Manic Monday--I'm Spartacus!

Because some mornings...

...you just need to see Kirk Douglas in a loin cloth.

I miss the good old days when Dell would do lots and lots of movie adaptations, especially of things you never thought you'd see in a comic book.

SUPERTECHNIRAMA!!!!

The bonus part of this adaptation?

John Buscema artwork!!

Gaylord Du Bois did the script, supposedly adapted from Dalton Trumbo's screenplay. But there are significant differences. Take, for example, the famous "I'm Spartacus" scene...

That's not quite how it went down in the movie...



Sorry, Dell. The movie is better.

From Four Color #1139 (1960)

Woody Woodpecker Explains How We Got To The Moon In 1950, Or, A Solution To The ROM Problem?

Dude, this is complex, so try to keep up...

America's early rockets tests were pretty unsuccessful:

Well, if at first you don't succeed...

...make your goal even more unrealistic, and ask private business to pay for it!!

I mean, if you can't even get an unmanned rocket to lift off successfully, maybe you should try mastering the baby steps before you suddenly leap to a manned mission to the moon?

But the professor has brilliant new designs...so we just have to sell the idea to rich guys with millions to throw around!!

Hmmm...some fairly obvious re-lettering going on here...

You had them at the word "atomic":

Now, you may be saying, "snell, you promised us Woody Woodpecker!"

Here's the deal: this is Charlton's Space Adventures #23 (1958). It's a reprint of Fawcett's 1950 adaptation of the 1950 movie Destination Moon. Producer George Pal was best buds with Woody creator Walter Lantz, and got permission to use Woody in the movie. Observe:


So, when Charlton reprinted the comic, they didn't have permission to use the character, so they re-colored and re-lettered Woody Woodpecker into Danny The Duck!!

Dear Marvel...do you think this approach would work in allowing you to reprint Power Man And Iron Fist #73, or Marvel Two-In-One #99, which they can't currently reprint because they guest-starred ROM? A little judicious re-coloring and re-lettering, and they could be the only Marvel appearances of DON the Tracenite!!

OK, you come up with a better one...

Revealed--The Plot For The Next Batman Movie!!

I think it might go a little something like...this:

Just picture it--Ben Affleck plays Bruce Wayne/Batman. He also plays the crook who looks almost identical to Batman/Wayne...but he's a "horrible" actor!!

Good gosh, I would pay a lot of money to see that...

From The Essential Batman Encyclopedia (2008)

Deadpool--The Merc With A Malternative?!?

So this is a thing:

In my civilian identity, I manage a liquor store. So I can assure you that this is a for real, actual product, actually sitting on my actual shelf.

Mike's Harder is a higher-alcohol spin-off from the Mike's Hard Lemonade brand. There's lot of different flavors and sizes...But don't worry, drinkers of fruity concoctions that hide the taste of your alcohol, Deadpool has you covered--this page shows you all 8 varieties, and all 8 Deadpool cans!!,

At least these guys know their comic book audience--"collectible series"?? I guess we're lucky there isn't a special "blank can" variant...Of course, they may be jumping the gun a bit, as the movie is 3 1/2 months away from release...

This particular bit of merchandising has me of two minds--maybe even three or 4 minds.

My first instinctive reaction is, "OMG, Marvel is putting their super-heroes on alcohol? WTF!?!"

Of course, with the state of Deadpool/X-Men rights, it may not have even been Marvel's decision. And given the sting from the flop of the Fantastic Four film, I can see Fox trying anything and everything to publicize their next attempt at a Marvel movie. If only they had thought to plaster the FF all over, oh, I don't know, Redd's Apple Ale packages!

But I'm still back to "OMG, Marvel is putting their super-heroes on alcohol? WTF!?!"

And yes, Deadpool probably isn't technically a super-hero...he's an anti-hero! There's a difference between putting Spider-Man on your Budweiser, and putting a murderous mercenary scumbag on Mike's Harder. And the Deadpool movie is R-rated, so it's not for the kiddies.

Then again, Deadpool regularly meets and teams-up with Spider-Man, Captain America, Wolverine...hell, he's an Avenger now!!

The again again, as we're so often reminded, comic books aren't for kiddies anymore, as the average age for readers is now somewhere north of John McCain. And it's not like our comics haven't shown Wolverine drinking plenty of beer over the years, or are MCU films haven't had our heroes (and Stan!) drinking.

I won't lie, my feelings are really mixed here. I'm no teatotaler. I will gladly take your money in exchange for alcoholic beverages. And I get really upset with irrational nanny-state regulation that restrict what we can see and drink in the name of "think about the children!"

At the same time, I have to admit that the thought of plastering portraits of the heroes of my youth onto alcohol containers has me feeling vaguely queasy, especially if this turns out to be not just a one-time deal. Maybe it's just me, but I don't relish seeing Superman in Miller High Life commercials, or Captain America pitching Jack Daniels. It just feels...off to me, you know? Or is it just me? Will the 2020 version of Hostess ads have our heroes throwing delicious liquor at bad guys to get them to desist?

And I also know, from long experience in the business, that this is the type of marketing that almost certainly will attract the attention of the nanny-state and the teatotalers, and cause some uproar, if not outright calls for some form of regulation--because they will see Deadpool as "comics" and comics are for kids and OMG we must act now because anything that might ever give the message to kids that drinking might not be evil must be stamped out immediately! And it could end up being a negative for Fox/Marvel in the long run.

So, anyway, I'm approximately nowhere on this issue, with no firm feelings on it...not exactly upset, but  feeling somewhat hesitant about the whole enterprise? I don't think it's evil, but is some kind of line being crossed? Is this OK with everyone, or will it lead to some type of Wertham-like backlash? Are there some types of super-hero marketing that, maybe, should be out-of-bounds? And what's next? Superman-Cialis commercials (Clark and Diana in adjoining bathtubs, narrator intoning "even after you've lost your super-powers, you don't have to lose your power in bed!)?!?

That's all I got. I'm confused. I throw this one out to the masses for discussion.

Schadenfreude

Not to keep harping on this, but...

In the first 3 days of release, $57,225,526.

In the first 45 days of release, $55,714,045.

#GiveItBackFox

The Uncanny Valley Of Hansel And Gretel!!

If there's one thing creepier than a stop-action moving starring creepy looking puppets...


...it's transferring those same creepy puppets onto an idyllic painting, waiting to ambush you as you pass the newsstand!

C-R-E-E-P-Y.

Here, enjoy some creepy stills from the movie:

Still, it must be admitted...

...they're still pretty creepy drawn onto paper.

From Dell Four Color #590 (1954), adapting a creepy 1954 movie.

Manic Monday Triple Bonus--Corman!

A letter to the Bullpen Bulletins page in Captain America #423 (1994) asks:

Yup, you can bet that every dollar of that 1994 Fantastic Four film will be up on the screen! All $2 million (ooooohhhhh!!) for those complex special effects will be amazing. Yup.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHhahahahahah...

I kid because I love.



Oh, Roger Corman...

Manic Monday Bonus--The Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 3?!?

It's Captain America #130 (1970), and Steve Rogers is just walking along the street...

Wait, what? Let's take a closer look:

So, we can expect Captain America Vs. Thor in what, 2017?

Let's take a look at the end of the movie, courtesy of Stan Lee, Gene Colan, and Dick Ayers:

The fans love it! Well, some of them...

Reserve your tickets now!!

The Comic Detective--Labor Day Trailer!!!

The most annoying thing about being an obsessive comics nerd? When, in some other media, you see comic books, and it completely takes you out of what you watching as you quickly try to determine what the hell those comics are. Have I read them? Are they consistent with the time frame of the movie? What is that odd bit of cover?!?!?

Today's example? The trailer for the forthcoming film, Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. The film is set around Labor Day, 1987, and at about 25 seconds into the trailer, at some discount department store we see glimpses of a spinner rack full of comics:

So, to hell with the movie--what about these comics?

This is a case for...The Comic Detective!!!!

Let me emphasize that 98.7% of my "detective" work came from searching about The Grand Comics Database and Mike's Amazing World Of Comics, two of the most invaluable research tools out there. They did all the hard work...I just looked stuff up on their sites!

So, let's start with the first shot of our comics rack. The first thing that we notice is that there are two separate issues of Teen Titans Spotlight next to each other:

That's not too crazy--those of us old enough remember how haphazard and random some of those K-Mart spinner racks could be. They are consecutive issues: #9 & #10, cover date April and May 1987. Mike's Amazing World has as street dates of January and February--a little old, but again, old school spinner rack. We can mostly give those a pass.

Next in the rack:

As the cover notes, this was the final issue of Tales Of The Legion Of Super-Heroes. It's cover date is December 1987, but--and it's a big but--it wasn't on sale until September 27--well AFTER Labor Day. It may be a sloppy spinner rack, but it can't have time travel powers. FAIL!!

Proceeding to the next side of the rack, we have:

Oops. Batman #398 was cover dated August of 1986, and streeted in May '86. Yeah, thing weren't often maintained well on those racks...but a 16-month old comic? FAIL.

Next:

Oh, Outcasts, how we've missed you! #1 was cover-dated October of 1987, street date of July--perfectly reasonable for that to still be on the stands.

The last one in that shot took some digging, but it is:

That was cover date August '87, streeting in May...not out of the reasonable range.

Finally, the final shot with only a tiny portion of the cover visible, turns out to be:

Another Tales Of The Legion...but 6 issues earlier, #348, June '87, street date of March. It's a bit old to be on the rack...especially given the presence of a much newer issue of the same title. Still, crap like that could happen...and at least this issue isn't from the future.

Of course, it's silly to be so hyper-critical. The art director (or some other schmoe) was given the task to fill spinner rack with contemporary comics for a scene that probably lasts 30 seconds in the movie, and that no one sane would pay much attention to. And on that level, they did a perfectly fine job, probably better then we should have expected.

Which proves what an insane loser I am, I guess. I obsess...

BTW, Paramount and Indian Paintbrush--what's up with no Marvels on the rack? It's not WB is involved in this pic, as near as I can tell--so why no love for The House Of Ideas? It would cost too much to throw a Star Brand or an Alpha Flight up there? Sheesh, talk about ruining the movie for me...