Monster Monday: Madame Xanadu 1981 poster and cover by Michael Kaluta

This nifty little poster was a full color glossy insert to Madame Xanadu #1 from 1981.

This special one-shot gave Michael Kaluta's character the star treatment in a story by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers.  I believe this special was aimed at the direct market only.  The pin-up makes Xanadu look like a Doctor Strange type character.

Here is Kaluta's cover to the special, sans any logos or letters, from the back cover.  Englehart and Rogers had more Madame Xanadu stories in the pipeline, but these morphed into the character Scorpio Rose for Eclipse Comics--see They Stole Frazier's Brain for more details.  Nuff Said!

John Carter of Mars by Alan Davis

I just discovered that Marvel released a John Carter of Mars Omnibus featuring all the comics they published in the 1970s.

Here is cover and as you could expect, Davis does a superb job capturing Carter, Tars Tarkas, and Barsoom.  Notice that Dejah Thoris here doesn't match the version in the Marvel Comics tales. 

Here is the pencil version of this artwork.  I am not quite sure but I believe that Davis drew this a while back even before the current JC mania in advance of the movie.  Alan writes on his website that "ERB's Mars books have been a favourite for many years and I have often thought about how I might handle the stories. This was one attempt to come up with a slightly different look from the usual comic book versions of the characters."

For more Marvel Comics with John Carter, check out my article on Giant-Size Marvel titled Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum on John Carter Warlord of Mars.  Nuff Said!

Wonder Woman versus Ms. Marvel by Mike Deodato

Here is a DC-Marvel fight I wish we could really see one day: Wonder Woman versus Ms. Marvel by Mike Deodato!

Even though he is currently a Marvel guy, I think Deodato has it figured out who would win in this match.  Hey, check out another cool Deodato commission on Giant-Size Marvel with Hulk versus Spider-Man!  Nuff Said!

Neal Adams and John Carter of Mars

I am eagerly awaiting the John Carter movie coming out next month.  I read the first three novels last year and liked them a lot; the first novel in particular was quite amazing for having been written in 1911.  I read the Marvel Comics adaptions in the 1970s and liked those, too.  I always wondered what an artist like Neal Adams would do with the John Carter material.  There following illustrations give us all a clue as to what that would have been like.

These illustrations come from Heritage Magazine from the 1970s.  Was this a preview of a longer story planned for a future issue?  Or a graphic album for a publisher?  Not sure at all!  But the first illustration shows the crash of a spacecraft on Mars.  I read that this fellow is Flash Gordon--didn't get that right away but it makes sense.

Second illustration shows Flash getting saved from a sneaky Red Martian.  His savior is none other than John Carter of Mars!  But wait, what is in that container that Flash is standing over?

It turns out the none other than Tarzan of the Apes is somewhat comatose inside that container!  What an awesome team-up adventure this would have been, if Neal Adams had drawn that at the height of his artistic ability!

Questions: do any super-fans out there know why Neal Adams had created these illustrations and what his ultimate plan was?  Have John Carter of Mars and Tarzan ever met in any work of fiction?  (I know that Philip Jose Farmer had his Tarzan and Doc Savage analogs meet in A Feast Unknown.)  Please let me know!  Nuff Said.

BBC Being Human Season 4 Episode 1: Farewell Old Friends!

Warning!  Spoilers for the first episode here.

Wow.  After months of waiting for the fourth season of BBC's Being Human to start, the premiere finally happened last night.  How would the show survive Mitchell's departure?  Would we see the birth of George and Nina's baby?  And which actors would come into the show to replace Mitchell?

I had heard rumors of other people leaving, too.  But I stayed away from those spoilers and was greatly surprised from the very first few minutes of the season opener.

SPOILERS after the break…

Monster Monday: Doorway To Nightmare with Michael Kaluta and Madame Xanadu

I often bought comics just for the cover alone, if the artist was one of my favorites: Bernie Wrightson and Neal Adams were certainly in that group and Michael Kaluta soon joined them.  When DC Comics decided to create a new horror anthology title in 1978, Joe Orlando asked Kaluta to design the cover.

Madame Xanadu's first appearance was on the cover to Doorway To Nightmare #1.  Kaluta created her at request of Joe Orlando, according to this article on Wikipedia.  Unlike the hosts of House of Mystery/Secrets, Xanadu was integral to the self-contained stories in each issue.  Usually the plot revolved around a visitor to her Tarot shop and it went from there.  The first issue featured a story by David Micheline and Val Mayerik.

The cover to issue #2 makes even better use of the Tarot card motif than the first one.  I am not a Tarot guy, everything I know comes from Marvel and DC Comics.  The most famous cards being Death, The Devil, and The Hanged Man.  After that, I am clueless.

The third issue featured a beautiful night scene making use of different shades of blue.  It is Xanadu on the cover but you almost think it could be a different vampire-like character.  The story inside does have to do with a woman who falls in love with a vampire.

Here is the original art to the vampire cover.  It is beautifully and simply conceived.  I love how the bat shrieks and the drop of blood that matches the title of the story: Blood Red Tear.

Doorway To Nightmare #5 has Madame Xanadu playfully running her finger along the top of a bottle that seems to imprison a demon.  And here is why Xanadu is a great creation that has grown since her 1978 debut.  She can be spooky and mysterious but at other times can be playful and mischievous.  Xanadu isn't overly buxom but she is sexy in a classy way.

Here is the original art to that cover.  The line work that Kaluta put into this is amazing.  I always wondered how much artists like Wrightson and Kaluta got paid for covers.  I read somewhere it definitely helped them pay the rent.

I haven't read any of the Madame Xanadu Vertigo series that came out a few years ago.  I have enjoyed her recent appearances in Justice League Dark.  Nuff Said.

Movie Posters: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai

Last week I found Phantom City Creative among a new batch of Planet of the Apes movie posters.  PCC also did an amazing job on this poster for the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai!

Amazing job, right down to the electric logo and the likenesses of all the movie actors.  John Lithgow's expression is priceless.  Peter Weller looks geeky, even though we all know Weller as a tough guy now from his recent roles on Dexter and Fringe.

Here is the theatrical movie poster from 1984 when the movie was released.  Everything about that jacket and tie on Peter Weller screams the 1980s.  They dressed Robocop like he was Madonna's boy toy.

Buckaroo Banzai was sort of like an American Doctor Who combined with the pulp sense of Doc Savage.  He didn't have just five amazing guys but a large team of geeks and freaks.  Motifake's poster with Team Banzai is a perfect example.  Nuff Said!