Random Panels of Comic Book Weirdness # 71

The weirdest part of this one is that this was actually from an ARCHIE publication!

Four-Color Shadows Debuts

With all of the wonderful comics blogs sharing old public domain (and other) stories online, there would seem to be little need for yet another to join the ranks and it's certainly not as though I'm lacking in blogs already. Still, I've gathered a nice collection of interesting odds and ends that I thought others might enjoy and after all, I had to buy more storage space for my images awhile back so now I have a ton of room so...today we have the debut of FOUR-COLOR IMAGES. We start off with a fun Alex Toth sci-fi story from 1952. With any luck, we'll be posting new stuff on a daily basis, at least until things get going well. So tell your friends, your arch-enemies and everyone else to revisit the comic book past with FOUR-COLOR MEMORIES and be sure to let us know what you think!

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/

Major Matt Mason TV Commercial--1968

A cool rhyming commercial for "Mattel's Man in Space," MAJOR MATT MASON. This was the one toy line that I came close to having all the actual add-ons and side characters for. Sold the whole lot about twenty years back now but boy, were they cool!

The Uncanny Adventures of Okie Cartoonists

Mark Waid and DICK TRACY artist Dick Locher appear in this trailer for an upcoming interactive exhibit at the Oklahoma History Center. Opens June 12 apparently.

Schlock

Here's the trailer for John Landis' first film, SCHLOCK. Nearly 40 years after I first read of it on FAMOUS MONSTERS, I finally caught it online last week and found it quite well done for a low-budget first effort. Easily the best part is Landis himself as the monster, mugging wonderfully in early Rick Baker make-up. Many of the gags are genuinely funny, there's an amusing cameo from FM's FJA and the direction is most definitely a cut above that of similar efforts of the era.

Thunderball--Johnny Cash (??)

I had never heard of this before to the best of my knowledge but apparently the great Johnny Cash was at one point enlisted to write and perform the theme song for the now-classic James Bond film. THUNDERBALL. Seems like a pointedly bizarre choice to me and while the resultant song isn't terrible, it is most definitely not the sophisticated, urban ad modern sounding theme one expects from 007. Someone has dubbed the song to the original opening of the film, however, so you can see for yourself. The eventual real theme, in case you've forgotten, was performed by Tom Jones.

Hill and Spencer Interview

One of my favorite comedy teams of the seventies and eighties was the unofficial Italian teaming of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. The pair made a score or so of films together and a number of memorable low budget solo projects. Almost all of their pictures were huge in some parts of the world but the pair remain even now virtually unknown in the US. Here, there story is told in a couple of interviews with the actors themselves from 2005.