Category: Comic Books

He’s Mighty Sore!

It’s going to be a super-hero summer! (Especially if you consider Harry Potter to be a super-hero.) The buzz from Europe, where the Thor movie is already out, is that it’s a great, fun ride.

That’s good, because so far Jack Kirby’s creations for Marvel Comic haven’t translated to the big screen as well as the less cosmic characters Spider-Man and Iron Man. Captain America was one of Jack’s first, co-created with Joe Simon. As with Thor, I wasn’t too optimistic about the project until I saw the trailer, which looks very promising.

And there’s another X-Men movie coming too. The X-Men are also from the mind of Kirby, but the movies are based quite a bit on later incarnations of the mutant team.

http://youtu.be/0Yq7Za1JnZg

When I was a kid in the 60’s, Marvel’s summer special double-size, 25-cent comic books were a big deal. We’ve come along way from those days!

DC is represented this summer by Green Lantern, but this trailer leaves me feeling more uncertain about this movie’s prospects than Marvel’s offerings.

http://youtu.be/pHmMh0yikQ0

From Our Gang to Superman

http://youtu.be/1uVu1S7wEOk

Jackie Cooper is gone. After being the biggest child star in the 30’s before Shirley Temple, Cooper managed to have a solid, successful career. To relatively younger audiences, he’s best known for being Perry White in the Christopher Reeve run of Superman movies. I knew him first for his memorable appearances in Our Gang, with June Marlowe as Miss Crabtree.

Boston Comic Con

D.F. Rogers and I were at the Boston Comic Con today, where the all-time great artist Joe “Sgt. Rock” Kubert was a guest. Holy moley, does Joe look great! There’s just no way he’s coming up on his 85th birthday. Like another legendary Joe, Sinnott, Kubert’s artistic skills remain in full force, and have not diminished one iota.

Here is Denro with Joe…

…and this is me.

Roy Lichtenstein – the master of found art

Roy Lichtenstein couldn’t draw. I’ve seen Lichtenstein paintings in person, in New York, and the sheer scale of them is impressive; but I’m sorry, the man was a total fake. He swiped art done by others, some of them comic book greats, others not so great. In the video at this link (sorry, can’t embed), look for the examples of his early work, and it’s obvious that Lichtenstein was no draftsman, and had to resort to tracing. The latest outrage that has set me off is this news item.

Lichtenstein Drawing Acquired for $10 Expected to Achieve over $1,000,000 at Christie’s

A million dollars for a 6″x6″ drawing that any Silver Age comic book fan can see was traced from a John Romita Sr. panel in a DC romance story! Romita should sue for a cut of the proceeds. Heck, even I can draw better than Lichtenstein. This is a panel I did for a failed comic strip submission many years ago, with a character inspired by John Lennon’s I Am the Walrus.

© DOuG pRATt

It’s no longer acceptable to justify what Roy Lichtenstein did by saying he helped elevate comic books to an accepted art form, and thereby brought them recognition they wouldn’t have otherwise had. Nonsense. David Barsalou reveals the truth in his Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein project.

Ghost memory

Last night we did something we very rarely do on a weeknight, by firing up the video projector to watch a movie. Has it already been ten years since the excellent film adaptation of the Ghost World comic book? It was Scarlett Johansson’s breakthrough role, but I don’t understand why it seemed to put the brakes on Thora Birch’s career, because she’s outstanding as Enid.

Ghost World has one of the more memorable movie openers, by featuring this outrageous dance number from a 1965 Bollywood flick called Gumnaam.