The Oscar People

I know the Oscars have been over for several days but I would be remiss if I didn't note the recent acquisition (courtesy of my mother-in-law) of this signed copy of the 1965 hardback, THE OSCAR PEOPLE, Written by George Likeness, it offers pretty good in-depth looks at the actors and the films that had won the Academy Awards up until that year. There's a good selection of photos (published in sepiatone for who knows what reason, mind you) and some teeny tiny print giving lots of biographical details and anecdotes. Long out of print, if you're an Oscar buff, haunt your local used book stores for this one.

Clint Eastwood

I saw Clint Eastwood on the Oscars earlier this week and I was reminded of his statement to the author of this early 1974 biography that "I still have many things to do." I can’t help but think that even he had no idea how far he would come in the 33 years that followed.

I vaguely remembered "Rowdy Yates" on RAWHIDE by the early seventies but somehow my western-loving father had neglected to introduce me to any of Eastwood’s later features. In fact, my first real exposure to the star was when my dad took me (surprisingly at age 13) to a second-run showing of DIRTY HARRY in 1972. A week or so later, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER opened and by that time I was a real fan. In those pre-Internet days, it wasn’t always easy to get information about your favorite stars so I was thrilled to find this book just a couple years later.

A detailed, serious look at the actor’s career as a star and a budding director with non-gossipy asides about his personal life, CLINT EASTWOOD, the book, is written by then Professor of film (at Northwestern if I recall correctly) Stuart M. Kaminsky. Kaminsky would go on to be my favorite mystery author with his Toby Peters series set in Old Hollywood as well as several other award-winning series. He later novelized THE ROCKFORD FILES and CSI. Clint has had a hell of a life and career since 1974 and been the subject of several other in-depth biographies. This one will always be special though because this one helped me really discover the man who is still one of my favorite actors. Thanks Stuart!

Jerry Robinson in the Classroom

Jerry Robinson was an early and rather obvious assistant/ghost to Bob Kane on BATMAN. Robinson's style was quite different than what has come to be accepted as Kane's both in his layouts and his sketchier linework. Credited with creating (or at least highly influencing depending on whose version you believe) both Robin and the Joker, the young Robinson was certainly a major contributor to the mythos. Years later, he became the president of the National Cartoonists Society and in the 1970's acted as a liason with DC in the company's attempts to belatedly do right by SUPERMAN creators Siegel and Shuster. In between and for many years however, Jerry Robinson ran a newspaper feature entitled TRUE CLASSROOM FLUBS AND FLUFFS which illustrated schoolroom mis-statements ina literal manner to comic effect. His sketchy style had reached a zenith by this point and was not to some fans' tastes. The feature was popular enough, though, to elicit this collection published by Scholastic in 1970. Here are a couple samples from the book, too.

A Wonder Woman In-Joke

When Carmine Infantino took over at DC in the late sixties, he made longtime JLA artist Mike Sekowsky an editor. Sekowsky proceeded to radically change all of the characters with which he was entrusted. Most extreme of these changes was the fact that Wonder Woman, AKA Diana Prince, was remade into a karate-chopping, mod Diana RIGG type with a male Chinese mentor named I Ching. 25 years of continuity were scrapped as Diana lost her powers and, after decades of near male-bashing, bowed and deferred to this guy she had just met! All things change, however, and 1940's WONDER WOMAN writer/editor Dorothy Woolfolk, one of the first ladies of comics, was brought in. She lasted only one issue before hot editor Denny O'Neil took over with some unusual covers by Jeff Jones and rare comic book writing from Samuel R. Delany! I Ching was moved to the background and the writing and art both improved during this sadly brief period. Yep, it only lasted a few issues before someone at DC suddenly decided to once again very suddenly scrap several years of continuity and go back to the original Wonder Woman concepts. Perhaps this was because of selling the TV movie rights as the Cathy Lee Crosby movie we mentioned earlier was just a year or so away. On the other hand, it may well have been simply declining sales. Either way, longtime WW writer/editor Robert Kanigher was reinstated on the book and in the span of just a few pages murdered Ching, had Diana forget him, had her recover her powers (with no real explanation) and return to the Amazons. Just like that. One has to wonder, however, exactly what Kanigher had against DorothyWoolfolk as right there on page one, the very first victim of the random sniper is described as woman's magazine editor, Dottie Cottonman. Cotton Man=Wool Folk. It's an in-joke reference but a rather cruel one. Anyone know any more details on this one? Were the other named victims-Jimmy Greene and Mary and John Mason--real-life references also? The art here is by Don Heck.

Green Lantern # 1 Ad

I'm on record as being a big fan of the Golden Age Green Lantern. I first discovered the strangely RED-costumed crusader in his second team-up with his modern-day counterpart in the mid-sixties and followed him through many JLA-JSA team-ups and well into his various 90's and beyond incarnations. The book THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES showed me his origin as originally published in ALL-AMERICAN COMICS and a number of reprints followed throughout the seventies before DC's Archives series finally got around to Ol' GL. The Archives reprinted GREEN LANTERN from issue # 1 but by the time that issue had been published, the original ring-slinger had already had numerous adventures in ALL-AMERICAN, ALL-STAR and (I may have the timing off on this one) COMIC CAVALCADE. In keeping with corporate policy, GL was demoted to honorary JSA membership with this issue of his own mag. That silly idea would later be dropped and Alan Scott appears with the JSA every month even now!

Flesh Vs. Flash

FLESH GORDON was a mid-seventies porn spoof that had its hardcore scenes cut out (note the retouched bosoms even in this ad!)and somehow managed to end up in major release AND even get good reviews! Designed to resemble the 1930’s serials, the special effects were done by a bunch of young Turks (some of whom would go on to do STAR WARS just a couple years later) and a ringer or two like Jim Danforth. The lead "actor," one Jason Williams, was suitably stilted but the other roles were played by scene-chewers of the first order. Even character actor John Hoyt was along for the ride as Flesh’s dad! The voice of the King Kong-like monster who kidnaps Dale Ardor was done by future Mister Incredible, Craig T. Nelson. As released, the movie was a silly softcore sex parody with stupid juvenile jokes but nonetheless endearing and enjoyable because the filmmakers clearly respected the source material.
What struck me to bring this all up was this other ad for the huge budget , campy FLASH GORDON of a few years later with Boris Vallejo's painting of Sam Jones looking an awful lot like Jason Williiams pose in the FLESH GORDON ad. His acting was about the same, also. In fact, the acting in FLASH was overall on a par with that in FLESH, the jokes almost as juvenile and the sex scenes not as interesting! Brilliant Swedish actor Max Von Sydow chewed the scenery as Ming the Merciless almost as well as William Hunt, the guy who played Emporer Wang in FLESH!! Queen, at one of their lowest ebbs, did the inappropriate score for this one and the special effects quite frankly weren’t as good as those in the earlier no-budget porn predecessor! The problem, I believe, was simply that Producer Dino Delaurentis was looking for a way to cash in on STAR WARS success and was incapable of realizing that it was successful because the people behind it genuinely LIKED the old serials!
There was a dreadful (and not in a good way) sequel to FLESH GORDON many years after the fact but you’ll note that there has been no big-screen, big-budget versions of FLASH GORDON lately at all. Knowing his love of pretty girls, I think creator Alex Raymond would probably have preferred Flesh to Flash.

Rare Pogo

By now anyone who cares has probably heard of Fantagraphics' noble plans to take yet another run at reprinting the complete POGO comic strip by Walt Kelly. What folks tend to forget, however, is that in later years Kelly had quite a bit of assistance on the strip including from his wife Selby who took over the strip eventually after her husband's death. The strip still only outlasted its creator by a couple of years. Even though Selby Kelly could do a decent approximation of Walt's art style, his humor, pacing and political viewpoints were unique. Here, though, is the very first official POGO art to appear after the strip's end in 1975. This cute piece was done by Selby Kelly in 1977 to welcome fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter to the White House long sought in the strip by the denizens of the Okefenokee Swamp. According to reports at the time, it was sent directly to Carter in Washington. Wonder if the COMPLETE POGO series will include this?