Category: Comic Books

In honor of Stephen Colbert inheriting the shield once held proudly by the late Captain America, I present a video of Cap in pitched battle against his evil Nazi nemesis, the Red Skull! The red, white and blue warrior must wrest the awesome power of the Cosmic Cube from the Skull’s grasp and prevent the enslavement of all mankind!
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/CapAM.flv 400 300]

The animation in this 17-minute cartoon is next to non-existent, and except for the drawings that were lifted directly from the comic book stories, the art is downright awful. But the music and voices add a lot to the atmosphere of these old Marvel Super Heroes cartoons.

I’m in the process of scanning the original comic book stories that were the basis for this cartoon. I’ll post them in the gallery later for comparison.

Note: This video by itself is over 100 MB — bigger than all of the storage provided by the first hosting service I used five years ago.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/2011/Oct/Tintin.flv 400 250]

It’s been announced that Steven Spielberg will produce a series of Tintin movies. Tintin, if you don’t know, is a hugely popular and influential cartoon character from Belgium, created by the late Georges Remi, who worked under the pen name of Hergé.

An excellent documentary about Hergé, Tintin and I, was on PBS last year. The video player above has the first few minutes.

I simply cannot believe all of the coverage the “death” of Captain America is receiving. Because the whole thing is, of course, a non-event. It’s nothing more than a publicity stunt by Marvel Comics.

When I was a kid in the 60’s and early 70’s, being a comic book fan was both a reason why I was something of a social outcast, and my coping mechanism for dealing with being relatively unpopular. The idea that the Marvel Comics characters would become as widely accepted as they are today, and Stan Lee would be a cultural institution, was beyond the most fantastic adventures of any comic book hero.

Yet on Thursday I heard both the BBC and NPR cover the “story” of Captain America’s assassination — a manufactured event! I wish Cap co-creator Jack Kirby were alive to see it. Fortunately, Joe Simon is still with us. I met Kirby in ’72, and Simon in ’80. Here’s the NPR feature.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/MAR07/CaptainAmerica.mp3]

The Dog Rat gallery has two tellings of the origin of Captain America. The first is from the Golden Age of comic books, and the second is from Cap’s return in the Silver Age of comics. Click the pictures to go to each of the gallery albums.

If there’s one thing that’s for sure in the realm of comic books, death is a common event, and it’s never permanent. So at some point in the future, expect Marvel to hype the return of Captain America. Undoubtedly around the time the movie is about to be released.

OK, I admit it. The real reason I posted “Jesus Rides a Harley” was that I needed an antidote to seeing Ghost Rider last weekend with my son Eric and my old friend Morris. Is it as bad as Ang Lee’s Hulk movie? Probably not, but it sure isn’t much better.