Golden Age Green Hornet Reprints

From the promo material...
"A new series of Golden Age reprints featuring the classic adventures of the original Green Hornet!
Each issue in this new series of classic Hornet material is 40 big pages!
Dynamite has commissioned Joe Rubenstein to create brand-new covers, inspired by the golden Age comics of yesteryear!"
Compare the new cover above with it's 1940 "inspiration" below. 

Personally, I'm less than enthralled with the new art.
As much as I LOVE Joe Rubinstein's absolutely-amazing inking, I've never been a fan of his pencilling.
If I was the art director, I'd have him...
1) eliminate the "earmuffs".
2) fix the perspective on the fedora.
3) re-detail the gun to match the modified Mauser on the original.
4) add the scarf.
5) modify the Hornet insignia on the mask to curve it around the head.
I'd also eliminate the upper-corner box art (which has the wrong time-period Hornet in it, and enlarge the logo closer to the dimensions of the original.
But then, I'd have used the original cover, since it's so darn kool we made it the centerpiece of our Classic Green Hornet collectibles line!
I do suggest you pick up the title, since it's the only print version of the Golden Age material currently available at a reasonable price.
But it will be available, along with the other issues of the run, in a combined book edition you can pre-order here in time for Christmas (and then put under the tree with one or more of our Classic Green Hornet collectibles in a perfect holiday gift set for the Green Hornet fan in your life!

I Sell the Dead

Take the classy-yet-creepy Hammer / Amicus horror anthology films of the 1960s-70s!
Add some EC Comics-style graphics!
Mix with a cast filled with experienced genre performers who are obviously enjoying the project!
What do you have?
I Sell the Dead!
I came across it yesterday afternoon on cable, and let me tell you, I haven't had an unexpectedly-good time like this in years.
I was expecting SyFy Saturday Night-level crap, good for a laugh and little else.
Instead, I was treated to a well-written, well-produced, well-acted horror flick, the likes of which I haven't seen in (literally) decades!
The last horror anthology worth a second viewing was 1982's CreepShow!
But, this pic, featuring Dominic Monaghan (Lord of the Rings / FlashForward / LOST), Ron Perlman (Beauty & the Beast / Teen Titans, etc), and Angus Scrimm (Phantasm), along with lesser-known, but no less talented, thespians, is an absolute blast!
While it's a "period piece", it's not historically or geographically-accurate. (But then, neither were Hercules and Xena, and nobody I know complained...)
What's it about?
About 85 minutes. ;-)
It's also about grave-robbing, zombies/ghouls, vampires, extraterrestrials, insane inbred families, sea monsters, corrupt businessmen, and hot homicidal women.
It's also extremely funny. Not the laugh-at-how-bad-it-is funny of Plan 9 from Outer Space, but witty puns, quips and tasteless jokes!
And, there's even a comic book version of it!
Watch it! Rent it! Buy it!
You won't regret it!

Preview: Green Hornet: Year One #7 Alternate Cover

A companion piece to yesterday's post of the Kato: Origins #6 cover.
An alternate cover preview for issue #7 of the best of the various new Green Hornet series now on the stands by artist and interior colorist Francesco Francavilla.
A treat for Golden Age and Film Noir fans alike!

Preview--KATO: Origins #6 Cover

Moody cover by Francesco Francavilla for #6 of the companion comic mini-series to Green Hornet: Year One, detailing the 1940s origins of The Green Hornet & Kato.Of all the Green Hornet series from Dynamite, these two are easily the best!

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!