Flash Friday : Race Against Time - part 2

Today is Otto Binder´s birthday so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do a special edition of FLASH FRIDAY and take a break from the Paul Ryan issues with FLASH 114, part 2 of Race Against Time.

Usually I don´t like to start stories in the middle of things but the reason why I selected this issue is that Otto Binder wrote ADVENTURE COMICS 247 which introduced The Legion of Super - Heroes and in this story Wally West lands in the 31st century where he meets the Tornado Twins who will become members of the Legion. Sibling Rivalry is written by Mark Waid with art by mi paisano Oscar Jimenez with help by Anthony Castrillo. For the sake of understanding the story it´s not important why Wally keeps bouncing from one era to the next but if there is enough reader interest we may explore the worst Flash ever. It might be a good idea to go back and post the entire Race Against Time story before returning to the Paul Ryan issues because it leads directly into FLASH 119, his first issue.

Since you must be already tired of hearing me rant about how great Wally West is I´ll let Chris Sims at COMICS ALLIANCE explain why this period was the best part of the second volume of the Flash and why Wally West is the best Flash ever, for more stories from the 31st century you can find the origin of Bart Allen, a.k.a. Impulse by the late Mike Wieringo on SCANS DAILY and read about The Legionnaries Who Haunted Superboy from Superboy 206 on THE BREEVORT HISTORY OF COMICS where you can find other cool posts about Wonder Woman, Superman or Captain Marvel.

Today could have been a totally different FLASH FRIDAY as Francis Manapul celebrates his 37th anniversary who penciled the adventures shortly before the NEW 52 and into the first three years of new era.

Aww, who am I trying to kid ? I stopped reading Flash when they made Barry Allen the Flash again and retroactively changed his origin story implanting the murder of his mother. Seems like every super hero at DC has to emulate Batman now. So I can´t tell you anything about the quality of Francis Manapul´s work besides what I could gather from this video.



If scientists one day start cloning the perfect woman they need look no further for a living genetic blueprint that latin superstar and sex icon Thalia. She turns 45 and not only is she one of the nicest persons on the planet who oozes sex appeal from every pore with an incredible body AND voice. No, she also has the best stage outfits in the universe which would make other singers like Beyonce blush and her sultry fertility dance makes Janet Jackson´s patented erection inducing stripper moves look tame.

The video - or better videos as in plural - are a bit older but if Thalia is known for the most daring stage outfits she really tops herself here in what I guess is the latin version of the sorting hat from Hogwarts.



Since the video above is too short here is one with the full performance of her hit Amor A La Mexicana and it has the best quality I could find.



Our last celebrity birthday is award winning cartoonist Ted Rall at 53 whom I met at a comic convention but I am not exactly sure which one.



As that leaves me with two videos to pick freely from the vast vault here is one for my german readers about Reinhard Kleist and graphic novels.



When Wally West first started out as the new Flash he had to eat a lot to keep his body supplied with enough calories to burn through so fittingly our last video is about food. As somebody who´s been to a few countries I know that the same food can be prepared very differently and I always find it interesting to see other people´s reaction to foreign dishes. I have always believed that the things that unite us as people are more than the things that separate us and deep down people like the same things : good food, good movies, good music, good books, good comics, good art period and last but not least hot women ( or hot guys if you´re into that ).



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World´s Greatest Artists : Mike Kaluta

Initially I wanted to do the second part of Tom Palmer´s Ragnarock Thorsday but when I saw that comic artist par excellence Mike Kaluta celebrates his 69th birthday Today I decided to change my plans.

Now a lot of people ask me why I do so many birthday posts and the answer is that I often get so wrapped up in things that I tend to write about the same things over and over and this way I get to bring more diversity on the blog. I also get to post some of the art pieces I just keep hoarding and it also reminds me to continue with some of the series I used to read like BOOK OF MAGIC of which I have a few trades but somehow lost interest. At first I just wanted to use the black and white pieces I had of Mike but since those were not enough I made a little picture hunt which is one of the reason I´m running a bit late with this. As usual this is not supposed to be an accurate representation of Mike Kaluta´s career just a selection of the art I like. And I promise the second part of the Tom Palmer Thorsday post is only delayed not canceled. 

For more on Mike Kaluta the ALCHETRON has a short biography and you can find a longer one on this website . Thanks go to the RAGGED CLAWS NETWORK which has a whole slew of Mike Kaluta post is where I found the Korak page and NOTHING BUT COMICS has an interesting post about Doug Moench´s post - Crisis Spectre series that had Gene Colan doing the art. 

Today we have just a few birthdays starting with german super model Claudia Schiffer who turns 46. She rose to prominence during the height of the super model craze in the 90s and I have to admit for a time I was quite obsessed with her. I don´t remember exactly when it began to slow down to normal levels but I must have ordered one of her calendars around that time because I never opened it much to my financial chagrin.

Tim Burton celebrates his 58th birthday and while he is responsible Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks !, Sleepy Hollow, Planet Of The Apes and Alice In Wonderland he will go down in movie history for bringing audiences the last Catwoman that didn´t suck !

Next we have Gene Simmons who turns 67 and he´s probably the best known member of KISS. Either as the Demon of the group, or because he discovered Van Halen, slept with over 4,600 women or married Shannon Tweed star of countless after midnight specials. How can anybody land a sexbomb like this ? Having an over seven inch long tongue might help.

There have been a few KISS comics over the years but the only one I read was iMAGE´s Kiss Psycho Circus series and that was mostly due to the mindboggling art by Angel Medina. They even got Michael Golden to do the covers on the first few issues but I stopped reading once Angel left the book and I think the series also ended soon after that happened. 

When I wrote about Steve Guttenberg´s birthday Yesterday I forgot to mention that he also starred in Short Circuit by John Badham who turns 77 Today. He´s one of the directors who stuck in my head because he kept popping up in the credits of my favorite movies like Blue Thunder, War Games, Stakeout, The Hard Way and Nick Of Time. Apparently a lot of scenes of Ally Sheedy´s romantic scenes with Johnny Five were cut from Short Circuit because of negative reactions from test audiences and you can read all about that and more interesting trivia in 16 Things You Probably Never Knew About The Short Circuit Movies over at iO9.   

Tuesday was the birthday of River Phoenix who was the young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade and Today is the 86th birthday of Sean Connery who played his father in that movie. Besides playing roles in cult movies like Highlander and League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ( which was much better than the comic series by Alan Moore and Kevin O´Neill ) he is best known as the quintessential James Bond. 

There have been a few actors who were almost as good like Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan but right now Daniel Craig is getting close to being the best Bond ever. Another staple of the Bond movies are of course the Bond girls who include such cult sirens like Caroline Munroe, Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour, Barbara Bach, Barbara Carrera, Terri Hatcher, Sophie Marceau or Denise Richards as well as my favorite Bond girl of all times.

Besides Janet Jackson there´s still one person who would be perfect for the role of Bond girl even if it could be a problem if she doesn´t want to do nude scenes. I don´t think there are many asian 40D body doubles.

I thought about banker / model Li Ling Ling from Singapore who also goes by the name of busty Singaporean and about whom I wrote in an earlier post . Supposedly a few pictures of her were " leaked " on the internet by an IT person who was repairing her laptop and landed on various adult websites under the title of " nude pictures of Yaya Han ". Now as you can see below this woman has an impressive chest but it´s still only 38DD.

Still I´m not giving up hope as there has to be someone out there who is in Yaya Han´s league and can double for her. I would really like to meet someone like that for a special weekend session on the casting couch.

This is a Q & A session with Yaya Han where she is wearing a red dress with a generous cleavage instead of the usual cosplay outfits and you can see why finding a worthy body double would be hard ( no pun intended ).



The rest of Today´s celebrity birthdays are all in the Dearly Departed section starting with well known german caricaturist Marie Marcks.



I have to admit I know nothing about Wim Povel except that he apparently worked on the Suske en Wiske cartoon series based on the belgian comic that is known as Spike and Suzy in Britain and Willy and Wanda in the US.



We are staying with german pop culture since Lou Van Burg was one of the big showmasters during my misspent youth who did many music tv shows.



Last but not least we have Walt Kelly whose Pogo is on my bucket list.

And because even all the art pieces are not enough to adequately showcase Michael Kaluta´s art I want to end this post with this video.



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