Year: 2007

Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe

Daredevil

MarvelButtonFor Christmas, my best buddy Dennis Rogers gave me a very nifty book. Well, nifty for an old comic book fanboy such as myself. It’s Stan Lee’s Amazing Marvel Universe, by Roy Thomas. Roy was Stan’s right-hand man at Marvel, starting in the mid-60’s.

The book is a history of Marvel Comics, mostly from the 60’s, with short audio commentaries by Stan. This simple sort of multimedia could be done easily on the Internet, but it’s nice to have it in book form. And this way Stan and Roy can make some money, right? The audio player works well, and unlike similar players in the past, this one takes standard AAA batteries.

The first Marvel super hero I followed was Daredevil. I’ve recorded Stan’s commentary about the creation of the character and put it on the player below. My son Eric and I really enjoy having this book. Thanks, Denro!

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/FEB07/StanLee.mp3]

“This is the Talibanisation of my religion”

I was stunned this morning while driving to work, listening to a story on NPR about a lawsuit in Israel, brought by Jewish women who have been harassed by ultra-Orthodox Jews during bus rides. The story can be heard here.

Gender segregation? The assertion that women should not be educated beyond high school? Fundamentalist Judaism sure sounds a lot like Fundamentalist Islam.

Doctor X

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/FEB07/DrX.flv 400 300]

Let’s do one more old movie with a mad doctor! Here are six choice minutes taken from the climax to Doctor X (1932). It was filmed in 2-color (red, green) Technicolor and was directed by Michael Curtiz, who started in silent movies and was best known for ‘Casablanca’. That’s Fay Wray at 25, as the “dame in dis-dress,” a year before King Kong.