Great acting job...
Beware the wrath of… STAN LEE!
A tip o’ the ol’ Dog Rat virtual toupee to my friend Morris for tipping me off to a guest appearance by Stan Lee tonight on the CBS sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory.’
3 comments March 1st, 2010
Posts filed under 'Comic Books'
Hotel Penn: From Big Bands to Comic Books
Denro is heading to New York for a comic book show at the Hotel Pennsylvania. Seventy years ago, the Cafe Rouge at the hotel was a hotspot for hipsters to hear the biggest of the big bands, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra…
Add comment February 25th, 2010
Pretty faces for Marvel Comics
I missed the Valentine’s Day deadline for this post, but here it is anyway.
I became a comic book fan when Batman appeared on TV in January, ‘66. After reading only DC titles for a few months, I started reading Marvel Comics. My first two favorite Marvel artists were John Romita Sr. and Gene Colan. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko’s drawings were, well, scary, when I was ten. It was Joe Sinnott’s clean and friendly style of inking that made Kirby approachable for me.
As Kirby progressed creatively and artistically, paradoxically he seemed to lose his ability to draw attractive people. Women in particular. Were they noble? Yes. But pretty? Not so much. Ditko’s characters looked so outright strange that he almost seemed to be conveying an innate misanthropy.
I don’t know if Stan Lee was inspired by Roy Lichtenstein’s swiping of romance comic book panels, but he brought in Romita and Colan, who had been drawing love comics for DC. I think Romita and Colan deserve a lot of credit for the way they broadened the appeal of Marvel Comics, starting in the mid-60’s. They learned how to draw the dynamic action scenes that Stan wanted, while making it possible for him to better develop the soap opera elements of the stories. Never underestimate the power of a pretty face! Later, when John Buscema came on board, I think the writing was on the wall for Kirby. After Stan assigned Buscema to illustrate the premiere issue of ‘The Silver Surfer’ in 1968, Jack’s departure from Marvel was inevitable.
Courtesy of D.F. Rogers, here is an excellent example of John Romita’s work at DC. It’s from ‘Young Romance’ No. 134, Feb-March, 1965. Click the picture above or the text link below to go to the Gallery (that I rarely use because it’s a pain to administer) and read, “A Ticket to ROMANCE!” And be sure to read the love letters page!
http://dograt.com/Gallery/Young-Romance
4 comments February 15th, 2010
Captain America steeping in the tea baggers
Marvel Comics is taking some heat for what’s being taken as a swipe against the Tea Baggers, in the latest issue of Captain America.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100211/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1129
I heard about this while watching Keith Olbermann. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada issued a statement that seemed to implicate… the letterer?? Then, in the middle of the piece, Bill Clinton’s doctors held a press conference about his heart stent operation. I just checked the MSNBC site and this part of Olbermann’s show isn’t there, so I grabbed it myself from the re-broadcast at 10. I sure can make good video transfers off of Verizon FiOS TV, huh?
Clinton’s doctors refused to say what brand of stent was used but if it’s a Kamen stent there’s still a comics connection, because it was invented by Dean Kamen, son of the late comic book artist Jack Kamen.
6 comments February 11th, 2010
She’s not bionic after all
As my sister Jean will corroborate with sarcastic glee, as a young man a secret shame of mine was “The Bionic Woman.” Today, I had the pleasure of saying hi to Lindsay Wagner.
Lindsay put a lot into making “The Bionic Woman” more than just a spin-off of “The Six Million Dollar Man,” and for her efforts she won an Emmy. Ostensibly a kid’s show, there was plenty in there to keep college boys like me watching, as seen in this video that a Lindsay fan put on YouTube. You’ll see scenes from a beauty pageant, and you’ll find the complete episode below.
Lindsay is an advocate of homeopathic health, and she holds seminars and workshops as part of a program she calls “Quiet the Mind, and Open the Heart.” Here is part of a recent conversation with Lindsay.
Ellie Drake-Bionic Woman of Healing Lindsay Wagner Pt 2
by BraveHeartWomen
There isn’t a DVD set of “The Bionic Woman” in America yet, although Linsday says it’s been released in England and elsewhere in Europe. She was surprised to learn today that some of the shows are available on Hulu. Here’s the beauty pageant episode.
7 comments November 21st, 2009
Denro’s promise to Sin Not!
Do my cataract replacement lenses deceive me, or is that D.F. Rogers hanging out at the home of none other than Marvel Comics legend Joe Sinnott?
Dennis spent some time with Joe this past weekend, and of his brief stint at the drawing board he says,
“Joe let me airbrush some drawings. The only thing on the brush was air!”
Even I, who once could handle a #2 Kolinsky Sable dipped in Higgins Black Magic with some confidence, wouldn’t dare dab so much as a dot on a piece of paper that the great Joe Sinnott had touched. To do that would be a sin as well as a crime!
Here are a couple more snaps of Den with Joe. Maybe Dennis can add a comment to fill in some details about his visit. The thing about Dennis is, he is very knowledgeable on two of Joe’s favorite subjects: Baseball and Bing — Bing Crosby that is, not the Microsoft search engine. I’m not qualified to keep up my end of the conversation on either of these topics.
This picture of Joe and his son Mark (the tall guy), was taken last February in New York. Standing between Joe and Mark is Mike Uslan, one of the producers of the Batman movies, including The Dark Knight, and on the right is Chip Cronkite, the son of another legend, Walter Cronkite. I’ve featured Chip before, at this link.
3 comments November 2nd, 2009