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Who Killed Peter Mitris? A Lurid, True-Life Tale Of Drugs, Murder, Criminals, and Comic Books

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Who Killed Peter Mitris? On April 17 1991, Peter Mitris, comic store retailer, comic book collector and dealer, and drug importer, armed robber, and drug dealer, vanished into thin air. Despite an extensive search, he was never seen again. The great Jack Kirby once famously said to a fan, “Comics books will break your heart.” If he had said that comic books would eventually kill you, he’d still have been right. In the case of Peter Mitris, it wasn’t the comic books that killed him though, it was a combination of brass knuckles and the ocean. For close to three decades now the mystery of Peter Mitris has both titillated and puzzled the Australian comic book world. The rumours, the myths and speculation of what happened to the man who helped organise the first real international comic book convention the country had seen, and, through his store, bought and sold comic books, including a near perfect Action Comics #1 have been spoken in hushed tones by those who claim to know. In

Detective Lloyd and the Short Life and Sad Death of Universal’s First Australian Leading Man

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Detective Lloyd and the Short Life and Sad Death of Universal’s First Australian Leading Man Universal Studios saw the benefit of serials almost from their formation. With a total of 137 serials, they were the most prolific of all the Hollywood studios in this regard, from the first, Lucille Love, Girl of Mystery (1914, dir Francis Ford), to their final effort, The Mysterious Mr M (1946, dirs. Lewis D. Collins and Vernon Keays), the serial had been a valued tool in the Universal arsenal. The studio used all the typical serial topics, westerns, action, mystery, horror, suspense, science fiction, jungle, fantasy and the classic ‘girl in peril’ format. Nothing was off limits to Universal when it came to producing serials. They would use props, musical scores, and even un-used footage from their feature films, over and over. Actors became forever known for their serial roles; Buster Crabbe became typecast after appearing in both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. But, for every Bela Lu

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