Arthur Adams black and white Wednesday

As expected the new course I have to take for the jobcenter has thrown a monkey wrench into my posting schedule but despite having almost no sleep over the last three days I still wanted to do a special post for the 54th birthday of one of my favorite artists, the legend Arthur Adams.

Unlike other birthday posts in this case the problem was not finding enough material - since I have been planning to do a post for quite some time - but rather to bring it down to a workable number of pictures. I tried to include color versions where available but a lot are commissions and single art pieces so it was not always possible. Anyway, here are some of my favorite covers and pin ups all drawn by the amazing Arthur Adams.

Since the only Arthur Adams related link I have is COMICS TAVERN which provided a few of the color covers and there is some Marvel and DC art in this post I want to post a few which don´t fall into any specific category.

With that in mind we start with DIAL D FOR BLOG which has the scoop behind the very first - although unofficial - Marvel / DC crossover that originated with the famous Rutland Halloween Parade and ran through Amazing Adventures 15, The Mighty Thor 207 and Justice League of America 103 which I think I already mentioned in earlier posts and there´s also a post on all the actors who portrayed the Fantastic Four´s Human Torch including Saturday Night Live legend Bill Murray who voiced Johnny Storm in all thirteen episodes of The Fantastic Four Radio Show from 1975.

Apropos for fans of Fantastic Four audio dramas there´s a post on CRIVENS ! COMICS & STUFF on Power Records Presents : The Fantastic Four and you can find anything you ever wanted - and then some - about those famous comics for the ears at the POWER RECORDS blog. And speaking of Marvel´s freaky foursome this is sadly only for my spanish readers, Pedro Angosto at MAN OF BRONZE lists his top 10 of Fantastic Four runs and there´s also an interesting post on how he would like comics to be made which has a lot to do with the catastrophic way comics are done now by Marvel and DC.

Speaking about the way comic books by the big two are going now ( or is that currently only Marvel since DC seems to be on the way to at least partially patch up things with readers ? ) a lot of people are giving up on comics and although I have long since accepted that I´m in this for live ( if I ever get fed up with american comics I´ll probably stick to comics from Germany, Spain, France and the rest of Europe which all have fantastic comics ) you might want to read J. D. Roth´s report How I Sold My Comic Books ( And Why ) on GET RICH SLOWLY before you take that big step just to prepare you for the fact that - as Terry Hooper on COMIC BITS ONLINE always tells us - your comics might not be worth as much as you believe.

Speaking about selling on a broader level, there´s an interview with Los Bros Hernandez on BLEEDING COOL entitled We Don´t Know How To Sell Out which I´m including here since I don´t know when I will ever get around to do a post on them or their fabulous Love and Rockets book.

Finally some other blogs that are worth checking out and which I might have mentioned in previous posts are : LONGBOX GRAVEYARD , PENCIL INK , JLA SATELLITE , and especially THE BREEVORT HISTORY OF COMICS tumblr which has not only covers but also a lot of those important interior pages us bloggers need and which as so hard to come by. Before we come to the obligatory birthday rundown of the day I want to mention a birthday I missed. Asian porn super star Miko Lee turned 40 ( or 37 depending on if her year of birth was 1977 or 1980 ) on the 30th of May and I did not do a re - post because I didn´t have the time but more importantly there is nothing I have to add at this point to last year´s post - which readers who missed it might still want to check out. Anyway, happy birthday Miko Lee !

Today´s list of jubilarians starts with Haley Atwell who celebrates her 35th birthday. She is best known for playing Agent Peggy Carter in the Marvel movies and in a tv series - which I only have seen the first chapters of but those were great. Haley also was in a series called Falcon that had nothing to do with the Marvel character of the same name. Speaking about the Marvel cinematic universe, Brian Cronin at COMIC BOOK RESOURCES lays down some Avengers comic 101 in When We First Met - Every Incarnation of Ultron for all people who only know the unimpressive movie version.

More impressive on the other hand is Hayley Atwell´s booming 37E bust which even manages to distract Craig Ferguson completely in this clip.



I can´t believe that swimmer and ten time olympic medalist Franziska van Almsick is older than Hayley Atwell but she turns 39. Besides winning olympic medals, setting records, being voted as German Sportswoman Of The Year, World Swimmer Of The Year and European Swimmer Of The Year she has done photoshootings for Maxim and written children´s books.

Speaking of hot sexbombs who earn their money in swimwear, a cult siren I have mentioned in a few posts is Krista Allen who celebrates her 46th birthday. The bodacious brunette played Clark Kent´s hot new teacher on SMALLVILLE, Jim Carey´s new neighbor with the big boobs in LIAR LIAR and the sexy oracle on CHARMED ( she was also in a series called Black Widow which had nothing to do with the Marvel character ) but she is probably best known for her role of Jenna Avid on BAYWATCH HAWAII.


Now my readers outside of Germany probably don´t know what BAYWATCH HAWAII is and for the longest time I thought it was a BAYWATCH spin off.

Like BAYWATCH NIGHTS. So I was very surprised when I went looking on amazon for that and couldn´t find it. That´s because in Germany they titled seasons 10 and 11 of the regular show BAYWATCH HAWAII which exists nowhere else. Only in Germany there is a BAYWATCH HAWAII. I do not know if they felt the need to give it an extra push because they exchanged the whole cast and relocated to Hawaii or they thought the german viewers would be too confused. In any case it was a weird thing.

BAYWATCH was really big in the 90s and it is like THE ultimate babe tv show. No kidding. No other show had more actresses who were featured in Playboy or playmates. If there was a hot babe during the time the show was produced you can bet that she´s in - at least - one of the episodes.

You can say what you about David Hasselhoff but he sure has an eye for hot sexbombs and he is my hero for putting them on tv. So it´s no wonder that Krista Allen was added to the Who´s Who of male fantasies that was going through the revolving door on that show like Pamela Anderson, Carmen Elektra, Tracy Bingham, Teri Weigel, Jenny Mc Carthy, Jasmine Bleeth, Donna D´Erico, Kelly Monaco, Brande Roderick, Stacy Kamano, Nicole Eggert, Mitzi Capture, Gina Lee Nolin and Erika Eleniak before her.

Besides that Krista played famous french soft sex nympho Emmanuelle in 8 made for tv movies. As she did it when her body was in prime condition she was able to believable portray the sex machine with the high moan factor who merciless milks men until they can´t remember on which side the doorknob is. The show had some strange 3D effects - because that was the new thing at that time - and the stories were not that great but it was all worth it to see Miss Allen get her freak on. Whoa, did she ever.

Here it was shown on PRO7 but so far I haven´t seen the DVDs anywhere. Maybe I´ll have to buy them in Spain. So here´s to Krista Allen, many happy returns and thanks for the mammaries. And if you haven´t seen them do yourself a favor and hunt down those Emmanuelle tv movies.



Speaking of great tv entertainment, mangaka Akira Toriyama turns 62 who is of course best known for DRAGONBALL and the adaption as a tv series which is known around the world. I saw it first in Spain because it came to Germany 20 years later but even then it was shown only in censored form because they had to save the little kids from dangerous scenes like this.

Oh, the humanity ! Anyway, so far there have been various unsuccessful attempts to do a DRAGONBALL movie and you really begin to wonder why it´s so difficult if everybody knows the characters. Plus there are plenty of fan made DRAGONBALL movies out there that show how easy it is.



Speaking of being out there, while Krista Allen only was in the episode First Person Shooter of THE X - FILES ( although double billed as CG sex fantasy Maitreya and the real life basis stripper Jade Blue Afterglow ) Mitch Pileggi who celebrates his 65th birthday was in most of them as Assistant Director Skinner. He also appeared on SUPERNATURAL, played Al Hawke on the awful BIRDS OF PREY series, voiced Doctor Stanton on BATMAN BEYOND and Commissioner James Gordon on the ugly THE BATMAN cartoon by Jeff Matsuda. The less said about that the better.

As I said, Krista Allen played Emmanuelle in the made for tv movies and Roger Corman who turns 91 produced the US version of EMMANUELLE 6 with german sexbomb Nathalie Uher. He also produced a lot of Edgar Allen Poe adaptions like MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH with Vincent Price and Hazel Court ( who has her own cult siren entry on this blog ), THE ARENA with Pam Grier and NOT OF THIS EARTH with mega porn star Traci Lords.

It seems that I have to wait another year until I can write my big post on Roger Corman who has contributed immensely to my teenage movie going / video watching years with such personal favorites like STEPMONSTER with Ami Dolenz ( about which you can read more in these posts ), erotic classic DINOSAUR ISLAND with Nikki Fritz - among other hot sexbombs - the really bad VAMPIRELLA with Bond girl Talisa Soto and last but not least PROPHET a.k.a. THE CAPITOL CONSPIRACY with hottie Wendy Schumacher.

Getting more info on her was very difficult because instead of using her real name she goes by Alexander Keith in the credits which doesn´t sound very feminine. In the movie Don " the Dragon " Wilson plays an FBI agent who was part of a special experiment to give operatives mental powers and the bureau is secretly using him to track down the other members of the group and kill them. Wendy plays his handler and boy DOES she know how to handle him. Not only does she f - word him figuratively she literally tries to f - word his brains out. Daim, she can handle my pole anytime.

Since I have mentioned this for two previous candidates I want to add that Roger Corman was the producer on THE WASP WOMAN and CYCLOPS which have nothing to do with the Marvel characters of the same name.

But he did get to dip his toe into the super hero world with the BLACK SCORPION series and earlier with the first infamous and now legendary FANTASTIC FOUR movie. If this is the first time you heard of it BEVERLY GRAY has a post on what is for many the only real Fantastic Four movie and you can find anything you ever wanted to know about that film on TEAKO 170 . One last thing on Roger Corman : he made the original THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS film and you can find a review on THE FERGUSON THEATER .



Usually I don´t have a lot of movie producers in this section but I just had to pay homage to the late Albert R. Broccoli who has not only entertained the whole world with adventure and excitement from the first Bond movie DR. NO to GOLDENEYE but thrilled us with dozens of Bond girls.

Now I didn´t have a video for this and since this is about producer Albert R. Broccoli I didn´t just want to add a video about the Bond girls - as satisfying as that may have been. Luckily I found this documentary about the almost herculean struggle it took to bring the world´s greatest spy ( one of the main problems was that the americans couldn´t get over the fact that he was not an american but a british secret agent ) on screen.



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The truth is out there.

Simona Ventura, still not the final version

Today she celebrates her 52nd birthday so I thought it´s about time re - post my original post - especially since I added a lot of new GIFs to it ( I took some old ones down but you can see them in the original post ).

I really thought this year I could do the final version of this post where it´s all about Somona Ventura - and maybe a bit about Federica Ridolfi.

Especially since I went to all the trouble and did a separate post about Monique Sluyter and the Tutti Frutti girls. But then I got a little carried away and there was some new Power Girl stuff I wanted to add and some new animated GIFs of porn star and real life Power Girl Carolyn Monroe and here we are with a post that is much longer than any previous versions and is sure to surpass any upload limit. Which means that there definitely will be a re - post of Simona Ventura next year and maybe then I can do the shorter and final version. But let´s get to it : Simona is one of the hottest MILFs on italian tv and maybe in the whole world. I first saw her waaay back when we could still receive italian tv via the normal tv cable.

She was the presenter of QUELLI CHE IL CALCIO which was probably the best show about soccer - EVER, a sports - oriented variety program that is broadcast live from Milan. The popular show mixes coverage of Italian Serie A soccer in real time with comedy and music. And hot women.

Yes, that´s the difference between italian tv and german tv : in Italy a show about soccer has comedy, movie stars, interviews, music acts, a megahot presenter and a dance group with various incredible sexbombs. In Germany it´s some old guys sitting around a table and drinking beer.

 
But back to the best soccer tv program on the planet.  Not only did they have the hot Simona Ventura presenting the show they also had a ballet with THE italian Ueber Power Girl of all time EVER : Federica Ridolfi.

Aside from participating in the usual dance numbers with the other girls of the ballet troupe Federica also has her solo performances which are ultrahot ( although italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana weren´t too impressed with her dance when they visited the show, those dudes were so gay, and I don´t mean that as an insult, just stating the fact ).



Anyway, when men in Italy think about soccer they think about Federica.

Since her wikipedia entry is rather bleak here is her bio :

Federica Ridolfi was born on March 2, 1974, in Rome, Italy. Her father is actor Gianni Ridolfi, who appeared alongside screen legends Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in various films.

Studying dance since her early teens, she began her career in the world of entertainment as a professional dancer with 17. She was in BAGAGLINO in 1991, and between 1993 and 1997 she appeared in a few Italian variety and talk shows, including BEATRO TRA LE DONNE and FURORE.

In 2000, Ridolfi landed her first acting gig with a brief appearance in the Italian television miniseries LA CASA DELLE BEFFE, co starring Anna Falchi and Pippo Franco. In January 2003, she played Marina in the comedy LA PALESTRA, a tv movie starring Valeria Marini and Maurizio Mattioli. Also in 2003, she appeared on TV's CI VEDIAMO IN TRIBUNALE and IL PROCESSO DI BISCARDI.

In addition to her appearances on QUELLI CHE IL CALCIO ( which she joined in 2005 ), Ridolfi was also featured on QUELLI CHE IL CALCIO ASPETTANO during the 2005 - 2006 soccer season. The live broadcast preceded soccer matches and also included comedy sketches that satirize politicians and other celebrities. In September 2005, she appeared on the cover of Max Magazine, which also featured an interview with the tv star.

But back to Todays birthday babe : Simona also hosted X - FACTOR

and ISOLA DEI FAMOSI ( the italian version of SURVIVOR ) because of her good sense of humor and a body that just won´t quit. She has the best outfits on tv ever, is not afraid to show her stuff and while Simona´s not mega stacked she has a lot of sex appeal no matter if she´s wearing a shirt with a bit of cleavage, a hot teacher´s outfit, doing a super sexy wet carwash or dons a black dress that barely covers her impressive talents.

And she also bends over a lot especially when her XXL - sized boobs could fall out of her dress at any given minute. Really, she bends over a lot !!!

Now with movies or comics I could tell you which ones were the best and you would know where to get them. It´s not that easy with a tv show.

Especially past episodes from tv shows from Italy. I don´t even know if the shows are still on air since I have no access to italian tv. So it´s going to be a lot of pictures and clips. I know that some readers have a problem with that but I don´t want to put any download links on the blog and I also don´t want to link to other websites that are not safe for work. In any case most of these links or websites are deleted sooner or later so I tried to cram the best Simona Ventura stuff in this post. Bare with me.

Here are some of her best tv appearances : sexy teacher / hot secretary.

Simona also did her version of Jessica Simpson´s carwash video THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING - at least that´s what I think it´s supposed to be - and she really goes all out on this one and gets totally soaking wet. The guy in the car ( I don´t know who the lucky dude is but I envy him ) understandably goes totally crazy inside. Better than viagra !



Another of Simona´s best tv moments was on ISOLA DEI FAMOSI where she wore a dress that was obviously waaaaaay tighter than she anticipated.

During the show she was constantly fiddling with it because she could obviously not breathe - at least not without spilling out of her top.

Now she´s in quite the dilemma because on one side she was desperately trying to prevent the dress from squeezing her breasts up to her chin. But then you see her pause with her hand grabbing the zipper, realizing that if she loosens the dress ( or if her breasts destroy the zipper which´s more likely ) she might show more than she wants. In the end she decides to let it be even as more and more of her bosom is squeezed out of the top.

 That´s the best part and when she bows down during her entrance.

Sorry boys, but I couldn´t find a clip a clip of that on YouTube so I had to upload one and the quality is not so good but it´s better than nothing.

And it gets better : on X - FACTOR Simona was wearing various hot outfits which included a generous cleavage so she could show her moneymakers.



Simona really got a lot of mileage out of her double airbags especially with some black dresses with such impressive mega cleavages it left all males speechless. Simona really knows how to work that cleavage ! You go girl !





Next up is another special video. I think Simona has lost a bet and has to do the famous " chin chin " performance from the COLPO GROSSO show.

For my non - european readers out there : there was a show called COLPO GROSSO from Italy with some dancers dressed as certain fruits who would dance to a special song and when the last refrain said " chin chin " they popped their tops and the candidates had to make a bet ( before they opened their tops ) if they had stickers of fruits on them or not.

If they had fruits - or rather stickers with fruits - on them the candidates would win points and if they had enough of them they could get the women who presented the european nations to strip. Who could get the most women the most naked was the winner and the points they would score were called country points or Länderpunkte, a word that has become a household expression in Germany. It´s not unusual to hear german tv viewers say : Well, we´re not going to see any Länderpunkte in this movie. Anyway, the show was done to promote the Ecu, the new currency for a United Europe ( no, that really didn´t work out that well ) but the important part was getting to see girls strip. Although the men always forgot which girl represented which country and so often the hottest looking girls never got their turn. This one was my favorite.

The show was adapted by various countries and it was called AY QUE CALOR in Spain and TUTTI FRUTTI in Germany. In Germany it was the show nobody watched ( or at least admitted watching ) but everybody saw.

When it was first shown in the 80s I was doing my military service in Munich and in my room there was cable tv - unlike at home. So every Sunday afternoon I took the ICE to Munich, bought some american comics at the station, went to the barracks, showered, shaved and watched TUTTI FRUTTI before going to sleep. And I always made sure to catch the beginning, I didn´t want to miss the big breasted hottie from the intro.

In Germany the show was hosted by Hugo Egon Balder, Tiziana and Monique Sluyter, who may be responsible for my fixation on Power Girl.

I mean it must have been around the same time when I read Bart Sear´s version of Power Girl in the pages of JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE and when I saw Monique´s impersonation of Marilyn Monroe on TUTTI FRUTTI.



In the old comics artist Wally Wood kept making Power Girl´s breasts bigger and bigger to see how far he could take it. Or at least that is the urban legend. Fact is that the artists after him drew her with normal proportions .... or what is considered normal for superheroines. Until Bart Sears took over the character, buffed her up and returned her to her overdeveloped signature breast size - at least until the whole NEW 52 fiasko / retcon.

When I started to read american comics the DC universe was brand new thanks to the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS fallout and I grabbed all the series I didn´t know which included the two fisted combo of JUSTICE LEAGUE by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire and JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE also by Giffen and Matteis, art by Bart Sears and inks by Pablo Marcos whom I knew from his work on DEFENDERS. I don´t know if it was fate but the very first issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE I got was issue 4 in which Power Girl, Flash and Animal Man share a hotel room as they go to Bialya on an undercover mission. I re - read the issue a few times and I always wondered if these more human - and more horny in the case of Flash - heroes didn´t spend the waiting time in a more adult way.

Well, I was young, in my sexual prime and had a lot of spare time in the barracks ( we were three in one room but the others went home after duty so I had the black and white television set with a lot of TUTTI FRUTTI and PLAYBOY LATE NIGHT episodes all to myself which didn´t exactly help my situation ) so I re - read the issue a few times imagining what could have happened if Animal Man would have gotten Power Girl under his control with pheromones. Ah, all the things I would have done to her.
 

For me Bart Sear´s version is still the definite version of Power Girl and now that DC is back - paddling with their REBIRTH initiative and restoring many things I am of course curious to find out what that means for Power Girl. As far as I know she has not yet appeared in the all new DC universe continuity so there might be a return to her former glory in store for her.

But back to Monique Sluyter. I think she´s dutch and she was one of the girls on TUTTI FRUTTI. I have to say I liked her more than Tiziana who always played the goofy part. Not that Monique couldn´t be goofy and would have problems with the german pronunciation ( although her accent could drive men crazy ). But she always did it with charme and some tongue in cheek humor. It also helped that she is totally hot ( check out more GIFs with the Tutti Frutti girls in Monique´s new birthday post ).

Now, back to Simona, she also has to do the chin chin dance even if she´s allowed to wear a bra beneath. Although she has to do it two times.



But sexy Simona can even top that. Here she is with a stunning strapless black dress that´s just a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen !!!

It´s a wonder that her impressively well rounded star qualities ( 36DD ! ) don´t fall out the way she´s leaning forward so far and so repeatedly.

Man, this woman is just too much ! The top of her dress can barely contain the wonder twins from spilling out. If only we were that lucky !!!

So, this post has gotten longer than expected - and with a lot more clips - but finally I got to give a shout out to one of my favorite tv cult sirens.

Manny happy returns Simona and Viva Italia !

To close things here´s a compilation with some of her breast moments :



In our entertainment block we continue with blow up sex dolls with a big rack as retired 32E porn superstar Jenna Presley who performed in over 275 films celebrates her 30th birthday. Going over her biography I found out that her real name is Brittini Ruiz so we might actually be related. I would still do her, I mean it would be a very distant relation and who wouldn´t love to be a kissing ( or f - word - ing ) cousin with Jenna ?

The buxom beauty started her career in the adult entertainment industry as a topless dancer in Mexico at the age of 15 after getting drunk for the first time. Ah, the many wonders of alcohol, once again the right dosage of beverage has changed the course of history for the better. Jenna is one of the few adult movie stars who always elevates any movie she´s in and her christian beliefs have never stopped her from going all the way in front of the camera although it also might have been a factor for leaving the porn business. As were her bouts with anorexia, drugs and several suicide attempt. I hope it all works out in the end. Until then we have her movies and while I haven´t seen all of them from the ones I did her best ones are from the Doctor Adventures series. I could use a doctor like that.

James Robinson turns 54 and since he has written or co - written some of my favorite comic books like JSA, Starman, The Golden Age and especially Leave It To Chance I thought about giving him a solo post but after doing a quick inventory I realized that I don´t have enough material for that.

Okay, you might say when has that ever stopped me before but I did some research on the internet and there is not enough good art out there. But who knows ? Since this post is written in advance I might actually have the necessary material for a full blown stuff. I still have not given up hope to do a full blown post pimping Leave It To Chance and I have been a fan of this series from the start. In fact, if you go back to my very first post you will find a picture of the cover of issue 13 there ( the last issue that came out ) and my third post was about the excellent Kitty Pryde - Shadow And Flame mini series drawn by Paul Smith who also collaborated with James Robinson on The Golden Age and Leave It To Chance. Which brings us to the links which are all for those two books. If you haven´t read the series and are not afraid of getting spoilered there is a review of The Golden Age on JUSTICE LEAGUE : REVISITED and Dean Compton at THE UNSPOKEN DECADE covers The Golden Age in 4 parts ( part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 ) and also has an entry for the Justice Society of America series by Len Strazewski and the late Mike Parobeck . Jim MacQuarrie on GEEKDAD has a post on the 20th anniversary of Leave It To Chance in 2016 which slipped unnoticed by everybody and you can see some interior pages from that and other series Paul Smith has worked on over the years on his website . 

Speaking of comic pimping, they are currently out of print but you can still get the hardcover collections of Leave It To Chance via online stores like amazon and although they only reprint the series up to issue 11 they are totally worth it since these are oversized and you can read this with your kids. It kind of makes me wish they did an absolute edition of this series.

Another somewhat comic related anniversary is the 57th birthday of Brad Meltzer who has written other things besides comics. I am always cautious when writer from other genres try to write comic books because unlike other people I don´t have an inferiority complex about reading comics so I don´t feel the need to validate this passion of mine by having writers from accepted areas like books, movies or tv come in and " elevate " this art form. But I have to give credit where credit is due, Identity Crisis was a well written mini series otherwise people would not have been so upset about what happened in its pages. If it had been it would have just been dismissed as not part of the canon like so many other bad comic stories. On the other side his run on Green Arrow left me a bit underwhelmed.

Speaking of tv writing, when I read that Michael Praed turns 57 I knew that name sounded familiar and after doing a bit of research I found out that he played the lead character Robin of Loxley in Robin of Sherwood. A pox on your house imdb, for not making that the first thing on your known for section. For all those out there who missed the 80s and who only heard of the great cult series from that decade, this was one of them.

This series was a monster and a worldwide success. But not only did it make Robin Hood cool again and has one of the most macho endings in all of tv history it also laid the groundwork for other adaptions like Robin Hood : Prince Of Thieves. Kevin Costner draws a lot on the charmed rogue Michael Praed played and Morgan Freeman´s role of Azeem was blatantly swiped from Nazir. I also have to thank this tv series for introducing me to the mystical music of Clannad who provided the mindblowing soundtrack.



Speaking of great tv series, Anette O´Toole celebrates her 65th birthday who is best known to Today´s tv audiences as Martha Kent on Smallville ( which a lot of people didn´t know was related to the Superman mythos ) and to people from my generation as Lana Lang in Superman III - The Lightning of Steel how it was called here in Germany for some reason.

We are staying with comics and to my shame I had to do a bit of research on Francois Thomas who turns 66 and created one of my favorite comics Stan Caiman which is all about women with incredibly big breasts. You can see how this caught my attention. I don´t think he is actually working on the series and what has been published so far has been collected in two volumes. Naturally the cover below is on my list of comic covers I would like Yaya Han to re - enact ( since we are on the subject of women with incredibly big airbags ) although I would make her doing the hula hoop as a bare chested night nurse on top of a cocktail drink the covers main focus.

Aprops sexbombs with big oppais, an german sex icon from my misspent youth celebrates her 70th anniversary : Ingrid Steeger. She was in a lot of erotic comedies of the 80s although she became best known as starring resident sexbomb on the german variety / cabaret cult show KLIMBIM.

I remember the show was must see tv ( not only because Ingrid wore really skimpy outfits and sometimes even went topless ) and it´s really indicative of the kind of tv program we have Today that a show from the 70s has more political commentary and social critique than most german tv productions from Today. You can find some episodes on YouTube but since it´s been over 30 years since I watched them I have no idea which ones are the best. In any case here´s a short clip with young Ingrid Steeger.



Ingrid was never quite happy with her image as a sexbomb / jokester girl but I have to say that being sexy AND funny is no small feat to pull off if you consider how many of Todays young actresses try at this and fail.

Anyway, Ingrid most stuck to what she did best and she did not only bring a godgiven natural sensuality but also a kind of naiivitee to her roles. One of her most famous series was ZWEI HIMMLISCHE TÖCHTER ( Two Heavenly Daughters ) with co star Iris Berben who played the straight girl to Ingrid´s crazy girl. If you don´t know Iris Berben, she is one of those actresses who don´t seem to age as she looked like 20 when she was already 50. Anyway, it´s a funny series that has some famous german actors on it like Dieter Hildebrandt and if you watch it Today it´s hard to understand why it was only on tv after midnight. As coincidences would have it one of the many movies Ingrid Steeger starred in is Die Tote aus der Themse ( Angels of Terror was the english title ) a movie based on a story by Edgar Wallace who´s birthday is also Today. And to top things off Uschi Glas is also in it.



From the master of black and white crime movies we come to another candidate in our Dearly Departed section who has spent a lot of time in black and white movies : the great late Toshiro Mifune. Whenever I hear that some people don´t watch black and white movies I just shake my head because they will miss such classic films like The Seven Samurais, Rashomon, Sanjuro or Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa. Toshiro also starred in one of my father´s favorite movies Kagemusha - Shadow Warrior which he probably watched a dozen times and which I still have not seen from start to finish. But my favorite series with Toshiro Mifune was always Shogun.



And of course Yojimbo had a big hand in creating one of my favorite comic series by Stan Sakai about a certain anthropomorphic long - eared ronin.



Our last birthday shoutout goes to one of the most important figures in british television, Sydney Newman who initiated such cult tv shows like The Avengers and Doctor Who. Since I have no video for The Avengers here is the best known incarnation of the time - traveling timelord.



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Damn the upper classes - they don´t even own televisions.