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Showing posts from October, 2012

"Kiss In Australia" - The 1980 Movie That Never Was

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You can file this under “Movies I’m Glad They Never Made”. I’ve always been a huge Kiss fan. From the moment that I first heard Destroyer in 1977 through to when Ace left, I was always a fan, and I remained a big booster of the band throughout the 1980s. I still consider their second three studio albums – Destroyer, Rock ‘N Roll Over and Love Gun - to be masterpieces and I adore Dynasty and Unmasked. Hell, how can one not adore Unmasked, containing, as it does, some of Ace Frehley’s best tunes, in the form of Torpedo Girl, Two Sides Of The Coin and the brilliant Talk To Me. Ace never got better really. I couldn’t care when I discovered, later in life, that the audience noise on Alive and Alive II was overdubbed, or that Peter didn’t play drums on the latter two albums, or that Gene rarely played bass. Hell, only Paul played on Shandi, but it didn't matter.  It just proved to me that the heart of the band was always Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley. Once they split that really was i

Saturday Sketch Day: Tom Grindberg's Conan

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Today's entry in the regular Saturday Sketch Day , a series in which I look at sketches, preliminaries and other oddities in my own personal art collection is none other than Tom Grindberg .  I ow n a lot of Tom Grindberg sketches and preliminaries - over 100 of them to be accurate.  Each sketch is a delight, from some very rough pencil doodles through to some hyper detailed ideas, each and every one of them could be featured and prove to be a delight to anyone who likes such things.  Trust me, it's been hell to narrow down the selection to but one, but I've managed to do just that. What amazes me about Tom's sketch work is that it's in these roughs that his true influences are on display.  Each time he draws a comic he takes on a persona, he adapts to to the job at hand and emulates any style that an editor asks for.  In effect he is a true chameleon when it comes to his professionally published work.  In 2009 I had the good fortune to correspond with and inte

Saturday Sketch Day: Bob Budiansky's Ghost Rider

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Today's entry in the regular Saturday Sketch Day , a series in which I look at sketches, preliminaries and other oddities in my own personal art collection, is one of the best artists to ever grace the pages of Ghost Rider - Bob B udiansky.   Bob is one of the reasons why I read comics as a youngster, and it was my desire to know the story behind the stellar run on GR that he did, in collaboration with inker Dave Simons and writers Roger Stern and J.M DeMatties, that saw me seek him out, along with Dave Simons.  I met Dave first and we forged a strong friendship and while Dave was more than agreeable to do a cover recreation of what I still consider to be the finest Ghost Rider cover of all time - that cover being the 'Freaks' issue - I held off, much to Dave's growing amusement.  Then I was hooked up with Bob, via art dealer and all round good guy Jeff Jaworski .   I interviewed Bob at length about Ghost Rider and I suspect it amused him somewhat as most people

Superman - Joe Shuster's 50% Belongs To...DC Comics!

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You've read the headline right.  The judge hearing the DC Comics vs Marc Toberoff case has issued an order, which states that Joe Shuster's 50% share of Superman belongs to DC Comics, and has belonged to DC Comics since Joe passed away in 1992.  This means that , unless the order is overturned on appeal, lawyer Marc Toberoff cannot claim a controlling interest in Superman and all of his contracts with the Shuster heirs are worth about as much as the paper they're printed on.  It also means that, as you'll soon read, "...between November 10, 2003 (when the Notice was served) and October 26, 2013 (its effective date), DC was and is the only party that may enter into an agreement with the Shuster heirs regarding the Superman rights sought to be recaptured."  Thus, if the Shuster heirs wish to capitalise on their half of Superman, they have to deal with DC, as they did when Joe passed away. Th i s order has come about due to a series of letters and agreemen

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