Al Williamson, Dave Stevens and George Evans-1990

Legendary EC artist Al Williamson gets a few sound bytes in this 1990 TV news segment along with fellow EC veteran George Evans (who followed Williamson on the SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN strip) and the late Dave Stevens, then still the golden boy in the wake of his ROCKETEER success. The three were among the guests at a North Carolina Con that weekend.

Matt Smith is Dr Who-the Trailer-2010

Still about a month away before we find out if Matt Smith's youngest ever Dr. Who can fill the decidedly impressive supergeek shoes of the departing David Tennant. As with Seth Rogan's upcoming GREEN HORNET, I'm keeping as open a mind as possible. Here's the official BBC trailer for the upcoming season five!

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons-1967

Here's the opening to CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS, a Gerry Anderson UK puppet series that never aired in my area and frankly looks a tad creepy...eerie even! Maybe even Vampirella! Cool theme, however!

Peter Lorre on What's My Line-1960

One of my favorite character stars as the mystery guest on my all-time favorite game show, WHAT'S MY LINE? in 1960. If ever there was a contestant who needed to disguise his voice!

The Scaffold--Lily the Pink, 1968

I posted a different version of this on Facebook today but that one was already recently posted on another blog so here's a lively live version. This is the Scaffold, a short-lived British group whom I first heard of on a 1978 or '79 episode of DOCTOR DEMENTO that was an all-British dementia special. A catchy song but the real attraction here is Mike "McGear" on the right who is not-so-secretly Beatle Paul's baby brother, Mike McCartney! His early seventies solo album features so much backup from his brother's group Wings that it sounds like a good Wings album that just happens to have a guest vocalist on every song!

Laurel and Hardy in Movie Comics-1939

Here we have something amazingly odd. MOVIE COMICS was a Max Gaines/Sheldon Mayer comic from the late 1930's and as such a precursor to their All-American line that co-existed with National/DC in the early 1940's. It was unusual in that every issue presented a number of comic book adaptations of then-new films...well...kinda. The tag line promised, "a complete movie show for ten cents!" What they seem to have done is taken a handful of stills from the films they were doing, colorized them and had artists (Mayer possibly? He does the spot illos for the text pages) add backgrounds and often crudely lettered word balloons. As most of the stories only lasted a few pages, any real semblance of plot pretty much went by the wayside. In the case of Laurel and Hardy, here represented in what may be their very first American comic appearance, the subtlety and slapstick genius and reciprocal destruction timing are all lost.

A CHUMP AT OXFORD is hardly the boys' worst film but hardly their best either. In fact, one of its main claims to fame (well, if not fame, at least trivia) is that it was the third film ever for a young British actor in Hollywood named Peter Cushing--twenty years before Van Helsing and nearly forty before STAR WARS. He's even seen in the panel where the students are dressed as the faculty to prank Stan and Ollie. Very, very little of the charm and genius of L&H comes through because of the MOVIE COMICS novelty format and what passes for the film's meager plot is mostly told in captions. In fact, I would have to say that the title worked best as a publicity rag for upcoming films...which may be how the publisher managed to get access to the stills and apparently the scripts! Quid Pro Quo.

Oh, and while the title is correct on the above splash, the contents page of MOVIE COMICS # 6 lists the story as "The Chumps at Oxford!"

Random Panels of Comic Bo...Err...STRIP Weirdness # 66

I dunno. Maybe it's just me but seems to me even in those pre-cell days there had to be an easier way...a more LIKELY way at least...of contacting masked men on the plains!