Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween! (It's a sign of the Apocalypse!)



Here are the lyrics:

Hey party people, it's Charlie B
Bringing Halloween Thursday to ABC
Raking leaves
and rolling on a pumpkin
trick or treat
then the party gets thumpin'
Lucy's getting bossy
Snoopy's feeling saucy
and things are getting crazy with my Peanuts posse
But where is Linus? This party's posh
He's waiting in the field for a mythical squash

Word.

Happy Halloween!



"100 Horror Movie Spoilers in 5 Minutes"

Happy Halloween!



Stan Lee Reads Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven

Monday, October 25, 2010

Mike Esposito, R.I.P.

from HERE (verbatim)

Longtime comic book inker Mike Esposito has died at the age of 83. In the above photo, which I took at a mid-seventies New York comic convention, Mike is the gentleman on the right. The fellow on the left is his good friend and frequent co-inker, Frank Giacoia.

I wish I'd also taken a photo of Mike with his best friend and more frequent collaborator, Ross Andru. Ross and Mike were lifelong friends dating back to high school, bonding over their mutual desire to become professional cartoonists. Esposito got serious about it after his discharge from the Army in 1947 when he attended the (then) newly-formed Cartoonists and Illustrators School run by Burne Hogarth in New York. Andru was also a student there — one of the best, as evidence by the fact that Hogarth hired him to assist with the art on the Tarzan newspaper strip. In the meantime, Esposito began to get work as a penciller and an inker for Fox Publications and Timely Comics. In 1951 after Andru's Tarzan job ended, he and Esposito decided to team up and try to establish themselves as comic book publishers. Mikeross Publications did not last long but it produced one highly memorable comic — Get Lost!, which was one of the first and best imitations of Harvey Kurtzman's new comic book, MAD.

Thereafter, Andru and Esposito became primarily an art team for other publishers. Ross pencilled and Mike inked...and since Mike's end of it went faster than Ross's, Mike also picked up work inking other artists. They worked for most of the major houses but became best known for their long association with DC, particularly with editor Robert Kanigher, for whom they did Wonder Woman, Metal Men and hundreds of war comics. Later for DC, they drew Superman, The Flash and dozens of other features. During the sixties, Esposito began inking for Stan Lee at Marvel, working under the pen name "Mickey Demeo" so DC wouldn't find out. He inked almost every comic they published then and almost every penciller but especially stood out when handling Jack Kirby pencils (or layouts) on The Hulk and John Romita pencil art on Spider-Man. Eventually, Esposito did so much for Marvel that he began using his real name...but he also inked many comics under the name "Joe Gaudioso" and there were others. His friend Ross joined him at Marvel and they collaborated on Spider-Man and other strips. Andru passed away in 1993.

Mike was a jovial, dependable gent who was trusted by editors and liked by his peers. In the seventies, he gave assisting work to a number of young artists, helping them to learn the industry and gain a foot in the door. He was also a good friend to other inkers, always ready to aid a colleague with a deadline problem. For many years, friends tried to persuade him to travel to San Diego to be honored and interviewed at the Comic-Con International but he always declined, citing health problems and a reticence to fly. I'm sorry we never got him to make the trip because I think he would have been surprised and overwhelmed to learn how many fans he had.

From The Grumpy Old Man Dept.








via SPAZOTRON: CRAZY!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Mike Lupica Sums Up The Yankees Loss


Mike Lupica, Daily News:
The end of it for the Yankees, the end of a four-game sweep that just happened to take six games, was the bat on Alex Rodriguez's shoulder against a kid closer named Neftali Feliz. It was 6-1 for the Rangers in Game 6 by then. The Yankees hadn't just been beaten. They had been bounced around most of the last week, Arlington to the Bronx and back, and finally been embarrassed. So there really was no need for A-Rod to take the bat off his shoulder. The Yankees had stopped playing an hour ago. ...

This wasn't as bad an AL pennant defense as we got from the Yankees in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from 0-3 down. It was bad enough. ...
One out away. A-Rod. Of course. Of course it had to be him. Took a called third strike. They paid him $252 million once to put the Rangers in the World Series. Now he had.
(via Joy of Sox)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Bansky's Opening For The Simpsons



I do not understand this Bansky craze or why I should try to figure it out. However, he (she? it? they?) storyboarded a recent opening of The Simpsons and it is darkly wonderful.

Two Simpsons posts in less than a week!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

You say it's your birthday.....


I can't even begin to imagine what he might have done over the last 30 years....

...and SMACKY just became THAT much more awesome, now that I realize he shares Lennon's birthday...

Happy Birthday to both...

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Casting A Comic Book Movie


I just entered a contest on "Here in Bongo Congo" wherein you have to come up with your perfect cast for a comic book-based movie. I struggled far longer than I should have, but thought I would post my thoughts here so that I could link my entry to the pictures I was thinking about.

I decided to cast a movie based on a comic book from the 1980s entitled "Adventures of The Outsiders". I was looking at this cover specifically for inspiration:


For those of you who may not know, the series started as "Batman and the Outsiders" in 1983, as a way for Batman to get a little edgier and move away from "cosmic" sort of adventures with Superman and the rest of the Justice League.

After awhile, Batman left the book and "The Outsiders" continued on their own. I liked the idea of using this group, as none of the characters wear full face masks, so it sort of matters who you cast.

Here are my choices:

Kenneth Branagh As Geo-Force


Vin Diesel as Metamorpho


Jamie Chung as Katana


Jessica Biel as Looker


Donald Glover as Black Lightning


and AnnaSophia Robb as Halo


So there you go....my choices for a rather obscure (to the general public) group of superheroes. I actually enjoyed putting this together. The hardest part was finding a decent image of Halo, one that captures her youth and naiveté. I might do something like this again at some point....

A History of Rap



I am not a big fan of rap, Jimmy Fallon or Justin Timberlake, but this is one of the neatest things I have seen in awhile!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Live Action Simpsons Opening


I don't watch The Simpsons any more....for no real reason, it just sort of fell off my radar. However, the opening sequence is so iconic. Here is a live action version of the opening.

Apparently there will be a live action episode with Katy Perry and puppets. More information HERE.

whos.amung.us

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