Showing posts with label Comic Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comic Books. Show all posts
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Doc Savage - Part 4 Star of All Media
Today, I conclude my look at the history of Doc Savage, originally posted in April 2010.
Doc Savage starred in 2 radio series during the pulp era. The first was a 15-minute serial which ran for 26 episodes in 1934. A second series aired in 1943. No tapes exist from either series, although some scripts have been collected. In 1985, NPR aired The Adventures of Doc Savage, as 13 half-hour episodes.
In 1975 Doc finally made it to the big screen in a campy Warner Bros. feature that owed more to the BATMAN TV show than James Bond.
The film was released internationally and was supposed to launch a franchise, but it's lackluster performance put the kabosh on any hope of a sequel.
The posters were pretty sensational though.
TV Tarzan (and future FACE THE MUSIC and MISS AMERICA PAGEANT host) Ron Ely was cast as The Man of Bronze.
The film was released on VHS.
And was made available on DVD on demand through the Warner Archive Collection.
The movie is a mid-70s curiosity, as is the soundtrack by John Philip Sousa!
As an addendum to my look at Doc in comics, you may want to check out Wildstorm's brilliant PLANETARY series, which featured a thinly disguised homage to Savage named Alex Brass. That's all I've got on Doc, hopefully someone out there appreciated this exhaustive (and exhausting) look that the classic pulp character. I know I enjoyed pulling it all together!
In 1975 Doc finally made it to the big screen in a campy Warner Bros. feature that owed more to the BATMAN TV show than James Bond.
The film was released internationally and was supposed to launch a franchise, but it's lackluster performance put the kabosh on any hope of a sequel.
The posters were pretty sensational though.
TV Tarzan (and future FACE THE MUSIC and MISS AMERICA PAGEANT host) Ron Ely was cast as The Man of Bronze.
The film was released on VHS.
And was made available on DVD on demand through the Warner Archive Collection.
The movie is a mid-70s curiosity, as is the soundtrack by John Philip Sousa!
As an addendum to my look at Doc in comics, you may want to check out Wildstorm's brilliant PLANETARY series, which featured a thinly disguised homage to Savage named Alex Brass. That's all I've got on Doc, hopefully someone out there appreciated this exhaustive (and exhausting) look that the classic pulp character. I know I enjoyed pulling it all together!
Friday, July 20, 2012
Doc Savage - Part 3 The Cape-free Crusader
From April 2010: Continuing my look at the history of Doc Savage, today let's look at the many comic book lives of the character.
In this Gold Key issue from the 60s, Doc wraps his hands around a spitting cobra! Get you minds out of the gutter!
Doc headed over to Marvel in the early 70s with an all-new series done in the mighty Marvel style.
Readers (such as I) were introduced to Doc's team of fearless friends in this campy take on the character.
Doc is depicted as a "heart-stopping sight" - and his costume consists of tight white slacks and a skimpy black leather vest.
The text page in Issue #1 goes into detail about Doc's loyal teammates: Monk, Ham, Long Tom, Renny and Johnny!
Issue #2 featured the fearsome foe called The Feather Serpent!
Some dude called Silver Death was the villain in Issue #3.
Doc went topless and took on the Hell Diver in #4.
And then he faced the Night of the Monsters in Issue #6.
A giant sized adaptation of Warner Bros.' feature film DOC SAVAGE: MAN OF BRONZE followed. (More on the movie tomorrow!)
And oddest of all, Doc teamed up with The Fantastic Four's very own Thing in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE.
A magazine-sized movie tie-in featured this iconographic image of Doc in all his manliness.
Doc donned rocket-powered skis for this magazine-sized adventure, but his tenure at Marvel was nearing it's end.
Years later, Doc & company showed up at DC, starring in an acclaimed four-part miniseries (recently collected into a trade paperback. Oddly enough, DC will be soon reprinting the Marvel stories in another trade collection).
A monthly series followed and ran for a while, but soon Doc was in comic book limbo once more.
Next he resurfaced in a short-lived series from an indie publisher called Millennium.
The homoerotic covers continued to follow Doc during this brief run.
So, that brings us right back to DC, where the new DOC SAVAGE comic debuted in April 2010. Doc also recently teamed up with Batman in a one-shot special and was featured in a miniseries called FIRST WAVE, which I covered in my tribute to Rima, the Jungle Girl. Come back tomorrow for my final Doc post.
Years later, Doc & company showed up at DC, starring in an acclaimed four-part miniseries (recently collected into a trade paperback. Oddly enough, DC will be soon reprinting the Marvel stories in another trade collection).
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Glenn Scarpelli in Hollywood
Before ENTOURAGE, before REX...we had the illustrated adventures of teen TV star Glenn Scarpelli (Norman Lear's ONE DAY AT A TIME, and the game show FANTASY).
Like yours truly, Glenn was raised in Staten Island, NY and moved to Hollywood to find fame and fortune. Glenn's dad was long time Archie Comics artist Henry Scarpelli, which explains why his Hollywood adventures appeared in Archie Comics! 
Glenn also appeared in the short-lived Ann Jillian ghost sitcom JENNIFER SLEPT HERE and made numerous guest shots on shows like THE LOVE BOAT and FANTASY ISLAND. He also released an album Ever wonder what became of Glenn? Look no further than here.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
The End of Brenda Starr
Today, the final BRENDA STARR comic strip was published.
I ran a blog post last year on the character's history, and found out that Wikipedia is using it as an official reference. How cool is that?
Brenda Starr, Reporter was always one of my favorite comic strips. Its creator, Dale Messick, was a woman in a world of full of men - much like her creation. The strip has been running continuously since June 30, 1940.
The character of Brenda Starr is a newspaper woman who works for The Flash. Her soap opera-style strip chronicled both her exotic career and her steamy love life - sometimes at the same time! This pulp fiction fashionista always had the right outfit for the right adventure, and paper dolls were often featured in the Sunday edition.
Brenda Starr is a a totally modern woman - smart, glamorous and determined. 
Brenda has traveled the world solving mysteries, unearthing scoops and breaking the heart of almost every man she encounters. 
Bold, sassy, sexy, competitive, yet also romantic.Her mysterious beau was named Basil St. John — whom she eventually married in 1976.
Basil is tall, dark and handsome and sports an eye patch. Much of Basil’s life is consumed by the search for a cure for his deadly illness, which can be extracted from the rare black orchid. 
Brenda had Basil's baby. The child was a girl - and she was wincingly named Starr Twinkle St. John. This precocious youngster was also lost to Brenda when a plane went down in a jungle, carrying both Basil and Starr Twinkle. Starr Twinkle subsequently reappeared in the comic strip. After few years, Brenda and Basil were reunited, and then divorced, but fate could not keep them apart. Later, Brenda discovered Basil had a son, named Sage, whose mother was revealed to be Brenda's friend, talk show host Wanda Fonda!
While Brenda's supporting cast has changed over the years, several key players have remained: 
Hank O'Hair is The Flash's razor-sharp city editor and Brenda’s best friend and confidant, whose sage advice is seldom followed by Ms. Starr.Hard-nosed, yet soft-hearted, smart, cynical, sarcastic, and blunt. Lesbian? Perhaps...Mr. Livwright is the blustering, cigar-chomping managing editor of The Flash.
He's stubborn, often at odds with Hank and Brenda, though he admires their uncanny journalistic abilities.
Brenda Starr, Reporter started out as a weekly Sunday strip, but expanded to daily in 1945 in conjunction with the release of the Columbia Pictures released a serial, BRENDA STARR, REPORTER with Joan Woodbury in the title role.
Over 30 years later, Brenda was ready for primetime, but maybe not so much.
Jill St. John played her in BRENDA STARR, an ABC TV movie that aired May 8, 1976. 
This was a pilot for a series that never happened.
A second pilot, BRENDA STARR, starring the sexy, sultry Sherry Jackson was produced for syndication in 1979. Sadly, this also never made it to series.
A feature film, BRENDA STARR, was produced in 1988, but released in the US on April 15, 1992 with Brooke Shields in the title role and Timothy (James Bond) Dalton as Basil. 
Believe it or not, I've never seen this film. Maybe someday soon?
Leaping from the funny pages into the world of four color comics is often a unsuccessful road taken by comic strip characters.
Brenda headlined her own comic book series from Superior Comics (1948-49), 
a Charlton revival followed in 1955
and finally a 1963 effort from Dell. 
A Big Little Book also supposedly exists, though I have never actually seen it myself.Reprints of rare early strips and comics were made available in the 1980s.
You may still be able to find these at your local comics shop.
Dale Messick retired from drawing in 1980, only to be replaced by the great Ramona Fradon, who previously drew many of my favorite DC Comics' titles, including Aquaman, Plastic Man, Super Friends and The Freedom Fighters.
When Ramona Fradon retired in 1995, she was followed by Linda Sutter and June Brigman. Brigman's credits include Power Pack for Marvel Comics and Supergirl for DC. Here's a Sunday strip from last year:
The strip's final writer is Mary Schmich, who is also a columnist at the Chicago Tribune. June Brigman continued as the artist. 
The wonderful Ms. Messick received the National Cartoonists Society's Story Comic Book Award in 1975 and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 for her work on Brenda Starr. Dale Messick passed away in 2005 at the age of 99!
In 1995, Brenda Starr one of 20 famous characters included in the "Comic Strip Classics" series of U.S. postage stamps.
How could anyone NOT love Brenda Starr, Reporter? 
Goodnight Brenda, thanks for 70 sensational years!
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