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 Saturday, October 06, 2007
Nifty Noir
Posted by maggie
In the world of pop culture (albeit not comics), I thought I'd point you to two keen noir movies I've watched in the last couple of days.
The first is Obsession (also known as The Hidden Room, though it's in Amazon as Obsession), released in 1950. It stars Robert Newton, who plays a sophisticated doctor who, fed up with the many romantic flings his wife is having with other men, takes unusal action to bring an end to her behavior. Newton is the man responsible for the way people are talking on "Talk Like a Pirate Day." They're actually talking the way Robert Newton speaks in many of his roles (including Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island). However, here, he's the focus of the noir film -- and is, as noted, speaking as an intelligent sophisticate. And I can see a remake working beautifully today.
The second is The Woman in the Window (1944), starring Edward G. Robinson. A lecturer becomes fascinated by a painting in a store window -- a painting of a lovely woman -- when his wife and children are out of town. It's slightly flawed (after watching it, I checked some scenes to see whether clues were properly established, and they hadn't been), but it's still fun.
Huzzah for DVDs! I'd never heard of Obsession (3 stars from Leonard Maltin), and it had been years since I'd seen The Woman in the Window (3.5 stars from Maltin). Fun.
10/6/2007 12:42:25 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00) 
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Have You Seen Trump #1?
Posted by maggie
I see there's a copy of Trump #1 (Jan 57) on sale at the Heritage Auction website. At the moment, it's at $3, which would be a bargain -- but I bet it goes for more. Bidding ends Oct. 7 at 11 p.m. ET, and I thought I'd point it out to folks who might not be aware of this delicious humor magazine.
After Harvey Kurtzman left Mad, Hugh Hefner offered him the job of creating a top-of-the-line satire magazine, and Trump was the result. It lasted for two issues, both of them comedy gems, and it's the sole example of what the unfettered genius of Kurtzman could provide with a great budget and high production values. Just sayin' ...
10/6/2007 12:15:16 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, October 05, 2007
No Mail Monday
Posted by maggie
In case it didn't occur to you already, there's no Postal Service Monday. Just sayin'.
10/5/2007 10:39:58 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Remember My Friend Irma?
Posted by maggie
It was a radio show that ran from 1947 to 1954 and starred Marie Wilson as the quintessential airhead. It was successful enough to get a theatrical feature (starring Wilson) that is remembered today mostly as the national debut of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who also appeared in the sequel, My Friend Irma Goes West. And, what you won't find in many of the small summaries of the show, it spun off a goofy comic-book series scripted by Stan Lee. It ran from 1950 to 1955 and featured Dan DeCarlo art with occasional back-issue prices driven up by Kurtzman and Frazetta filler pages. Anyway, it turns out that I'll be appearing in a Friends of Old Time Radio event: the performance of a "lost" episodes. (Some well-known old radio shows survive only in the survival of a script; there are no surviving recordings.) So I'll be in the bit part of Mrs. O'Reilly (the landlady). If I can only master an Irish accent, I'll be all set.
10/5/2007 9:16:03 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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We're Almost a Week into October
Posted by maggie
And it's coming home to me just how close to the end of the year we are. Today, I'll be working on the details of Mid-Ohio-Con, which I'd been putting off till a chance to talk with Carolyn Kelly again. We're networking (well, that's what hanging around together and talking about everything under the sun is called these days) concerning our shared desire to take a look at the comics collection at Ohio State University before Mid-Ohio-Con this year. With Thanksgiving lurking in the midst of all that, we're wondering about such basics as where we'll be able to grab food on The Day of the Big Meal. And that kicks off the realization that I'm not even sure where I'll be ending up over the end-of-year holidays. With son's family in Maryland? With daughter-in-law's family in Wisconsin? With daughter's family in New York? And, if I travel by plane, I can't take the packages wrapped. It's time to plan. Which reminds me it's time to start buying gifts -- and to reserve that hotel room for Mid-Ohio-Con. What are your plans for the Fourth Quarter? (Oh, dear, how long have I been thinking in business terms?)
10/5/2007 9:05:20 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, October 04, 2007
And I Turned up a Couple of British Comic Strips
Posted by maggie
I think these were stored away following using them 26 or 27 years ago in Fantasy Empire magazine. In case you didn't see them there, here's a look at a couple of delightful British fantasy comic-strip gems. First is the very first daily-strip episode of Four D. Jones, a series consisting of the adventures of a cowboy who traveled to many alternate worlds by jumping through a fourth-dimensional hole (which he carried with him for the purpose). It was by Peter Maddocks, who ended the strip in the mid-1960s (with his title character jumping into the hole, as I recall). Second is the start of one of my favorite episodes of the brilliant satire strip Flook by "Trog." It began in 1949 and ended in 1984. "Trog" was jazz musician Wally Fawkes, who drew it, and I think this episode was written by George Melly. I believe this story was also collected in a trade paperback several years ago. It'd be keen, if both those strips would be featured in the sort of reprint volumes Fantagraphics is producing these days. Sigh ...  
10/4/2007 5:46:29 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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There Are Advantages to Moving Things About
Posted by maggie
I've referred in the past (as in my Sept. 21 blog) to "Moving Things About." It's a wonderful full-page strip by Brian Bolland: the sort of strip one posts on the refrigerator. (Well, it's on my refrigerator, anyway.) But it's time to acknowledge that, when you Move Things About, you sometimes find cool things you'd forgotten about long ago. As I try to clear the way (with help from The Intrepid Meredith Miller) for a gas line to run from the area of my furnace to the area of the ashpit below my fireplace, some keen things have come to light. We found, for example, a copy (with dustjacket, no less) of Ho Hum: a remarkable book by E.B. White that I'd been sure I had had but had hunted for in vain. Until now. (Illustrated by Otto Soglow, by the way.) And there was a book titled Antique Comic Book Stories and Adventures with virtually no information. They're reproduced from copies of "the magnificently rendered French Imagerie d'Epinal Pellerin Prints." It's by the Merrimack Publishing Corporation with a New York City address late enough for a ZIP code. Included are such full-page, full-color strips as "The Discreet Child." And I found a Cheerios Mickey Mouse 3D comic: "Secret of the Ming Vase." Copyright 1954, it's drawn by Al Hubbard. Cool! (And easy to misplace.)   
10/4/2007 5:36:36 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Stephen Fry Discusses Fame
Posted by maggie
Thanks to Neil Gaiman's reminder to check Stephen Fry's blog (and you are checking Neil's every day, aren't you?), I was rewarded by Fry's fascinating essay on fame and what it means to be famous. Think of Stan Lee (and, for that matter, of Neil) and then consider the following passage from Fry regarding the fact that many famous people have come up with slang terms for The Rest of Us: Well yes, but we’re all human beings here. You would do the same. It’s
not about being rude and one of the reasons you’d do the same is SCALE.
Scale matters. If you’re accosted on average once a week, it’s
charming. You can give a little time to the one who stopped you, be
delighted by their knowing who you are and the whole thing can be a
most pleasant and mutually satisfying interchange. If you are stopped
every ten minutes then it’s a whole different deal. You keep your head
down, pretend to be on the phone, wear dark glasses and generally hope
to pass unnoticed. Or you get someone else to do your shopping, tube
travelling and general street-using for you, sitting in the back of a
Lexus most days and never interacting with the rest of the human race
except when surrounded by burly security men who place their palms in
the faces of anyone who dares to come near. Which is sad and can
engender the reputation of being standoffish, grand and all the rest of
it, but if the alternative is not being able to move around very
easily, who can blame those afflicted with that level of fame?I'm thrilled to be one of the once-a-week people. And I really do not envy the once-every-ten-minutes people.
10/3/2007 11:37:35 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
And There'll Be More Tintin to Come
Posted by maggie
I just stumbled over a website packed with Tintin licensed products. If there are this many items on one site, I can only imagine what lurks in the future with the films now in the works. (And the truly aggressive collector, of course, already has even more on the shopping list. For example, I have Thompson and Thomson and Captain Haddock dolls, a Tintin "beach bag," and Thompson and Thomson bookends from years gone by. The mind reels.)
10/2/2007 9:47:31 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Stephen Moffat Will Adapt Tintin! Yay!
Posted by maggie
Scripter Stephen Moffat (whose "Girl in the Fireplace" Doctor Who episode just won a Hugo Award, whose "Blink" will probably win next year's Hugo in that category, and whose series Jekyll and Coupling have attracted much-deserved notice) will adapt Tintin for theatrical release. Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg will adapt three Tintin graphic novels by Belgian writer-artist Herge, the three not yet announced. There are more details at Guardian Unlimited -- and more details elsewhere are sure to follow. Tintin is already available around the world; I first read the English translations 25 years ago or so. The stories are terrific, and some have been adapted before. But this looks to be The Dream Team.
10/2/2007 9:01:09 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, October 01, 2007
Heroes Tonight
Posted by maggie
9-10 p.m. Eastern Time. Title is "Lizards." Yeah, I know you know. But I almost forgot, thanks to watching almost no TV as it's being broadcast these days.
10/1/2007 2:57:51 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Mind You, There's a Minnesota Con around the Corner
Posted by maggie
A postcard just arrived reminding us all about the Midwest Comic Book Association's FallCon comic-book convention on the Minnesota State Fairgrounds (at the Education Building) in Saint Paul from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. October 6 and 7. There are door prizes, an art show, guest panels, portfolio review, Hero Clix tournaments, and a charity auction. (They say they need volunteers, too.)
10/1/2007 1:48:48 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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