Showing posts with label 2007. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007. Show all posts

05 August 2020

Good Morning!

Another day in the "land of the free"...





Of course, these days when they talk "Freedom" in the circles of power, they mean it in the same way that Slave Traders used the term when they spoke of abolition as a threat to their freedom.

And you better look close at who's filling in the other side of that equation.

Anyway...

The inner hermit has been rising up with the internet machine issues and actively rebelling against a quick fix. It's even dragged me to spend days without connecting to the net at all. When's the last time you did that?

And it's been odd when i am online since i'm booting this system from a USB stick. All my normal browser info is absent - like bookmarks. How well could you get around these days if you had to type in the URL for every location you want to visit? How many could you  recall properly?

And - DAMN! The default browser on the stick doesn't have add-ons, like AdBlocker. At least half of the sites visited got shut down within seconds as being completely unusable in the raw. That sure helps cut down on the internet time - i'm simply not enough of a submissive bitch to stay on so many of those sites. Do people actually visit more than once?

Perhaps the worst are the ones who seem  to use high school interns to design their dynamic layouts. Ads with different dimension load and the page shuffles, moving the point you're reading elsewhere - go find it, bitch!
Seriously? They put that up on the web and they're not so embarrassed that they immediately pulled it down to avoid the shame?

Or do the site owners only visit with their AdBlock turned on, so they have no clue how broken their own pages are?

ANYWAY (again) ...
The net sure works hard to please my inner hermit these days. They give it lots of reasons to stay offline.

On the comics front, i've been excited about the idea of Probably The Best Superhero Comic Book In The Universe being in development for an animated series. Even though it was published after the big two pushed me out of the comic book market, i still managed to read the first 100 issues. Now i've gone back to re-read them and catch up on the remaining almost 50 issues that i missed. And along the way i discovered that Marvel Team-Up he did with Spider-Man!

I wonder if there are other appearances i missed?

You're all excited for Invincible, too - right?
Or do you just love The Walking Dead?
(They're both written by Robert Kirkman)

Let's go ahead and try to add a few covers here. Maybe the system will be nice and not fight back over just 3 images...


The first cover of Invincible was quite unassuming in its way, with a sweet little teaser line - 

Girls, acne, homework, super-villains.
When you're a teenager, it helps to be
INVINCIBLE


The book hit the ground running with a clear vision and a deep world surrounding our hero. A dozen and a half issues in, they boasted a new tagline the likes of which we hadn't seen since the glory days of Lee & Kirby with their World's Greatest Comics Magazine blurb on the Fantastic Four. And like that old classic, the material under the covers made solid arguments to support their claim of  Probably The Best Superhero Comic Book In The Universe -


I tend to assume that most comic fans are already well familiar with, and have read the run of, Invincible. If not, with the series now going into production, it might be a good time to check and see why so many folks loved this new hero...



There - see?
I managed to drag the brain back around to comics.

I'll see if we can't coax it to do some regular comics & media posts. Maybe i can trick it into watching the sequel to Viy and let you know how that worked out...

stuff by -3-, covers by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley from Invincible #s 1, 18, & 42 (2003, 2005, 2007)

04 June 2018

Blue Monday Bonus - Un-Comics From The Sewer


Say you're a fan of 'trashy' movies. You love discovering what weird creations have sprung from the minds of those artists who dwell off on the sidestreets, far from the main Boulevard of Dreams.
Where do you go to find them?

Okay. You go to the internet these days - though it can be a daunting expedition that may leave one suffering from things that can never be unseen. It's often safer to find a trusty guide. For the past 20+ years, one man has put his sanity on the line for us, bringing back his (and his team's) reports from the Cinema Sewer - a guide named Robin Bougie. We'll be talking more about the magazine, but today's focus is on their frequent use of Un-Comics for both stories and reviews.


That's the focus of the latest post in our adult content 'back room'. To view the accompanying artwork, visit the full post on The Other Voice Of ODD!
The rest of the text is presented here for context (and search engines, since they can't get past doorman)


Given the focus of the magazine, it should come as no surprise that the creators seem completely unfettered, in the finest underground comix tradition. They are designed to express personal voices - quite bluntly and proudly. (In the dark corners of my mind, the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny is fought between Robin Bougie and Chris Gore, both summoning their troops from the best/worst of cinema)

So, here's a sampling of Cinema Sewer Un-Comics, ranging from film reviews to slice-of-life experiences to a History Of Bukkake and celebrity features and condemnations...



They even did a profile on The Fake Detective, Ed Lake -



Ed's done some great work over the years. I encountered him back in the late '90s while crafting some fakes (all clearly labelled, per his suggestion). The few months i spent playing with those taught me more about Photoshop than a decade of professional work using the tool. (In case you were wondering why.)

Sorry - couldn't find any on the active systems. I'd have to go digging in the archives to find examples.


page art by Robin Bougie, Kim Dietch, D.J. Bryant, David Paleo, Phil Barrett, Josh Simmons, Priscilla Equis, Joseph Bergin III, and Hugo for  Cinema Sewer #s 16, 18, 19, 20 & 22 (2005-2009)

07 May 2018

Prehistoric Blue Monday

Recently i've been teasing an upcoming focus on cavemen in comics. Let's get a jump on that for today's edition of


Today in our adult content back room we're looking at the artwork of Budd Root and his Cavewoman -
Head on back to view this post on The Other Voice Of ODD! 



artwork by Budd Root from Cavewoman-The Mature Version and Cavewoman Prehistoric Pinups #s 2, 4, 5, 6 & 7 (1998-2010)

17 February 2018

Saturday Solutions - Part I


Answers? We got answers.

Here's the first batch - the solutions to yesterday's Doctor Who quiz collection:









puzzle pages from Doctor Who Funfax and  Doctor Who Battles In Time #s 2, 25 & 26 (2005, 2006, 2007)

02 January 2018

Yes, My Child, It Was A Galla Event...

One of the many great things that came out of the '80s comic expansion was Matt Wagner and his two big concept books - Grendel and Mage. I was one of them geeks buying everything published in those days, and Comico Primer #2 had this odd little strip from this new kid that somehow managed to convey the polish and subtle craftsmanship that would come with time and experience in those first raw, but confident, pages of his moody comic. His artwork on Grendel was so well suited to the black and white that it didn't seem like a limitation as it did in so many books. and the writing conveyed a sense of a greater world waiting to be revealed from the very beginning.

While Mage was a very personal title that only Matt could create, Grendel was a concept that he allowed to grow beyond him, to terrific effect at times. The ever changing creative teams suited the nature of the ever evolving character/concept, and they often pushed both expectations and limits. When Matt chose to follow his elegantly clean work with artists like the Pander Brothers and Bernie Mireault, the change was jarring - to great effect. The dramatic shift in visuals reflected the story, and made it almost brutally obvious that things had indeed changed, and were going to continue to do so. Each time, the shift was drastic enough to make the viewer unsure if this was a good thing, then won us over after every forced change to our expectations.

I have to admit, i've fallen behind and have yet to view the more recent incarnations of Grendel. While dwelling upon the need to catch up, i thought i'd mention a fabulous book on the subject from ten eleven years ago:


If you've tragically missed this intermittent title over the last 35 years, this is a fine way to get a feel of the many excellent artists who have contributed to the mythos. Old fan or new discoverer, the book is a beautiful collection, with text covering the evolution of Grendel  while offering artwork showing both behind the scenes production work and full page reproductions of gorgeous finished works.

The book runs over 200 pages, but we're only going to tease 13 of them here.
Eddie would have wanted it that way.














pages from The Art Of Matt Wagner's Grendel (2007)

06 December 2017

Living The Live


I just finished re-watching Cutie Honey: The Live - the 2007 live-action TV series adaptation of Go Nagai's Cutie Honey. I mentioned the show on a previous Blue Monday installment, but as mentioned then it doesn't really qualify for Blue Monday. There is one bare breast in the show, a girl in a mob boss's bed - and they show it twice. (It's a 25 episode series, but they still managed a "clip show" featuring segments of past episodes. I believe it was after a mid-season break, used to draw in new viewers. That would also be why they inserted the bare breast shot again, repeating the lure from the first episode.)

As we saw in the comic, when she Flash!es, Honey's clothing disappears as it's reconfigured. On the TV show, they kinda/sorta hid that she was wearing a body suit in the beginning with the special effects, but along the way they just decided those details must be getting reconfigured, too, and stopped worrying about it. The crowds, of course, certainly appreciated it - as when Honey leads a group of homeless and unfortunates who have been assessed with an "Existence Tax" by Panther Claw...


One of the fun aspects of this incarnation of Cutie Honey (my favorite of the 3 live-action versions to date) is the way the embrace the spirit of cartoons at times. In that same scene, the crowd (including several of Honey's homeless friends) are unwilling to let Honey fight the battle alone. Gen-san steps up with the support of some of the gang...


And they even come together to give him some "powers" in the fight...


The 2004 Cutie Honey movie embraced the anime heritage more openly and deeply, but Cutie Honey: The Live embraced the spirit in a way i found most appealing. 2016's Cutie Honey: Tears... had some nice effects. I'll stand by the TV version.
How can i not love a hero who wraps up a fight like this:


But don't get the wrong idea. By the end of the series, half the cast (including heroes) is dead, some of them twice. Parts are light and bubbly, parts are silly, and parts are much more grim than anything in the dark & gritty reboot. But they always try to remember it's supposed to be fun. What a difference that makes.
This was one of those shows that i was watching 1 or 2 episodes a day as part of my viewing routine, but wound up watching the last 6-8 episodes in one sitting. We'll come back for a deeper look, as well as a peek at the movies after i re-watch the 2004 film. But, you know how it is at the end of a series..?
One often wants to milk the enjoyment a little longer, and so you wind up with this post.

stills from Cutie Honey: The Live (most from s01e20) (2007)

04 August 2017

Everybody Loves The King (King Kirby 016)

More than anyone else, it seems, Artists love Jack Kirby. I'm perhaps biased in this, as being an artist and creating this King Kirby 100 might give me a slightly skewed perspective in the matter.
I'll tell you one thing though, Alex Ross loves The King:


Damn, that's sweet. (As always, click on the image for a better view) This painting, of course, is Alex Ross's take on Kirby's full page panel in New Gods #6, entitled Glory Boat. If you've tragically never read the tale, Kirby's page should convey enough to appreciate the Glory of the Boat:


Meanwhile, back on Earth:


Here's The King's original pencils Mr. Ross was painting from:


...and, just for s&g, here's a look at how closely Alex was following Jack, while giving it his own special touch:

Unfortunately, Alex Ross's signature is cut off at the bottom.


Glory Boat by Jack Kirby from New Gods #6 (1972) and by Alex Ross (2007), Captain America also by Kirby & Ross(?-20th Century)