It´s Schwarz Weiß Sonntag with Bob Layton

Today I wanted to do the usual annual IRON MAN post in honor of Bob Layton´s 63rd birthday - I even had picked the name SHELLHEAD SUNDAY - when I realized that I had already said pretty much all there is to say about the Golden Avenger. At least until I finally read the omnibus book and I also didn´t want to just post some pages I found on other websites.

I thought about doing a post about my Valiant haul which I had promised to do but after I went to all the trouble to do a SAVAGE DRAGON post Yesterday so I can have a Marvel post Today I wanted to come up with something else. Now people often tell me that I should do away with the entertainment block in my posts because they cost a lot of time. And some don´t like the high babe factor in them - or was that boob factor ?

Anyway, because Yesterday was Kevin Sorbo´s birthday and he played Hercules on The Legendary Journeys I remembered there is one other Marvel series Bob Layton is famous for : HERCULES, PRINCE OF POWER.

There were only two small problems with that : a. ) I haven´t read the two HERCULES four issue mini series, only the graphic novel HERCULES : FULL CIRCLE and the later mini series HERCULES, TWILIGHT OF THE GODS where Ron Lim did the art and b. ) I didn´t have any Hercules pictures for a post.

Luckily there is a hardcover with the two mini series which I found at a reasonable price at amazon but it will arrive two weeks too late to be of any help on this post. As for the second problem that was much easier solved but I did find much more original artwork than color pages which is the reason for the post title. And pardon my german but the alliteration just doesn´t work in english. Anyway, here are some examples of Bob Layton´s version of the womanizing, hard hitting, hard drinking, prank prone, hot headed Lion of Olympus. He´s just such a likeable demi god.

There are quite a lot of people to thank since this post was unscheduled starting with COMIC ART FANS where I found most of the black and white Hercules pages and which you probably already know if you are interested in comic art in any way. COMIC ADDICTS has a post on the first Hercules mini series where I found some of the color pages I used for this post and MARVEL COMICS OF THE 1980s provided the covers for the second issue of Hercules . If you have read any of my previous link sections ( I´m never sure if people really do read these parts ) it shouldn´t surprise you that they have various posts on Bob Layton with original black and white art for some covers like Iron Man 118 and Iron Man 243 or a black and white Hercules vs Iron Man piece . Speaking of black and white, the Champions homage cover to Avengers 4 and the picture from the graphic novel above was posted by John M at THE MIGHTY BLOG OF HERCULES ( where else ? ).

Not necessary for making this post but still of interest is the interview with Bob Layton about Hercules : Twilight Of The Gods on iFANBOY and SCANS DAILY has a post on the hilariously funny Thor 356 written by Bob Harras with art by Bob Layton and the assistant editor´s month issue featured a fight between Thor and Hercules told by none other than Hercules himself. For some reason the story is shockingly absent from The 12 Greatest Battles Of Hercules over at COMIC VINE and to wrap things up, speaking of Thor vs Hercules battles there´s a nice original art piece of Thor arm - wrestling Hercules by Bob Layton on THE BRISTOL BOARD . 

Now people ask me how I decide who I include in this section because there is probably at least one playmate birthday every day and my criteria is playmates I know where there is something I have to say about ( and hopefully some picture that is safe to post on the blog ). If I have to look her up that means I don´t remember her and she won´t be mentioned.

That´s definitely not the case of Kerri Kendall, PLAYBOY´s Playmate Of The Month for September in 1990 who turns 46. Besides her nude pictorial she was in 30 PLAYBOY special editions, numerous videos - especially in the Wet & Wild videos - and she was one of the few who got her own videocassette. I bought it at the Karstadt in Stuttgart because they had a different selection of videocassettes than in Ludwigsburg together with a few movies and when the guy in front of me saw the videocassette he said " Daimn, I should have bought that instead of " well, whatever movie his woman made him buy. I´m positive he came back really quick to get it.

Like myself Kerri was constantly daydreaming in school and she must have developed at an early age because she started modeling at the age of 15 when she entered the Miss Mission Beach competition. As the youngest contestant she still was named " People´s Choice " and returned at the age of 17 to win the title. Kerri spent the next year competing in bikini contests and hot legs competitions around Southern California, averaging about two contests a week even through the winter. The day after she turned 18, Kerri had a photographer shoot nude photos and submitted them to PLAYBOY and the rest is history. Despite being named Miss September 1990, she continued to work at an outpatient surgery center.

I´ve had the GIF of Catherine Zeta - Jones from The Mask Of Zorro since Antonio Banderas´ birthday and now I can use it for her 47th birthday. There is a video for her below and I have explain the reason for that.

Because also celebrating his birthday and only one year older with 48 ( unless the rumors are true that Catherine Zeta - Jones lied about her age ) is Will Smith who has been in movies with superheroes based on comic books like Suicide Squad and movies with superheroes not based on comic books like Hancock as well as in movies based on comics like the Men In Black movies. He became famous all over the world when he played the lead role in the mega sitcom success The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. 

Of course a big part of that show´s success and continued appeal around the world ( there are probably only a few people on the face of the planet who can´t recite the lyrics to the title song in their sleep ) is Tatyana Ali who grew from a cute little girl into an incredible sexbomb over the course of that series and who got to show her musical skills.

Much to the chagrin of the show´s producers she really bOObed all out in later movie appearances like The Clown at Midnight or Fall Into Darkness .

Anyway, back to Will Smith originally I wanted to post the video of The Graham Norton Show with Gary Barlow where Gary plays the theme to The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air but apparently Will is such a frequent guest on the show that not only did I find an episode with him and Catherine Zeta - Jones but also one with him and Michael Douglas who turns 72 Today. I was ready to flip a coin to decide which one to post but the embedding on the episode with Michael Douglas was disabled so you have to click this link to watch it in HD anyway. And thus there is only one video I can post.



Staying with hit tv show stars Heather Locklear turns 55 but since I always was more of a Dallas guy than a Dynasty guy and more a Heather Thomas fan than a Heather Locklear fan I have no story to add. I never saw any episodes of T. J. Hooker which was shown in Germany around the time when private networks started and they were desperate for material to fill the time slots so they broadcast any old show they could get their hands on. I DID see her in Melrose Place, which I watched because of Alyssa Milano ( I finally managed to pay tribute to her last year but I had to split it into two posts - the main post and the bonus round with her best episodes on Charmed - because I might have gone a bit overboard with the GIFs ) with whom she reunited on the set of Spin City. Spinning this a little further she was on that show together with Michael J Fox AND Charlie Sheen and they both appeared in an episode of Two And A Half Men. She doesn´t have as many comic book movies under her belt as Will Smith but she was in the second Swamp Thing movie which I´d have to re - watch to make an adequate statement about the quality of that movie. 

Today there are really all kind of weird connections in this section as Will Smith  is most famous for The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air and our next celeb birthday candidate is Michael Madsen who celebrates his 58th birthday and was in a movie called The Prince Of Air. And while one of Michael Douglas´ biggest hits is Basic Instinct Michael Madsen starred in a movie called Fatal Instinct. I don´t know what inspired whom here but Michael number two is best known for his appearances in Reservoir Dogs and the Kill Bill movies with Uma Thurman. Speaking of Uma Thurman, Michael Madsen had his share of hot sexbomb co stars as he worked with Natasha Henstridge on both Species movies, with my favorite Bond girl Halle Berry in Die Another Day and in My Boss´ Daughter with all wet Carmen Electra.

As for comic book movies, the actor who guest starred on Hawaii Five O and who was in Quentin Taratino´s The Hateful Eight - which I just saw a few weeks ago - had a role in the first Sin City movie, he also played Supershock on Powers ( which was a bit disappointing ) and was the voice of Baby Man in Axe Cop and of Kilowog in Green Lantern : First Flight.

Mark Hamill turns 65 and I just found another video about the short lived 90s Flash tv show where he played the Trickster. Somehow Hollywood didn´t know what to do with him after Star Wars, a fate that seems to have befallen Tobey Maguire after the Spider - Man movies. It seems Germany is not the only country to waste the potential of good actors.

I added this video to have one with comic art although I´m not sure if this french comic connection is real or just what some people want to see.



I couldn´t rightfully call myself a spanish man if I didn´t acknowledge Pedro Almodovar´s 67th birthday in any form. There is clearly a before and after not only in spanish cinema or in european cinema but in cinema period.



After Mark Hamill I want to give a shoutout to another inspirational face from my youth that delivered hope on the big screen, Christopher Reeve who for me is still the definitive Superman. Dean Cain and Tom Welling did well on the small screen but nobody can hold a torch to the main man. 

Speaking of Tom Welling, initially I wanted to post a trailer for the next season of Supergirl but then I found this clip about the episode of Smallville with Christopher Reeve that I find more appropriate. God, what a great super hero show that was. Seeing this makes me want to re - watch Smallville´s Justice Society of America double episode right away.



But before I can do that I have to finish this post so I will leave you with an interview of Bob Layton where he talks about the Hercules mini series - by the way, his first Hercules limited series predates Frank Miller´s Wolverine mini series so it is officially Marvel Comics´ first mini series. 



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Splash page Saturday with Savage Dragon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

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



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