Watching The Watchmen!

I waited and waited and finally the other day I found the Ultimate Watchmen DVD package. It seemed more than a fair price relative to the prices for the individual parts.

This is the director's cut with the Black Freighter material interpolated. I've not watched it yet. I've only gandered at a few of the special features and I'm currently watching the Motion Comic version of the story.



In regard to the latter, I'm pretty impressed. I grew up with the old Marvel Super-Heroes cartoons, so using actual comic art and manipulating it to create "animation" is a technique my genetic code responds well to.

I'm not a diehard Watchmen fan by any means. But I am a diehard Charlton Action-Hero fan and this is as close to a movie featuring my Charlton faves as I'm ever going to get. Rorschach is the Question through and through after years of bitter battle against crime. It makes perfect sense. Dr.Manhattan is what Captain Atom might become after he realizes he's not human anymore. The Nite Owl is the Blue Beetle, Bug and all, but at a quieter time in his life. And Ozymandias makes an ideal dark image of what Peter Cannon might become if his attitude slipped a bit out of kilter. Great stuff.


I liked the movie when it appeared last year. It was pretty entertaining, and I'm not one of those folks who thinks a movie must adhere slavishly to its source material. This is a pretty good adaptation, and I'm very interested to see it in its ideal form.

More later.

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My First E-Mail!

I've rarely been as thrilled in my comics reading life as when I was asked to contribute a letter of comment to an issue of E-Man.

I first stumbled across Charlton's E-Man in my last year of high school. I was looking for different things and E-Man was just the right cup of different tea. Sadly by the time I wrapped my first year of college the book was no more, but it re-ignited my adoration for Charlton which has persisted to this day.


E-Man though has had a rich history apart from Charlton. After the first run was cancelled, four issues were reprinted under Charlton's Modern label in the late 70's. Then in the early 80's First Comics revived the character. But Nick Cuti was unable to participate until almost the very end of the run, and despite Joe Staton's noble efforts that run of E-Man is still pretty grand, but the old magic was just not quite there.


Then Nick and Joe started doing E-Man stories here and there along with Mike Mauser stories once in a while. The showed up at Comico and Alpha Comics with issues. E-Man was in cameos here and there. Most recently Digital Webbing has offered up some issues getting out three new stories in as many years, though we are past due right now for the next one. I fear we are in another drought alas.



But for the most recent issue of E-Man I was contacted by some folks who know of my ardor for the character and they passed my name onto the guys at Digital Webbing and they offered me the chance to preview the book and write a letter of comment. The turnaround time was pretty tight, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. And to have a letter of mine on an actual E-Man letter's page is pretty keen. I'm right proud.

Now I just wish I had another issue to hanker after. I'm itching to write another letter or two or ten.

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Flash Gordon By Boyette!

I finished up my Charlton Flash Gordon collection last week. I found the last few issues of that King Features licensed series so lusciously drawn by Pat Boyette. Boyette is often on lists of artists who are overlooked and I agree. His stylings were downright unique, his world evocative and distinctive. For a talent with his highly particular style to be given a franchise like Flash Gordon or The Phantom (which he also did after Jim Aparo left it) points to only one thing, Boyette could deliver the goods and on time.

I recently read a second-hand account quoting Pete Morisi saying he was denied The Phantom when Charlton got the rights in deference to Boyette, and the reason was reliablility and speed. Morisi was great, but he apparently was just a bit slower than the relentless printing presses of Charlton required, at least for higher-profile offerings like the King licenses. It's a shame, I'd have loved to see PAM on Phantom, but then I might've been denied Boyette.

And Boyette's Phantom and his Flash Gordon are quite good indeed. I've got some reading ahead of me.

For the record all of the above covers are by Boyette save for the debut of Flash Gordon at Charlton which features a Reed Crandall cover, a remainder of work done before Charlton got the license.

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Stan's Soapbox!

If you know what that title means, I need explain no more. In those heady days before the advent of the home computer and Al Gore's invention of the internets, we mere mortals were forced to find our sustenance in actual printed words. Among the most charming, witty, gregarious, bombastic, and even banal experiences was the nigh monthly dose of Stan Lee's Soapbox.

Stan's Soapbox was a tiny yellow block of comics goodness, filled with bon mots and rank hucksterism, but almost always worth the minute or so it required. Stan connected like few writers of his time. He didn't always say something profound, in fact rarely did he do so, but he always said something that you believed. You believed it because you got the sense if for only the time it took him to type it out, that Stan believed it too.

I'll be honest that I have almost come to dread Stan on TV. He's a charming and by all reports a very nice man, but his exuberance wears thin very quickly in the cool medium. He's much more palatable in the written form, the form I know him best in from his stories and more directly from his Soapboxes.

Hero Initiative has collected up all of Stan's Soapboxes in a charming paperback. It's not only got the words of Stan the Man, but asides from fanboys who were perked up by the wisdom of The Man. The most interesting fact about these is that they take the time to give a pop-culture and sometimes political backstory for Stan's commentary. As the comments progress, it's a neat little history of some of my most potent years as a young man and fan. It's a good collection, a worthy read and it's for a good cause to boot. Good stuff!

Highly Recommended.

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Judo Joe!

Judo Joe!

What a simple but evocative name!

This series is striking (no pun intended) for a number of reasons. First is the early publishing date, 1953, long before I'd imagine most folks had any understanding of martial arts, at least in a popular way. Another is the way the concept of Judo is combined with a totally cornbread-fed All-American blonde stereotype. No Asians need apply, though as Scott Shaw notes in his Oddball Comics reviews for the first few issues (see this link and this one too), finding anything positive at this time about Asians was unusual and useful.

Getting information on this book has been more difficult than I expected. The name of the creator, Dr.Barry Cosneck, struck me as distinctive and I've finally discovered he had little to do with comics, but a lot to do with popularizing martial arts and self-defense in America. He's the author of American Combat Judo and the co-author of other books on self-defense. Most of the sources have a low regard for this book in terms of its pure Judo awareness and suggest it's more like wrestling than true Judo.


Here's what one site says about Cosneck: "Bernard J. Cosnack is (or rather, was?) an American wrestler who also trained judo, jiu jitsu, French savate (what he calls "foot-fighting") as well as kung fu. In his days he allegedly trained the US Coast Guards in physical self-defense. It probably will come as no surprise, but there are hardly any traces of judo in this book. As soon as you see the topic, and titles such as "Combat Judo", you can almost guarantee that we are leaning more against ju jitsu than judo."

Like so many later heroes who make use of Judo,especially my favorite Frank McLaughlin's Judomaster (McLaughlin of course was another martial artist who drew comics) and Pete Morisi's Thunderbolt (Morisi was a trained policeman so he doubtless had some training), we have the allure of judo (a martial art that's presented almost akin to a superpower) blended with an All-American look. Having an actual Asian with such skills would have to wait for Bruce Lee's Kato.


I recently picked up the ACE Comics reprint from 1987. It's a book I've long wanted, but never found. It features two choice reprints from the debut issue of Judo Joe from 1953 by Grosneck and artsit Paul W. Stoddard (about whom there is less than Grosneck) as well as a newer one written by Joe Gill with inks by Frank McLaughlin. The cover is by McLaughlin too.

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Wanted -- The World's Most Dangerous Villains!

I adore these covers. I never bought any of these off the racks, but I have managed to get most of them for very cheap off and on over the years. They are good stories by and large, at the time rare indeed. But the covers by Nick Cardy are simply outstanding! The two DC Specials that sparked the series seem to feature covers by Murphy Anderson, but the series is lush Cardy all the way through.

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A Demon Is Born!

Ever since I've read about how Jack "King" Kirby was inspired by a story in Hal Foster's Prince Valiant to create the The Demon, I've wanted to read that tale. Well I finally got the chance a few weeks ago when I was reading the first volume of the first Fantagraphics Prince Valiant reprint volume. Essentially the story finds Val in a castle needing to defeat the more powerful enemy with guile rather than brawn. So he makes a disguise and gaslights dozens of Vikings into thinking they have a haunting on their hands. It's pretty fantastic stuff and pretty exciting to read. I can now understand why Kirby was so impressed. The "Demon" created by Foster is a face you won't soon forget. And thanks to Jack Kirby it wasn't.


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