Spidertoad!

Imagine being three years old and having your main goal in life come true!
Where do you go from there?
Such was the case a week ago when my son Atticus, better known as Toad, went to Walmart to meet none other than the webslinger himself...Spiderman!
Needless to say, Toad was speechless.

What amazed me was that none of the other kids were in costume!
What's wrong with parents today?
On almost any given day, you can drop by our house and at least one of the kids will be running around in costume.
Why limit the fun your kids can have to just Halloween?
Keep it here, boppers.

Girl Power!

In the few years that I've been "doing" the convention scene, I've had the distinct pleasure of meeting some pretty awesome folks, some of whom I'm now able to call my friends.
Aside from being one of my all-time favorite pin-up artists, Jay Fife is one of the nicest people I've met in my conventioning experience. Not to mention one of the most patient people I've ever met. Awhile back, when I first met Jay, he had me do a sketch of Hawkgirl for his daughter, a burgeoning comic book fan discovering the positive female roles in comics. Since then, I've drawn a few more for her.
One thing that always gets me about drawing for Jay and his daughter is that he actually asks me to draw these girls, especially if you've ever seen his work. When I told him this, his reply was something like, "Let me put it to you this way. She doesn't ask me to draw them." I guess that's one of the best compliments I've ever got.
About a year ago, he'd asked me to draw Supergirl for her, which I did but somehow managed to forget to mail to him. See what I mean about patient?
As it's closing in on the date for the big Motor City Comicon, I promised Jay in an email that I'd bring that Supergirl sketch for him. He asked if I'd mind doing another one in the meantime. Like most kids today, his daughter is into the Cartoon Network's version of the Teen Titans. Terra and Starfire are among her favorites, so...

...the above picture of Terra sits in my "take everywhere" portfolio alongside Supergirl.
Keep it here, poppers.

Ayden the Poet

There's never any telling what goes through the mind of a seven-year-old. Especially an amateur paleontologist like my boy Ayden (pictured below). Today, he brought his journal home from school and I found an entry in it that would've made Shel Silverstine proud.I wish I had 100 caterpillars.

I wish I had 100 ants.
I wish I had 100 snakes.
I wish I had 100 bugs.
But I wouldn't want 100 hats.

I'm pretty sure he didn't intend it to be a poem, but that's how I read it. Sometimes we create art without knowing it, and that, I think, is the heart of it all.

Keep 'em flyin', boppers...

One Tough SOB!

God, I miss the Iron Curtain! Or rather the forest of men's adventure paperbacks produced dtowards the tail end of the Cold War. They were a throwback of sorts to the pulps such as The Phantom and The Shadow of earlier generations. I've always said everything I've ever learned about writing I learned from men's adventure novels, specifically Gold Eagle's gritty epic series The SOBs. Lead by the last man out of Vietnam, Colonel Nile Barrabas, the "Soldiers of Barrabas" were a mean bunch of mercenary sons-o-bitches who got the dirty jobs done. Barrabas got the jobs from Walker "The Fixer" Jessup, who got the jobs from an unscrupulous octogenarian senator referred to only as "The Senator" and Barrabas and company went to work. They fought the private little wars that kept us safe! Were they realistic? Of course not! But they made for a consistent hellasciously-good read, though unlike Gold Eagle's more popular if not drawn-out series The Executioner, which is still being published today, the SOBs only lasted less than forty books. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading The Executioner for awhile, but how many times can a guy get shot in the friggin' shoulder?!

Unlike The Executioner, the mortality rate in The SOBs was almost as certain for the heroes as it was for the villains. Towards the end of the series, Barrabas reflected upon how the original team had started with thirteen and steadily dwindled down to a mere seven. Of course a few of the team had seemingly "died" only to return to the ranks. William "Billy Two" Starfoot II for instance, a full-blooded Osage Indian who'd been shot in the back on a Siberian airstrip, tortured to the point of near insanity, managed to escape and return to the ranks of his mercenary buddies with the help of the Hawk Spirit. The true presence of the Hawk Spirit was constantly debated amongst Starfoot's pals, but they never doubted his belief in such an apparition. Another aspect of merit that put The SOBs on a par all their own was the series' author "Jack Hild," a pseudonym shared by only a few ghost writers, whereas other Gold Eagle books like The Executioner, Pheonix Force and Able Team, shared a plethora of ghost writers. This made for consistently tighter continuity and flashbacks.

Sadly all good things come to an end. Not only did the cancellation of The SOBs mark the end of my interest in men's adventure books, but it was quickly followed by a rising trend the genre. Science fiction began to be as prevailing of a topic as topless Asian chicks. If The SOBs were still in print today, they'd have found Osama Bin Laden, liberated Iraq and took care of Kim Jong Il's plans for global nuclear dominion over the Free World.

Dollar Store Cinema Unleashed!

That's right, boppers, "Dollar Store Cinema" has it's very own blog!

In the tradition of all the great horror hosts of late night television, such as Svengoolie, Son of Svengoolie and Mr. Lobo, I'll be posting over at $SC as...The Scary Guy! It was a nickname given to me by some friends years ago that involved the mother of a stripper, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Rest assured, boppers, I'll be posting announcements here everytime I post over there, so you won't miss a single review to movies you're likely never to see.

Marvel Comics Has Officially Lost It's Mind!

NEW YORK - Captain America has undertaken his last mission — at least for now. The venerable superhero is killed in the issue of his namesake comic that hit stands Wednesday, the Daily News reported.

On the new edition's pages, a sniper shoots down the shield-wielding hero as he leaves a courthouse, according to the newspaper.

It ends a long run for the stars-and-stripes-wearing character, created in 1941 to incarnate patriotic feeling during World War II. Over the years, an estimated 210 million copies of "Captain America" comic books, published by New York-based Marvel Entertainment Inc., have been sold in a total of 75 countries.

But resurrections are not unknown in the world of comics, and Marvel Entertainment editor in chief Joe Quesada said a Captain America comeback wasn't impossible.

Still, the character's death came as a blow to co-creator Joe Simon.

"We really need him now," said Simon, 93, who worked with artist Jack Kirby to devise Captain America as a foe for Adolf Hitler.

According to the comic, the superhero was spawned when a scrawny arts student named Steve Rogers, ineligible for the army because of his poor health but eager to serve his country, agreed to a "Super Soldier Serum" injection. The substance made him a paragon of physical perfection, armed only with his shield, his strength, his smarts and a command of martial arts.

In the comic-book universe, death is not always final. But even if Captain America turns out to have met his end in print, he may not disappear entirely: Marvel has said it is developing a Captain America movie.

A friggin' sniper?! Are you kidding me? Joe Quesada's a retard anyway! Keep 'em flyin', boppers, he's probably an LMD so Steve Rodgers can get his anonymity back.