Splash page Saturday with Savage Dragon

It´s been a while since I did a post about THE best superhero series out there and since I really haven´t that much to add to what I said in my last post I thought I´d just take a page out of fellow blog BOB MITCHELL IN THE 21ST CENTURY ( who´s back to posting after a two year absence, welcome back pal, we missed you ) and showcase some of Erik Larsen´s mindblowing splash pages which he just seems to churn out effortlessly.

There are many reasons to use splash pages, the most common to grab the reader´s attention from the first pages and in fact for decades comics solely used the splash page on the first page as the introduction to all the wacky mayhem that was to unfold during the process of the story within. 

Of course over time comic book artists began to use splash pages for other purposes like giving special gravitas to poignant moments in an issue.

Or sometimes they were used to give readers all the necessary exposition.

It can also be used to break up the flow of the story with comedic relief.

Or the Marvel - patented punching action shot ( there will be an upcoming post with just people punching other people hard in the near future ).

Anyway, there are a hundred different reasons to use a splash page but I don´t want to bore you by listing them all. Instead I´m going to let the master speak for himself because every time Erik Larsen uses a splash page he does so masterfully. You can tell the quality of a series by its use of splash pages so here are some of the best from his 200 plus issue run.

Today´s first celebrity birthday is the best reason to watch Gracepoint even if you have already seen the original british version Broadchurch, Jessica Lucas who turns 31. And she turns so nicely ( pun intended ).

Besides Gracepoint you might have seen her in Seven Days, Psych or Gotham. As always I went to the internet to get more information about her but as always there are contradictory facts especially where her breast size is concerned which goes from 32B to 34C to even 37C. As somebody who is more accustomed to measurements in centimeters those are only abstract numbers anyway and I´d say Jessica is just right as she is. Daimn !

Now I first saw Jessica Lucas on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and even though most of her booming body is covered up she´s just oozing hotness. I couldn´t find the bookmark I had made for this so I might have already posted her appearance on that show but I surely didn´t post the full show. In any case it´s better to be safe than sorry.



Speaking of incredible bodies April Hunter celebrates her 45th birthday and I´m pretty sure her 40E bust is accurate as plenty of pictures verify that. I first saw April on glamour websites like FOXES which were one of the first where you could see hot models on the internet and then as one of the girls in the Ironman Swimsuit Spectacular 5 alongside Linda O´Neil, Cori Nadine, LeAnna Scott and fellow NWO valet Tylene Buck ( who are all featured in the special wrestling edition of my casting the JLA movie ).   

So you might have seen April on wrestling shows since she was one of the hot sexbombs that always accompanied the NWO guys to the ring ( and which often got sent back to the locker room by Jeff Jarrett, much to the chagrin of all guys present and at home ) but like Tylene Buck who adopted the Major Gunns persona April soon got bored with just being eye candy and worked her way through Killer Kowalski´s wrestling school. Besides acting in movies she has become one of the top wrestlers in the independent circuit in the US but also in Europe, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Japan and Canada. She has also appeared on Carmen Electra´s NWWL working matches in the nude which I honestly have never heard of.  

Originally I wanted to post a video with Big Poppa Steiner since April was one of his freaks together with Tylene Buck, Pamela Paulschock, Midajah O´Hearn and Kim Kenner but the quality is not that good and worst of all April is not in it. There are many other videos on YouTube of her wrestling other women but I wanted to post something else. I found some videos of her cosplaying such obscure characters like Thundra from the Fantastic Four ( well, obscure to Today´s comic reading audience ) but as a redhead and with her stunning figure Jessica Rabbit is just the obvious choice.



April Hunter wrestled in Canada - Marc Guggenheim who turns 46 wrestled with writing comics most famous Canadian mutant in one of the best Wolverine stories I ever read coming out of Civil War ( the real one ). Marc is also one of the writers on Legends Of Tomorrow and Arrow, whose next seasons start in October alongside Supergirl and The Flash. Besides the Wolverine story Marc has also done stints on Aquaman, the Flash run that ends with the death of Impulse, twelve issues of Blade with art by Howard Chaykin and he was one of the rotating writers on Amazing Spider - Man. Coming back to Marvel´s war books, he also wrote the Squadron Sinister mini series that was - like always - masterfully drawn by Carlos Pacheco.

It´s without any doubt one of the few good things to come out of Disney destroying over forty years of continuity for a quick buck and you can enjoy the series without any previous knowledge. Now if Disney would only manage to pull this off in the overpriced political correct monthlies. 
 
Now one of the better known Marvel characters is Avengers member Hercules and he was most prominently portrayed on television by Kevin Sorbo who celebrates his 58th birthday. Although the Hercules he played in The Legendary Journeys Of Hercules didn´t have much in common with the Hercules we know from the comics or the greek mythology. The only reason for me to watch the show were the hot women like Cory Everson.

Now I would love to go into a tangent about the Hercules tv show, Xena, Kevin Sorbo´s really bad King Kull adaption or the sci fi show Andromeda but that is really the topic for a separate post. What I want to mention is that I kind of reconciled with Kevin Sorbo after seeing an interview where he said he never considered to have the body to adequately play Hercules but if all the people around think so and they are willing to give him a lot of money who is he to say no to them ? A mans gotta eat. Right now the seasons of Hercules are around ten bucks and I have toyed with getting the three seasons Cory Everson appears in. I´ll have to put her entry in the Search For Power Girl series ( which was a special reader request ) on the blog as soon as I have had time to make a few more animated GIFs.

There are no episodes of The Legendary Journeys in good quality ( and especially no clips with Cory Everson from that show ) and I won´t post anything from King Kull or Andromeda. I already posted two Hercules movies in previous post but luckily I found a cartoon show from the beginnings of time. Or at least the beginnings of animation it seems.



On Thursday we had the anniversary of Hans Albers who played a character from Hamburg´s red light district in Große Freiheit Nr 7, Today Heinz Hönig turns 65 who - besides starring in SOKO, Tatort, Das Boot, 7 Zwerge - Männer allein in Wald ( The 7 Dwarves - Men Alone In The Forrest ) and 7 Zwerge - Der Wald ist nicht genug ( The 7 Dwarves - The Forrest Is Not Enough ) - starred in Der König von St. Pauli ( The King Of St. Pauli ) which also takes place around the Reeperbahn. The six part SAT1 series was the forerunner of Die rote Meile which I already mentioned in an earlier post .

Also born on this day was Howard Hughes who is best known for his groundbreaking works in avionics and cinema. And for going completely bananas after becoming rich. His movie The Outlaw was Jane Russell´s big breakthrough and she starred in 5 more movies he produced : Underwater, Macao, The Las Vegas Story, His Kind Of Woman and The French Line.

With such legendary figure of history it´s difficult to discern what is fact and what is fiction but despite the official canon I think he must have tapped that. I mean, how could he not ? Anyway, there´s a funny skit about those two from Saturday Night Live where Dan Aykroyd plays Howard Hughes and Raquel Welch plays Jane Russell ( a role she fills out perfectly ) but I will leave that for the next birthday of one of them. And since I already posted the title song from The French Line in an earlier post here is Jane Russell with Ain´t There Anyone Here For Love ? 



Also no longer with us is famous puppet master Jim Henson, creator of such shows for younger viewers like The Muppets and The Fraggles who also produced The Dark Cristal and Labyrinth with Jennifer Conelly.

I thought I had more videos from The Muppets left but either I can´t find them right now or I already posted them or they are already deleted.



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A Very Happy 65th birthday to Bob McLeod !

Originally I wanted to do a double feature with Bob McLeod and Rick Leonardi - especially since they have both worked on the same books in their career, like New Mutants - but as usual I couldn´t narrow it down to just ten pictures, so each one of them is going to get their own post.

Which sadly means that I will have to do Rick Leonardi´s post Tomorrow as I can´t make more than one post a day. Well, technically speaking I am ALREADY doing two posts on most days since I´m writing a new post and trying to do some fill in posts for last month so I have at least one comic related post between all the cult siren posts that accumulated during the last weeks of the month. In any case, with all the catching up I have to do you will probably not see the Rick Leonardi tribute post before Tomorrow.

But enough administrative information let´s get back to Bob McLeod. Longtime readers know that I´m what the kids Today would call " old school " where comics are concerned. That´s why I like to spotlight those great artists that for some reason don´t do as much as they used to.

When I was starting to read american comics Bob McLeod was a very prolific artist doing pencils or inks and one of his best works is Fearful Simetry better known as Kraven´s Last Hunt written by J. M. DeMatteis where he inked Mike Zeck. Since I´m planning to do a post about that - and possibly the follow up Soul Of The Hunter in my DEATH IN COMICS series I´m not going to put much from that story in this post but Bob McLeod worked on a lot of other stuff in the Spider - Man universe. And we will get to that if I ever get to do my review of Ghosts Of The Past.

Of course Bob McLeod is best known for co - creating the NEW MUTANTS with Chris Claremont which for me is still the best young superhero team book by Marvel. I recently ordered volume 3 and 4 of the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC trades because I was putting the comics in order on my porn shelf and I thought, what the heck am I waiting for since I already have volumes 1, 2, 5 and 6 ? It´s not like I´m going to get any of those as a birthday present. I mean, it´s now almost two weeks after my birthday and so far I haven´t gotten any presents aside from the one I ordered myself last year. So I read volumes 3 and 4 and there is nothing that Marvel has put out since then that gets even near. Especially not the politically correct whitewashed teen dramas Disney puts out now.

Now the reason why I got the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC trades in the first place is that when I started reading american comics Bob McLeod was already off the book which was way post - Bill Sienkiewicz around the time when Rick Leonardi did some issues ( I told you those two overlapped ). I am not sure if he had already started working on post Crisis Superman titles but I know it must have been between the time when I was doing my military service in Munich and when I got my first regular pull list.

I really don´t know why comic companies don´t give him work anymore but maybe he has to work for Archie Comics like Norm Breyfogle or do his own thing at Boom ! Studios like George Perez. Anyway, happy birthday Mr. McLeod ( I´m trying hard to avoid any Higlander quotes here ) and maybe I have wet your comic book appetite to crack out those old issues of ACTION COMICS, NEW MUTANTS or the KRAVEN`S LAST HUNT trade.

Well, this post is a bit shorter than expected but I still have to do the Rick Leonardi post and maybe I can come back to this post later and add more text. Yeah, like that ever happened. As always there are quite a few things to do first before finishing the post and as usual we start with the obligatory shout out to the websites that have made this post possible. First I have to thank the HONEY BEE REVENGE PARTY tumblr for providing the color pages from New Mutants and DAVID WASTING PAPER for his long post on Bob McLeod where I found the original art for the cover of New Mutants issue 2 and the Batman illustration above. MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980S has a New Mutant gallery and you´ll find posts about Kraven´s Last Hunt over at 4TH LETTER and COMICS MY MOM SHOULD READ .

Our first birthday is producer McG who celebrates his 48th anniversary and who is the brain behind such great series as Human Target and Supernatural. I still haven´t seen Chuck but McG is also responsible for the awful Mysteries Of Laura series and the Fastlane trainwreck with sexbomb Tiffani Amber Thiessen. Usually I would mention natural born stripper Elizabeth Berkley since they were both on Saved By The Bell but since I just did her solo post you can use the link for more animated GIFs.

Since seeing is believing here is an episode of the REAL Mysteries Of Laura series from Spain which is a bit longer than 45 minutes. Maybe you can spot any similarities with the american version with Debra Messing.



It looks like the 9th of August 1968 all the stars were also in the perfect alignment for redheaded sexbombs like Gillian Anderson who is currently filming the tv adaption of American Gods which has all Neil Gaiman fans excited. She also got male tv viewers excited in a total different way when she put the x in The X - Files by showing that even if she´s 48 the more important number where she is concerned is the 36. 36C that is !!!  

Also turning 48 Today is Eric Bana who was in the first Hulk movie together with Sam Elliot who strangely enough celebrates his 72nd birthday. Jennifer Connelly played Betty Ross - what a hot tomato !

Speaking about hot women, when 59 year old Melanie Griffith started her career she gave quite revealing performances in movies like Fear City or Body Double. She then graduated to more serious roles with Cherry 2000 and Working Girl although she showed that she hadn´t lost any of her enchantment in Bonfire Of Vanities which is probably best known for her scene with Tom Hanks in lingerie or Milk Money. She still looks great for her age and she currently portrays Dano´s mom on Hawaii Five - O. 

Since I could not find any good clips with Melanie Griffith and I didn´t want to post any of her movies as such things tend to disappear from YouTube rather quickly here is a video from Hawaii Five O I coudn´t fit in when Daniel Dae Kim turned 48. That number sure is popular Today. 



We´re also paying homage to Whitney Houston. I remember that she was in german pop magazine around the time italian centerfold Sabrina Salerno started her career and that was like one of my dream sandwiches.

Selecting one casting videos with a Whitney Houston song was not easy but this is one of her first big hits and I need something upbeat Today.



Normally I try to include a video with an artist centric post but since I did not want to put up a video of people talking here is one about the New Mutants that actually uses some panels from the Bob McLeod issues.



Last but not least we close with the Phantom 2040 cartoon which I think was made by the same guys as the animated Mtv series Aeon Flux.



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