The Black Edition -- Boris Vallejo!

When Ballantine contracted with Neal Adams to do a gallery of new Tarzan covers for their paperback reprints of ERB's classic hero, they apparently also contracted with Boris Vallejo to do the same thing. What happened is that we have two of the great artists of the time doing Tarzan covers at the same time. I'll be blunt and say that I don't like Vallejo's covers nearly as well. In fact most of Vallejo's work leaves me a bit cold. He is often compared to Frank Frazetta, who clearly insipred him, but Vallejo is all about surfaces while Frazetta and to some extent Adams are all about interiors. They capture a feeling, a mood, a notion while Boris Vallejo merely illustrates and paints brawny men and voluputous women in motion. There's something missing.

That said, these covers are still fairly early in his career and he hadn't lost that certain something that first made him a so interesting. Later though that little bit of magic gets lost as an obsession with the human form overwhelms all else.

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The Mighty Steranko!

Here are some great paperback images by the incomparable Jim Steranko. He draws a world that doesn't exist, but it looks so very dang cool.

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Captains Incorrigible!

I don't think there has ever been a movie star with the allure and romance of Errol Flynn. He was dashing, handsome, and communicated a sense of devil-may-care that illuminated any room he walked into. Errol Flynn might well have been the greatest "movie star" ever. Of course part of that fame is really the infamy of his personal life which is the very stuff of Hollywood legend.

I am in a Flynn mode right now having gotten several of his flicks on dvd. I spent some time this past weekend watching both Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk. It's interesting to watch these two flicks back to back. I've always preferred the later Sea Hawk to the earlier Captain Blood but I think I've changed my mind.

Captain Blood was Flynn's debut movie, and a magnificent one it was. The character of Peter Blood as portrayed by Flynn is at once noble and selfish. Blood is a great vehicle for the viewer into the battle for freedom. He just wants to be left alone, but is drawn into the war because of his ethics and finds no one in leadership possessing any ethics. He is what we'd call today radicalized by his imprisonment and harsh treatment. I can't help but think of Guantanamo Bay and the men the U.S. might've turned into revolutionaries by careless treatment. Certainly villains exist and must be dealt with, but just as doubtless men are made enemies by what they see around them. Injustice is blind to a flag.

The Sea Hawk is a rousing war film, a neat allegory for the tenor of the times when the Axis powers were threatening all Europe and strong backs and stiff necks were needed to stem the tide. Geoffrey Thorpe, the privateer played by Flynn in this one is more of a rascal than Blood, a hardened soldier and patriotic but not as open to feeling as Flynn's earlier pirate.

There's a high romance to Captain Blood that I find very attactive today, a greater feel of escapism. The action and the characterizations seems more natural and the fighting more exotic. The look of The Sea Hawk is much more lavish, but has a constricting feel to it compared to the earlier film. And as much as I like him in other roles, I find Henry Daniel as the main villain a bit weak in the face of Flynn's heroism. On the contrary while he's not on screen much Basil Rathbone in Captain Blood is amazing, both wild and memorable.

Both of these movies are wonderful flicks, but I find now that the saga of Peter Blood the outsider speaks to me more than the loyal man of the state Geoffry Thorpe these days. Doubtless it says more about me than the movies.

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On Target With PAM!

"PAM" is one of the more mysterious names in comics. Pete Morisi worked in comics for decades, mostly for the Charlton operation. He was a full-time policeman, and that profession didn't permit moonlighting, so he hid his identity under the enigmatic "PAM" appelation for many years. It would be many years before I knew the name of the artist I much admired as a boy.

He himself admired George Tuska's work and tried to evoke Tuska's feel, but Morisi took that basic approach and distilled it into his own special style. Morisi pages have a spareness to them that make them leap out of the comic compared the typical material of the day. They seem ultra-modern in their sleekness. Morisi's work had a way with design. That can be seen in the covers above which make use of a target image to focus the eye. Comic book covers are (or were) built to attract the eye and these by Morisi do just that.

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Captain Gravity!

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy. It's not a rip-off but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets.

I highly recommend this story to one and all. There's a depth to the story missing from much material and the last page is awesome. Oh and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.


The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. The artwork by Keith Martin and Rober Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figurework is clumsy in places. It has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. The backgrounds are better. Overall it's a C- at best where the Sal Velluto-Bob Almond work on the sequel is A+.

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series.

I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.


The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first storyline survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action.

This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding!

I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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My Favorite Comic Cover -- Conan Treasury!

Here is a great cover and the original artwork by Barry Windsor-Smith from which it is derived. Simply outstanding!

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Watch The Skies!

When I'm asked to list my favorite movie, The Thing From Another World is usually the one I mention. It's not always my favorite all the time, but it's always on the short list. It's a great movie, exquisitely paced and offering up a superb image of the ideal American, a no-nonsense man of grit, determination, savvy, and a man willing to collaborate and sacrifice for the greater good. The scientists in the story are a mixed lot, some obsessed by their craft and overcome by intellect as opposed to wisdom, and some striking a better balance. But the soldiers are a gang of good men who have worked together in tough times and who trust one another and who respect the chain of command when it works. There's a practical problem-solving quality to this movie as they and The Thing match wits and strategy at the top of the world with only the winner surviving.


The message of Cold War paranoia is leavened in this one by practical men facing up to the tough requirements a proven enemy demands. They must respond with force and more importantly with wits or they will all be lost. What they think is most important as well as what they feel. It's a battle for the heart as well as the head, for a balance between the two. That's why they win, because they make room for both.

As I said, it's a great movie. They don't make them like that anymore.

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