Yesterday we highlighted DONALD DUCK # 109 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: September, 1966), and its lead adventure story "Og's Iron Bed"... but hold on to your "iron bedsheets", 'cause we ain't done "OG-in'" yet!
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
TIAHBlog at 16 Presents 16 Covers -- Number Fourteen: "OG We There Yet?" Part Two!
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Adventures in Comic-Boxing: A Great Cover Image with a Muddled Meaning!
Check out this wonderful cover image for THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES (2024 series) #3 (DC Comics; Cover Date: May, 2024 - On sale as I write this!)...
...Which is a near-perfect send-up of the "Celebrity Window" running gag from the Batman TV show.
Or, as I described it at GCD: "The cover is a parody/homage to the oft-seen bit on the Batman TV show (ABC TV, 1966-1968), where Batman and Robin scale a tall building and a celebrity leans out of a window to address them in mid-bat-climb."
I say "near-perfect" for one reason... the homage is very clear but, quite frankly... the GAG ITSELF is NOT!
It seems to me that either something FUNNY, or at least a CLEVER REFERENCE, should be coming from Catwoman's or Scooby's dialogue balloons - BUT IT ISN'T!
Or, perhaps Batman - or especially Shaggy - SHOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN SUCH A LINE... but no!
How about Shaggy unintentionally doing something dumb 'n' dangerous to inadvertently imperil our courageous climbers - or maybe leaning out far enough to fall - if only to justify Scooby's line: "Rhi can't look!"
As it is, it wastes a great image by making it, like... incomprehensible!
The best I can do is describe it as I did in my GCD index of the issue: "As Batman and Catwoman scale a tall building to return stolen jewels to their rightful owner, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy pop out of the "Celebrity Window." You can see the entire GCD index HERE!
Indeed, it would have been better with NO dialogue balloons at all! Just perfectly conveying the fine homage it was intended to!
On the plus side, the open window nicely obscures a small corner of THE BATMAN & SCOOBY-DOO MYSTERIES logo, as one might expect a glass window to do! ...Don't they have window screens in Gotham?
Saturday, October 14, 2023
R.I.P. Mark Goddard.
In recent times, I’ve shied away from “R.I.P. posts”, for no
more a reason than to reduce the sadness at this humble Blog… but this week was
just too much to ignore for such a flimsy reason!
Mark Goddard played many things over his acting career but, to me and many others, he will always be Major Don West of the original (…and still the best) LOST IN SPACE (1965-1968).
Along with Guy Williams’ Professor John Robinson, Mark Goddard’s Major West continued to lend an air of seriousness, urgency, and plain old common sense that (…perhaps not always) balanced off the antics of Doctor Smith and the Robot.
He so perfectly served as an antagonist, counterpoint, and outright foil to Doctor Smith that there became what I called a subset series of LOST IN SPACE episodes that I called “The Don and Smith Shows”, where the two of them would be thrown into a situation together and must depend on each other (amid lots of bickering) to extricate themselves!
I met Mark Goddard several times at New York conventions,
and he very much embodied the warm (…at least when Smith wasn’t around) and
enthusiastic (…ditto) gung-ho spirit of Major
Don West!
He said he was proud to have been in a TV series that spanned generations – and was something the whole family could watch and enjoy – unlike much of the prime-time TV fare of the late ‘90s-early 2000s time frame during which we spoke – much less now!
His favorite episode was “The Anti-Matter Man”, small wonder since he really got to cut loose in that one!
He also wrote one issue of a LOST IN SPACE comic book that featured his character.
And speaking of writing, there was also this…
…purchased by me mere weeks before his passing on October 10, 2023 at the age of 87!
Mark Goddard can also be heard on this wonderful Blu-ray set doing episode commentaries with Bill Mumy, Angela Cartwright, and Marta Kristen, and in other special features.
Rest In Peace, Mark Goddard… You didn’t get to ride a real-life space shuttle but, to your many fans, you soared nonetheless!