You got that right, Cap!
Category: Comic Books
Maximum Jack and Joe
From 1967, in the final months of 12″x18″ original art, before the reduction to 10″x15″, this is one of Jack Kirby’s most impressive splash pages.
Frank Giacoia’s name had been penciled in as inker, but the assignment went to Joe.
Frank inked the Iron Man story in that issue, over Gene Colan’s pencils.
Houseroy History
This is some deep “inside baseball,” except it’s about comic books. Funky Flashman is Jack Kirby’s bitter parody of Stan Lee, and Funky’s flunky is Houseroy. He’s a dig at Roy Thomas, who is depicted as being Smithers to Stan’s Mr. Burns, without the gay overtones.
My feeling is that Jack misrepresented Roy, who was pivotal to Marvel’s success during the second half of the 60’s, into the first half of the 70’s while Kirby was at DC. Roy talks about Funky and Houseroy, 50 minutes into this 2-hour interview.
I’m still shaking my head in disbelief from the time five years ago, when Roy and my buddy Bismo teamed up for this bit of fun craziness.
Leftie Artist
Dave Stevens: Drawn to Perfection is currently included with Amazon Prime. The affectionate remembrance has my highest recommendation.
Some short bonus clips not in the movie are available for free on YouTube. This one is about Dave’s devotion to Bettie Page.
Fan of Steel
I’m hoping to direct the attention of some fans to these images. They compare frames from the old SD and the new HD versions of the classic Fleischer Superman cartoon, “The Mechanical Monsters”, as released by Warner. Color differences aside, you will note there is significant cropping in the DVD release, as shown on the left.
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure in the Great Beyond
He was unique, and his first movie continues to be delightful viewing.
I recently posted about Ben McKenzie’s book on crypto scams. McKenzie was James Gordon on the Gotham TV series, which featured Paul Reubens in an inspired role as the father of Robin Lord Taylor’s Penguin.