Category: comic books
Comic Cover of the Week: The Gargoyle By Bernie Wrightson Can’t Be Beat!
When it comes to outstanding comic book covers by truly incredible artists The Gargoyle #1 is one of the best! A relatively obscure Marvel character got his own limited series in 1985 and was also a member of The Defenders around this time as well. Who better than to get to draw this monstrous superhero? Bernie Wrightson laid it onto paper like a true champ and gave us one of the best covers of his career! All four covers for this series are actually pretty incredible but this one takes the cake…
Comic Book Cover of the Week: X-men & Star Trek Team Up?!
Here’s funny little team up that went down back in 1998 and happens to have a cover I think is deserving for a spotlight if not only for how odd the whole idea is! The X-men appeared along the cast of the Star Trek: The Next Generation for this 64 page one shot, something many people have forgotten about or perhaps just never even considered existed. But there was of course a small demand by some fans to see these guys team up against not only the Borg but also the Sentinels! This cover features artwork by Cary Nord and Scott Koblish check it out…
There was also an alternate cover too:
Now only if we could have had the X-men team up with the original crew right? Well they fucking did that shit too in 1996!
Yeah and we even got to see Wolverine and Spock tangle a bit- so there’s that! Seems like Spock just may have served Wolverine his ass on a platter if really pushed to the limit-non-berserker Vulcan style!
Those Crazy Vintage Spider-man Fan Flicks!!
Who doesn’t love a good fan made film? Well these days it seems comic book fans waste no time pumping Youtube full of fan flicks and with modern technology everyone seems to think they’re a damn genius director. Well back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s making a fan film wasn’t exactly something that everyone was doing. Nope there was an actual serious shortage of regular fanboys and girls attempting to bring the pages of the comics to film.
However today I saw a pair of pretty entertaining Spider-man fan films one from 1969 and another from 1989. It’s awesome to see way back then people were inspired enough to give the near impossible feat of bringing a superhero to life on screen- check these out for a serious blast from the past, hey you gotta give these peeps credit and an A for effort, they gave it a good shot with what they had!!
Oh and you gotta love the Kingpin in this one!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Night of the Living Wolverine!
Alpha Flight number 13’s cover has always been one of my favorites and if you were reading the comic book back in 1983 you know it was a pretty emotional time for the Canadian super team. This was again during a time when it was kinda special when Wolverine would show up on the scene as opposed to when he was featured in every comic book on the shelves. This was also a time when Wolverine was still a weird little 5 foot 3 inch mutant berserker rather than a Hollywood hunk! Anyway this cover was done by one of my all time favorite artists ever, John Byrne and the scene on the cover is actually a piece of a creepy dream sequence in the wake of the death of Alpha Flight’s team leader Guardian.
I totally dig Wolverine’s classic cowboy style here and of course the brilliant tombstones which feature the names of classic comic book artists. Of course Byrne’s name was usually cleverly hidden as part of the background and can also be seen on the tombstone. This is such a classic cover and a cool time to be into Marvel stuff. I’m still amazed they’ve never worked Alpha Flight into any of the Marvel movies as they’re a huge part of Wolverine’s past…also anyone else ever pick up on Wolverine having a crush on Heather Hudson?
Will The Reavers Save Wolverine 3?!
I’ve been a bit torn lately on the the upcoming third Wolverine movie which is slated to also be Hugh Jackman’s last appearance as the legendary mutant. Why? Well ever since we got word of this final flick being based upon the popular ‘Old Man Logan’ series it’s been a major issue that the story wouldn’t be able to use the key characters from the comics due to issues with studio property rights. I think they should wait another five or so years to do Old Man Logan, when Hugh IS actually older. I’ve also stated before that a totally original story would be pretty awesome for the third movie as they seem to almost always slaughter any story they rip from the comic books. I mean how can you do Old Man Logan without the fucking Incredible Hulk?!! Well now there’s word that this third movie will feature some classic villains which have me back on board for Wolverine 3.
Yeah Old Man Logan is rumored to feature “The Reavers” who just happen to be some of my favorite bad guys from the X-men comic books. A futuristic road trip Mad Max style Wolverine movie with these blood thirsty cyborgs on their trail sounds fantastic to me! My only concern is that they’re also supposedly going to try and bring back Liev Shreiber as Sabretooth….uggh. Continue reading
Vision Quest: Portland’s Finest Free Comix!
Issue number five just dropped of Portland Oregon’s FREE comic newspaper! Vision Quest is a collaborative effort put together by local comix writers and artists and it’s a great change from all of the mainstream stuff out there flooding the market. It’s got a real feel to it as well, black & white, hand drawn ink on paper quality that will likely bring you back to the good ol’ days of self published comic books and zines of the nineties.
It’s a ton of fun too as each issue showcases 30 plus full page bursts of old school comic strip mayhem. You never really know what to expect within it’s pages either, stating on the cover it’s recommended for mature readers so it’s not quite the comic book either for your kid. You get a fine collage of the all of the local talent here in Portland and beyond & yeah it’s free and can be found all around town. Cool artists like Alex Chiu, Tim Root, Erin Nations, Liz Yerby to name a few are featured in issue five and some of the artists are veterans in the underground & local comic scene.
Tim Goodyear (Teenage Dinosaur / Video Tonfa), one of the publishers and contributors elaborated on the inspiration behind it saying “Vision quest is a boiler plate we got from The Intruder up in Seattle. I have been bummed on the commercial structure of comics for a long time and have tried many times to get comics to folks with out all the barriers that are in place. Ian Sundahl asked me how The intruder paper was structured and I told him what Max Clotfelter had told me. He asked if I’d want to do that here, I said I wasn’t sure. 6 or 8 months later he asked me again and I said yes. It’s been great. I love it.”
With regards to submissions to be included in Vision Quest, Goodyear advises that “people should write to us at Visionquestcomix@gmail.com – people should look at the paper and they should make the comic that they want. Not everything fits, whether it be math or tone or outside our interests. Hand lettering is a big key.”
Check this shit out around town here and I’m certain copies can be acquired via the Vision Quest email!
X-Men Apocalypse: The Origin of The X-Men’s Famous Hairdos!!
I checked out ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ today, a movie I was super excited for as I was a huge fan of ‘Days of Future Past’ and the other Singer X-Men movies. I’m sorry to say that for some reason this latest installment is a big bloated mess that sadly misses the mark by a boatload. I loved that the last movie was set in the 1970’s & was so stoked on the idea of this one taking place in the 1980’s. However, aside from some cool vintage wardrobe and a Ms. Pac-man video game there wasn’t much else in this one that for me really brought me back to that great era of the X-Men comic books.
There was simply just too many damn characters running around, the story was missing heart and the special effects were just too much of a cartoony CG mess to convince me that the Earth was in any serious danger. I had high hopes forthe movies antagonist Apocalypse too and didn’t even mind his look, which most people were in a frenzy about from the start. However, Apocalypse as a villain was just way too hokey to be taken seriously and yeah he really did look a bit ridiculous I must admit.
And Talk about a villain who takes himself way too seriously, jeez, he seemed more like an overdramatic cartoon version of the legendary villain. We’re really not given that much character development here for anyone, everything that happens happens way too coincidentally including the origin of people’s hairstyles! It seems Apocalypse is not only responsible for huge amounts of global chaos but also for Storm’s white hair & ALSO Professor X’s bald ass head!! Continue reading
Lucid Dreaming: The Secret to Having Superhuman Powers Every Night!
You wanna have superhuman strength? You wanna fly high above buildings? You wanna have the indestructible claws of Wolverine? Well I’m gonna let you in on a little secret-you CAN have superhuman powers every night with a little commitment and perseverance. Now of course there is a slight catch, you’ve got to get serious about your dreams! But not just any old regular dream, learn to ‘Lucid Dream‘ every night. I’ve spent some of my nights transforming into The Incredible Hulk and smashing up whole cities, I’ve flown high in the sky with birds like Superman and I’ve also popped those adamantium claws Wolverine made famous from my knuckles. It was unbelievable, but it’s all true and I chose to do it all myself while fully conscious!
First though let me explain, ever since I was in my late teens I began to have lucid dreams and in the past year began to get more serious about it all. This here is the key to all this madness. So to anyone out there who doesn’t know what a lucid dream is let me give you a proper definition,
“A lucid dream is any dream during which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming. During lucid dreaming, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over the dream, dream characters, narrative, and environment.”
Chances are you may have already had dreams like this in the past and didn’t quite realize it was something special or maybe you’ve never even realized this was possible? Remember ‘Dreamscape’ with Dennis Quaid? Or ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors’? Well it’s just like that except it’s easy to kick Freddy’s ass in a real lucid dream. And truth be told anyone can be a lucid dreamer all it takes is a little practice and focus. Also keep in mind a vivid dream is not a lucid dream. But a lucid dream is a vivid dream. Let me be clear here, once you experience your first real lucid dream you’re likely to never really be the same again.
Even more so, recently I’ve begun to focus on lucid dreaming a bit every day of my life. I’ve now begun to be able to control my dreams, create dream characters and really do anything that my mind can dream up quite often. Some of these lucid dreams are just as real as anything you can experience in the waking world, it all really depends on how seriously you want to delve into it. One thing I can guarantee is that it’s most definitely worth the effort. In many ways it might change the way you see life and reality altogether. Continue reading
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Daredevil & Black Widow in Rare Form!
Here’s a look at one heck of a great cover by the master Barry Windsor Smith way back from 1985 with Daredevil #217! This has always been a favorite of mine and there’s just no denying that Barry’s unique style rivals any current artist. Anytime in the 80’s that he was involved you just knew you were going to get something memorable. This particular cover is no exception to the rule, Barry gives us an epic cover with Daredevil & The Back Widow swinging high up in the skyscrapers giving our ol’ pal Spidey a run for his money for pure perfection in acrobatic form!
New Music & Comic Book Adventures from…..The Monkees?!
I’ve always been a huge fan of The Monkees and now they’ve released a brand new song that will be on their upcoming album “Good Times”. Of course I’m still sad about the passing of Davy Jones, my personal favorite Monkee, but the good news is this new album WILL feature and old unreleased track that Neil Diamond wrote for the band in the 1960’s with Davy Jones on lead Vocals. It’ll feature some new instrumentation and harmonies by Micky Dolenz & Tork. Also the album cover too is a good sign that we’ll be getting some classic vintage style songs from the boys.
The album will also feature a brand new song by Michael Nesmith! So all four of the original Monkees will be present in some way shape or form. In the mean time here’s a cool new track, written by Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, I’m pleased to hear that this new album will recreating their classic 60’s sound. This little video is cool as well as it follows an old classic comic book adventure of the band!
If that’s not good enough they’ve released another song from the album written by Andy Partridge from XTC!!
Universal Dork 