UPDATE

This holiday season has proven to be more challenging and time-consuming for me than I anticipated. My apologies to anyone waiting on responses from me. Those won't be happening until sometime after Christmas and maybe not until the new year. I'm currently planning a trip that could have me away from my office for several days, so that's also a factor.

Let me stress that all is well. I'll be posting today's bloggy thing a little later in the morning.

Happy holidays to all!

Tony Isabella

HO-HO-HORROR: SLAY BELLES

‘Tis the week before Christmas and all though the bloggy thing, our Tony is doing a frightful yuletide movie binge. From here through December 24, I’ll be writing about a different holiday-themed film every day. It’s my twisted take on the War on Christmas.

Slay Belles, not to be confused with the Ru Paul album of the same name, is a 2018 movie directed by Dan Walker and written by Jessica Luhrssen and Walker. It stars Barry Bostwick as Santa with Kristina Klebe, Susan Slaughter and Hannah Wagner as urban explorers Alexi, Dahlia and Sadie. Here’s the Internet Movie Database summary:

It's Christmas Eve and three cosplaying women come across the malevolent Christmas demon Krampus. The girls must team up with Santa Claus himself to battle the creature and save the world.

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“Cosplaying” is a stretch. For the holiday-themed episode of their YouTube show The Adventure Girls, the ladies go to the abandoned Santa Land amusement park wearing sexy Christmas outfits. For those of you who care about such things, there is one lightning-quick boob shot. I mention this only so you don’t spend the entire 77 minutes this movie runs looking for more.

On their way, the girls stop at a bar owned by the prickly Cherry [Diane Salinger]. They also learn from a local park ranger that a number of children have gone missing and some mutilated bodies have been found. The operating theory is a hungry bear.

The girls break into Santa Land, which is played by the remains of the for real Santa’s Village in southern California. Before long, they run into Krampus as the demon places bloody body bits into a Christmas present box. He sees them and chases them into a cabin. Inside the cabin: Santa!

Bostwick clearly has a great time playing Kris Kringle. After his magic convinces the girls that he’s the real deal, he explains that Krampus is the demon of Christmas evil and hints at some mystical connection between himself and the monster. This is where I nailed the ending of the movie. But I digress.

Santa and the girls capture Krampus by shooting him with some sort of tranquilizer gun. When Krampus goes unconscious, Santa passes out as well. One and one equals...well, let’s just say the ladies aren’t good at math.

Krampus escapes. Santa and the Adventure Girls run for their lives. Krampus kills some people, including Sadie’s estranged boyfriend. He responds to her phone call just to die. Ranger Sean [Stephen Ford] shows up and the girls shoot him with the tranquilizer gun. More fleeing and a little more killing ensues. Oh, yeah, and those bloody bits Krampus put into the Christmas present box have turned into hairy balls with teeth. They try to chomp the girls, but get shot into dead hairy balls pretty quickly.

I’m cutting to the chase. Bar owner Cherry is revealed to be Kris’ ex-wife. Cherry’s new main squeeze is Krampus. When Krampus is shot  and Santa suffers the same injury, the girls finally suss out how strong the connection is. However, by that time, Cherry and Krampus have taken off in Santa’s sleigh to spread their murderous mayhem all over the world. The girls save the world by decapitating Santa with an axe. Santa dies. Krampus dies. The sleigh explodes, which probably means Cherry dies as well.

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On the plus side...

Slay Belles isn’t a very good movie, but it’s good and funny enough for one viewing. Bostwick and Salinger clearly have fun playing their characters. Klebe, Slaughter and Wagner have a likeable chemistry. The Krampus suit is decent.

On the minus side...

The acting and the writing could and should have been better. The basic idea was good.

The night scenes were shot way too dark. That seems to be a common problem with movies like this. Sometimes it’s because the effects don’t look good, sometimes it’s just bad camera work. I’m guessing it’s a combination of both those things in this movie.

Richard Moll is wasted as a ranger in this movie. His character is  totally unnecessary to the movie. He doesn’t get any good dialogue or action scenes. As a fan of this actor’s work, I felt cheated by how poorly he was used.

Rotten Tomatoes says 92% of the audience liked this movie, which is probably fair given that it is a fun little holiday horror romp. Its average rating was 4.8/5.

Slay Belles is available on Prime Video for $4.99 (rent) or $7.99 (buy). The DVD is $15.99, but Amazon has it for $11.99. The Blu-ray is $26.99, but Amazon has it for $20.25.

The DVD cover art is shown at the top of today’s bloggy. The actual movie poster is way more fun:
                                                                                

Without even breaking a sweat, I found seven more Christmas horror movies in my vast accumulation of movies I own and haven’t watched yet. I’ll be watching one of those for tomorrow’s bloggy thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re naughty or nice, you’re getting my reviews of these movies right up to Christmas Eve.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

           

BLACK LIGHTNING BEAT 12/16/18

Black Lightning’s midseason finale aired last week. I kind of sort of knew what was going to be happening in the first season of the TV series based on the character I created. That was not the case with this second season. I was constantly and pleasantly surprised by the chances the episodes took and how well the cast and writers pulled them off. Since some of you may not be current on the show, here’s our traditional warning:

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The Pierce family has been put through the wringer. Jefferson lost his job as principal and saw his beloved Garfield High turned into a bureaucratic “zero tolerance” parody of its former promise, complete with metal detectors at all its entrances. Yet the moving scene where Jeff announced this to the students made it clear he’s had a positive effect on them.

Lynn, still dealing with having had to kill a man at the end of the first season, is caring for the metahumans in suspended animation. The government has its own agenda and that included bringing in a heartless monster whose science-over-humanity machinations led to the deaths of half of those metahumans.

Anissa is struggling to find balance between her own true self and her other identity as Thunder. She can be reckless and has crossed more than a few lines along the way.

Jennifer is horrified by her powers and, taken out of school, feels like a prisoner in her own home. Her love for Khalil (Painkiller) and her desire to see him freed from Tobias Whale saw both of these rebellious teens making bad choices.

Peter Gambi has enemies beyond those faced by the Pierce family, a situation which led him to fake his own death and has impacted his ability to help the people he loves most in this world. Above all else, Black Lightning has become the most out-there family saga on television and I couldn’t love it more. My creations have gone to emotional places that surprise and delight me.

Jefferson isn’t always thinking through his actions. I feel closer to him than ever. Because, as I’ve said in the past, there is a lot of me in my creation. If anything, he’s handling things much better than I would in his shoes. But I sympathize with his desperation, fear and helplessness because those feelings would be my feelings in those circumstances.

Tobias Whale has become such a formidable villain in this season. I’ve witnessed my wife screaming at the TV when he commits acts of brutality. She wants him ended. Me...I think the Tobias Whale we’re seeing on the TV series is a much better and more complex and scarier Tobias Whale than any of the versions I’ve written. Watching him do his evil is like watching a chess master.

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Great new villains. Surprising revelations. Amazing performances. The best writing of any comics-based TV series. Breathtaking action sequences. Outstanding graphics and music.

Black Lightning is the best show on television. Watching it every week is like getting a new and beautiful grandchild every week. I love the series and everyone who contributes to it. Since I’m not writing Black Lightning comics at the moment - not by my choice - the show is the only version of my creation that I consider to be consistent with the character’s core values and my own.

Black Lightning will return from its midseason hiatus on Monday, January 21. If I can pull things together by then, I’ll be bringing you my scene-by-scene commentary of each new episode shortly after it airs.

                                                                             

Over at DC Comics...

I wish I could report that I’m writing an ongoing Black Lightning series or even another mini-series, but, apparently, DC Comics has no interest in my writing Black Lightning or any other project for them. I just hope I don’t have to wait another twenty years to be reunited with my creation.

For now, fans of my Black Lightning comic books should be on the lookout for February’s Black Lightning: Brick City Blues trade paperback. This book will feature my 1995 stories with Eddy Newell, some not remotely good stories by another writer, the Kwanzaa tale Eddy and I did for DC Universe Holiday Bash #2 and an all-new foreword by me. Readers have been asking for this run to be collected almost from the moment it ended and I’m delighted that it’s finally coming back into print.

Another worthy Black Lightning item for that month will be Scooby-Doo Team-Up #46. Thanks to the clever and often hilarious writing by Sholly Fisch, this has become my favorite DC title. I can’t wait to see what Fisch has in store for my creation.

Two other new comics with Black Lightning were also on the February schedule, but the orders on both have been cancelled. The first was The Other History of the DC Universe #1, a prose and art comic book by noted screenwriter John Ridley. I was intrigued by this out-of-DCU-continuity series and even ordered a copy.

Why were orders cancelled? DC must have been somewhat impressed by it, having bought the cover of the Previews catalog to showcase it. Then...something happened. Several online pundits have speculated on the why of this. Theories include the disastrous launch of DC’s Black Label imprint and the uncomfortable fact that Michael Davis pitched a similar project to the publishers several years ago and had it rejected by the company. I’m not remotely in the DC loop, so I’ll just wait and see how it plays out.

Orders were also cancelled on Batman and the Outsiders #1 and #2. This is the ill-conceived title in which Black Lightning regresses to just another Batman sidekick, despite how out of character that is for him. Official word is it was pushed back because of coming  events in the DC Universe. From where I stand as the guy who knows Jeff Pierce better than anyone working for DC, I’d be deliriously happy if this title never appears.

DC also again offered two previous Black Lightning trades. One is Black Lightning Volume Two, which features 1970s stories by writers other than me and a new introduction by me. The other one is Black Lightning Year One, of which I have a low opinion.

Not offered again were Black Lightning Volume One, which reprinted my 1977 run on the character, and Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands, this year’s Isabella-written reboot of my creation. I think CDH is the best comics story I’ve ever written, so I’m disappointed it and the reprint volume were not offered again.

Unless I love Black Lightning comics not written by me, I’ll likely not comment on them. However, that’s just a guideline I have given myself. It ain’t carved in stone.

                                                                             

One more item. Not to be a nag, but the *official* Black Lightning credit line is “Created by Tony Isabella with Trevor von Eeden”. That’s the credit line DC Comics is *required* to use. I wrote it. DC agreed to it.

“With” was always meant to be ambiguous. Neither Trevor nor myself consider him to be a co-creator of Black Lightning. My including him in the credit honors his role as the primary designer of Black Lightning’s original costume and his other artistic contributions to my first series.

I should always be referred to as the *creator* of Black Lightning and not *co-creator*. If the ambiguity in the official credit leads you to refer to Trevor as *co-creator* that’s something that I can live with me. He’s my brother and my friend, someone I want to work with again. Indeed, he was my first choice to draw both my second Black Lightning title in 1995 and Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands.  I’ve asked him to draw the cover of my Black Lightning and My Road to Diversity book-in-progress.

Going forward...

“Black Lightning Beat” will be appearing regularly in this bloggy thing of mine. Even without me writing new Black Lightning comics, there’s always news and cool stuff to report. Look for the another installment very soon.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

           

TONY'S TIPS #286

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder...Spider-Man/Iron Man: Marvel Team-Up by Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Ross Andru, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema and other Marvel Comics creators of the 1970s and reprinting one story by me. Also: After the Rain 1 by Jun Mayuzuki and I am Sonia Sotomayor by Brad Meltzer and illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos: http://blog.talesofwonder.com/?p=1314

                                                                                

                                                                            

TUESDAY WITH TONY

The holiday season is upon us with all its attendant madness. Here in Medina, I’m also working on my 2019 appearance schedule. Which means it’s time for our continuing bloggy thing on what it takes to get me to your event.

Here’s where we start. If you want me at your convention or other event, you must e-mail me. Don’t contact me on Facebook or Twitter. E-mail me and I’ll send you my appearance requirements.

In 2019, most conventions I drive to will have to provide me with the following: travel expenses, hotel expenses and appearance fee. If a convention flies me in, it needs to provide airfare for me and a companion...and an aisle seat. At 67, I’m not as spry as I used to be and, even when I was younger, I was a nervous flier. Think of my companion, who will be either a family member or a friend, as my comfort human being.

Besides appearing at your event, I’m willing to do two panels a day as long as they aren’t back to back. I can do a solo presentation. I can host or appear on panels. I can do a performance of one of my stories, using audience members to “play” some of the characters. In the case of the last, I will need someone to prepare the story for projection on a large screen.

I will do pre-event publicity with your local radio or television stations. Ditto newspaper reporters.

Those are the bare bones of my appearance requirements. I’m not a cheap date, but I am a fun-within-reason date.

My 2019 schedule is starting to come together. Shows in italics are tentative at this time.

February 2-3: North Texas Comic Book Show

February 22-24: Pensacon

 

March 9-10: Big Apple Comic-Con

May 18: East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention

July 12-14: G-Fest

July 17-21: Comic-Con International

 

August 16-18: New Mexico Comic Expo

November 2-3: Akron Comicon

 

November 8-9: Grand Rapids Comic-Con

Pensacon, Akron Comicon and Grand Rapids Comic-Con are very likely. It’s just a matter of working out a few details.

Comic-Con International is very iffy. That’s an expensive event to do on my own dime and, at this time, the convention hasn’t invited me and no publisher or other company has arranged to bring me to the event. I want to attend. I am bone weary of Black Lightning panels and promotions taking place sans the guy without whom there would be no Black Lightning. I’m trying to figure out how can I afford to attend. Suggestions are welcome.

With the exception of the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention and G-Fest and my garage sales, I charge for my signature. The first one is free. After that, they are $5 each. If you’re bringing a comics-grading company person to witness the signature, the price is $10 each. Those prices could go up. When I have raised the price in the past, it’s been because actual fans have urged me to do so. But, at the moment, I think those prices will stand.

If you want me to sign something for you via the mail, here’s the procedure for that.

My address is:

Tony Isabella
840 Damon Drive
Medina, OH 44256

Send the item in a package that includes a self-addressed, stamped envelope for return mailing. That way I can sign it and pop it back in the mail immediately.

Let me know how and where you want the item signed. Do you want it personalized? Do you want it signed on the cover or on the splash page inside the book?

As with other items, I’ll sign one item for free. Additional items will cost $5 each.

There are some thankfully few folks who criticize me for charging appearance and autograph fees. There will be conventions who won’t have me as a guest because of this. I’m not going to be debate my policies beyond this:

I’ll be 67 years old on December 22. I’m in relatively good health and intend to keep writing until they pull my keyboard from my cold dead hands. However, in my field, there is never a guarantee of a next job after the job you’re working on. I’m working to put money aside for my retirement or any health problems that arise. So, yes, I am charging these fees.

We live in a convention world where “Zombie #3” gets paid to come to conventions. I’m not asking for the kind of money a convention will pay for a bona-fide movie or TV actor. But the money they would pay “Zombie #3"? Yeah, they can pay me that, too.

Of course, there are other ways you can contribute to my financial well-being and that’s by buying my books. The titles currently in print are:

Black Lightning Volume 1 ($19.99)

Black Lightning Volume 2 ($19.99)

Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands ($16.99)

July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic Book Life of Tony Isabella Volume One ($17.95)

And, coming in February of 2019:

Black Lightning: Brick City Blues ($19.99)

One more thing. I also speak at libraries, schools and other venues. In 2019, to name one example, I’ll be speaking at a prison. Obviously, getting an appearance fee and expenses helps my ability to give these talks. However, whenever possible, I will work with these institutions. I’ve had a pretty good career and life. Paying back seems like a small enough thing to do.

If you have any questions related to today’s bloggy thing I haven’t answered above, feel free to e-mail me. I’ll do my best to answer in a timely fashion, even at this busy time of the year.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

           

RUNNING LATE TODAY

Good morning, my friends. I'm running behind on my schedule - no battle plan survives contact with the enemy - but hope to post a new bloggy thing for today before the end of the day.

MORE MAGAZINES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Magazine subscriptions make great holiday gifts. They remind loved ones of your love for them all year long. The other day, I wrote about some magazines I thought would make wonderful presents for people in your life. Today, I’m writing about some other magazines I also think would serve that role just as admirably.

Edited by Eric Norwood, Comics Revue [Manuscript Press; $19.95 per double-numbered issue] is another of my mostest favorite magazines. Yeah, I know “mostest” isn’t really a word, but it aptly describes a journal that delivers 128 pages of classic comic strips in each and every issue.

Let’s look at issue #389-390 [October 2018] as an example. On the cover, we get a way cool shot of gunslinger Hipshot Percussion from “Rick O’Shay” by Stan Lynde. Set in the Old West, the strip presented adventure, humor, social commentary or a combination of the three. This issue reprinted a story from 1976.

The issue also featured complete stories of Mandrake the Magician from 1937, the comical Sir Bagby from 1962, the Phantom from 1959 and Casey Ruggles from 1952: Serials included two different takes on Flash Gordon, Alley Oop, Buz Sawyer, Tarzan, Gasoline Alley, Steve Canyon, Krazy Kat, Steve Roper and Garth.  When a new issue arrives at Casa Isabella, I try to prolong my enjoyment by reading just one story a day. “Try” is the operative word there.

A one-year, six-issue subscription is a bargain $59. For ordering information, go to:

 

www.comicsrevue.com

                                                                            

As the pastor of the First Church of Godzilla, the closest thing I have to holy scriptures is the quarterly G-Fan magazine edited and published by J.D. Lees. It can be a flawed scripture. There’s been a little too much right-wing jingoism in the mag’s “Gfantis” comic strip and then some fairly absurd defense of same, but just about everything else in the issues is wonderful.

G-Fan #121 [Fall 2018; $6.95] had articles on the secret history of Destroy All Monsters, one of the actors playing a Ghidorah head in the next Godzilla movie from Legendary, G-Fest XXV, King Kong, The Meg, alterations of Godzilla movies for release in the United States and more. The highlight of the issue was a replica of the original pressbook for Destroy All Monsters.

Four issues of G-Fest will cost $25 in the US and $26 in Canada, where the magazine is based. Both subscriptions are postage paid. The only drawback to the magazine is that it makes me want to run out and buy all the amazing things it shows and, since some of the stuff is only available in Japan, I’d be chalking up more frequent flier miles than I can afford.

For more, go to: http://www.g-fan.com/

                                                                                

My friend Martin Arlt’s Mad Scientist [$7 per issue) comes out on an irregular basis, but the arrival of each new issue delights me. Issue #33 [Summer 2018] has an amazing paper cutout cover inspired by The Lost World [1925] by John Rozum, who you might know better as a top-notch writer of comic books. It illustrates Arlt’s 17-page article on that classic movie.

Other articles and features cover Viewmaster dinosaurs, the sequels that time forgot, the rhedosaurus (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms), famous and obscure paleo-monsters and Hal Hardy in the Lost Land of Giants, a Big Little Book.

Subscriptions to Mad Scientist are not offered, but you can go the magazine’s website 

 

http://madscientistzine.com/ 

 

to order this current issue and back issues. Order a stack of back issues for the monster-loving friends on your gift list. They’ll love them!

                                                                                

We have to go across the pond for the next two magazine on Tony’s recommended gift list.  Published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd., the black-and-white digest-size comics magazine Commando releases four issues every two weeks. The four-pack is equally split between new and reprint stories.

I compare Commando to the non-series back-up stories that would run behind Sgt. Rock and the Haunted Tank in DC’s great war comics of the 1960s. Each 63-page tale is complete unto itself and suitable for all ages. The reprints are generally set during World War I and II, but some issues range much further. Indeed, a science-fiction adventure or two has worked its way into the mix.

I’m months behind on my reading of Commando, but that’s a factor of how often issues are released and not any lack of fondness for the series. Some of the recent issues I’ve read have featured courageous women fighting for their country, soccer rivals and soldiers striving to achieve redemption for past mistakes or outright sins.

Commando doesn’t come cheap for those of us in the United States. My recurring one-year subscription runs me just south of $200 per year. You either have to be lousy rich, which I am not, or really love someone to give them a Commando subscription.

                                                                              

The other D. C. Thomson publication I recommend and subscribe to is Beano, Britain’s longest-running children’s comics weekly. Quirky kids, who could only be considered as truly bad in a world that was much nicer than ours, are Beano’s reigning stars: Dennis the Menace (who made his debut the same time as the American Dennis the Menace, but not related to the Mitchell kid), Minnie the Minx, Roger the Dodger, Billy Whizz (the world’s fastest boy), Calamity James, Bananaman and more. The humor won’t appeal to all readers, but I’m still enjoying the magazine enough to sign up for a recurring subscription at around $125 a year.

For subscription information, I suggest you go directly to the D.C. Thomson website:

 

https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/

                                                                             

TV Guide is my final magazine gift recommendation for this holiday season. I have a nostalgic love for this magazine. When I was just a wee lad and the magazine was digest-size, I used to love reading every new issue and deciding which programs I would watch. Yes, we only had three channels back then, but it was still magic.

The current TV Guide is magazine-size and carries information and schedules on a great many more channels, but, every day, I check out what’s on that day and decide which shows I’m going to record. I wish that I had that “record” option when I was a kid. Even with just three channels, there were hard decisions to be made.

If you tell me TV Guide isn’t as fun as it once was, I won’t argue with you. But it’s still fun and it’s still useful. I’ll subscribe as long as I own a TV set.

TV Guide is one of those ridiculously cheap subscriptions. A year subscription (52 weeks, though some weeks are doubled up) costs $20 and, currently, you get a free wine tote with your order. Pay via credit card and you’ll get an extra eight free issues. You can buy a subscription at: 

 

https://www.tvguide.com/

That’s all for today, my friends. I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2018 Tony Isabella