Blogger Outage

Thursday's posted entry is still somewhere in the ether.
It's frustrating since I pride myself on the fact that I've been posting daily, including weekends and holidays for almost two solid years, and now, until Thursday reappears, it looks like I slacked off!

Reading Room: BARBARELLA 1.2

When Last We Left Our Heroine...

Barbarella crash-landed on the planet Lythion where, after a number of...interesting...situations, she managed to reunite two long-feuding races, ending their centuries-long war.
With her ship destroyed, the amazing woman gets a lift from a conveniently-arriving space freighter and is off to another astounding adventure on other worlds...

We'll return to Barbarella in the near future, after we catch our breath...

It's interesting to see various plot elements and characters that Roger Vadim and Claude Brulé re-composited in the 1960s movie's script in their original form.

Check out the

Barbarella Collectible Corner

Reading Room: BARBARELLA 1.1

While most are familiar with the psychedelic movie starring Jane Fonda, few are those who read the entire Barbarella saga, much less the four stories that comprise the translated graphic novel that introduced her to English-speaking fans in 1966 after becoming a smash hit in Europe.
Now, jump in, the way readers in the '60s had to, and try to keep up...

Tune in tomorrow for both the conclusion to Part 1, and some more background on...Barbarella!

Check out the

Barbarella Collectible Corner

Cover Preview: WARLORD OF MARS: FALL OF BARSOOM #1

While most of the Dynamite John Carter of Mars material has been decent, but not spectacular, discovering Francesco Francavilla will be doing alternate covers for a new mini-series indicates they're taking the character in a pulp-oriented vein, at least this go-round.
Well-done guys!

Check out the Barsoomian artifacts at the

Collectibles Corner

Reading Room: "The Hammer of Thor"

In 1959, three years before Mighty Thor's debut in Journey into Mystery #83,  Out of This World #11 ran a tale, drawn by Steve Ditko, about a young man with a hammer named Thor.

While he does have a beard, this Thor, like Marvel's Mighty Thor, was blonde, not red-headed as described in the myths.
Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr Strange at Marvel, and was considered the #2 artist behind Jack Kirby during the Silver Age of Comics.
Considering Jack Kirby had drawn a pretty-accurate version of Thor, albeit as a villain wearing a disguise...

...why did he go with a blonde, beardless version when he designed the Marvel character?

Could Stan Lee have been influenced by seeing Ditko's version?