Trading Card Set of the Week – The Sandman (1994, SkyBox)
Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman rightly stands as one of the great triumphs of mainstream comics. That the same writer was at the oar from the beginning to the end of that voyage gives it a legitimacy that other titles lack. Gaiman could drop a hint early on and watch it pay off dozens of issues later, and that was really special, a blessing that few creators receive. Without Morpheus and his great creation Morpheus, there would be no Vertigo imprint, and DC would be missing a giant chunk of itself — maybe not its soul, but perhaps its conscience. Its cerebrum. Or something.
The popularity of the title has meant that there’s been an insatiable appetite for tchotchkes associated with its storylines and characters. Statues. Figurines. Annotated scripts. Busts. Plush toys. Whatever. And people gobble it all up. (I haven’t been immune to this, as there’s a framed poster from my favorite arc, Brief Lives, hanging in my bedroom.) In other instances all this memorabilia would reek of greed, a vampiric draining of a fanbase, a figurative upending and shaking until all the loose change falls out of their pockets. The Gaiman/Sandman products seem to get a pass, though. Maybe it’s their quality, as they most often have at least a patina of craftsmanship. Maybe it’s the underlying quality of the source material. Maybe its the cult-like devotion of the fans. Maybe all three.
The Sandman trading cards, released as the series was winding down, are a great example of all this. They’re nice. They’re well-made. And, for any big fan of the Dreaming, they’re a must-have. Read more…
Did that kid actually make a life-size plane with his X-Acto knives? If so, kudos. You often saw verbiage in these old X-Acto ads about how building military-themed models helped the war effort. One would think that making an actual plane would be a major contribution.
It’s a Red Letter (Media) day
This isn’t a post about comics, but it’s one about raising awareness of something modestly wonderful, something that people might have no knowledge of. A PSA, if you will. A heads up. Read more…
The insanely ugly Heroes in Action hope you have a place for them in your toy chest, if not your heart
Seriously, that up there is a face only a mother could love. In the post-Vietnam late 1970s, maybe the cultural zeitgeist forced American soldier toys to have a certain ugliness to them — like having Tom Berenger’s nutcase Sergeant from Platoon in your toy chest. The hippies won!
The Spider-Man who isn’t Peter Parker, as told by (one of) the guy(s) who killed Superman – The Sensational Spider-Man #0
There have been many lamentable storylines in comic book history, attention-grabbers that mainly just succeeded at making loyal readers shake their heads and look elsewhere on the spinner rack. There was Superman turning into red and blue versions of himself, with new electricity-based powers. There was Batman getting a suit of armor that made him look more like a cat — oh, and it also wasn’t Bruce Wayne beneath the cowl (or helmet — whatever it was).
And then there was Ben Reilly and the Spider-Man Clone Saga. Reilly was supposed to be the real Peter Parker, cloned by the Jackal decades before in The Amazing Spider-Man #149 and apparently destroyed. He re-appeared in the mid-1990s, claiming that the Parker we had known since that forgotten tale was in fact the clone. This rendered years and years of Spider-Man history a fraud of sorts. We had been watching, and rooting for, an imposter. We had been fooled. In one fell swoop, Marvel managed to devalue what had come before and completely deflate what was happening then. It was awful on so many levels, a giant middle finger raised slowly and placed right in the face of the audience.
It all crystallized in this issue, as Ben Reilly (re)claimed his “rightful” place as the “real” Spider-Man. And loyal readers shook their heads and looked elsewhere. Read more…
This Captain Tootsie ad posits, among other things, that Tootsie Rolls are integral parts of paratrooper training
There are several big takeaways in this 1940s C.C. Beck Captain Tootsie ad. One, the U.S. Army incorporated Tootsie Rolls into its ration kits. Two, fat people and umbrellas don’t mix. Three, Tootsie Rolls were a health food. It’s unclear which is most implausible.
Ah, for simple premises of yore, like Captain Tootsie brutalizing a Frenchman or killing a bear.
The Pizzazz cheerleaders appear to have no idea what the letters they’re asking for look like
Are the Pizzazz cheerleaders actually trying to replicate the letters they’re requesting? Are they using a different alphabet? You can kind of see the double z’s, but that’s about it. (Is that a stylized “A” or the beginnings of a swastika?) Perhaps some remedial cheer training is in order. Or the Pizzazz people can just stick with Stan Lee in the Brawny Paper Towel Guy’s flannels. Their choice.
Get rid of your blemishes. Also, make your face looks like it’s been airbrushed into oblivion
One is reminded of Lucille Bluth’s driver’s license upon seeing the woman above with the blindingly unnaturally pristine skin. Or Michael Stipe. But the advertised skin care product let you boogie with musical notes and a treble clef suspended in the air around you, so there’s that. Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge — and a woman sans zits.
Also: Is that George Herman Ruth behind the airbrushed woman?
Isokinetics will give you big muscles and/or hideously deformed arms
One realizes that the illustration on the right is supposed to represent movement, but it just looks like some dude with an unbelievably lumpy arm. And a tiny Johnny Tremain hand. Is this really the image you want to place alongside your product, Powerex? (Also, the guy on the left looks like he’s doing or about to do something auto-erotic. Be careful! Remember what happened to David Carradine!)
But really, what’s to worry about with all this? The Isokinetics program is so revolutionary, so guaranteed to succeed, “breakthrough” is spelled “breakthru.” What’s not to trust?
Todd McFarlane: The Beginning – Coyote #11
Before Todd McFarlane started buying record-setting baseballs from the steroid era and making overdesigned toys, he was a simple comic book artist (with delusions of writing grandeur) plying his trade. Check that — he wasn’t just any artist, he was THE artist. He was insanely popular for a prolonged period of time, to a degree never before seen, and perhaps not seen since. Insanely popular. The yardstick used to measure this is that he was once profiled in People. This isn’t to say that being featured in a checkout line fixture magazine is a symbol of comic book industry arrival, but when you’re in those pages, you’re transcendent in a way few, probably none, are. Hm, Julia Roberts has a new hairstyle. Gosh, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore seem like a lovely couple, I’m sure they’ll be together forever. And I wonder who this McFarlane chap is. His Spider-Man certainly has big eyes. Has Alex Ross ever had such royal treatment? Read more…
Buy these Marvel Halloween costumes and look nothing like the character you’re supposed to be
Confession: I wore an outfit not a whole lot better than the Spider-Man Halloween costume you see above ca. 1984. It was one of the top Halloween experiences I had as a kid, perhaps surpassed only by a turn as Indiana Jones. So maybe costumes that have little to do with what they’re supposed to have to do are okay, because kids are stupid. Does the Incredible Hulk wear a shirt with a picture of himself on the front? Do Captain America and Spider-Man wear jeans and t-shirts with the sleeves cut off like meathead douchebags? No, but this might be a tree falling in the woods scenario.
And are those kids in the costumes? Or little people? Because one gets a Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf impression from their bodies.
With next year’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy, Marvel will throw open the doors to its vast, goofy, glorious cosmic adjunct, inviting curious moviegoers to come in and have a look around. Yes, The Avengers, with its outer space army, wormholes and post-credit cameos had cosmic elements, but Guardians will be cosmic through and through — setting, protagonists, antagonists, lighting and fixtures. It’ll be something new. (We’ll ignore the semi-cosmic The Rise of the Silver Surfer, since it took Galactus, one of the premier Marvel villains who isn’t really all that evil and has deep, tragic motivations for eating planets like Garfield scarfing down a plate of lasagna, and made him a f**king space typhoon.) It remains to be seen whether audiences will lap it up or stare, shrug their shoulders and move on. The first trailer footage that we see (some has already screened for comic-con audiences) will be an early indicator.
It would be a shame if cosmic Marvel sinks like the proverbial lead balloon. Because it really is some great stuff. And we can thank Jim Starlin for most of that. Read more…
Sometimes a telescope is just a telescope, even when it’s at an erect angle and pointed at a lady’s expectant face
Over 3½ Feet Long!
Was there a great demand for giant handheld telescopes in the 1940s? So large that they came with their own carrying cases, so that you could lug them around like Fast Eddie Felson with his pool cues? Binoculars had been invented at that point, right? Was there a wave of “18th century sea captain” cosplay?
When you have to peep at bathing beauties on the beach and binoculars would be too discreet, your giant telescope is there…
Trading Card Set of the Week – Total Recall (1990, Pacific)
No one is ever going to confuse Arnold Schwarzenegger with a brilliant thespian. The legacies of Sirs John Gielgud and Laurence Oliver have no reason to fear challenge from this quarter. Yet, conversely, the box office potency of 1980s-1990s Ahnuld takes the likes of those two acting titans, picks them up by the ankles and juggles them like bowling pins, laughing at them all the while for the girly men they are. Arnold, now aging, philandering and often embarrassing, was once a colossus, a guaranteed big opening, a license to print money cast in human form. He was the cornerstone of multiple treasured franchises — Predators, Conans and Terminators — that had legs beyond their two-hour run-times. Who else in the acting ranks could have stepped into those shoes? Tom Hanks? Denzel? Nic Cage? Chile, please.
It wasn’t one of Schwarzenegger’s franchise films that was his most fun picture, which retains a rip-rollicking watchability two decades on. No, not Kindergarten Cop. Total Recall. And wait until you see the stupid, enormously fun crap (literally?) that came with the factory set of trading cards that went along with it. Read more…
Happy 75th, Man of Steel
Just thought I’d post this, in case anyone hasn’t yet seen the Zack Snyder/Bruce Timm Superman 75th Anniversary/Birthday animated short film, which encompasses the width and breadth of the Man of Steel’s many incarnations, good, bad and ugly. (Fleischer: Good. Red/Blue Electric Supermen: Bad. Doomsday: Ugly.) It’s quite fun. And Beppo!
Jared
blog into mystery 