I recently came across this gem that was published as a poster in 1976.
Lamont Cranston (aka The Shadow) and Margo Lane enjoying a night out on the town, with his alter ego hanging over them in the painting. I remember this one fondly as I painstakingly tried to copy this in pencil for a high school art class. I could not match the mastery of Michael Kaluta! Nuff Said.
Ansin's poster for the very first 1968 Planet of the Apes film was done for a marathon at the Alama Drafthouse. Now this will be going on sale today as part of a set of posters, then later it will be sold individually.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes by Phantom City Creative. I love this film the most out of the entire series, even though I think the first one was the best written and directed. The poster captures all the key elements: Caesar, Lisa, the Gorilla rebels, and the climactic scene at the end with Breck.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes by Rich Kelly. This artist chose the perfect scene to illustrate, the moment the Apes remove their helmets and reveal to the world that they are not human!
The prints will be sold as a set on Thursday, January 26th for $230. Any remaining individual prints will go on sale on Friday, January 27th. Follow @MondoNews for on sale announcements. Nuff Said!
I recently found these scans of Barry Smith's Tupenny Conan Portfolio from 1974 on Heritage Comics auctions. What a great discovery--I always wanted to own this item as a kid but couldn't afford it!
The cover to the portfolio is striking because of the intricate line work on the background with the leaves and vegetation. Conan ought to be completely hidden, but he pops out subtly, due to Smith's mastery with light and shadows. Looking at this I wanted to be a master craftsman like him with a pen. I had a different type of career instead, but just looking at the image again I feel the same way.
Conan hunting through a flatland covered with vines and grassland. This is a great artist who can make you feel something looking at the main character through blades of grass that he painstakingly drew. This reminds me of an illustration used for an advertisement in Savage Tales #2, which I wrote about on Giant-Size Marvel.
You may recognize this illustration, as it was used for the cover and back cover to Marvel Treasury Edition #4 in 1975. You can only really see the fine detail in the original black and white version.
This plate featured Conan on a horse against the backdrop of a sweeping vista. There is a storm brewing in the clouds, in the horse, and Conan is the guy who can master all of it. If you want to see another cool Conan illustration, check out my article on King-Size Conan #1.
I originally thought that I had a pretty good scoop here with these scans. Now I see Cap'n's Comics posted even more scans last year on his site, do check those out when you get a chance! Nuff Said.
I regularly bought all kinds of Warren Magazines in the 70s. When I knew that Bernie Wrightson, the artist behind DC Comics Swamp Thing, was a semi-regular contributor, that meant I kept a sharp lookout for any work by him. Wrightson did great stories for Warren but he also drew the frontispiece illustrations featuring the mascot character, Uncle Creepy!
Uncle Creepy's head sits on top of a book, adorned by a melting candle, in Creepy #68 from 1975. The color works well here on this one. Some of the other inside covers were limited to one or two colors.
Creepy #64 from 1974 featured a more intact Uncle standing by a rotting corpse.
The line work from this illustration in Creepy #75 (1976) is nicely detailed with Wrightson's style. He has a theme going on here, with people losing their heads!
This bicentennial themed illustration from 1976 Creepy #76 features a rare collaboration between Walt Simonson and Wrightson! According to what I read, they were all pals during this period and hung out together frequently. I think this is an interesting blend of their two styles, which I never would have thought to put together.
In looking up assorted facts on this material, I discovered that Dark Horse published a collection last year, Creepy Presents Bernie Wrightson, which contains all of his stories and pinups in one volume. Nuff Said!
Whenever I feel a bit down, the best therapy is always to go explore my long boxes. A couple of weeks ago, I came across the 1996 pin-up special, Jack Kirby Fourth World Gallery!
New Gods assembled by Walt Simonson. I really think Simonson drew my favorite interpretation of these characters after Kirby. Orion of the New Gods was a great series and still holds up to reading today.
Orion by John Byrne. Of course, Mr. Byrne was no slouch at capturing the power cosmic of these Kirby characters as well. Love how he draws Orion coming out of an exploding galaxy here.
Lightray by John Byrne. Magnificent vista of New Genesis in the background! Lightray has to be the most positive character in the history of comics.
Mister Miracle by Steve Lightle. Funny that Lightle resisted the urge to go for a full profile shot and instead drew this image of Scott Free in space. Was this a rejected cover for an earlier series?
Forever People by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding, who do a pretty good job of drawing these timeless hippies alongside the Infinity Man.
Seeing these images makes me feel good about the original incarnations of these characters. I usually like Grant Morrison's work, but I feel his re-imagining of the New Gods in Seven Soldiers was a huge mistake. Even worse were the final fate of the New Gods in Final Crisis. I am sure someone is planning for their return in the New 52 DC Universe. Will it be the classic versions or Morrison's weird take? Let's wait and see. Nuff Said!
I just finished reading Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
as part of our Beyond Reality book club reading group on GoodReads. I definitely thought the premise behind Spin was a great SF concept: the Earth gets wrapped in a membrane which cuts it off from the Sun, satellites, and the stars. As time proceeds normally on Earth, outside the membrane time is accelerating at mind boggling speeds. Aliens, or whoever caused the bubble, seem to have propelled the Earth on the fast track to the end of the solar system.
As a kid I always shuddered to think of the Sun expanding and consuming the Earth. And then I would feel some relief when the teacher said, this won't happen for billions of years! This book taps into that fear and it propelled me through to the end. Several of the concepts that Wilson has created around this are fascinating, involving time displacement, a Martian colony, nanotechnology, etc.
The main narrator is a doctor, Tyler Dupree (swear that name sounds like it came from another novel), who is not a genius but is the best friend of the mercurial genius who helps solve the mystery of the Spin membrane, Jason Lawton. Jason has a twin sister, Diane, who Tyler loves but can't have because he's poor and they are rich. This part of the novel is a good classic structure: an outsider who observes great epic things happening and can tell us all about them in the novel. The Spin event occurs when they are kids and their whole lives are defined by it. Jason becomes the head of an agency that works with Nasa to analyze the Spin membrane and what is happening outside the Earth. Diane becomes involved in a religious cult that sees the apocalypse coming down the horizon. Tyler becomes a doctor and takes a job as Jason's personal physician. The main problem I had with this book, which prevented me from giving it 4 or 5 stars, were these 3 characters. They didn't seem that vibrant to me. Tyler spends decades pining away for Diane, resisting all but one other relationship. Diane seems like an idiot, involved in a stupid cult that almost kills her. Jason is the least well developed, he's just there to be the genius who figures it all out, with no relationships of his own other than the one with his father.
I am still glad I read the book. With cool SF concepts and a sprawling plot that spans decades, I can see why this novel won the Hugo award. Three out of five stars. For more discussion on Spin, check out The Incomparable podcast episode 11 (To Be Continued). They made an interesting comment about how many of the SF concepts in Spin had been previously used in other works. Nuff Said.
There are a lot of actresses who stand out in supporting roles on television, yet fade away from the spotlight once the series is over. Here are three TV actresses from the 1990s that I encountered recently on cable.
Charisma Carpenter, who most geeks remember from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spinoff Angel in her role as Cordelia Chase. Charisma was red-hot during the Whedon years (1998-2003) and her character in the Buffyverse often stole the show with the best lines. A few Cordelia zingers that really get me laughing...
Look, Buffy, you may be hot stuff when it comes to demonology or whatever, but when it comes to dating, I'm the Slayer.
Whatever. They were cranky. So they're like, "Let's lose some heads." Uh! That's fair. And Marie-Antoinette cared about them. She was gonna let them have cake!
You're a sheep. All you ever do is what everyone else does just so you can say you did it first. And here I am, scrambling for your approval, when I'm way cooler than you are 'cause I'm not a sheep. I do what I wanna do, and I wear what I wanna wear. And you know what? I'll date whoever the hell I wanna date. No matter how lame he is.
Of course, it didn't hurt Charisma's appeal that she was the hottest girl on Buffy and fell in love with the archetypical nerd, Xander. When Cordelia migrated over to the Angel spinoff, I didn't think her character worked quite as well without the other women to counter her personality. The writers kept trying to setup a romance with Cordelia and Angel, but that always seemed forced to me. She might have had more fireworks with Wesley, the failed Watcher who was her complete opposite. Throughout her Whedonverse career, you would have to think that Charisma was destined for rom-com superstardom.
At the same time she was on Buffy and Angel, Charisma was also in a variety of magazine spreads: FHM, Maxim, Fit, Edge, etc. This culminated in her ultimate exposure in the June 2004 issue of Playboy magazine, where the headline read Naked Charisma. If you were a fan, then you no doubt bought the magazine. It was a great photo shoot, but in a way I think this killed the momentum in Charisma's career. Instead of moving onto to another series, she made guest appearances on various shows (Charmed, Veronica Mars) and headlined some cheesy TV movies like Cheaters Club. I do have to admit my Charisma-antennae pops up and I'll even watch her in a crappy show like Legend of the Seeker (fast forwarding the DVR to her appearance). Charisma was on Supernatural recently with James Marsters (which I missed, darn it) and is back on the ABC Family show The Lying Game starting January 2nd. Collider recently did an interview with Charisma about the show and what else she has been up to. Carpenter Central is another good source.
Tangi Miller, from the 1998 JJ Abrams show Felicity. Felicity was a show that I’m not embarrassed to say that I watched from start to finish. It was an early indicator that JJ Abrams was a very good TV show creator and producer. I got all caught up in Felicity’s early college life and it was a show I could watch with my wife. Tangi Miller played Elena Tyler, Felicity’s lab partner who eventually becomes a close friend. Miller played Elena with a quiet grace and attractive beauty, but I remember having some trouble with her character arc. In the first season, she has an affair with a Professor (played by Chris Sarandon), where I expected major repercussions to fallout in later episodes. But somehow the entire affair was forgotten! I was certain the Tangi Miller would make it big after Felicity in another TV show, or at least to the level of someone like Gabrielle Union, but it hasn’t come to pass. Miller has made several guest appearances, including a supporting role in Tyler Perry’s Medea’s Family Reunion.
Amy Locane, from the very first Melrose Place season 1. She only lasted 13 episodes on that show. Although what triggered my memory of Amy wasn’t MP but a 1997 movie called Prefontaine. I’ve seen this movie about 5 times, each time I watch it, it makes me want to go for a run—or at least a brisk walk. The movie is a biopic about Steve Prefontaine, a long distance runner who went to the University of Oregon and trained under coach Bill Bowerman, hilariously played by R. Lee Emery (from Full Metal Jacket). Amy Locane played Nancy Allerman in this flick, a very natural and sweet performance.
I wondered what happened to Amy after 1997—she had the looks, talent, and on screen charisma. But amazingly, she never appeared as a regular in another TV series. Her most notable role was in the 2002 film Secretary starring James Spader. Sadly, Locane has recently been in the news about her involvement last year in a fatal car crash; she’s currently out on bail.
In case you were curious about Amy Locane’s short lived arc on Melrose Place, including her short lived romance with Grant Show (Jake), here is a video that sums it all up in 7 minutes! Nuff Said!
