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Showing posts from February, 2006

Q&A SESSION: Marvel's Tom Brevoort On Essentials

After whinging about the quality of Marvel's Essential range in a previous post I thought it might be a good idea to approach one of the main editors at Marvel and fire off some questions. Without further ado, please welcome Tom Brevoort . ACAB : Why is it that DC can issue an Essential style reprint book with crystal clear reproduction on material dating back to the 1950s, yet Marvel issue a reprint book - in this case Essential Spectacular Spider-Man Vol II with three of the worst efforts at reproduction that I've ever seen - and that on material from the '80s. What are DC doing that Marvel isn't? TOM BREVOORT : It's not a question of what DC might be doing that Marvel isn't per se. In both cases, it's a question of what reproduction materials are available. DC has this problem too--which is why all of the covers in that HOUSE OF MYSTERY volume were shot from the printed books; they don't have good reproduction materials for most of their vintage cove

Norwood Bogan Fest 2006

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Well that's another one gone, and thank Christ for that. Each year here in Norwood we have the Food & Wine Festival , or as we've come to know it, the Annual Bogan Fest. What started out as a refined and decent wine and food gathering has turned into a nightmare. If you get there early enough it's not too bad. You can wander down the street (we started at the Bath and worked our way down past Mantos) even though it's more than slightly packed and it's great for people watching. Two glasses of wine, that'll be $20 thanks. Suffice to say we drank only the two glasses and wandered off home - for $20 for a Chardonnay I can buy a bottle and get suitable sauced. At about 6pm the Bogans and Schlappers* come out in full force. That's when the noise levels rise (we're located just behind the Parade so we get it all night) and the night is full of the sounds of breaking bottles, bad music, screaming, yelling, talking and just general mayhem. We don't let t

Full Mooney

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Part of the fun of writing a book about a person like Jim Mooney is seeing the art first hand. I've always attempted to try different things, to show people unusal art and, if possible, unpublished art. To this end I've approached a number of artists to work on various Mooney pencils and preliminaries just to see the results. I'm also going for a theme of sorts - I had Norm Breyfogle ink a Mooney Batman. Norm is one of the best Batman artists of the last 20 years, and to me it seemed like a no-brainer to have one of the Batman artists of the 1990s ink a drawing done by one of the Batman artists of the 1940s. To that end I asked if anyone was interested in doing some work - paid, of course. One of the first off the rank and one of the best, was Bob Almond . Bob's credits are longer than most people's arms, but most would know him for his work over Sal Velluto's pencils on the acclaimed Marvel Comics series Black Panther. Sadly the Panther was cancelled - beats me

Hop Aboard The Magic Bus

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Anyone got a spare $3.50? That's all it cost in those days to see the triple bill of Paul Jones (formerly of Manfred Mann - famous for singing 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo'), the Small Faces and the headliners, The Who. I'd be amazed if a similar bill in today's environment managed to cost under $250 per ticket. Still, gotta love those 1968 prices. In case you're wondering, I found the ad in an old issue of Go-Set. That was one Big Show that lived up to it's billing. The Who in Adelaide always reminds me of one of my all time favorite rock and roll stories. Back in the day (1992-1993 to be exact) I used to present a show about rock music on ABC Radio 5AN on a Thursday night. I was limited in what I was allowed to play (this was the ABC after all) but seeing how I went to air from 9:30 to 10:00pm I got away with more than I should have. I managed to do specials on Kiss, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles (one of my all time favs as I got to play a pile of Beatles

Friday Night Booze Club

Friday evening saw the standard get together for a few suds at the Griffins Head. In attendance were Stevie, Tobias, Chadwick , Dr Nick , the other half and myself. A few ales were drank, music was played and a vigorous discourse was had between the good Doctor and myself as to the virtues of disco music. Bottles and glasses were not thrown, I didn't come home covered in alcohol, unlike the last time, and it appears that this Friday Night Drinking Session (as I shall now officially call it) might become a semi-regular occurrence. Other topics discussed included '80s music (a direct result of my programming the juke-box), the mental state of porn stars (agreance: they are almost certainly emotionally crippled and mentally disturbed), the lack of quality in American beers and the positives of swearing. I like the Griff. It's quiet, a little bit seedy and on the right side of being a dive bar. It generally gets the office crowd (even more so now that The Planet is long gone) a

It's Alive!!! Now I Know What God Feels Like!!!

It's open!!! Incredible. After all this time the new Adelaide airport is finally open for business. It seems like only five months ago that we attended the opening day. And not before time too - the old one is seriously ready for demolition. We had the misfortune to spend about 90 minutes there on New Years Eve sending my mother off back home to Brisneyland. What a filthy cesspit it's become - stinking hot with no air-conditioning, flies everywhere, lights off, no drink machines - in fact no drinks anywhere other than the over-priced bar, food was non-existant as everything was shut down. It reminded me of those crappy airports you see in Third World countries. In short a horrendous experience and one that I'm glad we'll never repeat. Viva la new airport!!! And unlike Melbourne airport you don't have to drive for an hour to get from the terminal to the city centre.

Shhhhhhhhh

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Be vewy, vewy qwiet... I'm huntin' lawyers. Incredible how the Vice President of the USA can shoot a man, wound him almost fatally, and walk away with a $10.00 fine? Ask yourself this, if that were you or me then... oh, who cares? The man is a twat, like prety much all the world's leaders at the moment, including our own Mr Garrison/Mr Sheen look-alike. Next time let's hope that the gun backfires.

Et Tu, U2?

I'm laughing my nuts off!!! Seriously! U2 announced late last year that they'd be playing concerts in Australia . I, for one, didn't think it was going to happen, but there you go. I've been wrong before, I'm sure I'll be wrong again. Due to a colossal fuck-up most of the tickets were sold to scalpers via U2's own site before they went on sale (seemingly standard procedure for the band these days if reports about the poor allocation for European/USA tickets are anything to go by) and tickets have been fetching a premium ever since. I've bid on a few on eBay and I made a run at two general admission tickets early last week. Then, this Friday, a bomb dropped. Bass announced that they were selling general admission tickets for $99 a pop. Suddenly there were a run of ads in the Advertiser and the usual wankers on eBay from people trying desperately to off-load their surplus tickets for up to $250 a shot. $250 for a ticket I can wander down to the local Bass

Marvel Essentials

I love the Marvel Essentials. Nice, thick volumes, usually chock full of comics that I enjoy reading. In recent times there's been Essential volumes for such short-run '70s comics as Super-Villian Team-Up, Iron Fist and Silver Surfer, along with volumes for Luke Cage, Ghost Rider, Defenders and many, many more. They're a great idea - around 20+ issues of a book, printed in black and white with the original cover art, complete credits and, best of all, the creators get royalities. This means that prolific artists such as Mike Esposito, Jim Mooney and Sal Buscema get a few decent cheques during the year. In fact I think you'd be hard pressed to pick up any of the '70s volumes and not find any of those three guys in there, especially Mike. Is there a downside? Sadly there is. The printing quality can sometimes be right off. The most recent volume, Spectacular Spider-Man Vol II , suffers from some of the worst reproduction that I've ever seen. These aren

If It Wasn't So Funny

It'd be sad. Click this link and have a peek at the on-line web-cam for the new Adelaide Airport. The airport was opened a few months back - I know because I went to the grand opening - but a plane has yet to land there. Why? Because someone stuffed up and piddled in the pipes where the fuel usually goes. Eventually the airport will open, but in the meantime we have to make do with a run down airport that stinks of urine, has no air-conditioning and no shops. It's the kind of airport that I'd expect to find in some third world country really, and an utter disgrace to Adelaide. Until the new aiport does open you can see exactly what's not happening there on an hourily basis. Believe me about the only thing you'll see taking air on this web-cam is the odd seagull and a few pigeons. And even they don't take off on time. I'm spending the day inside, trying to keep cool, trying to keep my nose from bleeding and scanning what seems to be a hundred odd pages tha

Latest And Greatest

Well I've been a busy little bugger today. In order I've: Updated the web-site. Posted a new interview that I did with Tim Sale. It dates from August last year, but hey... Replied to about a gazillion emails. Set up a new Yahoo group dedicated to Jim Mooney. Come on in and join up. It's a hoot. Commissioned a new piece of art for the Jim Mooney book. Waded through a pile of Legion of Superheroes Indexes to find the Mooney work. Arranged to send a book out to the States. All I have to do now is scratch my nuts and the day will be complete. And I've done all of that in the space of two and a half hours, inbetween running back and forth with a nose-bleed that I've had since Friday. I need a good slug of Tequila. Life is good....

Slack Days And Torn Pants

That's a title that'll sound oddly familiar to most Australians. Hey, Half Days & Patched Pants was one of my favourite books growing up. Slack day here, and I did throw out a lot of torn pants in a wardrobe clean up. I should be working but I'm not - I'm a naughty little swine. Had a big night out on the pop last night with the missus and Chadwick, plus some people I've worked with; Davros, Kim, Ant and the legendary Omar. You gotta see and hear Omar to believe him. As a result I'm taking today off to consolidate my thoughts and tomorrow I'll be back into the groove and working like a dog once more. It's amazing really, I've always wanted to be a writer and now, in less than 12 months, I'll be starting my third book. I expect that they'll all be published in one big bang too - can't wait really. Once I'm able to I'll let the world know who the third book is about... it'll surprise a lot of people and hopefully it&

Archive Box #4876

The archives are up. If anyone can be bothered to go through them they'll find some huge gaps. There's stuff that I just don't want out there anymore, so I've just spent the last few hours deleting old posts - I've deleted about 100 or more. It's all crap really. There's a huge gap there and that's for a reason. It was a difficult period in my life filled with hardship, pain and heartbreak. I got hurt, I hurt others. There's some who refuse to speak to me anymore, so be it, and some I have no time for. Anyway, by deleting the posts it's my way of saying get over it - I have. Along the way there was a lot of fun and some damn good times, and that's what I'll remember from now on. I've never seen the need for keeping absolutely everything that I've ever written. Call me a Nazi but I'm not above burning my own books. I keep my past up here (taps head) and there it remains. The epithany is now complete and my skin is shed. Life

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