Erlangen - getting there and back again

It´s been a week since I came back from the Comic Salon in Erlangen and it feels kind of surreal. Looking back now I could almost think it didn´t happen if it wasn´t for the huge pile of ( new ) comics I have to read.

And I´m saying " a huge pile of new comics " because there´s another pile on my desk with old comics that I have to put somewhere pretty soon.

Because just Yesterday I got two packages : one with my latest order from amazon and another from my online comic shop. Normally this is a good thing and I spend most of the weekend reading new comics and bagging and boarding my comic collection but right now I just don´t know where to begin with. On one side it´s great to have that many comics to read but one of the downsides of finding all those comics you had missing in your comic collection at conventions is that you have to put them in the collection and I haven´t the foggiest idea where to find my issues of SHAMAN´S TEARS or how to fit all the WEISSBLECH comics into the box.

( HORROR SCHOCKER just celebrated it´s 10th anniversary, congrats ! )

Thank the comic gods above that I still have the FLASH longbox under my desk and I found the place where I previously put my old VALIANT trades but I already had to take out some stuff from my comic shelf to put in the Legion Archives and the second ALRAUNE hardcover. I´ll either need a new box ( probably more than one ) for my trades and comics or I will definitely have to get rid of the computer desk to put in another shelf.

Which would probably be the better solution because I need a place to put my album sized comics like HORROR SCHOCKER and Black Tower comics.

But I really don´t want to complain because it´s always good to have a lot of comics to read. Yes, at the moment my desk looks like it was hit by a comic bomb but eventually I will get it all cleaned up once I have read all the stuff I got at Erlangen - and written about it on my blog. So right now you are probably wondering why it took me one week to start the post about my latest trip to the 16th Comic Salon in Erlangen. And you are without any doubt expecting to hear some wild adventures with me rescuing some damsels in distress and pulling off some daring escapes.

Well, the truth is much more mundane. I just was tired. I´m not as fit as I used to be and my knee injury especially made Erlangen less exciting.

THE HOPPLING - AN EXPECTED JOURNEY TO COMIC SALON ERLANGEN

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Okay, that sounds a bit melodramatic but if you have read this blog for a while you know that I like to exaggerate. A bit. On occasion. But I´m not kidding in this case.

Erlangen is not as much fun if you can´t walk at least 12 hours straight. Because not only do you have to keep walking when you are at the con since there are not that many sitting accommodations available. The general idea is to get the people moving from table to table so they can browse - and hopefully buy - more comics after all. But if you want to attend the discussions or visit one of the many comic expositions that means more walking. And there never is somewhere to sit down at an exposition. You know, I only organized one art expo in my life ( although I helped prepare at least a dozen when I was working at the art museum in Kornwestheim ) but I did make sure there was a chair and some food and drinks so that the visitors could sit down and take time to study the art.

But that´s not the topic of this post. Maybe I will chronicle my adventures into the world of art if there are enough readers interested in that. Okay, back to Erlangen. Yes, you can take a break in between and go to your hotel ( which I did often since my hotel room was not that far away from the convention ) or get something to eat ( which in my case mostly were restaurants along the way to the hotel because of my bad knee ) but I didn´t have the stamina to go out afterwards - I was just wiped out after six or seven hours of walking. So I missed out on all that excitement.

And that IS a big part of the Erlangen experience. Not only seeing all the latest comics in Germany in one place but to go to the comic exhibitions.

To partake in the panel discussions, spend some time drinking with old buddies and hopefully rub shoulders with comic pros, see some cool cosplayers and talk with other comic fans while standing in line to get comics signed and hopefully some sketches from your favorite artists.

SKETCH AS SKETCH CAN

This is one of the reasons why I also said this was the best of times. Because I managed to get a lot of sketches for my bigger sketchbook.

Oddly enough this was the first time I went to Erlangen without having any particular artist that I absolutely wanted to get a sketch from. And of course I ended up with more sketches than last time. Because there was nobody announced that garnered my special sketch attention ( with a few exceptions but most of them were signing at the PANINI booth and trying to get a sketch there is mostly a waste of time since comic fans have to participate in the PANINI version of The Hunger Games to get lucky ) I decided to leave my little sketchbook at home. There are only a few blank pages left so I only take it with me for special artists and I get the better ones with the big sketchbook anyway. I also thought that I would probably only loose it somewhere so it stayed in the drawer. But I managed to get some really cool sketches including one from Toni Greis which is like the Holy Grail for german convention goers because Toni only manages to do a few sketches each day. Not because he´s lazy or slow but because he puts so much work into it. So the wait to get a sketch is totally worth it.

( Cosplay goddess Yaya Han by Toni Greis, sadly not the sketch I got )

Another reason why my trip to the Comic Salon Erlangen wasn´t a total bust is that it is still Erlangen, the biggest comic convention in Germany.

Especially now that the Comicbörse in Stuttgart is cancelled until further notice it´s one of the best places to get comics at a bargain price. Plus you can get many comics signed and with a little sketch from the artists.

You can buy stuff directly from the creators so every cent goes directly into their pocket and you can find some very rare comics at the comic flea market which takes place every Saturday morning right outside the convention. Which has the nice side effect that there is no entrance fee to be paid so it´s always full of people, some of them come directly from doing their weekend shopping who want to spend their change on comics.

And that´s what it´s all about. Getting some comics. So I will be talking a lot about the comics I got this year because there is not much else I did. No fancy stories about parking the car somewhere and then walking for hours and getting completely lost because we couldn´t remember where we parked it this time around. There will also be no strange adventures at parties or bars mentioned because after the con I mostly went to my hotel room and watched tv or read some comics. Also since this is not the first Erlangen diary I´m not sure if I should write something about the town itself. Most german comic fans have already been there and if my readers from abroad are interested in it I have to say I didn´t get to see much of it besides the stretch between the hotel and the convention center.

This time I was lucky to get a hotel room that was pretty close because as always I waited much too long for booking. It was a bit expensive but because of my health condition I opted for the closest one I could find.

ONE FOOT IN ERLANGEN AND THE OTHER ONE ON A BANANA PEEL

Over the past years I have stayed at quite a few hotels ( and if you have read my previous Erlangen diaries you already know some of the horror stories involved with that ) but I don´t think I have been at the HOTEL STADTHAUS before - although I can´t be sure since I stayed at two different ones last time. My room cost 245 EUROS for the three days ( 95 EUROS for the holiday and 75 for the following two days ) and the hotel was really nice although I have three complaints. Well, the first one is not really a complaint and it was only bad for me because of my injured knee : naturally I had a room on the second floor so I had to climb the stairs.

My second complaint is also not a real gripe but more something that just irritated me on a personal level. There was no door to the washing room.

Or better the washing compartment of my hotel room. I know, this is just a personal preference but I found it just weird that there was no door at the section of the room that was designed for taking a shower. I mean, not that there was anybody who came into my room during my stay in the hotel but if there had been one he would have gotten a clear view of me being on the crapper or stuff straight from the door. And now comes my third complaint which is the real one. A big problem was that the floor of the shower got very slippery once it was wet. I almost slipped and fell on my first day and I was very careful taking showers for the rest of my stay. But the slippery wet shower floor and glass door is a deadly combination.

Now leaving the shower deathtrap aside the hotel was really nice, there was free internet at the rooms ( not that I took my laptop with me, that was another thing I could loose ) a tv where I could watch wrestling and the bed was really comfortable. In fact, I slept better in that bed than in my own and if I hadn´t been terribly weak and puny I would have nicked the mattress. Hey, everybody takes a souvenir from the hotel room.

Anyway, normally I don´t write that much about my hotel rooms ( at least I don´t think I do since I haven´t re - read previous con diaries ) but this time I spent rather much time in it. Usually you just get up, shower, eat breakfast, then go to the convention to walk around and buy comics until it closes, go back to the hotel room to take another shower, then you go out to party or meet people, go back to the hotel to sleep, rinse, repeat.

The hotel room is just a place where you can crash between convention days and keep your stash of comic books until it´s time to leave again.

Thank goodness Erlangen is only every two years, otherwise it would kill me. Although the first day was very high duty. I still don´t know if it was a blessing or a curse that we arrived late on the first day because while we missed the first three hours I would have probably not made it through the day otherwise. I aimlessly wandered around the con floor a lot since the comic dealer where I bought so many hardcovers the previous time wasn´t there anymore and they also had switched a lot of the tables.

I had planned 200 bucks from my comic budget for that table and now it wasn´t going to happen which threw me off my game. The budget was 245 bucks for the hotel room - which really meant setting aside 300 since there were always some unexpected expenses involved with hotel rooms and it´s not a bad idea to tuck away 50 extra credits for the last day of the con. Then 450 bucks for comics and 400 for everything else and the latter one had already taken a big dive. Before going to Erlangen my brother went to a garage to change from winter tires to normal tires ( normally I would have done that but because of my knee I just couldn´t ) and he had to buy new tires since the old ones were just too used up.

Don´t get me wrong, safety always comes first and I wouldn´t have preferred to make the trip to Erlangen with used up tires but my part of that expense combined with 50 EUROS for gas money took away half the budget for eating, drinking and everything else. Like I said, we arrived in Erlangen late because while I had packed pretty much everything I needed the day before my brother did it that morning and to make matters worse we had to get back home to fetch the paper with the name of his hotel.

Thankfully we had only gotten to the first gas station so it wasn´t that big of a detour. Speaking about detours : what is it with those annoying car navigational systems that they always want to go in opposite direction ?

I swear, I have never heard " Please turn around at the next possibility. " so often in my life. I think the only time the car satnav didn´t say it was when we actually DID turn around to get the paper with the hotel´s name.

And the machine also never wants to take the route you want to take. No matter where you want to go and how you want to get there it finds a different way. Because it went so smooth last time we wanted to go by Würzburg again but it took me five tries until it finally accepted that and plotted our drive to Erlangen. It always wanted us to go via the A 18 from Heilbronn which is the quicker route but also the most frequented one.

So I don´t know if we just picked the better route or if we got lucky since most people had already gotten to their destinations and we were just too late but the drive to Erlangen was really uneventful and besides two short parts with construction areas nothing happened. Even the weather was quite warm. In fact, the weather was all around wonderful the whole four days of the convention. Normally it rains on at least one day of the convention but apart from a really cold wind blowing on Friday ( it really paid off that I insisted to pack the Peter Parker pullover ) it was always warm and nice. Thank god for the small comforts of global warming.

Now getting back from Erlangen, that was quite another story. It was everything the drive to Erlangen hadn´t been. There were constructions almost everywhere, we were constantly in traffic jams and it even rained.

The two biggest industrial locations in Germany are Stuttgart and Munich. And the two towns with the worst streets in most need of repairs are Stuttgart and Munich. Because our clever german government wants to " compensate the other cities " so they can be on the same level because that way they can compete with Stuttgart and Munich and therefore ALL the other cities get money for construction work first. Yeah, it´s your hard earned tax Euros at work right here. Never mind that cities like Berlin don´t compete on the same level as Stuttgart or Munich. Berlin competes with cities like Bremen or Dresden. But Stuttgart competes with Paris, Barcelona, Moscow or New York. So Germany has two cities who can compete with the other global players but instead of helping them german government regulations shoot their kneecaps off. Thank you, Angela.

Okay, after that uncharacteristic political tangent let´s get back to this year´s trip to the International Comic Salon in Erlangen. Was it worth it ?

Yes. I wasn´t a healthy as I would have liked to be and so I missed out on a lot of stuff but all things considered it was a good con. The drive there was pleasant, the hotel was nice and nearby, I didn´t go over budget ( I even had some money left on the last con day ), I met up with all the usual suspects ( and Geier really didn´t bite my head off if you were wondering. He says he would never do that but I suspect he could totally do it without putting too much effort into it if he really wanted ), I got a lot of books at a good price, I closed some gaps in my comic collection while adding a few new ones and I even got a few surprise goodies.

I DO know however that I will probably not go to Erlangen in 2016 if I am not 100 percent fit again but this time around not going wasn´t an option anyway since I had already booked the hotel and asked for a free day.

But we will talk about all of that that in detail in our next Erlangen Diaries installment as I´m afraid it´s once again time to bid my readers farewell.

CLOSING OUT WITH TONI GREIS AND THE MYSTERIOUS COPYCAT

I have to work Tomorrow and I want to be up for that since I already had to stay away from work on Saturday because I wasn´t feeling so good. I did work on Monday and Wednesday which is another reason why I didn´t post earlier. Then I had to rest after work and I was at the doctor´s office on Thursday and Friday so I didn´t get much rest those days which could be the reason I felt sick. I had an MR imagining on Friday but I have to wait until Tuesday when I have an appointment with the orthopedist to find out what the test results mean. Here´s hoping I don´t need surgery.

I also tried to stay away from the internet because the three times I did go on the internet I ended up surfing until five o´clock in the morning.

Even when I tried to do this post it took me too long to find all the pics I needed ( of all the comics I got ) and in the end I decided to postpone it until the next day. Just Yesterday I spend a lot of time looking for pictures of Toni Greis. I wrote about him in the past and you may remember him as the artist of the erotic masterpiece ALRAUNE which was also translated to english and published by Eros Comix in color and the sci fi comic LUNA. The second album of the color version of ALRAUNE is finally available in Germany and the last two chapters of LUNA are still pending publication.

( another Toni Greis masterpiece with his signature ASS - ets )

First I was looking for pictures that looked like the sketch I got or the pencil drawings he sold at the con. Then I had to sort out the ones that were safe to post on the blog - in this case I was even glad that a lot of the pictures are explicit where sex or violence is concerned. But when I was finished I had to power off the laptop because it was too late to start a post and I decided to do it when I could start at ten in the morning. I know I may have gone a bit overboard with the pictures of Toni Greis but I really want to feature more of his art since he´s probably not that well known outside of Germany and I think he deserves the exposure. And if I have learned one thing about pictures on the internet in my nine years writing this blog it´s better to have and not need then need and not have.

One last thing I have to mention is that I found another site that copies my blog . Last year I found this blog which copied all my posts up until Friday, November the 4th 2011and the new one has all the posts until March the 4th 2014. Now I don´t know if I should be annoyed or flattered that someone liked my posts so much that he went to all the trouble of copying them. Maybe he thinks my blog gets more traffic than it actually does ( which may be a reason why I get so much spam in the comment section ) but then he´s in for a rude awakening. At the moment I´m not taking any steps because with the way blogger acts sometimes I think it´s a good idea to have a place on the internet with a back up of your blog.

At least the posts in their first draft from since I can´t see the changes I made in the posts after the first versions. Which are really a lot. Pictures of hot babes are added, new text passages too, more links, new sources found and facts verified are just a few cases where I go back and redo posts. It´s just too bad that most readers don´t go back to read old posts so they miss out on the amazing new stuff I added. My only consolation is that some of my readers may not be checking out the blog on a daily basis so their chances to read the posts in the finished form are higher. In any case I just wanted to let you know that if you stumble upon this other blog by chance I didn´t change the layout or the color scheme and your address to get the full TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN experience is still right here.

So next time we will come to more comics, more convention, definitely more Toni Greis butt pictures and maybe even some cover hommages.

Since this is most definitely the last post for this month I think it´s time to take a little summary. With six posts this month it was a regular month even though I didn´t get to post anything last week. With two posts about Doctor Who and one about Black Tower Comics it was a very British month but I also managed to cover cosplayer Yaya Han ( no pun intended ), some classic Bronze Age Kung Fu comics and the biggest german comic con this year. Also the readership seems to be up with two days going over 1.100 clicks per day, one cracking the 1.200 clicks bar and Today´s record of 1.400 hits and rising. What a way to go, my faithful readers, and I hope I can justify the increase in readership with the quality of my future posts. 

Speaking about the Queen of Cosplay, originally I wanted to put a Yaya Han video at the end of the post ( I think she´s so incredibly hot ! )

but then decided not to. I try to mix things up a bit on this blog and keep them fresh and exciting so I don´t like to put two videos about the same subject in consecutive posts. Unless it´s a series. Then that´s completely fine. And I´m still hoping to get around to do My Big Yaya Han Post ( the intro to the big Yaya Han post was so long that I had to give it a post of its own ) and I don´t want to run out of videos with her prematurely.

There are quite a few good Yaya Han videos on YouTube with her sporting different outfits at various conventions although the comments get quite repetitive and boring after a while. It´s just so sad and unimaginative what people come up with on the internet. Anyway, since Today´s topic is Erlangen here is a video for all who couldn´t attend. Dentroo videooooo !



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Trying to get into the Christmas Spirit

I really hate it when I´m right, but as I said in my last post : here is my next post and lo and behold it´s Christmas already. So, in spite of being tired I´m again writing a post to bring the world some Christmas cheer.

And speaking about bringing people some Christmas cheer, the Big Christmas Contest I announced in my last post - where I gave away free comic books - is now finally over. Which is not a moment too soon.

EVERYBODY´S WAITING FOR THE MAN WITH THE BAG

I know that it´s more blessed to give than to receive but let me tell you, it´s a heck more work too. Now I´m not saying that it wasn´t a lot of fun to do the contest. All the participants were really good sports and understanding ( which is why I threw in a few unexpected extras in the end ) but I´m glad it´s finally over and I don´t have to do another one until the end of next year. If I decide to do one next year. I´m not sure if that would be as big as this one since a lot of comics from earlier years have piled up this time. In any case it would be much easier - or at least financially less taxing - if I could find a sponsor. And speaking about sponsors I want to give a big shout out to the guys and gals from ANDIS COMIC EXPRESS who managed to ship my last order to arrive at just the right time so that I could add a few extra books like the ( almost ) 100 page thick WORLD OF ARCHIE DIGEST which I didn´t want to include at first since the cover was damaged from rain. But seeing how high the demand was for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY issues I decided to throw it in.

That´s another thing that really surprised me. The issues from FREE COMIC BOOK DAY were much more in demand than the comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG - past AND present. I guess that indicates that there are still a lot of german comic fans out there who can´t get their hands on FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics as easy as myself. Which is something I will have to keep in mind for future contests. I will need more FREE COMIC BOOK DAY comics and I will DEFINITELY need more AXE COP.

But as I said, that´s something to ponder for another year, right now I´m just glad it´s finally over. Initially I had planned to do a special letter to all the participants with a mindblowing drawing by liddle old moi where I would be very eloquent and generous and witty and whatnot. In the end I decided that as nice as that would be it would really just serve to inflate my ego and the people who had entered the contest would much more prefer to get their comics before Christmas instead. So I spent most of last Friday bagging comics, going through my stuff for old envelopes that I could use, getting all the packages ready and bringing them to the post office in town. I was even lucky enough to finish all that at the right time because they went out the same day. And thanks to the hard working people at the post office ( and I know what I´m talking about since I used to work there myself ) some of the packages arrived the very next day.

Up to this day I have heard from all people who entered the contest but one and all the comics arrived undamaged and everybody seems to be pleased with what they got. I almost got rid of all of them ( there were some comics from GRATIS COMIC TAG where I had multiple copies that weren´t as sought after as I thought ) and most people got all the comics they were interested in so all things considered I would label it a success.

So I want to say thanks to all the people who participated in the contest, I hope you do enjoy the comics and have a wonderful Christmas. And to all the people who didn´t participate or wanted to and haven´t gotten around to do it I have to say : Sorry, folks, it´s done. There are no comics left. Better luck next year - or whenever I decide to give away comics from my own collection for free. How do I know I´m NOT crazy, again ?

BUT THAT WAS LAST FRIDAY - WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT ?

You are of course absolutely right. And I really tried on various occasions to do a new post after my last one but there always was something else to do - like getting some last minute Christmas presents for instance.

Longtime readers of my blog ( all three of them ) might remember that I usually do most of my Christmas shopping at the Stuttgarter Comicbörse that takes place just before the holidays but this year there was none ( for those of you who have been wondering why there have been no posts about this years Stuttgarter Comicbörse ). Which is the reason why getting Christmas presents this year was much more difficult for me. For those who want to know what happened : this year the place where the Stuttgarter Comicbörse always takes place was renovated and apparently the people who usually organize the whole shinding were unable to find another venue for the comic fair - or they just didn´t care and didn´t want to go through all the trouble of filling out papers and work and stuff.

Be that as it may, deprived of my usual source of printed Christmas joy, I had to look for other ways to find some gifts. I had already ordered some from amazon like books or shirts, which put a big dent in my budget.

Because normally I just order comics or the occasional DVDs when amazon has one of their " 2 tv series for 20 € " sales. And in most cases you get your ordered items in one package and if it´s books only shipping´s free.

Well, the thing with the t - shirts was that I was looking for some very specific shirts and of course they were at three different shops. Which of course means that you have to pay for shipping three times, they arrive at three different dates and you don´t get a bill which you can pay when it´s convenient for you. Instead they draw the money from your account forehand so that´s the last time I ordered more than one t - shirt from amazon at the same time. Initially I wanted to buy five ( one more for myself and one as a present ) but getting three was expensive enough.

So since I couldn´t find what I wanted at amazon I did what I always do when I need some comics fast and have run out of options : I went to my regular comic shop in Esslingen. In my last post I mentioned that I don´t go there as often as I did in the past or as often as I liked. But whenever I really need some obscure comic, some back issue I erroneously sold or a hardcover that´s long out of print I can always rely on my trustee comic shop. I always say that if you can´t find it there it probably doesn´t exist. I remember how I bought the hardcover of the second volume of Kurt Busiek´s and George Perez´ AVENGERS ASSEMBLE run from a dealer at amazon for 10 or 15 bucks above cover price all pleased with myself to have found this out - of - print gem. Only to find it for the regular price at my regular comic shop two weeks later. In pristine condition to boot.

By the way : please do get the hardcovers from this run. I know that they are a bit more expensive than the trades but they´re worth every cent.

But back to my Christmas shopping. There weren´t many new comics in my subscription box because lately my pull list gets shorter and shorter.

What was even more alarming was that I didn´t find any books outside of my pull list that I could add to my pile of comics to buy. Which was a good thing this time because - as you may remember - I was mainly there to buy some comics for other people. Not myself. Nevertheless it wasn´t a good sign because in all my past visits I found at least a dozen comics to add to my buy pile. But this time there was really nothing from DC or Marvel that was anywhere near interesting. Even worse I was put off getting the issues of Joe Madureiras for SAVAGE WOLVERINE after seeing how the inker and colorist totally butchered his artwork. If you think the final product Marvel delivered when he was drawing his first ULTIMATE work was bad - that stuff was like a painting by Rembrandt compared to what they did to his new stuff. I was ready to take a chance on Joe Madureira´s art again after I saw some of his pencils online but they really flushed this one down the toilet. As they do with most books.

Anyway, you can get every book that´s out there at my regular comic shop - if you can find it. Now that they packed all the trades and hardcovers into boxes because they can´t fit it into the shelves otherwise it´s impossible to just browse for a trade. You have to know in advance what you want or you are going to spend a lot of time there. Not that I mind spending a lot of time at a comic shop. Are you kidding ? I live for that. Especially if it´s a comic shop as big as the SAMMLERECKE in Esslingen where you can get lost for days in the long corridors and passageways that are filled with huge stacks of comics. And this time I had to go down into the catacombs to look for some Avengers comics from issue 300 onwards.

It´s not the most fondly remembered period in Avengers history but after listening to the CGS spotlight episodes on the Avengers in the Chromium Age ( part 1 / part 2 ) ad nauseum I was craving to re - read some of the comics from that period I still had, especially the Gatherers storyline.

COME GATHER ROUND AVENGERS WHEREEVER YOU ROAM

Well, while I was re - reading the whole storyline ( or at least the parts I kept ) I noticed that there where some huge gaps between the issues. Thanks to the good folks at GRAND COMICS DATABASE I checked all the covers and Bob is my uncle if I didn´t have all those issues without any missing. Avengers was one of the books I had on my pull list and I bought all the issues when they came out. I know that some time back - which might be more than a decade ago now that I think about it - I sold some of them but for the life of me I couldn´t remember anything that had happened in those pages. Which should have been the first warning sign.

If you have read a series for a long time and you can´t remember what happened over a period of - roughly - 50 issues ? Not a good sign. You can bet repulsors against arrows that it wasn´t too memorable. But, always the optimist, I wanted to make sure if the period was as bad as people made it out to be. So I made a list of all the issues that might have been of interest and I checked all the issues out between issue 300 and 375, which is the finale of the Gatherers Saga. And while some of the issues I sold weren´t all that bad most of them were either not that important to keep in a collection or outright bad. Yes, I´m not ashamed to say I had totally forgotten how unoriginal, boring and awful some of the stuff was.
 

Add to that the constant change of artists, no clear direction of story, a lot of forgettable and mediocre crossovers like ACTS OF VENGEANCE ( which really has been made into an omnibus by Marvel, talk about totally losing contact with your customer´s demands ), Rage doing a bad and at least ten years outdated impression of Mr T, Spider - Man hanging with the Avengers and then deciding that their adventures were too cosmic and high and mighty for him ( which didn´t really make any sense since he was in all the cosmic confrontations anyway like in the Avengers classic tussle with Thanos where Spidey released the spirit of Adam Warlock from his imprisonment thus basically defeating Thanos ), and of course the leather jackets and you are starting to get an idea why this period has such a bad rep among those of us who have lived the times.

Of course not all of it was bad and if you have listened to the Comic Geek Speak spotlight episodes you know where to look for the nuggets. For me one such big chunk of nugget is as soon as the Gatherer story begins because I´m a sucker for parallel universe stories ever since I read FLASH issue 123, Flash of two worlds ! by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. The story introduced the whole concept of parallel earths to the DC universe and to the comic book world. Everything that happened in the DC universe ever since ( and probably in every other comic company that took the idea of other worlds and ran with it ) has its roots in this one comics. So it´s no wonder it´s so often imitated and copied. Even tv shows like STAR TREK, HEROES, EUREKA, DOCTOR WHO and especially FRINGE owe a great deal to that first comic where two Flashes from different universes were depicted on the same cover for the first time.

I´M STUCK IN PARALLEL WORLDS IT´S SUPERNATURAL

Yes, I love parallel universe stories in any shape or form and the only way to top that is with a parallel universe story in which everybody dies !

Which basically was what the Gatherers was all about. One big " parallel universe in which everybody dies " story, in fact the mother of them all since all the parallel universes get blown up which is where the Gatherers are gathered from. How can you resist such a concept ? Especially when it has some extra stuff thrown into it that seems to come from the writers smoking a lot of illegal substances like the Gatherers using a braindead watcher as their GPS to help them pinpoint possible candidates. Once Steve Epting becomes the regular penciler the show is really up and running and the fecal matter really hits the mechanical environment cooling device, so to speak. There is just one little complaint I have.

Not enough parallel universes dying stuff in it. Okay, you might say how can you do more ? But the thing is that we really don´t see all that many parallel universes which in my opinion was a huge mistake. Don´t tell me how the particular universes of the various members of the Gatherers have died - show me. Don´t tell me what a psychopatic, raping son of a b - word their Vision is. Show me. And don´t tell me that it´s an alternate version of our Vision. Let me think that it´s our Vision and THEN - when I think he has gone off the deep end - make me realize it´s somebody else.

I think that would have really taken the whole story to another level. Anyway, there was some really crazy s - word going on in these days and there always were four or five things going on at once with all kinds of soap opera pining between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro.

Which for me is the part where Schadenfreude becomes a big part of my enjoyment of the issues. Someone once said " Leave it to the Germans to come up with a word for being delighted at other peoples misery. "

Now this has either to do with Schadenfreude being a big part of german society, or just the fact that the germans have a word for everything. The psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when you realize that your own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and circumstances. The germans have a word for that too, my friend. Weltschmerz. Much shorter, don´t you think ? The germans really have a word for everything. That thing you do with your teeth when you get home from work to read that hardcover that was laying on your comic pile for months only to stubb your toe when you are just about to read it because the hot babe next door was skipping rope topless and you walk backwards into a pie ? I bet the germans have a word for that too.

So why the Schadenfreude you might ask. Because I think Cristal only gets what she deserves since she was the one who broke up with Johnny Storm to be with Quicksilver. If you have read issues 131 and 132 of FANTASTIC FOUR you know that this is one of the worst break ups in comic history.

You know, that would be a great idea for a future Valentine´s Day post : Top Ten worst comic book break ups. Back to my Schadenfreude that the marriage between Cristal and Quicksilver was a real trainwreck during every moment of it, Johnny Storm is the most sympathetic character in this. He really shows grace under fire when he wishes Cristal all the best.

Not that he takes it very good when he finds out she cheated on him.

Which is understandable when you put yourself in his place. At that time Johnny and Cristal were separated because Cristal had to stay at the hidden city since they weren´t immune to the bacteria outside of it.

Every time he wants to get Reed to find the city there´s a crisis which is naturally much more important and when he finally finds the hidden city and flies there to live together with Cristal he finds out she has ditched him for the least likeable Avenger. And then her bogus explanation " Oh, he was injured and while I was nursing him back to help we just fell in love. It was an accident. I just wanted to help him recuperate, I swear. "

SHE ACTS JUST LIKE A NURSE WITH THE OTHER GUY

Okay, am I the only one who missed the part that Cristal has some secret healing powers that nobody knew about ? Don´t they have special healers for that in the fabled city of Attilan ? Where did she get the idea she would be better qualified than any of the guys with special powers ? WTF ? I mean, come on, Cristal. Why WERE you there in the first place ?

Okay, to make it short before I totally go on an off topic rant about this ( although it´s already much too late for that ) : Cristal and Johnny were lovers, oh lordy, how they could love, swore to be true to each other, just as true as the stars above. He was her man, but she done him wrong.

Which brings us back to the Gatherers and the Avengers. And the fact that in the whole love triangle ( which is much more a square than a triangle now that I think about it ) between the Black Knight, Sersi, Cristal and Pietro those last two I mentioned get no sympathy from me.

Now there are still a few things left for me to say about the whole Gatherers period, but I´m afraid I have to leave all that - as well as the rest of my recounting of my visit to the comic shop - for my next post.

Leave it to me to start with the Christmas spirit, continue this with one of the worst periods of Avengers history ( although what followed was even worse, but, hey, even this was put into the big THE CROSSING omnibus so Marvel really is getting desperate ) and end up with the worst break up in comics history ever. Only on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas even if it didn´t snow here in Germany. Nevertheless, we still have pretend snow like in this festive picture of british Big Brother participant Sophie ( I´m always ) Reade that I´m posting in answer to a special readers request. Now if that doesn´t help to cheer up your yule log I really don´t know. Boooing !

Apropos Boing ! , a girl that made a huge BOOOOING ! in the pants of all male movie goers from the 80s is cult movie sexbomb extreordinaire Joyce Hyser who celebrated her 56th anniversary just four days ago and to whom I wanted to give a belated shoutout. And before you ask : you don´t know Joyce Hyser, you don´t remember the movie JUST ONE OF THE GUYS for which she is best known but I bet you remember this scene where she shows her incredibly big ..... talents. That´s Christmas Spirit !

Back in the 80s your best bet to see some naked breasts were screwball comedies because you knew even if the script was totally worthless and the actors without any kind of talent you were going to get boobage. Joyce Hyser may not be famous and may not have played in the best movies but every prebubescent boy growing up in the 80s saw this movie.

And to think she almost didn´t do it. Joyce had a no nudity clause in her contract and was against showing her wonder twins especially after a female friend told her : " Honey, WITH THOSE BREASTS if you GO TOPLESS in that scene, NO ONE you meet will EVER look you INTO YOUR EYES again ." Thankfully she shot the scene showing her breasts and without showing them and in the end decided that the scene didn´t work if she didn´t go topless. This is what I call " poetry in motion ".

So the thanks of an entire generation of hormone driven boys is yours for logic winning over superstition. Or naked breasts winning over whatever.

Now before I can finally put the bow on this one there is still the matter of the video at the end of the post. In my last post I included the first part of the three hour long PBS special about superheroes. Sadly the second part has been deleted from YouTube so I hope you watched it already.

I already mentioned their ten part documentary series about American Cinema so I won´t post that and I´ll safe the video about the columbian comic for another post when it´s more appropriate. Now for something a bit more related with Christmas I thought about posting IT´S A WONDERFUL LIFE, one of the indispensable Christmas movies which I haven´t seen so far in my tv guide. But instead I´m posting one of my favorite Christmas movies : ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS with the great, late Jim Varney playing the part of Ernest P Worrell, the role of his life. 

Wait, there´s more. Because I have already overhauled this post a few times I want to add more videos. The first one is the Bob Hope Christmas Special from 1967 and the two reasons why I am posting it are that I´m a big fan of Bob Hope and sexbomb Raquel Welch who appears on the show.



Another video I wanted to add is the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL which most people have heard about but only a select few have seen. I didn´t think I would find this since George Lucas has tried everything to erase it from existence but the embedding is disabled so you must watch it here .

Christmas and the Peanuts go together like peanut butter and jelly ever since the first Christmas Special that set the standard for all Christmas Specials to come. I couldn´t find the original one nor Charlie Brown´s Christmas Tales but here´s It´s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown.



I always try to include the more eclectic stuff that you don´t find on other blogs so here is the Christmas episode of CASPER, the friendly ghost.



Now the last one belongs more into the " I can´t believe they did that ! " category but there really is a He - Man & She - Ra Christmas Special.



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What will be my husband's trade?

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

When you least expect it - comic news

Yes, I know I have been a bit sporadic in posting these over the last few months but most of the stuff I came across was DC news and that was just too depressing. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.


But there are also some positive news that I wanted to comment on in the world of comics. The last few days I´ve had the flu, in fact all of us here at home have it. But my brother who works for the post is the only one who can afford to get a sick note. Not that I think it would help me much since I´m feeling better on the days I have to work than on the days I can stay at home.

I have been trying to finish my last post for the last days but it seems that every time I put my mind to it something else comes up. Well, Today I was putting the finishing touches on it and looking for some final things to add when I came across a few comic news that I finally decided to put in this post.

JUST WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT - SECTION ZERO RETURNS

When I was still entertaining the notion of ever finishing my last post I was thinking about doing a post called WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MEN OF TOMORROW ? in the near future. And I still might. The thing is, whenever I order new comics I usually get them in nice comic bags and I use them to bag other comics.

But I don´t put one comic into a bag, put a bord in and then close it. No, the way I do things is I put three, five, six or how many comics I can fit into the bag and try to do this with whole series. At the moment I have most of the comics in my reading box and most of the other important comics in my room bagged so that when about two dozens of comic bags had piled up on my table I had to go back to my old longboxes. And the one I picked was the one that contained the issues of ACTION COMICS, ADVENTURE COMICS, MAN OF STEEL and SUPERMAN starting with John Byrne´s relaunch of the character.


I don´t know about you, but whenever I bag a series ( at least if it´s a good series ) I can´t help it but I start to flip through the pages, look at the art and then I´m reading an issue here and there.

Which lead me to the realisation that I started reading the SUPERMAN books in their Golden Age. Somehow DC managed to put out three ( and later four ) monthly SUPERMAN books that you could read on their own but also worked if you read all of them. There was a little Superman logo on each one with a number that told you in which order to read them and the artists list was really impressive : John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Mike Mignola, Lee Weeks etc. Well, being the nostalgic fool I am I wanted to do a post about those artists that were among the regulars and who don´t get much work Today like Kerry Gamill, Bob McLeod or Jon Bogdanove. And possibly find out what they are doing now.


One of the names on the list was Tom Grummet who became one of my personal favorites because he was the artist on NEW TITANS when I started reading the book which was just before the WILDBEEST HUNT saga, one of the best Titans storylines ever. Which - not surprising - hasn´t been traded yet.


Well, Tom Grummet has done tons of books after his heydays on SUPERMAN / SUPERBOY like NEW EXILES or X - MEN FOREVER and is now working on AVENGERS ACADEMY ( I think I mentioned this last month ) so I was not sure about including him but it seems I have another reason to write about him. In the comic industry there are always the comics that become a success, those that never had the potential to succeed and those that were destined to greatness but for whatever reason failed to take their place in the comic pantheon. Tom Grummet has worked on two such books ( at least that I can think of ) and while the really brilliant POWER COMPANY that was cut short way before its prime still languishes in comic limbo SECTION ZERO is making a triumphant return.

If you have never heard of SECTION ZERO, in 2000 a few prolific artists gathered under the Gorilla banner of Image to do their creator owned series. There were some really great books like TELLOS that was cut short by the death of Mike Wieringo


and it seems the whole Gorilla imprint of iMAGE was cursed as most of the other titles suffered a similar fate. George Perez´ CRIMSON TIDE managed to finally get the second issue in the can but stopped after that, SCHOCKROCKETS never made it to the second season, I think the only one that was really finished was Mark Waid and Barry Kitson´s EMPIRE series. A really great series about what happens if the villain finally DOES triumph over the hero.

Another series with great potential that ended after only three issues was SECTION ZERO and the Hollywood pitch would be a cross between X - FILES and WAREHOUSE 13 although this came out before there even was a WAREHOUSE 13. A really original series with great art by Tom Grummett and a brilliant story by Karl Kesel. Reading each issue you just couldn´t wait to find out what happens next - until the book ended.


Well, now the series is back although only as a webcomic so far
courtesy of the original creative team of Karl Kesel and Tom Grummet. And the best twist is that they are playing the story so that in the book also 12 years have passed. I for one can´t wait to find out what happened to my favorite freaks in the meantime and who knows, if the series has enough success in it´s second try there might even be a printed edition somewhere down the line.

JUST WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT - VALIANT COMICS RETURNS

This may not be as unexpected for my longtime readers as I already reported in June 2011 that while the DC universe was flushed down the toilet Valiant Entertaining was planning on bringing back the properties published by Valiant / Acclaim Comics.

Well, finally the publishing schedule has ben confirmed and they are giving the starting shot with X - O MANOWAR on May 2nd followed by HARBINGER on June the 6th . Then BLOODSHOT in July and ARCHER & ARMSTRONG in August ( interview with writer Fred Van Lente ) .


Now this may be finally some good news after the whole DC fiasko. I mean, I heard that one sign of the Apokalypse is when AQUAMAN is the best DC book and it currently is. Which in theory could mean that either the new AQUAMAN book is sooo good or that all other books suck. I think at the moment both statements are true. But Back to Valiant.

" I think there was a reason why Valiant had such a tremendous impact in the industry, initially, " Valiant Executive Editor Warren Simons told CBR in January. " I think the characters they have really are exceptional. When I was thinking of coming onboard the company, the first thing that I did was research the IP. The thing that I found, time and time again, whether it was X - O or Harbinger or Bloodshot, the core concepts driving the characters really are fantastic. When you have that, you have the foundation for a really incredible universe. The thing about Valiant is that it's not just about a single comic; it's about the tapestry of the larger universe and how these characters play a role in it. "

Yes, the concepts of the series were really great in some cases ( I haven´t read all the books so I can´t be sure ) but where most books lacked was in the art departement. I´m not saying that it was really bad but it was just too old school in some cases, with which I mean there was good layout, exposition and solid storytelling but it lacked in dramatic art, action sequences and sheer " blow your face off " graphics. Now don´t get me wrong, I read a good amount of the series but in the graphic departement they didn´t give the big ones competition. At least in the beginning. Later on they managed to get people like Bart Sears, Andy Smith, Joe Quesada ( yes, at that time he was a regular artist ) or Brian Hitch and that´s when they really took off.


Since some of my readers might not be familiar with the idea behind the series I thought it would be good to write a bit about them, first the books that are going to be relaunched and then about the rest of the books I read. As usual this will all be drenched in off topic remarks and funny anecdotes that my readers seem to enjoy. So let´s start right away.

X - O MANOWAR

The first. The best. The gold standard.

Okay, I´m not sure if X - O MANOWAR really was the first series Valiant published, it might as well have been HARBINGER or HARDC.O.R.P.S. But for me X - O MANOWAR was their big book.

The idea of the series was as simple as it was brilliant and after you heard it you wondered why nobody thought of something like this before. It´s Conan the Barbarian in Iron Man´s armor.


Aric of Dacia is a Visigoth from the 5th century who gets abducted by spider aliens but manages to escape with one of their battle armors. Because he travels at light speed it´s the 20th century as he finally arrives on earth and he has the usual problems adjusting to 15 centuries of technological progress until he becomes the head of a multinational corporation. And I´m really a sucker for timetravel stories which means this was right up my alley.

So you got the Rip Van Winkle timelost aspect, you got the Conan with Iron Man´s armor aspect, you got the corporate espionage and intrigue aspect and you even had some rather brilliant remarks on modern society.

And the thing was that the armor was more sophisticated than Iron Man´s armor at that time. It had a camouflage mode long before Tony Stark incorporated his cloaking device, it could morph to incorporate new tech and every few issues it would look different.




Because it kept adapting to its human host who was evolving as the series went along. And you weren´t confined to one main character. Unlike Marvel or DC Valiant took risk like somebody else wearing the armor - a woman to be exact.


For a certain time they shared the armor or took turns or something like that and I think she even took over for a bit when he was busy with his corporation. They even had storylines in which Aric was eviscarated by a robot dinosaur and was trapped in the armor for ten years or one in which the armor was destroyed.


While the series started out strong and had great storyarcs it really kicked it into overdrive with issue 44 when Ron Marz took over writing duties and Bart Sears became the new artist. As Bart´s level of quality would have endangered a monthly schedule Andy Smith did the art on alternating issues and since he drew very similar to Bart Sears at that time it gave the book a unified look.


Those were really the best times of the series until they decided to go with the old " Oh, it was all just a bad dream. " trope when they had to wrap the book up.

When Acclaim later tried a relaunch the whole book crashed and burned because someone had the brilliant idea of replacing Conan the Barbarian ( or Aric the Visigoth in this case ) with the ultimate computer geek. Which may make sense but it´s not very entertaining. Someone like Aric was interesting because he would use the armor in unexpected ways and he was used to fighting on the battlefield. But stick some science kid into the driver seat and you got - well, what every kid does when he´s playing MEDAL OF HONOR or HALO. And do I really need to read a comic for that ?

So, the original X - O MANOWAR series was a really good read and it´s one of the books I´m going to keep forever in my collection. I don´t know if I have all the issues but if not it´s ALMOST complete.

HARBINGER

Okay, I have to admit I didn´t read many issues of this one. I probably have the issues that were part of the big UNITY crossover that all had covers by Frank Miller and Walter Simonson. I bought the trade with the first issues along with two other Valiant trades on the last Comicbörse in Stuttgart because they were selling them at one table for an Euro each. At that price there isn´t much you can do wrong.


Of course the first thing I noticed was the art which was a bit unspectacular but the story was their kind of take of the X - Men. When it came out I wasn´t really interested in some cheap X - Men knockoff but I have to say after reading the trade they played it much more real world style. I´m not sure how much Jim Shooter had with the series but I´m sensing hints of his NEW UNIVERSE in here. Not really a bad series and I might be interested in reading more.

BLOODSHOT

There´s only one issue I have of this series, issue 30 which was drawn by Norm Breyfogle and I ordered from blackdog comics for 1 EURO or less.


I think the story was about a guy turned into the perfect soldier by nanotechnology but at the time it came out I just wasn´t interested in another gun toting musclehead.

ARCHER & ARMSTRONG

Now this was a series I most definitely read and that was in greatest part because of the art of Barry Windsor Smith who did a lot of covers for the Valiant books.


Archer & Armstrong has been called " The best buddy team book of all time. " by Ain't It Cool News, and " Superhero buddy book of the decade " by Wizard Magazine. Ain't It Cool News also said that " Not since Batman & Robin has a more important duo hit the comic world. "

Archer is the world´s greatest hand - to - hand fighter, an expert marksman, a cross between Bruce Lee and Ghandi who was raised in a monastery. Armstron is a desilusioned, overweight and really strong immortal who would rather have a nice drink or tell a tale of his inceredible adventures than fight for justice or honor. He´s like a pissed off Hulk with Wolverine´s longevity but on a grander scale. He´s what Highlander would have been if he had been cool.


Of course those two totally opposite characters have to band together and the main point of the series was the interaction between those two. As I am a big fan of Michael Moorcock´s Eternal Hero epos I was especially interested in Armstrong and his brother who also got his own book.

Armstron also has a mysterious satchel that contains a variety of mysterious and interesting artifacts that he has accumulated throughout history, and like the satchel of Shaman from Alpha Flight it´s depths are said to be endless. Now as somebody who also has a satchel that he takes to work I can relate to Armstrong and I know that you can´t possibly know everything you packed into your satchel. Why, just Today I found a CARAMAC bar in it that I had totally forgotten.


Or sometimes I think I have something in it only to find out later that I must have taken it out at some point. It´s crazy which kind of things you can find in your satchel.

So I totally believe that he remembers certain things he put in while he draws a blank on other things especially when he put them in while he was drunk or without really looking. And another thing we seems to have in common is the look. I may not wear the barret and my pants are rather blue than pink but aside from that we could have been separated at birth.


SHADOWMAN

This is the one you probably know in videogame form. If X - O MANOWAR was my number 1 Valiant series SHADOWMAN was a close second. I really liked the setting of the story and the simple design of the costume. The whole look and feel of the series reminded me a bit of the NIGHTMASK series although I´m pretty sure they are completely different. The book is about jazz musician Jack Boniface who barely survives being attacked one night and from then on feels the urge to find criminals and punish them when night falls. Which could be problematic if that was all there is to it. But after the attack he has changed and he becomes stronger, wilder, more resilient but also more violent.


The whole New Orleans setting with the vodoo stuff and the morbid cemetary scenes and the jazz music was something I found really intriguing as well as the fact that they never clearly defined Shadowman´s powers. They kept it a bit vague so that it may be connected to vodoo or the darkness or maybe just Jack going crazy but too many comics fall into the trap of overexplaining the main character´s powers and end up being boring. SHADOWMAN was anything but and lastest the longest which was around 80 issues. This was the second trade I bought at the last Comicbörse in Stuttgart and even though I already had most of the issues ( the first ten issues are hard to find ) I didn´t regret buying it.

So this book was all about mysteries, the dark things and - of course - playing jazz on your saxophone with your bike in a graveyard.


And he met Aerosmith.


ETERNAL WARRIOR

Now this was the aforementioned brother of Armstrong Gilad and as it also was an immortal in the ETERNAL WARRIOR vein ( it´s even in the title, dude ) I just had to read the book.


Where Armstrong was desillusioned and wary of the ways of the world Gilad was much more of an action hero going out and kicking butt. And while ARCHER & ARMSTRONG had clear hints of what Highlander might have been ETERNAL WARRIOR definitely showed it. The art was rough in some cases but all things considered an enjoyable read.

NINJAK

I was young and needed the money. No, wait. That was Joe Quesada, not me. All joking aside it was of course the great art by Joe Quesada who at that time was just starting to be known.


I mostly have the issues with his art in it and I think I stopped buying when he left the book. No idea what the book was all about, but I guess it was something with - ninjas ? Not that it really mattered.

THE VISITOR VS THE VALIANT UNIVERSE

Another book I bought solely for the art. You see ? I told you later Valiant comics had some exceptional art on them. Brian Hitch drew this when he was still very much Alan Davising his style although you could start to see hints of individuality.


Two issues that came out and had lush art by Brian Hitch and in the story this Visitor guy alien ( I think ) went up against the whole Valiant universe, as the title says.

And isn´t it just the best when a dozen of heroes fight or pile on some well deserving alien ?

RAI / RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE

This is the third trade I bought at the Comicfair in Stuttgart last year and in this case I didn´t have any of the issues since I never read the series. Which is kind of strange since I´m very into things like asian culture, their views on duty, obligations, legacies and family. I guess the whole deal with RAI turning into RAI AND THE FUTURE FORCE deal got me confused so I never tried this one.


As far as I can remember this Rai thing is like a hereditary thing and the mantle of protector of Japan. There´s this new guy who is Rai in some kind of futuristic version of Japan who has to take the role of protector of a nation but not everybody´s happy with that. Large parts of hte population are against him and there´s also the whole deal with his predecessor as Rai - Daddy dearest.

A series I would have enjoyed if I had tried it, I´m sure.

SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM

Not to be confused with this guy, who is called Solar Man.



SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM is another book I should have read as I heard it involves time travel, weird science and a normal human gaining almost godlike powers. Together with MAGNUS, ROBOT FIGTHER and TUROK, SON OF STONE this was one of the three characters which was originally published by Gold Key comics and which are currently written by Jim Shooter for Dark Horse.


MAGNUS was the one series my brother was reading and I was kind of jealous because it had really good art. I´m not sure where I had read some MAGNUS stories before ( maybe in some issue of MV Comix ) but I remember some pages done by Russ Manning that I really liked.

Russ Manning was my favorite artist on TARZAN but I have very few comics from him. I think I might have one issue of an obscure comic that reprinted old newspaper comic strips and that had pages from Russ Manning´s TARZAN and Will Eisner´s SPIRIT in it.

QUANTUM AND WOODY

I know that it´s not really a Valiant series. After all the Valiant comics had been canceled Acclaim tried another go by relaunching a few series in an all - different way but they all weren´t as good as the previous incarnation. Except QUANTUM & WOODY which is one of the funniest books I have read in my whole life bar none.


The team of Priest and Bright really kicks it out of the ballpark with this one and if you ever wondered where I got my mannerisms and vocabular from, this is the true origin of s - word, f - word or n - word. This was truly the best superhero buddy comic. And it even had a goat in it. With a mask and a cape if I remember correctly. This book gets my unconditional recommendation and if you ever see one of the trades somewhere and you haven´t already read it go and buy it. You will bust a gut laughing.

And with that I think I have covered the most important parts of the Valiant comics published. There are a few things I could add as well as some stories but it´s once again time to wrap things up as it´s again very late. And it´s been more than a week since I started this post.


Since I mentioned MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER and Russ Manning Today´s video shows some Magnus art by the master himself. Now on one side I have no idea why this hasn´t been turned into a major feature film by now. On the other hand I´m afraid it will be turned into something like Disney´s new JOHN CARTER OF MARS movie.



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