900 numbers for polling purposes, charging users for each call placed, was a 1980s fad that seemed perfect to employ in comic books for some sort of stunt. Editor Denny O’Neil and DC’s Marketing team, led by Bruce Bristow, conceived of the stunt and Jim Starlin wrote the four-part “Death in the Family” storyline to…
Gene Roddenberry left Star Trek’s third season to write a Tarzan film that never got produced, setting a tone for the next decade of his career. He produced the wretched Pretty Maids all in a Row and slunk back to television, first with the animated Trek and then a deal with Warner Bros that would…
I keep hitting reading roadblocks, no matter what I do. I used to have a life with a lot of dedicated time for reading and eyes that could stare at pages of text for hours on end, but the past decade has repeatedly broken all of my reading mechanisms, culminating in the minor apocalypse of…
OK, first of all I probably should say that I’m not a “cat person.” There is one in my house, and I guess I tolerate cats more than I would dogs (slobbery little monsters), but I’m not all that fond of dumb animals in general. So I am in retrospect not the right reader for…
Every reboot of Superman tries something different, striving to find a fresh approach to the material, and Superman: Man of Tomorrow is no different. This direct-to-video release, out now from Warner Home Entertainment, is intended as the opening chapter in a new continuity, a Rebirth, as it were, of the DC Animated Universe. Other than…
I always feel compelled to begin by stating for the record that Glenn Ganges is not Kevin Huizenga. Of course, he’s not Ganges the same way Sal Paradise is not Jack Kerouac — the old fictional yes-but-no-but-yes two-step. Ganges has been a main character in most of Huizenga’s books I’m aware of: Gloriana and The…
This just in: DC FanDome — the first-of-its-kind virtual experience for DC superfans globally — became too massive to contain in the four dimensions of only a single day on Earth-Prime! And we realized that not even The Flash could get through the entire 100+ hours of programming in 24 hours. With hours upon hours…
It seems every decade, DC and Marvel each introduce a major threat that captures the readership’s imagination. In the 1980s, for DC that was Deathstroke, a wonderfully complex opponent to the New Teen Titans, reaching a high point with the much-lauded “The Judas Contract” storyline in 1985. In the hands of writer Marv Wolfman and…
I will admit that I have read only the first volume of Philip Pullman’s fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass, and I saws New Line’s feature film adaptation. It was an interesting take on the tropes as well as being an allegory about religion in our world. But one book was enough for…
In 1974, I was 16 and curious to see ABC try once again with super-heroes. One fine Tuesday night, I sat at and watched Wonder Woman, horrified at the liberties taken in the backdoor pilot. Cathy Lee Crosby didn’t have the looks or the costume and the most interesting thing about this was Ricardo Montalban…
The Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta By J. David Spurlock Vanguard Press Trade HC ISBN13: 9781934331811 Retail $39.95 • 120 pgs DX LE ISBN13: 9781934331828 Retail $69.95 • 138 pgs plus slipcase When we were kids in the 70s, my pals and I hung around a great comic shop, Kim’s Collectible Comics & Records. Owner Kim Draheim…
Remember when it was a big deal that Fantastic Four #1, originally selling for ten cents, sold for a whopping $30? Return with us to the earliest days of comic collecting.
