Cup And Saucer Reports!

Of course when you hear of flying saucer reports you think of something like the cover above and not so much these whimsical covers below.

More is the pity alas.

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Captain Berlin?

Stumbled across these three striking retro-style covers a while back. The top one I actually saw on the stands I think, but I'm not sure. These are of course from a German publisher, but clearly the intent here is to invoke Golden Age American comics by way of the Bronze Age stylistics. I'm very much reminded of vintage issues of Marvel's The Invaders. The artist is a fellow named Rainer F. Engel. The character of Captain Berlin is the creation of Jorge Buttereitts who Wikipedia tells me is a fairly oddball filmmaker with tendencies toward the truly grotesque and transgressive (Necrophelia anyone? Ick!).

I searched a bit and found this ten minute homemade movie starring Captain Berlin. It's astounding in its ineptitude but whether it's trying to intentionally create that effect or just falls to it naturally is difficult to decode. I'm inclined to the latter. Brace yourself for some weirdness; I get a Toxic Avenger vibe off it. Here is a site which talks about Captain Berlin a bit more and explains the ten-minute film too perhaps, and a new sequel. It's slicker but has the same weirdo sensibility, with maybe some Mexican wrestling attitude tossed in.

On a somewhat different note, above is a delightful cover published by the same German house which does an remarkable job evoking and satirizing the famous Avengers debut cover by Jack Kirby. Love this cover, and this I for sure saw on the stands but did not collect, and I regret it to this day.

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The Fires Of Asshurbanipal!

"The Fire of Asshrbanipal" by  Robert E. Howard appeared in Weird Tales. It's the story of American Steve Clarney and his giant companion Yar Ali. Unlike many of Howard's heroes, Clarney is described as "lean and wiry", but he's no less bold for that.

The story is significant for a couple of reasons. First it's an outstanding blend of vintage Howardian blood and thunder action alongside some very effective horror in the Lovecraftian mode. The Necronomicon gets name-checked and the ultimate threat is a monster mindful of C'Thulhu.

The story which you can read in all its creepy splender here, is one of those well worth the time and energy.
 

The story has two distinct versions. The supernatural version is collected in Ballantine's The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard.

Another version, minus the other-worldly elements is found in the back of El Borak and Other Desert Adventures. This one was the original and the monsters were added later. Reading both versions back to back, the supernatural one is the most effective, though both are rip-snorting adventure yarns.

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The Orloff Collection!

I've seen this collection before and was mildly intrigued, so when I found it for cheap at Half-Price Books, I snatched it up in hopes it wouldn't disappoint me. It didn't, not really despite the fact that I know that Jesse Franco is, to put it mildly, a rather marginal director with lots of hard-to-watch cult films under his belt and a penchant for lightweight pornography. That said, the classic nature of at least two of the movies attracted me, two films Franco regarded as his "museum pieces".

The centerpiece of the set is 1962's The Awful Dr.Orloff (which has numerous titles, but which was originally called Screams in the Night). It's a weird piece of black and white horror tension (in which we think we see much more than we do) about a mad doctor who kidnaps and kills women to use their skin to help revive his mutilated sister (or daughter I forget). He's aided by a grotesque blind henchman named Morpho. There's a lot of creeping about and some actual entertaining movie making of a classic variety in this often neat little thriller.

There are echoes of Dracula, The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari, and other assorted horror flicks. But even more derivative is the name of the villain himself.

"Dr.Orloff " gets his monicker from the head mad scientist villain played by Bela Lugosi in The Human Monster,a 1939 British horror flick with more than a shred of neat scares.

It's based on the Edgar Wallace novel The Dark Eyes of London, which is also the title of the movie in England.

Franco borrows the name and the general idea of a mad scientist who preys on the weak for his own dire purposes, though Lugosi's scheme is a good deal more about larceny than madness.

The 1964 sequel to The Awful Dr.Orloff also has a slew of titles but Dr.Orloff's Monster seems the the most direct and the most dishonest since Orloff himself is barely in the movie, which features another mad scientist named Fischerman who keeps his dead brother around to kill for him. He targets cabaret dancers and singers, so we get a lot of sleazy dance numbers and some really meager singing before these dames are offed. Meanwhile an innocent girl, the doctor's niece discovers her dad is still around and has to deal with this undead reality.

The third film in this set, Orloff and the Invisible Man is not by Franco but another director but features Orloff who, as the title announces this time creates a transparent monster who preys upon whomever happens to get to the castle. Actually this 1970 flick is a real snore with abundant nudity but a dearth of narrative structure and some really rather meager invisible gags. It begins and ends with little understanding of or by the characters in the story.

There is a fourth film title Revenge in the House of Usher which borrows a bit from the classic Poe story and mashes it with vintage footage from the original Orloff movie. This 1982 movie is really boring and doesn't even  offer up any boobs to leaven the tiresome and ponderous proceedings. It looks like one of those movies they made in a week or so at the most. Very disappointing, save for the slightly fresh look at the old Orloff footage within a marginally new context.

All together this collection a curiosity for horror fans who like me prefer vintage old-fashioned monster movies. The first film fills the bill and to a limited extent so does the second. The rest are curiosities but little else. I cannot recommend this set unless you find it really cheap like I did.

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Mainlining One - Police Trap!

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby formed one of the great and most important teams in the history of comics. Together they were a powerhouse during the Golden Age of comics developing memorable and lasting concepts for many of the publishers of the era including of course Marvel (Timely) and DC. On the fame and success of those efforts they tried to latch onto the real financial rewards which comics offered, the ability to produce and publish their own comics. To that end they created "Mainline Comics" in the early 50's, a time in comic book history when there were was considerable shaking as a consequence of the attention comics were getting from disapproving adults and elected officials alike.

The Mighty Men of Mainline - Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Over the course of the next several weeks the Dojo will be presenting all four of the Mainline books which the short-lived company produced and track their ultimate fates. Like many failed comic publishers of the time the product found its way into the hands of the Charlton folks who in their own distinctive manner made use of it in all sorts of surprising ways.

First up is the crime book Police Trap.

Mainline produced four issues of Police Trap in 1954 and early 1955, all sporting exciting Simon and Kirby covers. Underneath were stories by Simon and Kirby, but also work by Mort Meskin, Bill Draut, John Prentice, and others.

Charlton took over a year later in 1955 and produced two more issues of the comic, doubtless already ready for publication when Mainline went under. But after six issues by two companies Police Trap ended, at least as a title.

With the seventh issue the title was changed to Public Defender and showcased the adventures of attorney Richard Manning.

The series ran through issue twelve before ending in 1957 bringing to a close one quarter of the Mainline experiment.

The title Police Trap was revived by the pirate operation I.W.Waldman / Super Comics brand which gathered up a bunch of original material from the old issues as well as sundry other crime comics and generated four weirdly numbered issues in 1963 and 1964 -- a sad coda to a noble effort.

Be here next Saturday for more Mainline.

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Manhunt!

I'm always on the lookout for new images of Walt Simonson's and Archie Goodwin's Manhunter, the blisteringly great series from the heart of the Bronze Age. This issue of The Comic Reader showcases the nimble Paul Kirk in apt fashion.

And this appears to be the cover in a somewhat rawer form.

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Batman - The Movie!

As difficult as the vintage Batman TV series has been to obtain (finally in 2014 after decades of frustration) that's just how easy the 1966 Batman movie has been to get. It was one of the very first things I bought on VHS for my home library and I've since replaced it on DVD of course.

But now at long last I've been able to view this flick in the context it was intended, a summer big-screen offering between the first and second seasons of the original TV show run. Created to entice foreign distribution of the TV show, the movie has all the elements of the show, just turned up to eleven.

Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin are just as straight-faced and corny as they are in the TV show. The satire of the movie might be a bit more pronounced in the movie as the yarn unrolls over a leisurely one hour and forty-five minutes or so. That has a lot to do with the gaggle of villains (Cesar Romero as Joker, Frank Gorshin as Riddler, Burgess Meredith as Penguin, and debuting Lee Meriwether as Catwoman) who cavort with bristling energy whenever they hit the screen.

The plot (such as it is) rambles all over, supplying opportunities for Batman and Robin to use some of their here-to-fore unseen equipment such as the Bat-Copter, the Bat-Boat, and a new improved Bat-cycle with detachable sidecar.

Great moments abound such as Batman's classic dash about the pier to try with little luck to dispose of a bomb, the outlandish romance between Bruce Wayne and Miss Kitka, the dehydrated henchman who pop like balloons in the Batcave, and many more.

The movie is a giant episode, not unlike one of those outstanding summer annuals the comic book companies used to produce which had truly special over-sized adventures. If the episodes of the TV show are the regular issues, then this movie is the 100-Page Spectacular.

Now I'm properly ready for Season Two of the regular series.

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