It´s splash page Saturday with Joe Sinnott

Today there are no other comic birthdays that require my attention so I´m working through my post backlog. Before I had to take the course for the job center I prepared material for two comic birthdays - Vince Coletta and Joe Sinnott - but I only got to do the first one. And since I don´t want to let good material go to waste I can also enjoy the fruits of said labor.

Because Joe Sinnott has worked on so many series over the years it was kind of difficult to narrow it down to a manageable number so there may be a few Joe Sinnott centric posts popping up here in the near future.

Since he worked on the THOR run by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz - which is sadly underrated because it came right on the heels of Walter Simonson´s iconic run - there is at least one Joe Sinnott Thor post in the pipeline. He also worked on FANTASTIC FOUR for decades, first inking Jack Kirby and then most of the following artists thus providing a unified look. No matter who drew the issues Joe Sinnott always made him look good. And he is still a big part of my growing reading pile which includes the WEST COAST AVENGERS OMNIBUS 2 and the AVENGERS BY JOHN BYRNE OMNIBUS. I have not read them because I have not decided if I should get the expensive first omnibus or try to find all the issues from that in trade. I guess I´ll go with whatever is cheaper. Anyway, for this post I have included artwork from different series and of course there is a lot of FANTASTIC FOUR stuff included but to make it more interesting for my readers outside of good old Germany I have included a lot of splash pages from the german issues. 

Originally I wasn´t going to mention Anne Hathaway´s 34th birthday in this post because I´m still suffering from the aftereffects of The Dark Knight Rises and her portrayal of the worst Catwoman in movie history.

I´m not kidding, I think her Catwoman was even worse than the Halle Berry version which at least had a nice costume. From now on Halle´s Catwoman will be referred to as not the worst Catwoman in history.

Anne has started to make up for it with her appearance on the Johnathan Ross show ( longtime readers have seen the video in a previous post ) and it´s hard to stay mad at somebody who fills a cleavage so nicely for long.

I found a few sketches from Saturday Night Live ( the one about Homeland is so funny because Anne´s portrayal of the lead character is so spot on ) but since we had Neil Gaiman as one of our celebrity birthdays just two posts ago I chose this in homage to one of the best comics ever written.



Cote de Pablo turns 37 who is best known for playing Ziva David, the ex - Mossad agent with the x - rated body on NCIS. So far she hasn´t appeared on any new show but we still remember her fondly from her glory days.

Speaking of favorite tv shows, Tamala Jones celebrates her 42nd birthday who is best known for playing Lanie Parish on Castle. And speaking about the glory days : originally I was going to post an animated GIF from that show but when I read that she had been in the Wu Tang Clan´s Gravel Pit video I just had to discard all my plans. Daim, Tamala is one hot tamale !

And apropos, Valerie Leon turns 73 who was equally at home in the british Carry On movies and in many Hammer movie production where her buxom beauty gave those creepy scenes a dose of added sexual excitement.

I couldn´t find any of her movies but here is a tribute with scenes from a wide variety of films. I just wished the quality was a bit better ( sigh ).



In the Dearly Departed section I first want to take a minute to remember Loriot. When I was reading through the children´s section of the library in Neckarweihingen his Reinhold the Rhinoceros was among my favorites.

Yup, growing up I didn´t have any of the fancy things kids have now, like an allowance so to get enough reading material I went to the local library and voraciously read anything I could get my hands on. First the childrens books, then the sci fi, adventure and crime and then horror. Anyway, if there are things I´m grateful for to have experienced through growing up in Germany one of them surely must be the pointed humor of Loriot who could boil down german culture to the basic ingredients like nobody else.



Speaking of the childrens books section of the local library a big part of that were books by Michael Ende who also has his anniversary Today. Not only has he brought joy to countless lives through his books, the many adaptions to tv and movies have helped launch various careers among them - and most importantly for people in Germany - Radost Bokel who played Momo and who has grown up quite spectacularly. Which we all could experience when she got naked for the german PLAYBOY three years ago in probably one of the most stunning pictorials in PLAYBOY history. 

Since I already used up my cartoon video of the day and could not find the movie adaption of Momo in good quality here is another big part of my childhood. No matter which story it was the Augsburger Puppenkiste was always must see tv around our house. And any other house in Germany.



Our last shoutout goes out to movie legend Grace Kelly with the best parts from High Society which I had been saving up for just such an occassion.



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This is for the lovers : worst break up EVER

Since Today is Valentine´s Day I wanted to do a post about one of the greatest romances in comics. But if you know this blog there´s got to be a twist to it. So my post is not about how this romance started or how it stood the test of time but much rather how it totally crashed and burned.

And I mean the burn part quite literally since one of the involved persons here - and pretty much the injured party - is the Fantastic Four´s most flammable member, Johnny Storm a.k.a. the Human Torch.

To set the story up, Johnny met Crystal from the Inhumans in issue 45 of The World´s Greatest Comic Magazine and in issue 48 the hidden city of Attilan was already placed under an impenetrable dome by mad Maximus.

Johnny spent the next few months trying to find a way to get through the barrier when he was not busy fighting bad guys like Galaktus, Klaw, or Doctor Doom with the Silver Surfer´s stolen power cosmic until the barrier was shattered by Black Bolt in issue 59. Now you would think that Johnny Storm and Crystal would re - unite as soon as possible but Black Bolt in his wisdom decided that the members of the royal family of Inhumans had to go out into the world to explore and they had to take Crystal with them. Why they couldn´t just go to New York to do that - and drop Crystal at the Baxter Building on the way - is just beyond me. It takes two more issues until Crystal and Johnny catch up again. Crystal than lived in the Baxter Building with Johnny and took the place of his pregnant sister on the roster, officially becoming a member of the Fantastic Four with issue 81.  

Crystal stayed with the team ( and Johnny, with whom she had quite a few arguments ) until issue 105. Earth´s pollution had a cumulative effect on Crystal´s health and the only way to save her was to return to Attilan. 

The next few issues the Fantastic Four are busy with Janus, the Nega - Man and the events of The Overmind Saga ( I have written numerous times about one of THE best Fantastic Four stories ever so I won´t bother you with it here, just check out this post if you want to read more ) so it isn´t until issue 117 that we find out that Crystal has been intercepted on her way to Attilan by one of the Fantastic Four´s old sparring partners.

That Diablo character really has some influential fans at Marvel, he was the first the Fantastic Four go up against in John Byrne´s legendary run on the book, he is the first one Ben Grimm´s team goes up against in the ALL IN THE FAMILY storyline ( which will be the topic of an upcoming post - promise ) and he´s also the first antagonist for Marvel´s first family during Carlos Pacheco´s undeservedly underrated Fantastic Four run.

Anyway, Diablo brainwashes Crystal into believing she is the mayan goddess Ixchel to help him gain control of the city of Terra Verde so he can exploit the city for all the rare chemicals he needs for his potions.

With the help of the Fantastic Four ( and a particularly well thrown stone ) Diablo is defeated and Crystal´s memory restored but in the meantime Johnny has learned that the mad Maximus has taken control of the great refugee and she must leave Johnny - again - to help out the royal family.

Boy, that Maximus surely put a cramp in Johnny´s love life intentionally or not. So Crystal is once again out of reach for Johnny while the team has an encounter with the Black Leopard ( who went back to calling himself the Black Panther again right after this adventure ) and battles menaces like Galaktus ( again ! ), an alien who kidnaps Sue and the Mole Man ( how is it that most stories with the Mole Man include Ben Grimm going over to the dark side ? ) until Johnny decides in issue 129 that enough is enough and he´s going to live with Crystal in the city Attilan from now on.

Despite the best efforts of the rest of the team to stop him Johnny manages to take the Pogoplane and make his way to Attilan but upon arriving there he gets the feeling he stole the royal porcelain because he´s treated like persona non grata. He is attacked when he enters the city, nobody wants to tell him what´s going on and to top it all off they don´t want to let him get near Crystal. Which should have been the first hint that something is fishy ( and I´m not talking about Triton here ). I mean if they thought that Crystal had made an understandable decision they would have let Johnny just talk with her. The fact that they feel the need for an intervention before Johnny is allowed to see Crystal is a clear indication that they think Crystal´s decision gives reason to be upset. 

And for those at home keeping tabs, the story that Crystal tells Johnny in the flashback scene takes place after the events in AVENGERS issue 104. 

We now start with issues 131 ( which was drawn by artist Ross Andru ) and 132 of FANTASTIC FOUR, but I have to mention for those uninitiated or unfamiliar with the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans ( if Disney has their way future generations will be oblivious to the first one and onky familiar with the second one ) that Crystal does not have healing powers. She never received any special training as a nurse so there is no logical reason why she should be critical to Quicksilver´s reconvalescence or why she would be better suited to heal him than a real healer with real healing powers - which DO exist in Attilan. This whole thing is entirely her fault. 

I´m not sure I really " got " the story when I first read it since I was more interested in the superhero fights but when I read it again many years later it really hit home. On the positive side Johnny got a new dress out of the deal, the Fantastic Four got another member to substitute for Sue Storm and the relationship between Crystal and Quicksilver would become an even bigger train wreck. If you think I´m being too harsh on Crystal here you might want to check out Crystal : a love story on THE FANTASTIC FOUR 1961 - 1989 WAS THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. And last but not least I want to add for consideration that if the roles had been reversed ( Johnny had been away and when Crystal returns to him he is with another girl ) and Johnny had dumped Crystal in such a fashion this story would be in the big catalogue of Women in Refrigerators next to Avengers 200. 

We start the video section with Gilbert O´Sullivan´s ode to the lonely.



Lately I decided to include more videos about german comics or videos about comics in german to my posts for the benefit of possible german readers. I was looking for something related to Valentine´s Day and while it´s not EXACTLY about love this is about relationships. To those that have never heard of him, Loriot a.k.a. Victor Von Bülow was a german humorist who did comedy sketches and cartoons ( drawn and animated ).

( The daily damages of the railway tracks between Schmilau and Hollenbeck are without any doubt attributable to children at play ).

For kids of my generation he was known as the guy who wrote Reinhold, Das Nashorn and who invented Wum and Wendelin, cartoon characters who appeared on Der Große Preis, one of the biggest Satirday night game shows when Germany knew how to make that kind of entertainment.



While I wasn´t particularly fond of his comedy sketches I always liked his cartoons and his specialty was to show what was " typical german ". One of his best series in this vein was Scenes of A Matrimony and his most famous one is The Breakfast Egg. God, men are primitive creatures. 



I guess I don´t have to explain this one. This is actually the only one I had bookmarked with Valentine´s Day in the title. And it´s got Power Girl too.



One of the things I did these last few days was watch all the episodes of Lip Sync Battle I could get a hold on. Yes, there really is a show about this but then I´m late to the party as usual so I probably don´t have to explain this one to my audience. This is from one of the best episodes and maybe this will give you an idea if you forgot to get a present for your other half.



Well, maybe it is a coincidence that the video with the hot lapdance comes right before a Yaya Han video and maybe not but I don´t want to influence any hot asian cosplayers with a killer body one way or the other.

I´m just saying that if you should feel any urges in that direction just go for it, Yaya ! Anyway, I want to include a video where she is not cosplaying as Power Girl or Chun Li as you are probably already tired of those and to tell the truth I don´t think I have any of them left under my bookmarks.

This one is actually so new that I haven´t even seen it myself.



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