did order my comics there without knowing that you can get free comics without doing anything special. It´s not like I have to pay extra to get those comics so I don´t have any problem with giving them away once I´m done with them.

Which means that I read all the comics and - except a few exceptions where I ordered two copies - they are not in mint condition anymore.

It´s not like I used them to build a dam or kill a wild beast either it´s just that some of them might not be in the best condition and I´m only mentioning it because I know that some people are peculiar that way.

Okay, you´re probably already bored by all my ramblings and your next question would be what you must do to enter this Big Christmas Contest .

The answer is : nothing. Or not much.This is the fourth time I´m doing this contest and the first time I gave my readers a small assignment which didn´t go over to well. So the second time there were no strings attached, readers just had to sent an e - mail or contact me on the forums where I´m going to post similar announcements. Now my brother thinks I should give my readers herculean tasks that they must perform in order to qualify for this contest. And it should be really hard too and if it doesn´t help the entire comic industry or at least helps promote this blog I shouldn´t do it. Which - at least in my opinion - goes against the very idea of giving away free comics without any ulterior motive. Because it´s Christmas, remember ? Or at least it will be when the comics arrive. 

So you don´t have to do more than write me an e - mail to the address you can find by clicking the " about me " link. Or, if you are one of my german readers you can contact me via the forums. And if you can´t figure out how to do that just use the comments section but don´t put any links in your answer because the it will be flagged as spam automatically. Of course you may not want to put your address in a section that everyone can read so you might not want to use it.

Forget I said that. Bad idea. Don´t use the comments section. Not good.

So, without any further ado because I want to finish this post which is longer than expected as it is even though I re - used an earlier post ( you must be so tired of reading this ) here is the list of the  available comics :

From FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2015 : CLEOPATRA IN SPACE, BODIE TROLL / DRONE, DOCTOR WHO, TERRIBLE LIZARD, COMICS FESTIVAL, DEFEND COMICS, JURASSIC STRIKE FORCE 5, WORLDS OF ASPEN, SPONGEBOB FREESTYLE FUNNIES, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL, BOOM COMICS TEN YEAR CELEBRATION, AVATAR / PLANTS VS ZOMBIES / BANDETTE, THE TICK and VALIANT 25TH ANNIVERSARY. I had to order a second copy of the VALIANT comic since the art was so fantastic I had to keep one myself. 

Now if you haven´t checked out this year´s free comics I put up a link in my last post where you can see most of them but for those who don´t want to go back to my old post ( oh, the humiliation ) here is the link .

So onwards with the free comics. From FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2014 : COURTNEY CRUMRIN, THE ADVENTURES OF JELLABY, THE DUMBEST IDEA EVER !, THE TICK, BONGO COMICS FREE FOR ALL, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, WORLDS OF ASPEN, HIP HOP FAMILY TREE 2 IN ONE, KABOOM ! SUMMER BLAST, TOP SHELF KIDS CLUB, ARCHIE DIGEST and FUBAR.

We also have a few comics left from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2013 : MOLLY DANGER, Hal Foster´s PRINCE VALIANT, THE STRANGERS, THE TICK, STEAM WARS, KABOOM ! SUMMER BLAST and WORLD OF ARCHIE DIGEST.

Like I said, I don´t have as many comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG but one of my brothers gave me most of the ones he had already read ( the other one hoards them ) so I have from the GRATIS COMIC TAG 2015 :

OUTCAST, ANGRY BIRDS COMICS, PERCY PICKWICK, RALPH AZHAM, SIMPSONS COMICS FÜR UMME, DRIVE. And finally from GRATIS COMIC TAG 2014 STRANGERS ON PARADISE 20TH ANNIVERSARY and RABBIDS.

I´m also throwing in issue 2 of SPIDER - MAN DER AVENGER which contains issues 3 and 4 of that series. I bought this for one of my brothers who was always bugging me about the series but when I finally ordered it because he sounded desperate he had already bought it somewhere else. Like they say : no good deed and so on. Anyway, I don´t like the series but I guess there is somebody out there who wants it.

A few months ago I offered my copy of DAREDEVIL - HÖLLENFAHRT and this is still valid so if there is anybody who wants to read it drop me a line. And this are the free comics I´m giving away, all 45 of them. I hope you find something you were looking for. I will be doing reader´s requests if possible ( it all depends on what is still available ) which means that I will do another order before the end of the year and I will go to my comic shop where I might be able to find a copy of a book that´s not on the list.

I will start sending the comics out as soon as I have some participants and we´ll see how far we come with the comics I got. You can ask for as many comics as you like and if nobody else is interested in the comics you want you´re home free but keep in mind that other people might want some comics too so don´t be too greedy. Yes, I want to get rid of them all eventually but we can all share now, can´t we ? Also I don´t have to send all of them away just to one guy even if he´s well meaning. I´ll just put the remaining books in the bag for next year. So I will be posting the list on a few german comic forum which is where I give most of them away and I hope to hear from you soon, guys. Have much fun unpacking ! 

Today´s celebrity birthday - which I completely forgot - is french actress Sophie Marceau which I casted in my very first post of CASTING THE JUSTICE LEAGUE MOVIE as JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE´s Catherine Cobert.

The french sexbomb, best known in the US for appearing in the Bond flick THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, and outside for taking her clothes of in such classics like MES NUITS SONT PLUS BELLES QUE VOS JOURS ( my nights are more beautiful than your days ) or DESCENT AUX ENFERS ( Descent into hell ) - where she appeared in nude scenes with Claude Brasseur who played her father in the extremely successful teenie romantic comedies LA BOUM and LA BOUM 2 which caused all kind of wild outrage at this perceived incest - celebrates her 49th anniversary Today.

Her first nude scene was in HAPPY EASTER with Jean Paul Belmondo which I have to confess to have lying somewhere and still haven´t watched. She was 18 at that time she made the movie and payed the movie studio Gaumont money to get out of her contract to be able to do nude scenes. What a trooper. In the movie she´s Jean Paul´s lover but when his wife returns a bit early from her vacations she says she´s his daughter from his ex. Sophie also starred in the horror movie NE TE RETOURNE PAS ( don´t turn around ) opposite Monica Bellucci which is a dream sandwich.

Not only does Sophie drop her clothes very often in her movies she also shows great cleavage like in the film THE MUSKETEERS REVENGE ( or The daughter of D´Artagnan like it´s called in Germany ) that has one of my favorite scenes with her. Sophie also had a wardrobe malfunction in Cannes 2005 where her dress slipped off. Some say this accident was faked but what the hey, I don´t care. If she did it on purpose that only makes her cooler in my book. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Sophie Marceau, I wish you have many happy returns and thank you for the mammaries !

It is a bit early to really get into the Christmas spirit but because I always have more videos than I can post I want to include one of the various Christmas related videos I have bookmarked. When I think of Christmas I always think about the Christmas cartoon specials and the best known is of course the Peanuts Christmas Special. It´s the gold standard when it comes to these kind of specials. Sadly I couldn´t find it but here is another one called I WANT A DOG FOR CHRISTMAS, CHARLIE BROWN.



Doctor Who and Christmas have a long tradition, one I was totally unaware of until the New Who. So here´s a rather obscure documentary called DOCTOR WHO`S WHO`S WHO from 1986 featuring the Doctors three to six, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davidson and Colin Baker.



We´re staying with the Christmas theme : the X - Men and X - Mas are a natural connection ( I did an X - Men X - Mas post myself last year ) and here´s Amy Dallen with one of her favorite X - Men Christmas stories.



I wanted to include another Yaya Han video and this one is even related to the post. Well, kind of. Maybe you haven´t done your Christmas shopping like me and here Yaya is pimping a company called Comic Bento. I could not find any information if they do shipping to foreign countries but at least for my readers in Canada and the US this should be interesting.



To close things out here´s the fanfilm DRAGONBALL Z : THE FALL OF MEN that I found on Terry Hooper´s great COMIC BITS ONLINE website ( which is on the blogroll and you should visit at least once a day ). The only thing I find sad is that the makers of this movie spend all this time and work on a project they made no money off. When with a few alterations they could have made their own thing and sold it to movie studios to rake in the big bucks. Doing fanfilms for recognition is really nice but what prevents these guys from going their own way. It´s nice to make a BATMAN movie but when you don´t get money from it why not make a version that is not tied to DC ? With all the countless ELSEWORLDS that exist ( and I´m counting the NEW 52 as one big ELSEWORLDS story ) it shouldn´t be too difficult to do a variation on a theme movie. Or at least they could have contacted Akira Toriyama - or whoever holds the rights for Dragonball Z - after finishing the trailer and produce the movie for them so it can be shown in movie theaters. Anyway, if you like the movie go to Terry´s blog and post a comment. You don´t want him to close that one too, do you ?



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Tales from the one legged man in Erlangen

After my last shameless comic shop pimping post it´s time to return to my time in Erlangen at this year´s Comic Salon 2014. Someone mentioned that I made a point ( without realizing it ) for easier access and maybe shuttle buses for older and ( maybe ) wheelchair bound visitors.

Which is right. You never think about these things unless you are affected yourself by it. So if anybody of the organisers of the comic event has read my last Erlangen post they might give this problem some consideration.

Now, continuing with my Erlangen 2014 Diary we already covered the trip to the city ( and back ), my hotel with the shower deathtrap, that I didn´t do much besides going to the con, that we arrived 3 hours late and that the table where I expected to spend most of my comic budget for the first day wasn´t there. As I said, this threw me off my game a bit and I spend the first hours wandering aimlessly through the convention hall. Not to say that I didn´t wander aimlessly around Erlangen at previous events but this time it was also a tough exercise because of my knee. So I did what any comic fan would have done in my position : go with what you know.

Which for me meant to frequent the tables of the usual suspects.

HORROR SCHOCKER TO THE SYSTEM

This is the part which is probably not so interesting for longtime readers of this blog. Because I have written about WEISSBLECH in previous posts.

But as every post is someone´s first I want to mention that it´s one of Germany´s finest providers for what you might call trash comics - and I´m using the term in the best sense here. Publisher, writer, artist, inker and basically one - man - band Levin Kurio is the driving force behind the best horror anthology title in Germany - HORROR SCHOCKER - and many other fine comics that blatantly pander to the basest instincts of the target audience. You will not find any artsy fartsy projects here but rather good entertainment at a reasonable price that always delivers. Who could forget such classics like PATER DRACULA - ER TRINKT DAS BLUT CHRISTI ( Padre Dracula - he drinks the blood of Christ ) or DIE ROTEN RÄCHER

the german version of Rough Cut Comics FREEDOM COLLECTIVE ?

And so one of the must - haves of any comic convention in Germany is the newest NOVITÄTEN - PACK ( Novelty Bundle ) which always contains the latest releases at a big discount. In most cases I try to change some of the issues of the Novelty Bundle for other Weissblech comics but this year I had none of the issues contained. The bundle didn´t have as many single issues as in previous years because one of the comics was their newest and first graphic novel but more about that in just a moment.

First I want to mention the other things that were in the bundle.

XXX - Comics issues 15 and 16 and as the title implies these are porn comics. Weissblech has a lot of titles that sound very raunchy but unlike other comic companies they don´t deceive their comic readers so if you pay for porn you get porn. I still haven´t read all of the stories ( I read one or two stories on my first night in the hotel ) but like always the stories are a bit tongue in cheek without skimping on the erotic parts.

Most of the art is done by the very capable Horst Dounichdy - Glokken, a pseudonym for an artist which most german comic readers will recognize.

Also contained are issues 35 and 36 of HORROR SCHOCKER.

Issue 35 contains the story UNSER DORF SOLL TOTER WERDEN ( Our village shall become deader ) by Carsten Dörr, the highlight of the issue and one of the stories in Weissblech´s 2014 GRATIS COMIC TAG comic.

The issue is rounded up with HASSO which is rather short

and MÜLLSCHLUCKER ( garbage disposer ) which is much longer on the other side. As usual reader views differ as to which one is the best.

Issue 36 is the big anniversary issue - 10 years of HORROR SCHOCKER - and to celebrate that it has expanded to 52 pages for the usual price. As befitting an anniversary issue it contains some of the best artists of the book like Kolja Schäfer, who starts the issue impressivly with DIE WOLKENSTADT DES MUMIENGOTTES ( The Mummy God´s Cloud City ).

Then Levin Kurio takes the art chores - he writes all the stories - with DER SCHATZ DER TEMPLER ( The treasure of the Knights Templar ).

Another of my favorite artists - The Lep - draws ÜBERLEBENSEXPERTEN ( Survival Experts ) based on an original idea he came up with himself.

And last but not least is the brilliant DIE LESENDEN TOTEN ( The Reading Dead ) which is another story from the GRATIS COMIC TAG 2014 issue.

Talking about free comics, Weissblech also had just finished their eight free mini comic which has preview pages from HORROR SCHOCKER 35´s MÜLLSCHLUCKER story and their big graphic novel. These are always great and I have to admit that I always pocketed one when I passed the table with all the info material and freebies opposite the entrance. I love to give them away and most of them will end up in the Christmas contest.

  
I also got the second issue of UNGEHEUER ( Monsters ) which focuses on one of Germany´s best artists, Klaus Scherwinski and while some of the stories have been published elsewhere it´s nice to have them collected.

UNGEHEUER is a rather new anthology and it focuses on a certain artist or a certain theme like issue 1 which was all about zombies - naturally.

They also had the 1st issue of CAPTAIN BERLIN but I already had that.

Which brings us to the best comic Weissblech may have ever published : the incredible BELLA STAR TRIFFT KALA ! ( Bella Star meets Kala ! )

With a price tag of 20 EUROS this is the most expensive comic in the novelty bundle but believe me when I say it´s worth every cent.

Not only is it in hardcover, it´s also 112 ( ! ) pages of uncensored sci fi / jungle adventure in the often imitated but never duplicated Weissblech manner. I called the comic a graphic novel and not only because it is all new material. As this is their first graphic novel ( of hopefully many more ) they have waited for a great story and what could be more epic than the clash of two of their greatest babes : Bella Star, the intergalactic nympho and Kala, the pre - historic amazon ? Of course topless mud wrestling ensues during this titanic tussle of the well endowed alpha females.

But while a big part of the comic is titillation - with a big emphasis on the tit part - the story is just awesome and has anything you could ever want in a comic like aliens, metal bikinis, dinosaurs or black holes. It´s one of Weissblech´s best efforts and I recommend it to all comic aficionados.

I also managed to get a Charon sketch by the master himself, although it wasn´t as elaborate as the one I posted below ( to give you an idea ).

So that was the first table and while I also passed by the folks from GRINGO COMICS and SCHWARZER TURM, I´m going to wait with writing about those parts for the days when I actually bought something there.

THE MYSTERY OF THE TINY COMIC COVERS

Well, I´m not sure if it´s really a mystery but it annoys me to no ends that you can´t find any good pictures of the comics Laska Comix sells.

It was the same last time I wrote about Erlangen and it was the reason why I stopped with the posts: I was spending too much time looking for pictures and in the end I didn´t get around to continue with the posts. I have since found a picture - although a tiny one - of the issue I got then

and I´m only posting it here because it is an homage cover.

I just don´t get it. They make such brilliant comics but their website is totally crap. I don´t know for whom they designed it but it´s surely not meant for people who want to buy their comics outside of comic cons.

Anyway, nevertheless I want to pimp Laka Comix - which is not easy without adequate pictures - so I want to mention the two comics I got at their table. The first one is another LASKA SAMMELSURIUM, number 11 this time ( sorry for the nad picture but I´m lucky that I found one at all )

and you could translate the word Sammelsurium with mishmash, smorgasboard or hodgepodge. So it´s a collection of short stories, sketches, pictures and drawings. All with the usual standard of Laska quality but I have to say I liked the last one better because it included a short story of LUZIE AUS DER HÖLLE ( Lucy from hell ). The other comic I got was WÄSCHER - PIONIER DER COMICS ( Wäscher - Comic Pioneer )

and it´s - of course - about Hansrudi Wäscher the german Jack Kirby who influenced the entire landscape of comics for numerous generations with his comics AKIM ( just your basic jungle guy ), TIBOR ( the jungle guy formerly known as Akim with a new name because of a legal dispute ),

JÖRG ( the adventures of a boy in the year 1633 during the Thirty Years´ War which featured General Wallenstein, a historic figure ),

 FALK, Knight in shining armor,

FENRIR ( which seems like another jungle guy but in reality it are the adventures of an outcast 8.423 years after the last atomic holocaust ),

ROY STARK ( a stuntman, not related to Tony Stark ),

NIZAR ( another jungle hero, this one more Mowgli than Tarzan )

NICK ( the only sciene fiction hero of the Hansrudi Wäscher universe )

and SIGURD ( we will come back to him in another Erlangen Diary post ).

Interesting trivia : Fenrir´s and Tibor´s female companions´ fur bikinis caused friction with the german board of censors and were toned down.

So WÄSCHER - PIONIER DER COMICS contains homages to this dyed - in - the - wool elder statesman of comics and the Laska guys produced it.

But I got a nice sketch nonetheless.

POWER GIRL AND BUST

So my last stop on Thursday was on a vendor´s table with a lot of US comics for 1 EURO. Mostly old CONAN comics by John Buscema but they were not in very good condition and I wasn´t sure which of them I had.

I picked up a whole bunch of RED SONJA issues for my brother

and I also found Mike Grell´s SHAMAN´S TEARS 1 which I was still missing. If I ever find the other issues I can re - read the whole series - unless I´m missing the zero issue. I´m not so sure about that one.

Anyway, I was just ready to pay when I spotted the Power Girl mini bust at the back of the table. Now all jokes about using the words " Power Girl " and " mini bust " in the same sentence aside this was a really rare item.

For decades I have been on the lookout for one of the always elusive Power Girl action figures on german comic conventions and this was the first time one of the good ones was in reach. The downside was that it was priced at 50 bucks but you only live once and I wasn´t anywhere near my comic spending budget for the first day so I thought what the heck. So I clunked down the 50 bucks, the comic dealer was happy, I was happy and I still haven´t gotten around to unpack it. Mind you, I have taken it out of the box to see if it´s not damaged but it´s still in the box on my desk.

One of these days - when I have cleaned up - it will get a place of honor.

And that was basically the first day. I did eat something in - between because without that I would have probably fallen into a deep coma.

Like I said in my last Erlangen post, due to my bad knee I limited myself to restaurants that were on the way between the con and my hotel room which meant that I was trying out a lot of establishments I wouldn´t visit.

So on Thursday I picked the thai takeaway that was right outside of the Kongress Zentrum. I swear, for more than 20 years I have been going to Erlangen but I had never eaten there. Can you believe that ? And the food was surprisingly good. Not like some fancy restaurant from the Micheline Guide but really tasty and not too expensive. I got some of the food to go on Saturday but they forgot to pack a fork and knife so I had to go down the stairs ( and up again ) to freeload one from the breakfast room.

When I got to my hotel ( my brother drove me there using the navsat ) I showered and discovered the shower death trap. Then I was so tired that I went to sleep immediately and slept until a few minutes before ten o´clock which meant it was time for wrestling - on tv mind you, I was in no condition for any kind of sports activity. After watching wrestling I switched through the channels but the only thing that was on was a really bad monster flick with kind of a chimera creature and when I was pretty sure there would be no Länderpunkte ( longtime readers of the blog know what those are all others go to the Simona Ventura post ) I switched off the tv and went to bed. Tomorrow would surely be another strenuous day.

So that´s my log of the first day at this year´s Comic Salon Erlangen and as always I was tempted to cut it short since I really haven´t slept much Today.  But I wanted to finish it, otherwise I´ll never get them done before the end of  this month. I´m not sure what my next post is going to be ( probably something shorter, otherwise I´ll collapse in front of my desktop one of these days ) but I hope this was a little bit interesting.

Today´s first video is about Erlangen, this time from Geekplautze.



BUT WAIT - WHAT ABOUT THE YAYA HAN ?

The second one is a request by a reader who complained that there wasn´t much Yaya Han content lately. In fact it´s been weeks.

I´m still planning to do the big Yaya Han post ( click here for my intro post ) but I have been distracted ( in more ways than one ) by lots of pictures of cosplayer Jessica Nigri and I got caught up in all the drama. Now I don´t want to go into too much detail here - if you know what I´m talking about it´s redundant to mention it here and if not it´s way to complicated to start the topic here - but I just have to say that I´m all for sexy women dressing up in hot costumes and maybe showing off a bit of exposed skin. I´ve always said flaunt it if you got it and we should be really thankful that there are still women out there willing to go to all the trouble out there considering the amount of trolls that are on the net.

If you don´t like it you don´t have to look at the pictures and if you are really such a needy person you can watch those special Jessica Nigri videos on YouTube ( I dare you to last longer than five minutes with the 25 minutes of Jessica Nigri video ! ). And about the whole thing with cosplaying as female versions of male characters I have to confess that in most cases I don´t know the original characters. If it looks good....

So, for my readers who can appreciate it, here is a new interview with the always lovely Yaya Han from Wondercon 2014 in one of my Top Five costumes EVER as everyone´s favorite Street Fighter : sexy Chun Li.



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edit : Yes, I changed the banner I had first posted for this one because I realised that the " I´m with free porn " Civil War banner directly under the Yaya Han Wondercon interview might send the wrong message. Sorry.