Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2009
Batman and Science Fiction
Pat over at Silver Age Comics has a couple of cool posts on Batman and Aliens. This era in Batman's history almost got the book canceled before the character would be a huge hit on TV a few years later. As usual Pat's expository posts are delightful and inspired me to get out one of my treasured silver age comics. 
Monday, July 06, 2009
1966 Batman Bubble Gum Cards
These color hand painted cards came out shortly after the new Batman hit TV series that debuted on ABC in January of 1966. I thought the cards were pretty cool then and I think they are even cooler now. I noticed right away that the art wasn't by the regular Batman comic artists; although, the back of the card had a Carmine Infantino image of Batman. The artwork is by several artists, the majority by pulp cover veteran Norm Saunders (Mars Attacks) and from pencil drawings by Golden Age comics artist Bob Powell.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Comic Book Movies
The Summer movies are when the big budget eye popping special effects movies come out. More often than not they aren't satisfying movies. I would have to rate the Lord Of the Rings trilogy as the best SFX movies ever. It's just a great movie in all areas of acting, directing, sets, design, costumes, etc; and it wasn't a summer movie. The LOTR movies were released in the Christmas season. The summer extravaganza begins May 1 with "X-Men Origins: Wolverine".
There are not many comic book movies that would make the great movies list. I enjoyed "Iron Man" quite a bit, but that was because of Robert Downey Jr. He's a marvelous actor and he carried this movie by virtue of his prodigious talent. The story and SFX were good but Jeff Bridges as the bald headed villain was just silly. I really don't have a desire to watch the movie again which is the main criteria for any film to be on my favorites list. The recent Batman movies were very good and well made. I enjoyed watching them when I saw them but not really interested in watching them again anytime soon.
Superman II with Chris Reeve is the only comic book movie I have ever watched several times. Then there are the Spider-Man movies. I have seen Spider-Man 1 twice and consider to be far and away the best of the three movies. Interestingly, I have the DVD set of the tv series "Adventures of Superman" I have seen all of the episodes numerous times. I enjoy the George Reeves rendition of the "man of steel" immensely which will be the subject of a future post. Not that it's great theatre but super-heroes presented in a 30 minute format seems to work best.
I plan on seeing Wolverine and expect it to be a pleasant movie going experience. I also expect it to be immediately forgettable.
UPDATE! After going to Origins: Wolverine with pretty low expectations, I am happy to say I wasn't dissapointed that I actually thought this was a pretty good movie. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber were very good as Wolverine and Sabretooth. The film was much better, in my view, than the trashing it is getting from the critics. It gets a 38% fresh rating at rottentomatoes.com. It seems the chief knock on the movie is that it panders too much to X-Men fanboys and doesn't develop enough backstory on why we should care about what happens to this mutant named Wolverine. If I had come into the theater with no idea who Wolverine was I might have cared (but I doubt it) why Wolverine is called Jimmy by his brother and Logan by everybody else (this was an actual complaint from one critic that I read). Well, so be it then. I really don't care what the snobby critics think. Critics often only review movies for each other; or, for people like themselves, and not for the average movie goer. I've never been much of an X-Men fan but I knew enough about the character to think that the film captured his and co-mutants essence pretty well.
Does this mean I will watch the film more than once? Probably not...unless I happen to come across it on cable one of these days.
There are not many comic book movies that would make the great movies list. I enjoyed "Iron Man" quite a bit, but that was because of Robert Downey Jr. He's a marvelous actor and he carried this movie by virtue of his prodigious talent. The story and SFX were good but Jeff Bridges as the bald headed villain was just silly. I really don't have a desire to watch the movie again which is the main criteria for any film to be on my favorites list. The recent Batman movies were very good and well made. I enjoyed watching them when I saw them but not really interested in watching them again anytime soon.
Superman II with Chris Reeve is the only comic book movie I have ever watched several times. Then there are the Spider-Man movies. I have seen Spider-Man 1 twice and consider to be far and away the best of the three movies. Interestingly, I have the DVD set of the tv series "Adventures of Superman" I have seen all of the episodes numerous times. I enjoy the George Reeves rendition of the "man of steel" immensely which will be the subject of a future post. Not that it's great theatre but super-heroes presented in a 30 minute format seems to work best.
I plan on seeing Wolverine and expect it to be a pleasant movie going experience. I also expect it to be immediately forgettable.
UPDATE! After going to Origins: Wolverine with pretty low expectations, I am happy to say I wasn't dissapointed that I actually thought this was a pretty good movie. Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber were very good as Wolverine and Sabretooth. The film was much better, in my view, than the trashing it is getting from the critics. It gets a 38% fresh rating at rottentomatoes.com. It seems the chief knock on the movie is that it panders too much to X-Men fanboys and doesn't develop enough backstory on why we should care about what happens to this mutant named Wolverine. If I had come into the theater with no idea who Wolverine was I might have cared (but I doubt it) why Wolverine is called Jimmy by his brother and Logan by everybody else (this was an actual complaint from one critic that I read). Well, so be it then. I really don't care what the snobby critics think. Critics often only review movies for each other; or, for people like themselves, and not for the average movie goer. I've never been much of an X-Men fan but I knew enough about the character to think that the film captured his and co-mutants essence pretty well.
Does this mean I will watch the film more than once? Probably not...unless I happen to come across it on cable one of these days.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
1956 -The Silver Age of Comics
I was born in 1956. Stamps cost 3 cents; a gallon of gas - 23 cents; a gallon of milk - 97 cents.
Among the more notable events besides my birth was the introduction of play-doh but that was hardly the most memorable. Elvis Presley blasted into the national consciousness with "Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, and Love Me Tender". Even bigger than those hits was Elvis' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and changed the course of popular music forever.
It was also, and as it happens the topic of this post, the dawn of the Silver Age of Comics. The Superman TV show was going strong but comic book super-heroes had all but disappeared. The mainstays of Superman and Batman sold well but were pretty much in a formulaic rut. Comics were more commonly referred to as "Funny Books". Then Showcase #4 nonchalantly appeared on the news stands and racks. Some character in a bright red suit was on the cover and he was called "The Flash". That particular comic reinvented and re-defined the super-heroes from the 40's that faded away.
If you grew up in that period it's doubtless that your images of Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, and today's popular films of superheroes; i.e, Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, and the Fantastic Four were forever defined.
Comics were 10 cents then 12 cents, and you could get annuals of reprints for a mere 25 cents. It was hours of cheap, colorful, and imaginative entertainment. There was no color TV not to mention cable and satellite with hundreds of stations, video games, or DVD's. It was a black and white world. Kids could only live their fantasies in a 4 color medium through Walt Disney who was systematically releasing all of his classic films once a year. Far more accessible were comic books which screamed "look at me" "buy me" with their fantastical characters and vivid eye catching colors from the covers.
You will find jillions of sites on comic books but the best one that I have found is devoted to this period and frequently posts engaging synposes of full comics, and loads of information on the creators, editors, artists, writers and publishers. It's mostly DC and Marvel stuff natch, but reminds us that there were other companies out there like Harvey, Charlton, and Dell putting out entertaining books.
Silver Age Comics is updated three or four times a week with new posts and I hardly ever miss visiting it at least once or twice a week. Here is an image from a comic reviewed on this site. Check it out.
Among the more notable events besides my birth was the introduction of play-doh but that was hardly the most memorable. Elvis Presley blasted into the national consciousness with "Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, and Love Me Tender". Even bigger than those hits was Elvis' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show and changed the course of popular music forever.
It was also, and as it happens the topic of this post, the dawn of the Silver Age of Comics. The Superman TV show was going strong but comic book super-heroes had all but disappeared. The mainstays of Superman and Batman sold well but were pretty much in a formulaic rut. Comics were more commonly referred to as "Funny Books". Then Showcase #4 nonchalantly appeared on the news stands and racks. Some character in a bright red suit was on the cover and he was called "The Flash". That particular comic reinvented and re-defined the super-heroes from the 40's that faded away.
If you grew up in that period it's doubtless that your images of Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, and today's popular films of superheroes; i.e, Batman, Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man, The X-Men, and the Fantastic Four were forever defined.
Comics were 10 cents then 12 cents, and you could get annuals of reprints for a mere 25 cents. It was hours of cheap, colorful, and imaginative entertainment. There was no color TV not to mention cable and satellite with hundreds of stations, video games, or DVD's. It was a black and white world. Kids could only live their fantasies in a 4 color medium through Walt Disney who was systematically releasing all of his classic films once a year. Far more accessible were comic books which screamed "look at me" "buy me" with their fantastical characters and vivid eye catching colors from the covers.
You will find jillions of sites on comic books but the best one that I have found is devoted to this period and frequently posts engaging synposes of full comics, and loads of information on the creators, editors, artists, writers and publishers. It's mostly DC and Marvel stuff natch, but reminds us that there were other companies out there like Harvey, Charlton, and Dell putting out entertaining books.
Silver Age Comics is updated three or four times a week with new posts and I hardly ever miss visiting it at least once or twice a week. Here is an image from a comic reviewed on this site. Check it out.
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