Posts

Showing posts from March, 2007

Road Trip: Day Six

Brisbane city itself for day six. The day was a lovely one, sun was shining and the wind was blowing slightly, but more importantly there was none of the humidity in the air that usually lingers in these parts. We grabbed my mother and headed into Brisbane to drop off the rental car and also to shop. If only it were that easy. When we picked the rental car up we asked for a street directory. They gave us a map and said that it'd be easy for us to get back to where we had to drop the car off to. All was good until we actually started to read the map heading into the city. The map was a map of the city, it had no directions at all about how to actually get into the place, so after a few missed turns, some cursing and the like we finally made it in and dropped the car off....only to discover that in all our panic we forgot to refuel the bastard. Great. Still the hire car monkey did say that the map was easy for him to understand. I'd like to put him in Adelaide with a sim

Road Trip: Day Five

Brisbane! Well there ya go. We flew in yesterday and nearly gave my dear ole ma a heart attack. No announcement that we were coming, we just rocked up, knocked on the door and settled in - as you do. We're here until Sunday, then back to the drudgery of life as we know it. I'll need some serious rest from this extended holiday. Photos to follow.

Marshall Rogers 1950 - 2007

Image
This is a sad day indeed . Marshall Rogers' rendition of Batman is up there in my top five, if not my top two. I grew up here reading Marshall's Batman (reprints in glorious black and white) and his art was amongst the first to absolutely blow me away with the detail and the cleanness of line work. Marshall Rogers and inker Terry Austin were one of those all too few perfect art teams and as I once told Terry himself, I've always thought that the art of Rogers and Austin was head and shoulders above anything else - including Byrne and Austin. If Marshall and Terry had drawn the X-Men back in the day then John Byrne would be remembered as being an above average artist. It's easy to spot Rogers influence in artists these days and I'd hazard a guess and say that he was just as influential on the generation of arists that followed him as Neal Adams was on the generation before. Marshall was one of the few artists who's name along could sell a book to me. It didn'

The Trip: Day Three & Four

I had no time at all to write this entry last night as I was just too shagged out. I did write an entry this morning but it appears to have vanished somewhere into the on-line breeze. Anyway. It ended up being a good show. We sold a few things, not as much as expected, but that was due to the show being about 3/4 as large as it usually is. Odd really, especially when you consider that there hasn't been one of this magnitude at the venue since August last year and there won't be another for a few months to come, but hey...it happens I guess. So what were the highlights? Catching up with a few pals and meeting new ones. That's always a highlight for me. In fact one of the reasons I go to the shows is so that I can socialise with chums in Melbourne who never visit Adelaide. All good. I picked up three pages of New Mutants original art by Jackson Guice - that was unexpected as original art hardly never turns up at these shows. We found the complete MASH DVD box set -

The Trip: Day Two

What a contrast in weather! Yesterday we were driving through extreme heat and duststorms, today we left Ballarat with freezing cold and heavy rain. Go figure. Again, due to the weather we didn't manage to get any photos. Bugger! Had a good run into Melbourne itself - just over an hour due to the traffic and we went straight to Camberwell to go shopping. Got a few books but not much else. Headed back to the hotel, chilled for an hour and then back to Camberwell where we caught up with Kevin Patrick for a four hour coffee session in which we covered pretty much every topic under the sun, from our adventures in TV land to scurrilous gossip about people we know (and don't) and assorted comic book related material. Loads of fun. Checked my email and found a lovely message from Dewey Cassell about the Andru & Esposito book, giving me a lot of praise. That stuff makes my day. Back at the hotel now and ready to flake out. Thankfully daylight savings ends today so we get

The Trip: Day One

Yeesh! What the hell was that? When we left Adelaide at 9am we were expecting a wet, cold trip as the forcast was for rain all the way. Instead we hit a duststorm at Nhill and stayed firmly within it's grasp until we left Arat around 250 kilometers away. The heat was oppressive (nearly 40 degrees) and both of us are exhausted from the sheer effort that we've had to do to reach this far. The good news is that we made excellent time as we decided not to stop for a look about as we were planning to. We stopped for fuel and to change over to share the driving (generally we each do about 200ks each and then swap over) and that was it. So we got to Ballarat at about 3:30pm Adelaide time, a trip of about six and a half hours. That's damn good running. So now we're settled in the hotel room, chilled out and watching the World Cup on the PayTV. All's good. The car ran smoothly, again, as expected, and I have all the faith in the world that we'll reach Melbourne tomorrow

Leave It Out

Well we're almost ready for our semi-regular road trip - this time it's our bi-annual Melbourne run. So far the idea is to leave Friday morning, drive over and just shop and take it easy, kick back and recharge. The only commitment we have is to go to the Camberwell Fair on the Sunday where we'll have several boxes of comics - three long boxes of cheap stuff, a magazine box filled to the gills with magazines, books and more, plus boxes of great Marvel & DC mainstream titles (think X-Men and Silver Age DC) for about $5 per issue, five boxes of trade paperbacks and graphic novels for cover price or less and much, much more. This should be a good fair. I'm taking the laptop over with us so I'll have my email up and running, and I'll try and post a daily report when we stop in the evenings, depending on how shagged out we are. Plus I'm quite looking forward to Saturday when I'll be catching up with several pals and shopping the Camberwell district

More Newtons: Captain America

Image
We're now nearing the end of the run for the Newton Comics line. After this entry there should be only be about another two, three at the most, as the bulk, if not all, of the line will be fully documented. Captain America was launched right at the end of the first run of the Newton line, in December 1975. The book was immediately canceled, as were other titles, but unlike some it was relaunched and continued on until it's second, and final, cancellation. As these titles were released while the company was in a state of flux and transition they're amongst the hardest to find with the first issue being the most common. Previously to the title being launched the following Captain America stories had appeared in Newton books: ' Them ' (Tales Of Suspense #78) in Giant Team-Up Annual #1 'The Hero That Was' (Captain America #109) in Hulk #1 'No Longer Alone' (Captain America #111) in Hulk #3 (a story that featured The Hulk) 'When Wakes The Sleeper&

The REAL Ghost Rider - Marvel & Sony: Cheap Bastards!

Image
Now seriously, I've seen some cheap stuff in my time and some tight-arsed companies, but this takes the cake. By now I expect that a lot of people have seen the Ghost Rider movie. Good flick, if a trifle odd in places. Movie cost a lot of money to make - estimated $120,000,000 - and worldwide it's more than made back it's costs so a lot of people will be cleaning up and taking home some nice chump change before the middle of this year even. Except one person - Dick Ayers - the guy who created the original Ghost Rider. The original Ghost Rider didn't ride a motorbike, he rode a horse and he was featured in this movie (Sam Elliott played the original Ghost Rider for those who like to know). When Marvel decided to bring the original Ghost Rider back they changed the name the Night Rider and part of the character's origins to fit in with what they were doing at the time. I had a chance to interview Dick a few years back and asked him about the original Ghost Rider a

More Newtons: Dracula

Image
One of the few horror titles that Newton published, Dracula had a spotted history. Launched in the second wave of Newtons, the book only appeared 16 times (14 regular issues, one special and one annual) and survived both name changes and the early 1976 relaunch. Continuity wise it didn't fare as bad as some of the other Newtons, although there was a jump from the regular 'Tomb Of Dracula' material to the more adult 'Dracula Lives' and 'Vampire Tales' stories. The official title for the Dracula series was Tales Of Horror - Dracula as can be clearly seen on the covers of the earlier issues. This full title was announced in the column by John Cornielle in July/August of 1975, but was dropped for the standard Dracula title for advertising and subscription purposes. #1 Date: circa August 1975 Contents: Dracula by Gerry Conway & Gene Colan (Tomb Of Dracula #1) Hobo's Lullaby by John Warner & Yong Montano (Vampire Tales #11) The first issue of the

Racist Comic Book Ads

Image
Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger. A few years back I ran a short course at the WEA here in Adelaide on the history and appreciation of comic books in general. Part of this course entailed me showing a pile of scans of books, Australian, USA and otherwise. One day I might run another course but not for the very near future - time is an enemy these days. The course went down well and people keep staying well after class, emailing me and asking what was coming up. I showed some old horror and crime covers, which brought some gasps from people but the one thing I did show which left everyone in the room speechless was this ad, taken from an old Australian comic (I think it was a Dagwood comic. I have it downstairs buried in a box somewhere). If the ad wasn't enough then what really stunned people was when I told them that this ad appeared in all it's glory in the mid to late 1960s. There was more discussion about this ad and it's merits than anything else in the

And Just For Good Measure

The server that I use for my various sites has gone kaputnik. That means that my own site , Alan Kupperberg .com, The Jerries and Norm Breyfogle's forums are all off-line for the duration. Hopefully all can be sorted out sometime this morning. Just spoke to the tech guy and he's aiming for a lunch-time launch. Oh joy... Oh, and it's raining here, or at least it was. Hopefully some good news is in the pieline and coming very, very soon.

Captain America, R.I.P? I Don't Think So...

Image
Call me a doubter, but I've seen this before. The most recent issue of Captain America has the beloved character gunned down on the steps of a court-house, seemingly assassinated he's now dead. Forever. Finito. The book is generating a lot of interest, both in the comic book world and also in the mainstream media . Or is he? It's not like this stunt is anything new is it? You see back in the day Jim Steranko also 'killed' Captain America. In 1969 Steranko co-wrote and penciled three of the best issues of Captain America that you're likely to see. The second issue of that groundbreaking run, issue #111, saw the character shot as he lept into the ocean, a bullet riddled mask confirmed the horrid truth - he was dead. He'd met his maker. The next issue that followed, #113, Steranko's final, saw Captain America's funeral, attended by the rest of the Avengers. Even the titles of the stories were great - #11 was titled 'Tomorrow You Live Tonight I Die

Nexus Special 2007

Image
NEXUS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! Rude Dude Productions announced Nexus Special for Free Comic Book Day a success. Pheonix, AZ – March 8, 2007 – Rude Dude Productions announced today that their sales for Free Comic Book Day Nexus are inline with IDW and Image books, which is a significant benchmark for the new company. Rude Dude also reminded retailers that they still have until March 15th to order the award winning book. The new Nexus mini-series will premiere in July and the Free Comic Book Day issue is a great introduction for new readers. Free Comicbook Day promotional posters will be sent to the top 1,000 retail orders, the top 10 retail orders will receive goodie baskets that will include cookies (both homemade and girlscout), free comic book day promotional items, Steve Rude books and prints. As an addition to the above and as a thank you for the orders, any retailer with an order over 500 copies will receive a piece of original art! Nexus: Space Opera, Act 1 due out in July can be p

Print On Demand

So I've decided to take the advice of Tony Isabella and actually put together some projects as POD . Tony suggested it to me in an email not so long ago and it did get me thinking, mainly, can it be done? Well anything can be done, as my dear ole ma used to say (and still does, only she doesn't clip me around the ears that much anymore) but here's the problem - what POD company offers the best deals? I'm expecting that I might end up going with someone like Lulu but bugger me it's not cheap is it? Is there a POD company set up in Australia? More importantly...I'm an idiot when it comes to layout. I've asked many a person, many a time, is there a template, somewhere, that I can use (either Word, Page Maker - anything really) and adapt to suit what I want? The general thought is that I'm going to test the waters with a pet project that I've had sitting around since about 1997 - no clues as yet, but to say that it's music related and has a s

Partners For Life - Spider-Man vs The Prodigy

Image
Well the book is now out and on the shelves (you can order it from Amazon using the link on the side of this page). I'm not exactly sure as to the reasons why but a large portion of the text wasn't used. That includes some great interviews and testimonials, so rather than lose them completely I've decided to run them here over the coming months as a companion piece to the book itself so you can see all of the great stuff that couldn't be fit into the book proper. Feel free to print these interviews out and place them in your book. Otherwise enjoy these little pieces and then run out and buy a copy of the book so you can read the rest. ------------------------ Nope, this isn't a case of Spidey smacking anyone's bitch up. This is actually the contents and details of one of the rarest of all the Andru & Esposito Spider-Man tales. You won't find this one in any Essential or Masterworks volume, it's highly unlikely that Marvel will ever reprint it at all.

Previous Posts!

Show more