Happy 50th “Birthday” Twilight Zone

Fifty years ago tonight the Twilight Zone debuted on CBS TV with the episode “Where Is Everyone” starring Earl Holliman.

Good one Rod!

Inking videos

Starting to Sketch a comic book page

Self Explanatory

And we’re back – Star Trek mini review

I liked it!

When you boil it down to essentials that’s all that matters, I enjoyed the movie and may even pay to see it again – before the DVD release, which I may also buy.

I won’t go into a detailed breakdown of the film since, as I write this, it’s still the movie’s first weekend and I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who has not as yet seen it.

I will however go into a few points of relief and very slight irritations;

I liked all the new cast.

Scotty was always my favorite character in the original series and even though Simon Pegg looks significantly different than James Doohan I really enjoyed his portrayal and will look forward to seeing more of him in the next film, if that happens. (More Scotty, that is – I’m sure there’ll be a new ST 2)

Karl Urban is a great new Bones and I really admire how the writers gave us McCoy’s backstory in one clear, concise passage of dialogue as he and Kirk met one another.

I was really hoping the Corvette in the Chasm scene from the trailer was one of those sequences that was shot for the trailer and would not be in the film.

In the trailer I was irritated by seeing the Enterprise being built planetside. The design of the ship just isn’t aerodynamic enough to get into orbit, but the scene passed so quickly in the movie that it didn’t bother me so much. I was already on board by then.

I was really pleased to see that this was not Kirk and Uhura as I had inferred from the trailer. The relationship they give Uhura is sufficiently weird but not as weird as this would have been.

Watch it – They Must Be Robots!

Months ago (maybe even last year!) I ordered the SG-1 desert assortment. By the time they arrived buyers remorse had set in so I tried to sell them at a science fiction convention. No takers. The thing that turned me against them (other than a grown man buying dolls) was that I hate the Jack O’Neill head! Sculpted-on goggles and a backward worn baseball cap (I hate that – it looks so ignorant!!) Then I came up with a cunning plan (yes, another one!) More on that later.

When I finally broke them out of their packages and set them on the dining room table, the stupid looking O’Neill made a bee-line for the Captain America Mighty Muggs that recently arrived. Chaos ensued…

What really made me order the desert collection was the MALP and transport Rings.

Too bad it doesn’t move!

Imagine my irritation when I realized that two rings, in the packages with Sam and Jonas, do not a full set of ring transports make! Yeah, I could have bought additional rings from Diamond Select Toys if I’d known that! Now, of course, they are sold out.

But, again, I have a cunning plan. May not work but if it does, I’ll show you – later.

The facial work on these dolls are pretty good, although when they fail it’s usually because the faces are too narrow and vertically stretched. I wonder if they use a computer mapping program?

Jonas Quinn resembles the actor but could almost pass for Donald O’Connor. (Those under 45 can leave the room now!)

And in the living room, still exploring Planet Entertainment Unit (or PX 570935 for SG-1) we have Doctors McCoy and Jackson in the Search for Shatner’s Toupee!

Doll Update!

JAY GARRICK RESTORED!! (replaced, actually)

I happened upon an ebay auction with no reserve, no bids and apparently, no interest from anyone other than myself, for an intact, good shape, Spectre and GA Flash. I won them for a ridiculously low price. Then when they arrived – imagine my dismay to unwrap them and find…

a busted helmet wing! Exactly half the damage done to my original GA Flash doll in that unfortunate Hawkman wing-rage incident! I complained to the seller and he refunded half my purchase price.

And I glued the wing back on! (The original lost wing must have fallen prey to the Ultimate Vacuum menace of 2007!)

While I had the camera out I shot some new arrivals (new, as in months ago – I’ve been busy!)

Since DC Direct offered the last incarnation of the GA Hawkman I decided to make my JSA display into the waning era of the original super-team. Not pictured, but I replaced the original blue hood Atom with the Blue mask, Red Fin version and I have some cunning plans to have a Simon/Kirby style Sandman!

Furthering my quest to have dolls of the DC characters as I think of them I added the “Showcase” Superman and the “All-Star Squad” Batman (which even though he’s supposed to be a Joe Staton version he’s close enough to Dick Sprang to suit me for now!)

Inconjunction XXVIII

My wife and I spent last weekend at Inconjunction XXVIII. We had a couple of dealers table where she sold “SF Fan Garage Sale” stuff and I offered digital caricatures.

This is my digital set up. The crowd can watch me work on the external monitor slaved to the laptop screen.
(That’s not a bandage on my hand. I wear a white cotton cut away glove so that my hand glides across the surface of the Wacom tablet.) The printer that prints the 8.5″ x 11″ images on 80lb. paper is on a small table behind the screen.

You can go to my other blog to see more photos of the caricatures and the room.

Here’s some comic costumes that came within camera range of our tables.

Captain America, dead but not yet withered!

U.S. Agent, who was just glad I knew his name!

It’s a WhirlyBat!

Iron Man Reviewed

Iron Man is a great movie! I am not alone in that opinion since it took in an estimated $104 million, domestic, $96 million overseas, in it’s opening weekend.

The film succeeds on the comic geek level and the civilian level, also proved by the box office estimates since the comic geek population can’t have that much money, or have gone to that many repeat showings in a four day period!

Most first time comic films can get bogged down when spending as much time as this one does getting the main character into his superhero outfit and into the big fight(s). Iron Man has the advantage of having cast Robert Downey Jr. who is actually more engaging as Tony Stark than the glimpses we get of his face within the Iron Man armor when he’s in action. Iron Man also has the advantage that he is more suited to CGI than your regular lycra-clad character such as Spider-Man or Superman. Plus his “thing” is the armor, unlike Batman who they had to armor to some degree to make him believable to a film audience.

I’m not a huge Iron Man fan although I was a sporadic reader of his solo comics from the sixties up until the late seventies. Iron Man is a very important fixture in the Marvel universe and made appearances in most all the other comics. He was a founding member of the Avengers, and may be so again in the film sequels. It’s a given that there will be at least one more movie based on the opening receipts. Anyone with the patience and an iron bladder that stayed in the theatre past the excruciatingly long credits are aware of a possible direction for said sequel.

All the important notes from his origin are in the film, updated in a very acceptable fashion. His supporting cast from his beginnings are present, Pepper Potts, the faithful secretary not-so-secretly in love with her playboy boss, “Happy” Hogan, the faithful chauffeur and dogsbody (played by the film’s director) who, in the comics, actually married Pepper if my memory serves. James Rhodes is a cast member from the late seventies comics who would become the second Iron Man when Stark had an alcoholic interlude and later died (as much as any character “dies” in comics – he got better!) When Stark went back in the armor “Rhodey” was given (or possibly took) his own slightly different designed suit of armor and became known as “War Machine.” Clunky code name. I don’t recall Obidiah Stane as a comics character. I just checked Wikipedia and he is listed among Iron Man’s enemies first appearing in 1982. His armored character was called Iron Monger but then Jeff Bridges’ version didn’t hang around long enough to be christened.

The only element that occasionally took me out of the movie experience was the height of Gwinneth Paltrow’s shoes! I don’t know how she could walk in those much less run away on slick floors! I wonder how many times she fell or what shoes she was really wearing during the fleeing scenes?

At Iron Man we saw trailers for the new Batman movie which was my first exposure to the Heath Ledger Joker. Not bad, but it looked and sounded as if Ledger was channeling Steve Buscemi. Also a minimalist trailer for the SPIRIT. That was just bad. Bad, bad, bad. The SPIRIT wears blue, not black, Will Eisner’s name should come first and be the largest, not Frank Miller’s, the rooftop running and jumping was unconvincing and they appeared to be building to the character standing atop a trademark Eisner architectural SPIRIT logo, but no – some crappy font instead. This looks like a disaster in the making.