News of the Right

The first toys I remember my parents getting me for Christmas were the Mego Batman, Robin, Superman, Spider-Man, Joker, the Batmobile and the Hall of Justice. And “remember” is far too light a word. These toys are ingrained in me, and still pull and tug at me to this day (they’re also sitting on a shelf in my bedroom, which has a lot to do with that, no doubt).

Now, Mattell (!!!) is coming out with their DC Universe Retro-Action Figures series, which are unaplogetically based on the Mego aesthetic.

In the Set One (the first of many, I hope) only one figure (Superman) was ever produced by Mego; the others (Green Lantern, Lex Luthor, and Sinestro) were rumored to be in production, but never made it to the assembly line before Mego went bankrupt in 1981 (thanks a lot, Kenner!). They look like the real thing and are going to be packaged to look like Megos (along the same lines as Diamond Select’s Star Trek re-issues) , but that $85.00 price tag is enough to give an enthusiast like myself pause.

Looks like I may be selling some less desirable things on eBay to cover the bill. Maybe my Dark Tower…?

Hey! If for no reason in particular, you might be thinking, “I want to get Sean something special, but, what? Whatever could I get him?” You might want to consider this, the RENT, Roger Davis bear from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS:

And he comes with all this cool stuff:

Roger wears an exact duplicate of his Broadway costume. First seen at the top of ACT II during the emotionally charged “Seasons Of Love”, this faithful re-creation consists of Roger’s black and white geometric-print sleeveless button down shirt, straight leg pin-stripe pants (both cut from the cloth of the original costumes), green hand-knit scarf and black leather biker jacket with the portentous and tragic hand-painted “Only Good Die Young” logo on the back. His brown leather “New Rock” boots have been eternalized in miniature form, and his grunge-cut, frosted blonde wig has been perfectly styled. Finally, Roger comes with his very own (working!) acoustic guitar and stand, which will certainly help as he finds “…the power to ignite the air” and write his “One Song Glory”. Once he looks into “Your Eyes” you’ll know that he can’t live “Without You”!

Included in this lot is a hand-signed “eviction-notice” prop from the 2005 film RENT, signed by Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal as well as a set of Roger’s “old rock and roll posters, advertisting gigs at CBGB’s and The Pyramid Club” used in the final days of RENT’s Broadway run.

Did you see that? SIGNED BY ANTHONY RAPP AND ADAM PASCAL!!!!

All the iconic Broadway Cares bears up for auction can be seen here. All proceeds go to help people living with AIDS.

Thanks to Joe Jervis!

Oh. My. Goodness. YES!

Xposted at CPB

At six o’clock the Thursday after Labor Day, I told my students, “It’s new comics day. I love you. Get out.” They probably didn’t believe the “I love you” part, but they knew I meant “Get out.” What could I do? Their young, impressionable, yearning minds were keeping me from getting Absolute New Frontier.

It’s enough to say that I got the ANF (only $75.00 minus an additional 10%, thanks ABC!), but it wasn’t all I got. Of course.

Collecting is a sickness. It is. In order to be a good collector, one needs to feel that unless one has every member of a set, then one is incomplete. One also needs to not care about potential financial ruin or personal relationships (which, contrary to a popular song lyric, do require money to seal the deal; I mean, for anyone with self-esteem) . All that matters is completeness. Completeness is one. If you don’t believe me, go to San Diego for Comic Con one year. You’ll see what I mean.

Having poor impulse control helps, too. It helps a lot.

Here’s what I love about the Absolute editions (besides the annotations): they’re large and heavy, which means they’re important, which means they’re worth having. Seriously, these things have more gravitas than Ian McKellen doing King Lear for the Kennedy family. To further illustrate this, I own the Arkham Horror series of boardgames. All of them. I’ve never played them, but, God help me, together they weigh almost 40 pounds and have over 2,000 playing pieces. That alone is enough for me to have invested close to $300 in them.

Let me say that again: I’ve never played them.

You see where this is going.

Absolute New Frontier is sitting on my shelf. Still in the shrink wrap. Still unread. And going to stay that way. Pristine. My boyfriend expressed dismay about this. And if she knew about it, I’m sure my mother would, too.

Even with a 10% discount (everyday on trade paperback and graphic novels!) $75 seemed a bit steep, but $60 seemed perfectly reasonable and $47 seemed like I was holding a gun to someone’s head, or so I told myself when I saw that’s how much Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths, Absolute Sandman Volume One and Absolute Kingdom Come cost on Amazon.com respectively. And these weren’t even the New & Used, these were off-the-Amazon-shelves-and-still-shrink-wrapped new. What could I do? I’m a collector what a thing for gravitas and annotations. I got them. And when they arrive they will go to my shelf. Unwrapped. Unread. Pristine.

Billy Mumy’s cornfield was never so wonderfully populated.

In my own defense (sorta), I didn’t buy Seduction of the Innocent as I had originally planned. I researched the book a bit and found that the original publisher cut two pages out of the book (the bibliography) to avoid any possible lawsuit, even if it did destroy the integrity of the book’s research. My goal now is to own a copy with those pages intact. I have some self-control and pride. But only some. And I’m pretty sure even Neil Gaiman doesn’t own this book. So, watch out, Neil; I’m gonna be one up on you yet!

Xposted at CPB

With summer being over, I’m on my own in the evenings more often than not. My boyfriend is back at school, as am I, and living in different counties means casual visits don’t happen on school nights. There is also nothing on TV I have to watch. Yet. This leaves me with the dog and my laptop and my obsessive thoughts. Once I get an idea in my head, it paces from one lobe to another like a caged panther, and though I had more or less dismissed the idea of owning Absolute New Frontier because it was cost prohibitive, well, there’s always Amazon New & Used to check out.

See, the panther finds sneaky ways out of the cage.

The first thing I found out was that Absolute New Frontier was (and still is) OOP. Which meant it was $100. Which meant I needed to get back to ABC before their stock was gone because if there’s one thing that makes me wetter than annotations it’s “OOP”. It’s the bell that undams the drool. Unfortunately, this was late last Tuesday night (like, after midnight late), and I wouldn’t have a real reason to go to ABC until Thursday when the new comics were shelved. But beast had to be fed. Immediately. So, I went back to the beginning: Gaiman’s shelves.

[stage whisper] I have a good word and a bad word for whomever took the pictures of the Gaiman library: the subject matter is rare air, heady and unbelievable; however, the blow-ups are blurry, bad bad quality pics for someone had the pro credentials to get into Neilland. They frustrate the girl with an eye on her own library. Still, before an hour was gone, I had stacked an impressive pile of books in my Amazon cart (my own invisible plane, as it were), including Shadows Over Baker Street, Tonight, Somewhere in New York, The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry, The Brand-X Anthology of Fiction, The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club, The Ten-Cent Plague and Anno-Dracula. I balked at a copy of Seduction of the Innocent, which I’m now reconsidering because, ya know, “OOP”.

Shameless, I know. Actually plagiarizing someone else’s library. There should be a law.

Having successfully spent more money on books than I had on food for the month, I settled on the couch with the dog and considered my spree over with one codicil: I would get Absolute New Frontier the next day, then I could consider the panther at rest.

Right?

To be continued…

Labor Day weekend meant that my local comics shop – Austin Books and Comics – had its annual sale on selected hardcovers, complete series’ sets and trade paperbacks. Being an American and therefore a consumer, I went to see if they had anything I couldn’t live without. At first, there really wasn’t, though I lingered on a complete set of Scurvy Dogs for about twenty minutes longer than was necessary for the staff to come back and check on me several times. Then I saw Absolute New Frontier.

Oh my.


When New Frontier debuted, I looked at the issue, but didn’t really have any abiding interest in the series. It wasn’t until I saw the animated movie that I realized what a work of genius the story was. I got the set on eBay that night. Now, I was confronted with an Absolute edition of this great story, complete with annotations. ooOOOh. Nothing makes me wetter than annotations; they’re like secrets told around the water cooler, historical rumors. And the price of all this deliciousness was $75.00.

And that popped the balloon. There was no way I was gong to spend $75 on this book, no matter how cool. There went my dream of having the Gaiman library. If I wasn’t going to commit the money (my money, at least; should a sugar daddy come along, I’d have no problem spending his money), there was no way I’d be able to fill a single room with books, let alone a whole basement.

That was, until I went to Amazon.com later that week.

To be continued…

Xposted at CPB

I’m going to blame Neil Gaiman.

A few weeks ago, Shelfari posted pictures of Gaiman’s home library, and I simply had to have it. I have never been more envious of anyone of anything ever. Ever. However, not knowing the guy, I can say with some assuredness that he’s not going to bequeath his Lexical Heaven to me ‘cuz I’m such a swell person. So, I invented a fantasy in which it was totally possible for me to have his library and read it too: a Zombie Apocalypse. There’s me, see, a lonely survivor of the Awakening making my way cross country after Austin is mostly decimated (in all actuality, Austin would probably be one of the few cities in the the US to survive a zombie attack; everyone here knows the best ways to defend against them and it’s Texas, so guns and ammo are readily available at any convenience store (though I see myself more as a samurai sword-and-shillelagh kind of survivor)) to Gaiman’s Minnesota abode. There, I meet my family and a handful of other like-minded (i.e., “well-read”) survivors, and we make our way to Gaiman’s basement. He’s not there, nor is his family. I’m not sure where they are in my fantasy. I know they’re not dead because I’m certain I don’t want to live in a post-apocalyptic Gaiman-less world. I mean, that’s just too bleak. Maybe they’re waiting out the Awakening on an island somewhere. It doesn’t matter. They’re not there, and JOY!! the library is also a panic room. So, we lock ourselves in and spend our days reading and telling stories al la The Decameron. The library is mine. The end.

I know what you’re thinking: On what desert island with no hope of rescue will that be happening? Well, of course, it’s a fantasy, but I still couldn’t stop looking at the pictures of what a real home library could be if one happened to be as wealthy, talented and literate as Neil Gaiman. Being none of those, there was really only one option for me: I had to buy every book in his library for myself. Finances be damned!

And don’t think I won’t do it!

To be continued…

Xposted at CPB

I’ve become an indiscriminate reader of personal ads on craigslist, which means that while I used to read only the M4M ads for my own pornographic enjoyment, I’ve branched out to all the other x4x variations (including the sadly desperate “missed connections“), though I get less, let’s call it “enjoyment” out of the pictures and ad text than I do in M4M. One thing I’ve come to notice is that gay men (and a few “straight” guys) are way more willing to show window shoppers the goods up front along with detailed descriptions of what they want to do/have done to them, but will not show face pics, whereas straight men and women will show you their faces and give just as lurid descriptions of sexual desires as the gay folk, but won’t show their junk. What this means really is that if there’s an ad with a “pic” graphic next to it, I’m more likely to find what I want to see/read about in the M4M section than in any of the others, but in the final analysis I’m probably just rationalizing my enjoyment of porn.

Every once in a while, I get surprised by pictures like this:

more behind the wrinkle

This week I adopted two new pet obsessions – “Sorority Girls from Hell!!” (“DUNH dah dah DUNH dah dah HAHAHAHAHAH!!!”) and this cartoon form HijiNKS Ensue:

This is just one of the extensive BSG-based comics the guys at HE have come up with. The commentary that accompanies each is worth the visit every time. Also, if you need to get me a gift, the have this t-shirt (I’m a medium. I AM!):





A little late in the season, perhaps, but if they update it to “‘12″, I know which cancer-ridden president I’ll be voting for!

First, from extrafuerte is a man-on-wolf little red riding hood (a theme making its way through my life of late) t-shirt:

Then there is The Atlas of True Names. Imagine the whole world known by what their names mean and not by how they are pronounced by the modern tongue. The Himalayas, for instance, would be called “House of Winter” because “hima” means “winter”, and “-alaya” means “house, abode”. It’s a brilliant piece of work and would look great next to my copy of the Map of Humanity.





No real gift-giving holidays are coming up soon, but it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead.

For those whose taste in camp knows no bounds, they too can impress the hell out of their friends by owning a Batphone! can i get a “Holy Ma Bell, Batman?”

Anyone saying “Screw the iphone! I want a Batphone!”?

–Thanks to Scott!

From Accordion Guy comes news of The Map of Humanity, a stellar (or terran, but better) piece of para-cartography by comic creator James Turner. Click on the map above for a substantially larger view, and click on Accordion Guy’s link above to read more about it.

I’m wondering who I can sell to get me one of these mounted and framed. For those heading to Comic Con, you can get them at the SLG Publishing booth (#1815).

Thanks to Joveth Gonzalez for the heads up!

UPDATE: MY BROTHER GOT ME THIS FOR OUR BIRTHDAY!!!!!

I used to have the basic boxed set of Villains & Vigilantes (plus three modules – Crisis at Crusader Citadel, Death Duel with the Destroyers and The Island of Doctor Apocalypse – but gave it to my cousins after staying at their house one summer. I have no idea why I did that, nor why I want it all back so badly.

An aside: that was also the summer I discovered Star Blazers. I wonder if there’s a connection.

Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles with Golden Apple Comics is hosting a tribute to Stan Lee. Guy’s like 200, right? Guess they figured he needed honored before the Devil came to get his own. Anyway, the art is WONDERFUL! Some more than others, of course, but one item did get my attention more than the others. And oh! I’m sure it’s cost-prohibitive, but if anyone could get this little guy for me

I would do… well, I’d be in no position to tell you what I’d do. Basically, you’d be telling me what to do. Yeah, I want it that badly. And it would be worth doing.. whatever it was I had to do. C’mon! Look how cute he is!! I would love this little guy more than Stan Lee would, Plus, I’ll put out. Stan Lee would not make you that offer, I guarantee!