Reading Room: BARBARELLA 4.2

When Last We Left Our Heroine...

After surviving the Excessive Machine, Barbarella ends up in the bedroom of the Queen of Sogo.
The pair manage to escape and free the blind angel, Pygar.
However, unskilled in piloting the alien craft they are traveling in, Barbarella crashes the ship, and in the ensuing confusion, the Queen escapes...

This multi-part comic strip was turned into a graphic album, and then adapted into a feature film starring Jane Fonda in the title role.

Barbarella wouldn't have a new adventure until 1974, when Wrath Of The Minute Eater was published in France.
Two more graphic novels, False Moon aka Moon Child (1977) and Storm Mirror (1982), have appeared since.
Of the three sequels, only Moon Child is available in English in a presently OOP graphic novel.
There are no current plans for any English-language reprints.

Nelvana Animation, proposed doing an animated series during the 1990s, but no network was willing to finance it.

Proposal art by Jean-Claude Forrest

Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Machete) had a movie remake in development, but it died in 2009, and no one else seems interested...

Check out the

Barbarella Comic Collectibles Corner

Cartoonists Pay Tribute to 9/11 on 10th Anniversary

The major comic syndicates have rallied their cartoonists to dedicate their strips on Sunday, September 11, 2011, to pay homage to those who lost their lives or were injured in the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
All of the nearly 100 participating strips, many of which appear on Sunday newspaper editions in color in their own special pullout section, will have an overarching September 11 remembrance theme.

In addition to the newspaper tribute, King Features Syndicate has partnered with several distinguished museums to host special exhibits featuring the cartoonists’ commemorative works, including:

• The Newseum in Washington, D.C.
• The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco
• The Toonseum in Pittsburgh
• The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City (MoCCA)
• The Society of Illustrators in New York City

More details HERE.

Welcome Back, Flash Gordon! We Missed You!

Besides doing the alternate covers for each issue of the new Flash Gordon comic from Dynamite, Francesco Francavilla is also doing a wraparound cover inspired by the work of Al Williamson for the first issue.
If that's not enough to make you put this on your pull-list...
The year is 1934, a time of two-fisted swashbuckling, of fearsome threats and wild adventure -- and of ever-growing threats on the horizon. Three valiant humans -- Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov -- are plucked from the Earth, traveling to the distant planet Mongo. Their exploits are legendary, battling the machinations and terror schemes of the dreaded emperor Ming the Merciless, the All-Seeing Ruler of Mongo. But they did not fight alone...
And, it's only 32 pages for $1!!

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Space Heroes

Comic Collectible Store

YouTube Wednesday: MOON ZERO TWO

Before Cowboys & Aliens, there WERE "Space Westerns"...

Click on art to enlarge

...although this one is more "Space" than "Western"!

1969's Moon Zero Two was a weird combo of 40s-50s pulp sci-fi with its "Western transposed to outer space" motif, 2001: a Space Odyssey / UFO-influenced production design and fx, and some cool 60s psychedelic elements set in the "far future" of 2021.

We're going into more detail about the flick at our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™, presenting the rarely-seen comic adaptation (by Paul Neary) from House of Hammer, some background info, and links to related sites.

But, as long as you're here, why not watch the complete Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of MZ2?

Enjoy!
Check out

Classic Comix and Movie Collectibles Store 
and these HTF Moon Zero Two items on Amazon...

Flash! Ah-Ahhh...!

Dynamite Entertainment, who recently snagged The Shadow, has grabbed another classic...

...and is doing a revamped/updated look at Flash Gordon!

The initial 6-issue story arc will be an adaptation of the first two years of the original Alex Raymond comic strip.
Alex Ross plotted the series, handled character designs, and will contribute covers.
Erik Trautmann is scripting and Daniel Lindro is illustrating the series.
Francesco Francavilla will be doing alternate covers.
Overall, I'm interested, but Lindro may be a little too dark an artist for a bright action-adventure series.
But it couldn't be any worse than the recent manga-influenced Flash series from Ardden.

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Space Heroes

Comic Collectibles

YouTube Wednesday: Quatermass Xperiment

First it was a record-breaking BBC-tv mini-series broadcast live on six consecutive nights in 1953...(and no, that's not a typo in the blog title)

In 1955, it was the first horror film from the legendary Hammer Studios...

In 2005, it was redone in a new, live BBC broadcast starring David Tennant (Doctor Who) and Indira Varma (TorchWood, Human Target)!

We're covering it over at our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™!
Stop by and have a look at the never-reprinted comic adaptation of the feature film version!

Check out the

Quatermass

Collectibles Corner!

YouTube Wednesday(ish): Barbarella the Movie!

Note: this was actually published early Thursday, but Blogger's outage temporarily deleted it. When it reposted, it posted with Friday's date.
We've talked about it for the past couple of days in connection with the comic strip we've been presenting, so here it is...

Barbarella!

(at least the trailer...)

And now the opening credits...

..then Killer Dolls...

...then a VERY warm iceman...

...then the Excessive Machine...

...and, finally, the ending!

You want more? go buy the movie!

Dick Tracy Returns!

The dawn of a new day, courtesy of Mike Curtis and Joe Staton!

Noted comics pros Mike Curtis (Richie Rich) and Joe Staton (Green Lantern / E-Man) take over the long-running Dick Tracy newspaper strip as of today!
Created by Chester Gould in 1931, the incorruptible Chicago-based detective has also been the subject of movie serials, tv series (both live action and animated), radio shows, comic books (reprints and new stories), novels and short story anthologies, and a feature film!
BONUS for our faithful fans: Here's the opening credits from an unsold pilot done by 1960s Batman / Green Hornet producer William Dozier!

Give Comics Go Pink to Fight Cancer Collectibles at Christmas!

More than 50 of King Features Syndicate's comic strip artists did their Sunday, October 10th 2010, strips with a pink color theme, a mention about fighting breast cancer, or both.

Besides the strips themselves, King Features produced a line of kool kollectibles using the art from those strips that you can order HERE.
A percentage of each product's cost goes directly to breastcancer.org to pay for cancer research.
For more info, and to see the complete set of strips from 10/10/10, go HERE.
The money goes to cancer research, and they'd make GREAT Christmas gifts for a comic-strip-loving breast cancer survivor or in remembrance of a loved one who passed away due to breast cancer!

Design of the Week--Modesty Blaise...in Japanese!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week...the Swinging 60s come to life with the astounding-campy adventures of Modesty Blaise!
Initially a very successful comic strip by Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway about a "bad girl" gone good, Modesty Blaise was produced as a feature film in 1966 starring Monica Vitti, during the spy film craze spawned by the James Bond films.
Unfortunately, the film's producers went the "camp" route, producing one of the first "spy-spoof" films!
O'Donnell, who had done the first draft of the flick's script was so displeased, he took his version of the script and turned it into a prose novel, which sold very well (and received praise by critics and fans alike, unlike the movie)! This launched a second career for O'Donnell, who continued to script the comic strip and penned more novels both adapting the strip storylines and doing new tales, which were then rewritten into the comic series!
After the first movie, there was a tv pilot which turned the character into a generic private eye, and in the 1990s, an origin tale, My Name is Modesty, which went straight to video.

Time has been kind to the first Modesty film, and the campy style which turned off 1960s audiences who expected a more accurate portrayal of the character, has become an attraction to 21st Century viewers who now look upon it as ironic deconstruction of the heroic concept!
Go figure!

We'll go with the flow, and offer one of the best poster images from the film (and one of the few with her looking like the comic strip version!) on a kool kitschy kollection!
Plus, all the text is in Japanese, for an added layer of koolness!
With all due modesty (ouch), we think you'll just snap these goodies up!

Comics Meet Dance: "Hapless Hooligan in 'Still Moving'"

It's fascinating when live theater and comics (books or strips) combine into a new..."mutation" (for lack of a better word)...
Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist Art Spiegelman collaborates with Pilobolus artistic director Michael Tracy and dancers to make Hapless Hooligan in "Still Moving" -- a noirish love story told in the style of early comics.

Commissioned by the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth College, and featuring Pilobolus dancers interacting live with Art's drawings (animated by Hornet's Dan Abdo and Jason Patterson), "Still Moving" tells the tragicomic tale of Hap and Lulu, separated in life and reunited after death.
Tony-winning sound designer Rob Kaplowitz assembles a collage score comprised of obscure cabaret tunes and early jazz hits to create a captivating atmosphere in this remarkable blend of comics and dance.

It's moving to the Joyce Theatre in NYC this week...

Jul 13 at 7:30pm

Jul 16-17 at 8pm

Jul 21 at 7:30pm

Jul 24 at 2pm

Jul 29 at 8pm

Jul 31 at 8pm

Aug 2 at 7:30pm

Aug 5 at 8pm
Approx. Run Time: 1 hour 50 minutes (one intermission)

Tickets start at $10!
(Call JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 for $10 tickets.

All other tickets can purchased online)

Believing you should be properly-attired when attending the theatre, Atomic Kommie Comics™ has put together a special "Secret Chic" collection featuring Happy Hooligan, the comic strip character who inspired the new production, on t-shirts (including organic cotton), mugs, magnets, iPad / messenger bags, and other goodies!

Now, if only the Broadway-bound Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark production could get underway...

Design of the Week--Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy!

Each week, we post a limited-edition design, to be sold for exactly 7 days, then replaced with another!
This week..one of the sexiest sci-fi sirens of the Sixties; Barbarella, as personified by Jane Fonda!

The sexually-liberated heroine of a French comic strip by Jean Claude Forest, the character was visually-based on Brigitte Bardot, who was offered the movie role but turned it down (picture "Bardot IS Barbarella!" on the posters).
It's hokey, entertaining, and surprisingly, considering the sexual content (but little nudity), PG-13 fun!
While it was both a critical and box-office failure in the 1960s, the movie became a video store staple on vhs and dvd, and often plays in midnight movie showings!

The movie was shot in two languages (English and French) simultaneously. The bi-lingual Fonda did all her own dialogue in both versions while the other actors were dubbed in their non-native tongues.
The rock band Duran Duran's name was taken from mad scientist Durand-Durand. Milo O'Shea, who played the character has appeared in one of the band's videos, Arena, as Durand-Durand!
A remake is currently in Development Hell.
But this design isn't! And it's perfect summer beachwear for the pop culture-savvy! So grab it while you can!

Now THAT'S a DEAL!

I go to Borders Books on a fairly regular basis.
Have a Borders Rewards account, and the coupons prove invaluable for saving money both for myself and for gifts!
This week's coupon was for dvd and music box sets.
While I didn't find the dvd set I was looking for (Torchwood: Children of Earth, btw) I did find The Comics: the Complete Collection by Brian Walker (which combines the two previous volumes into one MASSIVE hardcover) for only...wait for it...$9.97! It's normally $19.99!

I collect these sort of reference books with abandon!
I have Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, Penguin Book of Comics, all Ron Goulart's books, etc.
But, up to now, even the reasonable $19.99 price point was just a bit much on my currently-tight budget.
But $9.97!!!
Even though I almost got a hernia lugging it home, it was worth it!

Brian Walker is a comic strip writer-artist himself (Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois) as well as the son of legendary creator Mort Walker.
The book is filled not only with stuff from his family's personal collection, unseen by the general public, but stories and anecdotes that were previously-known only to industry insiders!

Pick it up (if you can...it's HEAVY!)  ;-)

The FIRST Black Comic Strip Heroine: Friday Foster

On January 18, 1970, Friday Foster became the FIRST mainstream syndicated comic strip to star a Black woman as the title character.
(Jackie Ormes' legendary Torchy Brown was, unfortunately, limited to black-owned newspapers which had relatively-limited circulation.)
It was also the FIRST mainstream comic strip to star a Black title character, male OR female!
(The humor strip Quincy by Ted Shearer debuted later in 1970!)

Writer Jim Lawrence was no stranger to adventure strips, having previously written Captain Easy and Joe Palooka.
(After his stint on Friday, he scripted a revived Buck Rogers comic strip based on the 1980 tv series!)
And, he penned a 1970s paperback novel series, Dark Angel, about a Black woman private eye!
Artist Jorge Longaron had done a number of comic strips in Europe, but was unknown in America. Friday was his Stateside strip debut.

The series was a combination of adventure, soap-opera, and social commentary, about former fashion model-turned-photographer's assistant (and later professional photographer) Friday Foster.
Supporting characters included photographer Shawn North (her boss and later business partner) and millionare playboy/romantic interest Blake Tarr.

The strip lasted until late 1974, with some of the final sequences illustrated by DC Comics legend Dick Giordano and a then up-and-comer named Howard Chaykin (American Flagg, The Shadow)!

Besides the strip, there was a one-shot comic book in 1972, and a feature film in 1975 (a year after the strip was canceled) starring action-movie goddess Pam Grier as Friday, Thalmus Rasulala as Blake Tarr, Yaphet Kotto as Detective Colt Hawkins, plus Eartha Kitt, Jim Backus, Godfrey Cambridge, and in one of his earliest roles, Carl Weathers, as an un-named assassin!
While there was a soundtrack album, curiously, I've never seen a novelization (and, in the '70s, they did novelizations of movies that weren't even released in the US, just shown overseas)!

If you're looking for a cool gift for the Black History aficionado or grrrl hero fan in your life, you can't go wrong with a Friday Foster mug, bag, shirt or other goodie from Atomic Kommie Comics™!

Note: only the comics graphic at top is available on products from us. The poster isn't.