Today in 1984 came the end to an iconic career: Johnny Weissmuller, better known as Tarzan, passed away.  He starred in several of MGM’s Tarzan movies, beginning with Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932. However, Weismuller was more than a pretty Hollywood face. He came ready to play the jungle man by having won five, count’em, five gold medals in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics in swimming. Although he never starred in the 1966 TV show version of Tarzan, Weissmuller’s yodelling howl is still synonymous with the ape man he made famous.

Oh yeah, today is also Bill Maher’s birthday. Holla!

One connection leads to another and then another, whether via the proverbial Six Degrees of Separation or by means of random-chance Free Association. Which explains how the moviemaking Coen Bros., Joel and Ethan, and Ham Fisher’s strange trailblazer of a comic strip, Joe Palooka, come to be mentioned in a single sentence.

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After having been tracking it for some time, we are pleased to announce we have finally found the beginning of the end. Ladies and gentlemen, today in 1955, the very first presidential news conference was filmed for television and newsreels. All that business with the media skewing coverage for political gain these days really couldn’t have started without the help of Dwight Eisenhower, his 33 minute conference, and the cameras of NBC, CBS, ABC and the Dumont Network (the 50’s version of UPN or WB before the CW merge).

Ah, remembering a time when the news was served straight, and remembering it with the bitter knowledge of posterity and its cold corporate hand fondling Wolf Blitzer’s – ahem – I mean, CNN gives really honest and objective coverage. And so does Fox. And for whoever else is reading, I love my country and I wear red white and blue every day under my regular clothes. La, la, la, nothing to read here…

Think of it as Battle of the Planets, round one.

Warren Ellis is preparing to launch Anna Mercury from Avatar Press sometime soon. However, Archaia Studios Press has got The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury scheduled for February of this year.

One is a kid’s book. The other isn’t. Guess which is which.

IFMagazine has an interview with Doug Jones, who played Abe Sapien in the first Hellboy feature film and returns in several roles (including Abe) in the sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. According to Jones, Abe will have a much more prominent role in The Golden Army, including a larger share of the action scenes.

You’re going to see [Abe] with a gun in his hand firing at things. No sword, but you’ll also see him with no weapon in his hands doing a certain fighting style that Guillermo called ‘the way of the water’ and would be most reminiscent of Capeoira, that Brazilian dancing fighting style that everyone seems at least somewhat familiar with.

Jones goes on to discuss the addition of a love interest for his character, the possibility of a "Director’s Cut," and the influence of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola on the film.