Thorsday with Sal Buscema and X - Factor !

Instead of the eagerly awaited second THORSDAY WITH ERIK LARSEN post we must take a break to pay homage to one of my all time favorite artists.

That´s right, comic icon Sal Buscema who has drawn every character in the Marvel universe since the Bronze Age celebrates his 81st birthday Today and since I did a short overview of his career in my last post about him we are combining two things to get an even more Airwolf post.

I have to admit : I had a total brainfart when I had the idea of combining a Sal Buscema birthday post with a THORSDAY post. Here I was desperately trying to come up with any issues of THOR that were done by Uncle Sal. Well, it didn´t take me long to remember that he did the art on several issues of Walter Simonson´s epic THOR run which undeservedly get a short thrift most of the time. As I have been collecting material for a plethora of Thor posts for years there were a lot of pictures to choose from but after doing my initial selection thing naturally starting drifting to issues 373 and 374 which happened during the MUTANT MASSACRE. You know, the brutal slaughter of most of the Morlocks by Gambit´s handpicked little gang of cutthroats, psychos and serial killers. Hmm, I wonder why some people don´t like Gambit. Anyway, in the issue Thor meets the original X - Men and although for them a lot of time has passed since they last saw him for him it is like it was just Yesterday. Yup, for gods time passes differently.

This post also makes up a bit for the fact that I couldn´t make a special Edgar Allen Poe post this year but I won´t say more about this because I don´t want to spoil things for those who have not read the story. As it would have been too long to post both issues I had to leave out a lot of stuff like what´s happening in Asgard or Thor catching up with a couple of green skinned friends but if this wets your appetite go and read the full issues. The THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS hardcover is currently out of print and if you can find a copy it will probably sell for ridiculous prices but there are enough versions of the trades in circulation so it should not be difficult to find this. Or you can always look for these issues in dollar bins since they are not rare. No matter what dealers may tell you. But enough with the introduction already and let´s get to the action now.

As usual I am a bit late with the post which was caused by me trying to buy comics from the central train station newsstand in Ludwigsburg.

I don´t know why I even bother because most of the cases I come up empty. Now my german readers probably know this because there have been enough commercials on tv but Hachette is publishing a new Marvel hardcover collection while still doing the black graphic novel collection.

The new line are red hardcovers and so far I have no idea what kind of collection this will be. In the commercial they say that each new book will focus on one hero but I don´t know how different this will be from the other line. In any case, even though I already have the fantastic Ultron story by Kurt Busiek and George Perez as part of my Avengers Assemble hardcovers for 4 EUROS I was willing to chance it. That way I could see what´s in these books and if I don´t like it it will make a cheap present.

But as always they did not have it and once again I must turn to the internet although the only shop where I have seen it so far is the one in Sachsenheim. Maybe this is also a collection that is only available through newsstands which sucks if you can´t find it at the newsstands. And then people say that comics don´t sell in Germany. First you have to find them.

Today´s entertainment block starts with Ellen Degeneres who celebrates her 59th birthday and since her show is not on german tv I have to rely on clips I find on the net. Because I had already posted Mariah Carey´s breast appearances in a previous post I thought I would have to include a video where Ellen has found a funny commercial from Japan. Although it is basically the upbra of which I also posted two videos. So the product is not that weird it is more the way it is presented. In any case that is what I wanted to post but then I found this video of another racktastic visit by Mariah Carey but it has been split into three parts. Speaking of Mariah, just the other day I was zapping through the channels when I came upon the reality show Mariah´s World. How did I not know that was a thing ? 



Keeping with the subject of celebrities about whom I don´t know much, ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky turns 65 but since I never was a big ice hockey fan ( I have no idea if they showed any of the matches he was in on german tv ) the only thing I know about him is that he has an excellent taste in women since he married cult siren Janet Jones who celebrated her 56th birthday on the 10th of this month. I did a re - post of her cult siren entry and you can click here to read more about the hot babes from Police Academy like Leslie Easterbrook, sexbomb Becky Mullen and hasian hardbody Chona Jason´s erotic cult movie Sinful Intrigue and wrestling shows from the 80s. Plus a drunk Sarah Shashi, a sexy Sabrina Setlur, a classic fight by George Foreman vs Muhammad Ali, Tales From The Crypt : Ritual and classic clips from G.L.O.W. and Catch Up with Joe Williams and Horst Brack, der Bestrafer better known to german comic fans as Robi. 

Today´s birthdays seem to fall under the category 10 Things I Don´t Know which is not to say that I don´t know who Scott Glenn is. He turns 76 and he has been in too many movies to mention them all here. What I mean is that apparently he plays Matt Murdock´s gruff mentor Stick on the Netflix Daredevil series which I still haven´t seen. So I can´t say much about this.



Now Scott Glenn played an astronaut in The Right Stuff which brings us to our next birthday candidate Philip Jose Farmer who knows a thing or two about outer space. At least he has written a lot about it. I think only his Riverworld has been adapted and I really hope Hollywood botched it up.

Also no longer with us to celebrate his anniversary is Paul Newman who I always got mixed up with Steve McQueen. Probably because when I was growing up you got either one or the other in all the good movies. Of course now I don´t confuse Paul Newman with other actors because he´s the one in the movie Cool Hand Luke ( known as Der Unbeugsame - The Unbending in Germany which is the same title The Natural with Robert Redford got here ) with real life Power Girl Joy Harmon´s famous car wash scene. Never underestimate the effect giant, wet boobs that are pressed tightly against glass can have on the memory. Just ask Simona Ventura .

And since such a short animated GIF - no matter how good the quality - is ill suited to adequately show the full dimensions of Miss Harmon´s over - proportionate developed talents here is the best version of the scene.



Now while Philip Jose Farmer revolutionized science fiction with his 1952 short story The Lovers as it was the first known science fiction tale to portray sex between a human and a non - humanoid alien nobody put those kind of scenes better into pop art than Roger Vadim in Barbarella.



As it could not be any other way we are closing the post with a video showcasing Sal Buscema´s wonderful artwork. Feliz cumpleaño, tronco !



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

When ace pilot James Rhodes garbs himself in the solar - charged, steel - mesh armor, created by Tony Stark, inventor extraordinaire, he becomes the world´s greatest human fighting machine .... the invincible Iron Man.

Two times the action ! Two times the fun !

Because we had a lot of horror - centric posts these last days I thought it would be a nice change of pace to have a post about special covers.

But I don´t mean variant covers. No. These have been popping up a lot lately and I have never been a big fan of them. Don´t get me wrong.

I´m not against variant covers per se. I have bought a few variant covers where I was not in the least bit interested in the comic or where I already had the comic and bought a second copy just for that variant cover. What I don´t like is the inflationary way variant covers are used Today. I mean, if we have variant covers each month - and I´m talking about more than three different ones for almost every title from Marvel - they are not so special anymore. And why the heck should we need a special Wolverine anniversary cover on Daredevil ? It makes absolutely no sense. And it´s not only Marvel who does this. DC also has a special variant cover each month. Which I can understand. If your comics suck you have to sell them somehow and variants still have a great pull with comic readers and collectors. Add to that all the other comic companies that have five different covers each month on every issue and it get a bit overwhelming. Now if there is a special nude cover among those variant covers - like with the new CAVEWOMAN series - that is simply beyond reproach.

And I do like homage covers. If you have read my blog for a few months you know how I like homage covers. I do special posts with them and if I can´t do a special post I like to sneak them into my posts. Because I get a kick out of them. I like it when somebody does a reference to an iconic comic cover or a certain moment in a great story line. It´s the reason why my readers like to see the spanish or german covers of US comics. It´s a glimpse into a mirror universe where things are the same but different.

And we all love a good parallel earth story, don´t we ? So I can´t really complain about those homage covers. The more, the merrier I say.

But like I said, I have my DEJA VUE posts for those homage covers and since it is Saturday I thought I should do something a bit more special.

So Today´s topic - as you might have guessed from the title - are wrap around covers. Don´t you love it when you open up a comic book and the cover and the back are just one big cover ? That´s something you can´t do on a laptop or on a tablet. I mean, yes, you can put it sideways but you can´t open it up to twice it´s normal size which you basically do with a printed wrap around cover. For quite some time I have put those covers into a special folder and the first ones were those classic DC covers but just Today I went looking for a few new ones which I had seen while doing one of the last few posts when I came across some interesting posts from MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s. I know I have linked to a lot of their posts but they have just really good material. The thing is the cover I had found when I started my search was from THE OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX TO THE FANTASTIC FOUR from 1985 and I thought that it may be possible that there were more than one wrap around cover from that series.

And I was right. Marvel did four OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX series back in the 80s for AMAZING SPIDER - MAN, AVENGERS ( they had a second volume in 1994 ), FANTASTIC FOUR and the X - MEN ( also a second volume in 1994 ) and they did wrap around covers for most of them.

That was the time when Baxter paper had a big impact on the comic industry ( I have already explained what Baxter paper is in this post ) and all companies did special editions of their best stories in special formats.

Anyway, while doing my research I came about some cool stuff at MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s like part of an unpublished cover for THE OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX TO THE AMAZING SPIDER - MAN issue 7 by Kerry Gammill.

I know. I couldn´t believe it either. How do you let the chance pass to print such a great cover, right ? This proves that Marvel made some bonehead decisions even back then. So the Disney thing ? Not surprising.

I love Kerry Gammill and I think he is one of the most under appreciated comic artists out there. I´m going nuts over his Superman stuff and you can see me gush more about his art when I ever get to continue my series on the SUPERMAN comics of the 80s and 90s - and Maxima. The way he draws Superman dropping out of the sky - there´s one particular page I would probably buy as an original but of course I couldn´t find that page.  

And don´t get me started on his work on POWER MAN and IRON FIST. Now that´s what I call epic. I read most of those issues in the spanish version, Iron fist´s fight against the ninja, the Sons of the Tigers, their return to Kun Lun, and so on. One of the ESSENTIALS I got is the second volume of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST but it contains the latter part when the inks got kind of funky. But it´s still good Kerry Gamill art. There is an Epic Collection out of some of his material and if it´s the early stuff I´m definitely getting that even if I have to deal with the gutter problems.

One of these days I´ll have to do a full blown post on Kerry Gammill and his wonderful art. Anyway, back to THE OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX TO THE AMAZING SPIDER - MAN 7 here´s the complete cover and if you see what they used instead you will curse Marvel more than I did when I saw it.

They did however use his cover for THE OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX TO THE AMAZING SPIDER - MAN issue 9 which is just fabulous beyond words.

Our pals from MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s have a post on the series which has many nice pictures like John Romita Sr. cover for issue 4

and Mike Zeck´s cover for issue 5.

Coming back to Kerry Gamill, he also did a wonderful cover for THE OFFICIAL MARVEL INDEX TO THE FANTASTIC FOUR issue 5. MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s has a post where you can see all the covers .

Now I would like to post some covers from the Avengers series but all the pictures I found are much too small. Instead we´re going with the X - Men Index which has a great Walter Simonson cover on their second issue

and an even better John Romita Jr cover on issue 7.

And speaking of the X - Men, you remember that I mentioned that when the Baxter paper came out the comic companies did special editions of their best stories with the new paper ? I read my first WARLOCK issues in that version and they too had all wrap around covers by Jim Starlin.

Anyway, I´m going to leave those for an upcoming DEATH IN COMICS - THE MANY AND STRANGE DEATHS OF ADAM WARLOCK post but in the meantime here is the cover to UNCANNY X - MEN SPECIAL EDITION 1 by Dave Cockrum with the first appearance of the ALL NEW X - Men team ( also courtesy of the fine folks from MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s ).

And we´re staying with Marvel´s merry mutants. Of course there also were some wrap around covers on later issues of comics like on this cover for X - FACTOR 92 by Joe Quesada ( a lot of people wish he had stayed with doing pencils ) which was part of the FATAL ATTRACTIONS crossover which had double page spreads on all the issues as well as holograms.

And that´s all we have time for Today. But don´t worry, there will be more posts with wrap around covers on the way with lots of stuff from DC and when we continue with the Marvel covers there will be big names like George Perez, Jim Lee, Ed McGuiness, Frank Cho, Joe Madureiras and even one from MASTERS OF KUNG FU. And now for Today´s link section.

MARS WILL SEND NO MORE has lots of X - Men stuff like ALL the FATAL ATTRACTIONS covers, THE UNPUBLISHED X - MEN, a website that is all about unpublished or rare X - Men material has 3 posts on Mike Zeck´s wrap around covers for X - MEN CLASSICS and they also provided the unpublished cover for X - MEN 56 by Neal Adams which I posted at the beginning, STORM ARCANA has a post on ASTRO CITY´s Brent Anderson´s work on X - Men and COMIC BOOK RESOURCES number 15 of their 50 GREATEST X - MEN STORIES countdown is also FATAL ATTRACTIONS.

Onwards with more Kerry Gammill : FORTRESS OF BAILEYTUDE is the home of the FROM CRISIS TO CRISIS podcast and helped me out with the Kerry Gammill splash page , DC COMICS ARTISTS lists the artists Who drew Superman in the Iron Age ? , MAJOR SPOILERS has a RETRO REVIEW of Kerry Gammill´s POWER MAN & IRON FIST 79 and last but not least DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND offers the complete issue 62 of that. 

We start Today´s video section with one I have bookmarked a long time ago : Danni Danger´s review of the UNCANNY X - MEN / THE NEW TEEN TITANS crossover by Chris Claremont, Walter Simonson and Terry Austin.



It´s a really great read and I don´t think I posted any of Danni Danger´s videos so far. And speaking of great artists here´s X - MEN´s Neal Adams.



Neal Adams also worked on such iconic Superman sagas like SUPERMAN VS MUHAMMED ALI and since former Superman artist Kerry Gammill is a big part of this post ( the day when he left comics to work in movies and television was a sad day for the comics industry ) here´s a video I probably would have never posted if I hadn´t read that Everything You Thought You Knew About Nic Cage´s Superman Film Is Wrong before.



So far we haven´t had a full movie video and since Spider - Man is also in this post ( Superman and Spider - Man in the same post, only on TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN, brother ) here´s THE DRAGON´S CHALLENGE, the only one I´m sure I haven´t posted before. And what could be a greater combination than Spider - Man acrobatics and 80s Kung Fu ?



Speaking about great combinations I´m not sure if the following bikini contestants really are one since I suspect it´s the same girl. Or isn´t it ?



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest / best of the best

When exposing criminal behavior is treated as a crime, you are ruled by criminals.

Shameless comic pimping Tuesday

It´s been a while since I did one of those because lately I have done other posts on weekends, what with Halloween and all those other things that have come up. But now there are a few comic bargains at amazon I wanted to mention before going back to business as usual so let´s start with the shameless comic pimping.


As you all know I got my own little amazon store embedded in this blog but even though I have created approximately 0.00 bucks of revenue through it every once in a while I want to bring certain bargains to the attention of my readers. It´s what I did before I got the store and I guess it´s what I´ll keep doing once amazon decides that I´m not worth keeping as a partner and kicks me out.

I like to entertain the idea that such a thing has no influence on me or the way I write my blog. Which is probably true since I still have to pay for most review copies myself. And I never recommend any books I haven´t bought myself and enjoyed. As my amazon store is from amazon.de I should not have to mention that this is all for my german readers.

Keeping that in mind I just HAD to plug the WEDNESDAY COMICS HARDCOVER especially in the pre - Christmas period.


As every year another Christmas comes around in a few weeks and that means aside from the BIG FREE COMIC CHRISTMAS CONTEST on this very blog, getting presents - preferably comic presents - for your loved ones, family or acquaintances. Of course the best is when you manage to give one of those diehard comic muggels a comic as a present and they can´t get enough of it. That´s one big " Mission accomplished " on your Christmas list right there.

Now when I give presents for Christmas I prefer to give those big hardcovers that look very impressive on the bookshelf but here in Germany they are very expensive which means there are only two outlets for those kind of books for me : conventions like the Stuttgarter Comicbörse taking place this month on the 26th - or amazon.


Now you may find the new german hardcover edition of WEDNESDAY COMICS at the Comicbörse in Stuttgart. But - " as always " a frustrated Subzero added - PANINI COMICS GERMANY just had to make it unavailable to the general comic reading public. I really have no idea how they expect to bring more readers into the german comic market if they keep pandering exclusively to the collectors market. Now you better sit down because for some unfathomable reason PANINI COMICS GERMANY thought it would be a brilliant idea to make the german version of the american 50 Dollar hardcover a limited edition of only 999 copies at a price of 69 EUROS. No, really. If you don´t believe me check out this link

Just before Christmas they throw such an overpriced collectors edition hardcover on the market. What does that say about them ? Okay, you might find it with a bit of a discount at the Comicbörse in Stuttgart or at some other comic convention but to have an even comparable price with the american 50 Dollar edition the comic dealer would have to give you a discount of 19 bucks. Might happen. Okay, it might happen. But it´s not very likely and it´s not nice of PANINI COMICS GERMANY to put this kind of pressure on german comic dealers by forcing them to offer at least a 19 EURO discount to stay competitive.


I´m saying " at least a 19 EURO discount " because you can get the hardcover between 40 and 35 EUROS at your regular online comicstore. Now the reason why I had to make the WEDNESDAY COMICS HARDCOVER my first item is that at the moment amazon is selling it for 25 EUROS. That´s almost a third of the german price, half the price of the original edition and still 10 bucks below what the best priced online shop will charge you and it includes shipping.

And the reason why I want to put it on the blog right now is that those bargains can go very quick. In one of my first bargain books posts the comics I was writing about were sold out while I was finishing the post. And good prices will not last forever as the CAPTAIN AMERICA OMNIBUS or the ASTONISHING X - MEN OMNIBUS have already gone over 51 EUROS and the " 3 trades for 15 EUROS " offer has also already expired. Now if you really, really want to support the german comic market OR if you want to buy it as a Christmas present for somebody who only can read german you´re stuck with the german 69 EURO monster. But if you can read english and you may have thought about getting it NOW is the right time. I have learned a long time ago that with these things you only have one chance and in most cases you will regret it later if you don´t grab the bull by the horns.

Now what is WEDNESDAY COMIS ? Oh my god, I totally forgot that there may be people out there who have no idea what I´m talking about.


Back in 2009 DC comics had the idea of reviving those classic newspaper comics section and I´m not talking about the tiny cartoon strips you would get during the week but those glorious big Sunday pages in full color. Coming in the newspaper size and folded to standard comicbook size WEDNESDAY COMICS was printed on newspaper and although at a price of 3.99 per issue it tanked the whole " good comics at low prices " thing it still offered your money´s worth with comics that each had one page every issue by a literally WHO`S WHO of comic legends and up and coming artists.

On the top of my list is - naturally - KAMANDI written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ryan Sook,


METAL MEN written by Dan DiDio and drawn by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez,


METAMORPHO written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Mike Allred,


SGT ROCK written by Adam Kubert and drawn by Joe Kubert


and SUPERGIRL written by Jimmy Palmiotti and drawn by Amanda Connor.


And the rest of the list is equally impressive : BATMAN by the 100 BULLETS team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso,


SUPERMAN by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo, DEADMAN by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck who´s channeling his inner Darwyn Cook,


GREEN LANTERN by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones,


TEEN TITANS by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway, STRANGE ADVENTURES by Paul Pope, a really strange WONDER WOMAN by Bill Caldwell, FLASH COMICS by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher that simultanely tells a story of the Flash AND a story of Iris West,


THE DEMON / CATWOMAN by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze


and last but not least HAWKMAN by the incomparable Kyle Baker. Now I would like to be able to give you a detailed analysis about each and every one of the comics but the truth is that I only got the first issue.

Because after reading the first installment of the strips I knew I had to get the collection at some point and buying any subsequent issues would just be a waste of money. And now that I have the hardcover edition on glorious highend paper my issue 1 is of course going into the bag for the big Christmas contest. In any case this book is worth it if you only like some of the comics and you won´t believe the size of this sucker. Throwing this book at somebody is considered assault with a deadly weapon and legally it should come with a weapon´s license.



Talking about blunt force trauma my next two items are also in the " get it while it lasts " section and the first one is the 50 Dollar DARK AVENGERS HARDCOVER by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato ( with some help by Greg Horn and Chris Bachalo ) that is still offered at 25 EUROS.



I have already written at length in this post why the 400 page collection gets my utmost recommendation so I´ll just post another piece of gorgeous art by Mike Deodato.


The second one is SECRET WARRIORS HC 6 - WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS that is now offered at 10.70 EUROS which is less than you pay for the paperback at amazon ( 11.99 EURO ) or at your regular online shop for the hardcover ( around 18 bucks ).


I haven´t gotten around to do a review on the series but from all the fallout of CIVIL WAR ( we just keep getting back to it don´t we ? ) this is one of the best written books. The art is done by Alessandro Vitti who first alternated art chores with Stefano Casselli and then took over when Stefano left the book and while it may not be the best volume for new readers I wanted to mention it for all those who already are fans of Nick Fury´s handpicked band of misfits and didn´t have the time to get the latest volume.



Now the next two items I HAVE already mentioned a few times on the blog : iZombie volume 1 and 2 by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred. So far I have only given some dubious hints or mysterious comments but now it´s time to let the cat out of the sack - so to speak. I won´t ruin everything but here´s the readers review from amazon :

For all zombie fans out there gnashing their teeth in anticipation for the next issue of WALKING DEAD, MARVEL ZOMBIES or DIE TOTEN, Vertigo offers a surprising new take on the zombie genre. iZombie is a significant tonal shift from most zombie comics on the market : it’s told from the perspective of female 20 - something zombie Gwen Dylan, whose undead existence comes with a great twist. In order to maintain the pretense that she’s alive, Gwen must consume human gray matter once a month or else her zombie instincts take over. Along with the brainy aftertaste comes selective memories from the deceased, and Gwen is cursed with flashbacks that are not her own. It’s a tough gig, coupled with a job digging graves ( bright side : her day job provides those necessary late - night snacks that she reluctantly craves), and the irony is not lost on her :

This is, by the way, totally some kind of symbol for my entire existence. Digging holes in the morning, filling them up in the afternoon, and sneaking in at night to dig ‘em back up again. Over and over. Like that guy in the Greek hell who rolled a big rock up and down a hill all day. What was his name? Syphilis? Something like that, anyway. Whatever. Seriously, though, I’d switch places with the dead Greek guy in a second.


Gwen’s best friend, Ellie, is a lonely ghost stuck in 1960s fashion, but she wears it well. Her melancholic state is just as interesting as Gwen’s predicament, and Roberson develops both female characters with an easy - going, natural manner, giving iZombie a refreshingly frank attitude. When Gwen’s oblivious coworkers ask her to join them after work, she off - handedly dismisses them: " I’ve got to wash my hair, or something suitably girly like that. " Even undead, Gwen is too cool--a graveyard hipster, hiding her secret under a thick coffin liner of aloofness.

Once Gwen cracks the latest cranium and devours its innards, however, she uncovers a murder mystery that threatens to spoil her detached routine. She, Ellie, and their were - terrier pal, Scott, form an askew Scooby - Doo alliance to solve the case, and along the way they cross paths with a sorority comprised of vamping vamps, a Hugh Hefner - esque mummy who might hold more answers than Gwen imagined and monster hunter Horatio who she should avoid but falls in love with instead.

Mike Allred’s pop art leanings imbue iZombie with a sly, ever - smirking temperament. His characters inhabit a canvas that’s instantly recognizable as his own : bold, unblended lines case characters who seem partially aware of the comic panels that frame their stories. They knowingly pose, at once a part of and removed from their backgrounds. The artwork is muddier than Allred’s Madman series, yet not as sharp - edged as his X - FORCE / X - STATIX run. The first paperback includes over ten pages of sketchbook material from Allred, and it’s fun to see his pencil - work before it gets handed off to his wife, Laura, for coloring.


As longtime readers of the blog may already know I´m a big fan of Mike Allred and so I might be a bit biased where the art is concerned but what really makes this a winner for me is how Mike Allred manages once again to collaborate with a writer who makes slackers interesting. First he did it in the aforementioned X - FORCE / X - STATIX where I started reading the series because I had to know which of those self - absorbed pseudo heroes would die a horrible death ( next ) and ended up rooting for them. Now he does it again and while I usually am not a big fan of slackers as main characters and find them boring the way Chris Roberson writes Gwen has won me over. Which might have to do with the occasional nudie shot by Mr. Allred.

This series is just all kinds of fun, intrigue, action, comedy, romance, horror and......well, stuff and it gets high marks from me.



And last but not least the HELLBOY - HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD HARDCOVER written by Mike Mignola with art by the brilliant Richard Corben is finally out.


I had totally forgotten about this but thanks to the suggestion list of amazon I was reminded of it. The book gets top scores from me without having read it first only based on their previous collaborations. It seems Mike Mignola read my comment that it would be nice to have a book full with Richard Corben Hellboy art because this time he went straigth to the graphic novel. It´s only about 2 EUROS cheaper as from regular online shops but I wanted to mention it because it´s new in my amazon store and the shipping takes 4 to 7 weeks as it is a new book. So if you want to get it for Christmas you should order it soon.


As I said, all these books are offered at a good price right now so you shouldn´t wait too long before ordering them.



Man, with all the HELLBOY, iZOMBIE, GEISTER SCHOCKER, JOHN SINCLAIR and GESPENSTER KRIMI lately you might think this was SUBZERO´s LITTLE HORROR COMIC BLOG but on the other side what would you expect from a blog called TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN ? There´s bound to be some horror stuff involved especially during the time around Halloween. And since I already mentioned JOHN SINCLAIR I´m glad to announce that the rumors about the death of Vincente Ballestar are just that : rumors.

The spanish artist who did most of the ( and the best ) covers during my period on the german horror pulp cult series is alive and well and you can find his blog right here . He even posted some artwork especially for his german JOHN SINCLAIR fans.


With pulp novels in most cases you have only the cover to give you some visual input of the story and the covers by Vincente always helped you greatly in that departement. Most of the issues I read have his covers which always managed to convey a mood of horror and suspense. It also helped that he has a knack for drawing the ladies although it sometimes took a long time until such massitas like Glenda Perkins finally made it on the cover. I mean managed to be shown on the cover.


And with that it´s once again time to wrap things up as it´s pretty late and the first comments are starting to come in. As usual around here it has taken me longer to write this post than anticipated and I couldn´t put in all the stuff I wanted. But with writing the post, doing the necessary research, receiving mail from amazon, making phone calls, writing e - mails, do the big clean up in my room, help with the cooking and even leave the house for some shopping I had a pretty busy day.

As this post was almost exclusively for my german readers I want to close out things with german band LOS DOS Y COMPANEROS who, according to my brother are the s - word.



New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN : top ten posts / more posts of interest