Last week, we went to The Marvel Experience during its stop in San Diego. Taking place in seven large domes, visitors become S.H.I.E.L.D recruits who undergo training in order to fight alongside the Avengers against Hydra in a final showdown. It reminded us of a Marvel themed amusement park, but is it worth the ticket price (ranging from $24.50 to $34.50) when it comes your city? Watch our review to find out.
This March, the Eisner Award winning creative team returns for the next chapter in the saga of Matt Murdock, as the Man Without Fear rushes headlong into All-New Marvel NOW! Marvel is proud to present your first look at Daredevil #1 – from the blockbuster creative team of Mark Waid & Chris Samnee!
Gifted with an imperceptible radar sense, blind lawyer Matt Murdock patrols the streets with a billy club and a passion for justice. Only this time – it’s a brand new city, with even more dangerous foes. Join Matt Murdock as he journeys from the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen to the sun-drenched boulevards of San Francisco.
“With a new status quo that demanded an ALL-NEW MARVEL NOW! launch,” says Editor Ellie Pyle, “this is a perfect time to jump on to Daredevil.”
“With the Eisner-Award winning creative team and the kick-butt San Francisco setting (and did we mention the Netflix series starting next year?) you’re crazy not to give Daredevil #1 a try!”
And the scenery isn’t the only new thing in store for Ol’ Hornhead. A world of changes are in store for Matt Murdock as old haunts and familiar faces rise up to give the devil his due. Changes that will turn his life upside down yet again! Don’t miss one moment of the highly anticipated series this March when Daredevil #1 comes to comic shops and digital devices!
DAREDEVIL #1 (JAN140630)
Written by MARK WAID
Art & Cover by CHRIS SAMNEE
75th Anniversary Variant by ALEX ROSS (JAN140633)
75th Anniversary Sketch Variant by ALEX ROSS (JAN140632)
Variant Cover by PAOLO RIVERA (JAN140631)
Animal Variant by CHRIS SAMNEE (JAN140634)
Young Variant by SKOTTIE YOUNG (JAN140635)
FOC –02/24/14 On-Sale -03/19/14
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| Final Cover Art: Douglas Klauba |
New Pulp Artist Douglas Klauba has shared the cover painting for the upcoming Honey West/T.H.E. Cat paperback for Moonstone Books.
It’s Honey West and T.H.E Cat, in the first new Honey West novel in over 40 years, A Girl and Her Cat!
Following on the heels of the first ever Honey West & T.H.E Cat crossover comic, Moonstone’s “Death in the Desert,” comes the Honey West & T.H.E Cat novel, A Girl and Her Cat.
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| Art: Douglas Klauba |
About A Girl and Her Cat:
When an exotic green-eyed Asian doctor hires Honey to recover a stolen sample of a new Rubella vaccine from a rival scientist, the blonde bombshell private eye—suspicious but bored—takes the case. But after she’s attacked not once, but twice, on her way from Long Beach to San Francisco to track down her quarry, she knows there’s more—much more—to her femme fatale client than meets the eye.
Along the way, Honey’s one-time paramour Johnny Doom—ex-bounty hunter and current Company agent—reenters the picture, and the gorgeous doctor’s insidious—and deadly—grandfather deals himself in. But when Honey questions whether Johnny’s playing her game, or just playing her for a patsy, she joins forces—as only Honey can—with the one man in Frisco who can help her recover the stolen vaccine-cum-bioweapon and prevent worldwide genocide by germ-warfare—former cat burglar-turned-bodyguard Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat: T.H.E Cat!
Join writers Win Scott Eckert and Matthew Baugh, and cover artist Douglas Klauba, for A Girl and Her Cat, a groovy, racy 1960s romp coming soon from Moonstone Books.
Yesterday, just outside Denver, I went through an area I must have gone through long ago. My friend and I were a couple of footloose ramblers with no money in an interstice of time between being in thrall to one authoritarian institution, a Catholic university, and another, the United States Navy. (You wanna salute? Go ahead – salute!) We were hitchhiking back from San Francisco because…well, hey, it was good enough for Jack Kerouac and besides, if you’re not going to do stupid and dangerous things when you’re young, when you gonna do them?
(Parenthetical digression: Hitchhiking was stupid and dangerous back in 1961 and it’s way, way more stupid and dangerous now, and if our luck had veered a bit we could have suffered dreadfully. So don’t do it.)
Where was I? Oh yeah, in Colorado getting busted by a state cop.
But, as it happened, the cop was from Missouri as were we, and so, instead of depositing us in the slammer, he flagged down a Greyhound bus and asked the driver to haul us east. The rest of the adventure went well.
As I looked outside the car window yesterday, nothing seemed familiar except those magnificent mountains in the distance. But why would it? A half century-plus had passed and Colorado, along with everything else, had changed and my memory probably wasn’t reliable when I was 22 and is absolutely not reliable now. (Reality may or may not not be malleable, but the truth? That’s generally open to interpretation.)
We were coming from the Denver Comic Con and a pleasant weekend. We were expecting the show to pull in…I don’t know… a couple-three thousand fans? But there was the energy of over 50,000 attendees percolating through the Colorado Convention Center. Plus a lot of comics guys and a whole lot of dealers. And a full complement of celebrities. This was only the second year the con was held. In its infancy and already a monster.
There was a lot to like, but what most pleased us, both at the con and the Hyatt across the street, where we stayed, was the pervasive atmosphere of courtesy. Everyone was extremely polite and extremely nice. Many of the fans who came for autographs thanked me warmly for, let’s face it, not doing much more than signing my name, a trick most third graders have mastered. They also thanked us for coming to Denver – not necessary, because Denver itself had already taken care of that.
In the airport, I was astonished and delighted to see, in large, bas relief lettering, this quotation from Zen master Thich Naht Hanh: I have arrived. I am home. My destination is in each step. Appropriate, but not what you’d expect in a thriving center of commercial journeying.
Then we went over, and past, the geography I’d traveled long ago and when we arrived at our house everything was in good order. Life can be okay. Just remember that the step you’re taking is your destination.
RECOMMENDED READING: Google something like Thich Naht Hanh quotes. Read a few, or a few dozen. Then you might want to try one of his many books.
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman
Every now and then you can tell someone is special. Every now and then you know just when something becomes an event, a trend-setter. That’s exactly who Bruce Lee was and his Enter the Dragon remains. All marital arts films are measured against this one and now Warner Home Video is giving us a 40th anniversary edition. Here are the details:
Burbank, Calif., March 4, 2013 â Enter the Dragon, one of martial arts icon Bruce LeeâÂÂs last films, will debut June 11 on Blu-ray⢠in the Enter the Dragon 40th Anniversary Ultimate CollectorâÂÂs Edition giftset from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The film, which helped bring interest in the Asian martial arts genre to mainstream Western cinema, has been re-mastered for its 40th anniversary, and will now feature new bonus materials, such as the featurette, No Way as Way, on the legacy of Bruce Lee, plus other featurettes and commentary. Memorabilia — which includes collectible art cards, lenticular card and an embroidered patch –are also part of the giftset.
Bruce Lee was an incredible athlete and mixed martial artist who, despite making a limited number of movies during his short life, became a charismatic megastar and left a permanent mark on cinema and popular culture. Even Time Magazine agreed. They included Lee in the âÂÂ100 Most Important People of the 20th centuryâ issue (Heroes and Icons 1999*).àEnter the Dragon continues to resonate with todayâÂÂs audiences. It was a major theatrical hit 40 years ago, grossing approximately $25 million domestically â the equivalent of almost $180 million in todayâÂÂs box-office. Enter the Dragon has sold more than 450,000 units on DVD and Blu-ray since 2004. In 2004, Enter the Dragon was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” It also received a 95% positive rating on the criticsâ review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Lee was born in San Francisco on November 27, 1940. As a young boy in Hong Kong, he acted in some 20 films there and first became known in the U.S. in 1966 for his role as sidekick Kato in TVâÂÂs âÂÂThe Green Hornet.â He also appeared in TV shows like âÂÂIronsideâ and âÂÂLongstreet,â with his most notable American role coming in the 1969 movie, Marlowe, starring James Garner. Returning to Hong Kong, Lee starred in a number of successful films for Raymond ChowâÂÂs Golden Harvest Productions and soon became a superstar in China. His enormous overseas success ultimately reached Hollywood and the attention of filmmaker Fred Weintraub and Warner Bros., who produced Enter the Dragon and tapped the actor to star. Lee died suddenly in Hong Kong, at the age of 32, of a cerebral edema. That was on July 20, 1973, less than a month before the filmâÂÂs August 17 U.S. premiere. Posthumously, Enter the Dragon rocketed him to international superstardom.
Enter the Dragon producer Fred Weintraub, who also wrote the book Bruce Lee, Woodstock, and Me said: âÂÂIf fans want to hail Bruce as the greatest and most influential martial artist who ever lived, youâÂÂll get no argument from me. He was a shining star who streaked across the night sky of our collective awareness in a flash of white hot unsustainable intensity only to burn up in the atmosphere of fame, wealth, and worldwide adulation. Watching him again (this time even better on Blu-ray), you can see why he became the first international superstar from a third world country.
The plot of the Enter the Dragon revolves around outstanding martial arts student Lee (Bruce Lee), who is recruited by an intelligence agency and then uncovers the evil Han’s (Kien Shih) white slavery and drug trafficking ring located on a secret island fortress. Along with martial arts champions Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly), Lee infiltrates the stronghold and enters HanâÂÂs brutal tournament. Lee and his partners fuse skills in Karate, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, T’ai chi ch’uan and Hapkido, in a now classic fight-to-the-death epic battle, all staged by Lee himself.
Bruce Lee, John Saxon, and Ahna Capri star in Enter the Dragon, which co-stars Bob Wall, and Shih Kien and introduces Jim Kelly. Music is by Lalo Schifrin. Written by Michael Allen, the film was produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller in association with Raymond Chow. Robert Clouse directed.
Special Features:
ENTER THE DRAGON 40TH ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY DISC⢠AND DVD
Street Date: June 11, 2013
Order Due Date: May 17, 2013
Run Time: 98 minutes
Rating: R
Pricing: $49.99 SRP
Catalog# / UPC: 1000351089 / 883929285693
Â
Note: All enhanced content and memorabilia listed above is subject to change.
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT- Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
GHOST SQUAD: RISE OF THE BLACK LEGION
by Andrew Salmon and Ron Fortier
Cover by Chad Hardin
Interiors by Rob Davis
Published by Airship 27 Productions
2008
Even though Pulp, both Classic and New, runs rampant over a myriad of genres, there’s no doubt that a personal favorite of mine and indeed of many Pulp fans of all shades and types is the tried and true Hero Pulp. A strong central ‘lead’ character surrounded by able bodied, skilled, and interesting teammates off on an adventure against over the top villains with a larger than life plan to take over some corner, or pray tell even the entire world. There’s just something about those stories that endear themselves to me and to Pulp Fans as a whole.
I really enjoy it when I find such characters in a New Pulp work, one that effectively tips its fedora to what came before, but also brings enough modern sensibility and nuance to the Hero genre to make it stand out, to make it more New than Rehash.
That’s why I really, really enjoyed GHOST SQUAD: RISE OF THE BLACK LEGION from Airship 27 Productions.
Co-written by Ron Fortier and Andrew Salmon and originally released in 2008, GHOST SQUAD opens with a story known to many of a man once dead returned to life by Jesus Christ. This opening segues into another introductory sequence showing the same man now working the front lines of World War One. This unique way of setting up the central character of the team we get introduced to in later chapters quickly endears the reader to said character, who currently, in this title, is using the name John Lazarus.
The uniqueness of utilizing the biblical character adds a touch of fantastic imagination to a story that also comes replete with a two fisted pilot, a beguiling lady stage magician skilled in real magic, an elite group of Nazis led by someone nearly as long lived as Lazarus and very much his opposite number, and so much more. GHOST SQUAD moves with a pacing in the first 12 chapters and from chapter 14 on that is top notch and would serve as a great blueprint for New Pulp writers on how to pace a Pulpy tale and utilize both rapid fire action and balance throughout.
There are times, however, when one section, one chapter, even one page of a book can threaten to derail the whole process, disengage the reader so completely that they almost don’t finish the tale. GHOST SQUAD has just such a stumbling block. Chapter 13, which highlights a car chase involving Hale, one of the Ghost Squad members, and a very special guest star from the era of the Classic Pulps through the city of San Francisco, is a complete waste of time. Well, not the whole thing necessarily, but the chapter, 23 pages in length, drags on after about the tenth page and carries the heroes and villains through a series of twists and turns that, although possibly intended to add tension and excitement to the story as a whole, does just the opposite and weighs the story down so much that it made it hard to stay invested in the tale. Fortunately for the book and for me as the reader, Salmon and Fortier return to the dead on pacing and storytelling they exhibited in the first 12 chapters with Chapter 14 and do not let up or fall back into that Chapter 13 trap again at all.
Although the cover to this book isn’t typically what I enjoy stylistically, Hardin’s work fits this piece extremely well and the image cast by the cover works perfectly. Add in Davis’ top of the line interiors, some of his best New Pulp work I’ve seen to date, along with his equally excellent design work on the package as a whole, and GHOST SQUAD definitely stands as one of the best looking New Pulp offerings out there.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF HANCOCK’S HAT- This book came out in 2008. Far too long since Lazarus and crew have seen light, if you ask me.
First introduced by Lars Anderson in Saucy Romantic Adventures and Mystery Adventures, The Domino Lady is the alter-ego of Ellen Patrick, a wealthy UC Berkeley graduate out to avenge the murder of her father, District Attorney Owen Patrick, in the Raymond Chandler-esque Southern California of 1935. While she brandished a .45 and syringe of knockout serum, her greatest weapon was her sexuality, which she would use to disarm her unsuspecting opponents. Routinely stealing from her targets, she donates most of the profits to charity after deducting her cut, leaving a calling card with the words “Compliments of the Domino Lady” behind.
DL appeared specifically in “spicy pulp” magazines, pulps that typically featured semi-pornographic short stories. Such magazines had smaller print runs (and were as a result a few cents higher in price) and were usually sold “under the counter” upon request. Only a handful of Domino Lady were published, all of which were collected in Bold Venture Press’ Compliments of the Domino Lady, featuring a cover from the one and only Jim Steranko. In addition, Moonstone Books has published a new series of Domino Lady comics and prose stories. The AudioComics Company’s world-premiere productions will mark the first time that the alter-ego of Ellen Patrick has ever appeared in an audio format.
Portraying the Domino Lady will be San Francisco Bay Area actress and filmmaker Karen Stilwell, who has a unique tie to AudioComics; take a read of her bio…
Karen Stilwell began acting in San Francisco at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco as a teen. After winning a National Theater award for best ensemble work in regional theater (playing a maid in one of Tennessee Williams last plays called This is (an Entertainment)), she was propelled to continue acting after meeting Williams and Michael York and choosing, with the help of “A Chorus Line” summer touring cast members, to go to the Big Apple just after High School at age 17. Within a year she had joined both the Screen Actors Guild and The American Federation ofTelevision and Radio Artists recording voice overs, commercials, under five roles on soap operas like All My Children and The Guiding Light with some small parts in the films Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession and C.O D.
She became a core member of a theater company called Wild Hair Productions consisting of mainly fellow actors who had met in class and enjoyed writing and acting together in their own plays. The biggest hit to come from the troupe was Starstruck with Karen playing the original Erotica Ann 333, an android built for sex but re programmed to be the maintenance officer on the GOOD ship Harpy.
After several more years of off B’way work, more under five roles on soaps, and a few more national commercials, Karen did some stand in work for the lead ladies in Love Sick (staring Dudley Moore), was taken by the ensemble feeling the film crew had, and decided to get behind the camera herself taking off to film school in San Francisco. Soon Karen was making documentaries and shorts while raising her daughter Jenna. Two of her documentaries made it into the Library of Congress: The Real Jean Roe and Tear Gas Filled the Sky staring longshoreman, activist, writer & actor Bill Bailey. Acting picked up in San Francisco again in the 1990s with parts on television shows shooting in SF, not to mention many industrial films and commercials.
During the 2000’s Karen mainly worked in video post production with some corporate producing jobs and only acted when friends called upon her to jump in on low budget films and such. It wasn’t until reconnecting with Elaine Lee, her old acting troupe buddy, at the revived staged reading of Starstruck in Big Sur (which of course became The AudioComics Company’s debut audio play) that she finds herself ready to get in the nightgown and mask…behind the microphone that is…and play The Domino Lady.
The first Domino Lady project will be a three-part serial authored by one of the country’s leading DL historians, Rich Harvey, with the first part, “All’s Fair in War,” recording this fall in San Francisco, alongside AudioComics’ first two Green Lama audio adventures. The name Rich Harvey is synonymous with pulp stories and pulp history in the United States; a New Jersey-based graphic designer, writer, and publisher, his Bold Venture Press imprint specializes in reprints of classic pulp fiction, among them Pulp Adventures magazine and Compliments of the Domino Lady, the reprint collection that thrust the Domino Lady back into the pulp limelight. He also sponsors an annual gathering of pulp enthusiasts, the Pulp Adventurecon, in New Jersey. Rich cites Dashiell Hammett as his favorite author and biggest influence, and next on the list is Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s The Destroyer series. www.boldventurepress.com is the handle!
“A warm west coast evening — a glamorous city bathed in silvery moonlight — a criminal element walking arm-in-arm with high society — and a masked woman who challenges their power the DOMINO LADY.”
Judd Winick has returned to Gotham City with a vengeance. The award-winning cartoonist has transitioned one of his benchmark storylines from comic book pages to animated film with the upcoming release of Batman: Under the Red Hood, the latest entry in the popular series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies.
Born and raised on Long Island, New York, the University of Michigan graduate gained national fame as a cast member of MTV’s The Real World, San Francisco in 1994. In the wake of the death of his Real World roommate and friend, AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, Winick embarked on a national AIDS education lecture tour. Later, the lecture and his friendship with Zamora was documented in his award-winning graphic novel Pedro And Me.
Winick next created his original comic book series, Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius, and then began a long running stint as one of the top writers on mainstream super hero comics. Winick has scripted such titles as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Trials Shazam, Green Arrow and Outsiders (for DC Comics), Exiles (for Marvel) and Star Wars (for Dark Horse). He also was the creator and executive producer of Cartoon Network’s animated series, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee.
He is currently developing live action television and animation, writing the new bi-weekly comic title for DC Comics Justice League: Generation Lost, as well as the monthly Power Girl.
In 2005, Winick presented his Red Hood storyline in the Batman comics and it was met with tremendous sales alongside powerful waves of controversy. He has evolved that story into the script for the all-new DC Universe film, Batman: Under the Red Hood. In celebration of the film’s July 27 street date, DC Comics will distribute a six-issue mini-series, Red Hood: The Lost Days. Written by Winick and drawn by Pablo Raimondi, the mini-series offers greater insight into the back story of the title character.
Batman: Under the Red Hood will be distributed by Warner Home Video as a Special Edition version on Blu-Ray™ and 2-disc DVD, as well as being available on single disc DVD, On Demand and for Download. (more…)
Today’s installment of comic-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…
* Heidi MacDonald checks in with comics pros for her annual year end survey: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The big themes: recession, online comics, comic book movies– and how gangbuster movie sales don’t translate into gangbuster comic sales. (Disclaimer: I’m one of those people included.)
* Asylum Press, having offered free comics for anyone signing up for their online newsletter within the first twelve days of December, has extended their offer. Anyone who signs up at asylumpress@aol.com before Jan. 31 will receive three free comics.
* Brian Cronin says "Comic book writers appear to have more of a presence on the internet than comic book artists." As the webmaster for Peter David’s weblog and all the work I’ve done over here… no kidding.
* Uclick has revealed an all-new mobile Web application for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch at the Macworld Conference & Expo event in San Francisco. By navigating to www.uclick.com on the iPhone and iPod touch, the Safari browser now displays the Uclick archive of 400,000 comic strips, single-panel comics and editorial cartoons. Currently the iPhone-optimized site features comic strips and single-panel cartoons, including Doonesbury, Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Close to Home, and many more. Hat tip: Macworld UK.
* Top Shelf’s Leigh Walton and Comic Foundry’s Laura Hudson launched Cereblog, a dual critical analysis of every issue of Cerebus. In the same vein, Tom the Dog has been running weekly retrospectives of every appearance of GrimJack.
* And sadly, Cheryl Holdridge, one of the original "Mickey Mouse Club" Mouseketeers, died January 6th after a two-year battle with cancer. She was 64.
Anything else? Consider this an open thread.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
