Crash Bang Boom

Trying to come to grips with the fact that I may have lost a ton of stuff forever in the nasty PC crash I had earlier this evening. Typing this on my son's laptop. I felt obliged to let you all know I may not be posting for awhile if I can't get it to do something tomorrow. As of now, I've spent more than three hours with it. It tells me there's a security disruption and it must run chkdsk. After locking up on chkdsk three times it finally ran, takes forever and ends up by saying it can't continue due to a security disruption. Sigh. Third base. Attempts at other types of recovery go through the motions only to say they can't conclude until I run chkdsk...which now locks up the PC again!! AARRGGHH! From time to time it opens normally only to lock up the minute I try to do anything. It will NOT open in safe mode nor will it open the boot sector so I can reboot from my boot disc.

Will try again tomorrow. If no luck then I will have to wait until my tax refund comes in a couple weeks to get it looked at. Excuse me now while I go smash my head against the wall to see if i can get some sleep. Shit.

Joe Louis by Irwin Hasen

Just in time for African-American History Month, here's a page on Joe Louis from a 1939 MLJ comic as drawn by Irwin Hasen who would go on to do Golden Age superheroes including GREEN LANTERN. Later, in the 1950's, he was the artist on DONDI (now being reprinted) and more recently has been a teacher and a popular convention guest.

Random Panels of Comic Book Weirdness # 64

Still going through those HUMAN TORCH fiche scans and I spot the panel shown here. Yes, yes,,,I see what Toro's reading. That's not the most interesting part, though. Look at the picture on the wall. Namor! It's a portrait of the Sub-Mariner giving a thumbs up sign! Oh and if there's any doubt it's Subby, the portrait appears yet again later in the story!

Steve Ditko Week

As most of you hopefully know, I do a brief more-or-less daily column of links over at Craig Yoe's I.T.C.H. blog. Well, IDW, publisher of the YOE Books imprint, is celebrating Craig's recent ART OF DITKO book by declaring this week DITKO WEEK! Every day will offer Ditko fun, surprises, rare art and, yes, my links over at I.T.C.H. http://superitch.com/ . Here's the official IDW Press Release.


Now available in stores, IDW Publishing and its imprint, YOE Books, are proud to announce, The Art of Ditko, a beautifully designed, large format retrospective on the art and influence of Steve Ditko. All this week, the International Team of Comics Historians (ITCH) blog will be celebrating the new book and the creator who inspired it. The ITCH blog will feature daily full-length Ditko stories from the book, plus the regular ITCH feature, “It’s Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesday,” will have a bizarre drawing of Wonder Woman and Hitler by Ditko, and Friday FLICKS will have a special Ditko documentary.

In The Art of Ditko, comics legend Stan Lee provides a glowing introduction, while P. Craig Russell, John Romita, and Jerry Robinson each offer their own insights into this enigmatic and incredible creator. In addition to these one of a kind essays, The Art of Ditko also introduces fans to the very best of Ditko’s rare and striking work. The Art of Ditko is the first book from IDW’s new imprint YOE Books, and is edited and designed by Craig Yoe (Secret Identity).

"I'm excited to show these rare stories that pull back the curtain on how Ditko pushed the comics medium's story telling techniques in radical, revolutionary ways that have been hidden by his steller co-creation of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange," said Yoe. “The Art of Ditko also meticulously reproduces, in color, full page pieces of original Ditko art--including unpublished works--that breathtakingly show off the creator’s powerful artistry.”

A lifelong fan of comics, Ditko began his professional career as a student of Robinson at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in 1950, and was quickly recognized as a hard working and talented creator. Ditko went on to add his unique style to some of the biggest names in the business, co-creating Spider-Man and Dr. Strange with Lee, and working at both Marvel and DC during his career. In addition to these famous characters, Ditko also heavily influenced the world of comics through his innovative and groundbreaking stories, challenging the accepted boundaries of the medium.

The Art of Ditko combines riveting essays about the legendary creator with some of his most revolutionary, yet little known, works. In his introduction, Lee details his relationship with Ditko and how their[The Art of Ditko cover] co-creating of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange came about. More fascinating essays follow by Robinson, who created the Joker. John Romita described what it was like to follow Ditko on Spider-Man and P. Craig Russell gives careful insight into the task of inking his idol. Drawn during his little known "Innovation Period,” the twenty-eight stories exquisitely presented in full color amply show Ditko as a great auteur experimenting with, twisting, and transforming the comics form.

The Art of Ditko is the groundbreaking first book of the IDW imprint, YOE Books, edited, designed and written by Yoe, winner of both an Eisner Award and the Society of Illustrator's Gold Medal. YOE Books continues with The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories, Volume One, in stores on February 24, 2010. Yoe, co-founder of YOE! Studios and deemed by Vice Magazine “The Indiana Jones of Comics Historians,” is available for interviews.

The Art of Ditko is now available in stores. ISBN 978-1600105425.

The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories, Vol One will be available in stores on February 24th. ISBN 978-1600105463.

Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.

Adam Lambert

I have never seen an episode of AMERICAN IDOL in my life nor have I had a desire to do so. Until recently, my exposure to IDOL runner-up Adam Lambert consisted of his cover-featured interview in one of my final free subscription copies of ROLLING STONE last year. But then there was Brittany Rose. As previously stated, when one's muse says "Try this, you'll like it" what kind of muse would she be if I didn't take her up on it?

Thus we here present Adam Lambert's controversial 2009 AMA performance of "For Your Entertainment," set to a rather tame BDSM theme that he takes to relatively mild extremes for just the barest of moments and yet that was enough to get his name known by those like myself who simply hadn't been paying attention.

He's a gifted singer with a nice, charismatic presence. One can easily see in him the influence of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury and even Elvis Presley. If he can reconstitute all of that into originality he may be around for awhile.

Don't know why this thing embedded only partially but if you hit the little button with the diagonal arrow, you'll get fullscreen and then you can get the whole effect.

The Sub-Mariner is Our Pal!

Another odd item from an early HUMAN TORCH fiche scan.

Carl Burgos' Hot Idea

Carl Burgos was a comic book artist who did journeyman work for several decades in the industry and eventually ended up editing and/or hacking out products like the mid-sixties CAPTAIN ("Split!!") MARVEL and the grade Z Warren mag rip-offs of the 1970's. One thing, however, that can never be taken away from him is that Carl Burgos created THE HUMAN TORCH! Here, from a fiche of that character's first Golden Age issue (oddly, # 2) is the "official" version of how that came to be.