SIGNATURE POLICY

[This bloggy thing has been updated with additional information on getting items signed through the mail or at my garage sales.]

For a few months now, I’ve been considering making some changes to my autograph policy. In the past, I haven’t charged for autographs at any convention or event I have attended.

However, as I see actors from movies and TV shows receive all sorts of perks from conventions and also charge for autographs and photo opportunities...as I see more and more comics creators charging for their signatures...as I see fans requesting autographs also asking to take photos of me signing items or holding up what I’ve signed for them for authentication purposes...or even bringing a grading company representative with them to witness the signature...well, it’s time for me to make some changes.

There will always be conventions and events where I don’t charge for my signature. The two that leap to mind are the Akron Comicon and the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention.

There will be conventions and events where I receive an appearance fee and all my expenses. For the most part, I won’t charge for my signature at those conventions.

Here’s what I’ll be doing at other conventions and events.

If you buy an Isabella item at my table, then I will sign it free of charge.

If you haven’t bought an item from me, I will still sign one item for you for free. I will sign additional items, but my signature on those will cost $2 per item.

If you want to take one photo of me, either just me or me with you,  I’ll do that for free.

If you want a photo of me signing an item, or holding up the item I have just signed, that will cost you $5 per photo. No exceptions even if I’m otherwise signing for free.

If you bring a representative from a grading company to witness my signing an item, that will cost you $5 per item. No exceptions even if I’m otherwise signing for free.

I know some people reading today’s bloggy thing will get all huffy and self-righteous, claiming they will never pay for the autograph of a lowly comics creator. Which is their choice and their absolute right. Of course, their indignation strikes me as a little shaky when I also hear them talking about how they just paid $20 or $30 or $40 or more for the autograph of an actor.

Making comic books, especially for freelance guys like me without guarantees of steady work or income, does not usually represent a path to great fame and fortune. We have the same day-to-day expenses that you do.

I appreciate you have been buying my work. In some case, you have been buying my work for years. God love you.

But I’m 66 years old in an industry that doesn’t always respect us older guys, even when we show we are just as good as we’ve ever been. Honestly, I think I’m better than I’ve ever been.

When I don’t have good paying work, which is my current situation, I still have all those day-to-day expenses. So I find other ways to make a few bucks and pay the bills. This autograph and photo policy is one of those other ways.

In the hopefully near future, I’ll be putting one of those “Donate via PayPal” buttons on my bloggy thing. I’ll also be setting up a  Patreon account for those who want to donate that way. The funds I get from these will help finance my prose books like July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella and several others I have started work on.

In addition and likewise in the very near future, I will be holding my legendary Vast Accumulation of Stuff garage sales. These will be  held every Friday and Saturday (and, occasionally, every Thursday and Sunday) when I’m not appearing at a convention or other event. More than ever, I want to decrease my VAOS to the point where Barb and I can consider moving to a smaller house in a much more progressive city than Medina. That would be a few years away, but I need to be making progress on that goal very soon.

Some additional policy comments.

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 $2 each.

If you come to my garage sales, I’ll sign for free as long as you have made a purchase, whether it’s of an Isabella item or not. But the same rate of $5 per item will apply if you want to photograph me signing the item, want me to hold up the items I’ve just signed so you can photograph me, or, in the highly unlikely event that you have brought someone from a grading company to witness my signing the item.

That’s where things stand with me at the moment. I hope even those of you who are offended by the above will, at least, appreciate my honesty in explaining my choices to you.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll have more for you soon.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

WESTERN WEDNESDAY

This is the first installment of my new “Western Wednesday” feature here in the bloggy thing. I grew up watching the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Cheyenne, Bat Masterson and a posse full of other Old West heroes. As a teenager, I read all the Marvel westerns of the 1960s and 1970s. Today, as an adult, I am fascinated by comics westerns. I enjoy reading them, examining their historical accuracy (or lack thereof) and writing about them. This recurring feature will appear whenever I excavate an interesting issue from my Vast Accumulation of Stuff.

Wild Western Action #3 [June 1971] came from Skywald Publishing, a company founded by, as Wikipedia describes “former Marvel Comics production manager Sol Brodsky and low-budget entrepreneur Israel Waldman.” The latter was previously known for packing unauthorized reprints of comic books in the late 1950s and early 1960s under the name I.W. Publications.

The cover of this issue was penciled by Syd Shores, inked by Frank Giacoia and lettered by Joe Rosen. Through Brodsky, who, I swear, could do every job associated with making comic books, the company attracted veteran creators as well as talented newcomers. I bought all of their titles - I was determined to break into comics - but I don’t recall ever submitting scripts to Skywald.

The Bravados were the lead feature of Wild Western Action and the only new material in this issue. They were the last five surviving residents of a destroyed town, banding together to roam the West in search of people in need. At least that’s my vague memory of this feature. It’s been 47 years since I read their origin.

“Guns of the Iron Riders” (10 pages) was written by Len Wein with pencil art by Shores and inks by Mike Esposito. A small town, the only green spot for many miles in any direction, is threatened by a railroad magnate who covets the underground springs that feed the little piece of paradise. He’s willing to destroy the town to get what he wants. The Bravadoes - ex-rancher Joshua Reno; the comely Hellion; “free-wheeling Jefferson Drumm, the big gentle black man Gideon and the mute Indian known as Charade - aren’t going to let another town die on their watch. It’s an action-packed story of the type that made the versatile Wein one of my favorite writers early on. The Shores/Esposito art was solid storytelling, which it had to be considering the creative team only had ten pages to do justice to five regular characters, the bad guys, the townspeople and a big ass train.
                                                                              

“King of the Bad Men of Deadwood” (8 pages) was written by Paul  Newman, drawn by John Forte and was reprinted from a 1950 Avon one-shot of the same name. The Grand Comics Database says both stories are ten pages, but this reprint is only eight.

The story tells of Sam Bass, “Deadwood’s first stage robber,” and is set in the 1870s. In reality, Bass robbed two stagecoaches and four trains before being gunned down by the Texas Rangers.
                                                                                 

Red Mask stars in “Bait for Death!” (7 pages). The writer of this story is unknown, but it was drawn by Frank Bolle. It’s a reprint from Red Mask #47 [Magazine Enterprises, May 1955] and guest-stars the Black Phantom. Bolle’s art breaks the borders in every panel. It was a faux-3-D effect used extensively by the publisher.

Five riders spot a desperate man fighting for his life against a band of Sioux warriors. They are prospector Abner Jones, line rider Luke Pawley, bank robber and killer Johnny Rogers, Red Mask and the lovely Black Phantom. They seem to arrive too late to save the man, who somehow turns up alive later and is revealed to be a scout for the Army. Jones, Pawley and Rogers are all killed by the Sioux. It looks like the same fate will befall Red Mask, the Phantom and the  scout...until the Sioux suddenly ride away from them. The scout was bringing a warning to General Custer. Red Mask tries to send a telegram to Custer, but is too late. The General and his Seventh Cavalry have been wiped out. The Sioux spared Red Mask and his companions so they could join Sitting Bull at the massacre. Which makes for a grim ending for a grim story.      

                                                                           

“Gun-Play in the Ghost Town” by an unknown writer is next. The one-page text ran in Avon’s Wild Bill Hickok #11 [May 1952]. Though the GCD entry for the reprint says it has an illustration by an unknown artist, but there is no illustration to be seen.
                                                                                  

The Durango Kid is the star of “The Blazing Eyes of Muley Pike!” (6 pages), which is drawn by Fred Guardineer and originally appeared in ME’s Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid #35 [April 1955]. The writer of the story is unknown at this time.

Sidekick Muley desires to be a hero in his own right. After being captured by stagecoach robbers subsequently captured by the Durango Kid, Muley decides to fight crime another way. He orders a book on hypnotism. Believing he’s mastered hypnotism, Muley is tricked into thinking he has a group of killers under his control. But the men have concealed weapons with which they plan kill the masked hero.

The surprise is on them. Durango notices the supposedly entranced men were giving each other sidelong glances and smirking. Throwing the huge book at them, the Kid then shoots their guns out of their hands. A disgusted Muley rips the book to shreds.
                                                                                   

The issue’s final story is “Dodge City's Outlaw Tamer” (8 pages) by an unidentified writer and artist. It tells how Bat Masterson tamed the violent town while serving as its sheriff. It originally ran in Avon’s Wild Bill Hickok #10 [February 1952].

This is a shorthand version of Masterson’s time as sheriff of Dodge City. It is somewhat accurate in places and does drop the name of a real-life outlaw or two, but it doesn’t mention young Masterson’s brush with the law nor his life before and after his time in Dodge City. Masterson led an interesting life and it would probably make for a fine biographical graphic novel.

Besides the editorial material, Wild Western Action #3 has 11 pages of ads of the low-rent variety which were all the smaller comics  publishers could get. Notable among them are ones pitching products based on the popular entertainments of the day: life-size, glow-in-the-dark posters of Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows; monster-size monster figures like the Frankenstein Monster; 100 stick-on stamps of movie monsters; Jeri of Hollywood’s “free” star photos of stars ranging from Lucille Ball to Clarence Williams III as well as fan-club memberships for same; and color posters of musical stars like Bob Dylan, Chicago and the Beatles.

This was the last issue of Wild Western Action. Skywald would then publish a single issue of The Bravados, which was probably intended to be the fourth issue of Wild Western Action. It kept the 52-page format, had one new story and reprinted adventures of Red Mask and the Durango Kid.

That’s it for this premiere installment of “Western Wednesday.” It won’t be a weekly feature, but it will appear as often as I uncover interesting western comics in my Vast Accumulation of Stuff.

I’ll be back on Friday with more stuff.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

JULY 1963: BORIS KARLOFF TALES OF MYSTERY

Welcome to what I’m considering “Volume Two” of my series on the 136 comic books that arrived on the newsstands in July 1963. As I’ve explained in previous installments of this series, that month was pivotal to my own comic-book career because it was the month when Fantastic Four Annual #1 ignited my desire to write comics.

I’m thinking in terms of “Volume Two” because the previous columns in this series have been collected in July 1963: A Pivotal Month in the Comic-Book Life of Tony Isabella Volume One. The columns that appear in that softcover book were rewritten as needed with bonus material added to the mix. The book is available from Amazon in two formats: Kindle and actual print.

Today we look at Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #5, a 36-page issue dated October 1963, and published by Gold Key. The striking cover is by George Wilson, the renowned illustrator who painted hundreds of comic-book covers for Dell and Gold Key.

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery was Boris Karloff Thriller, based on the TV anthology series hosted by the actor. The first issue of the title was dated October 1962 with the title change coming with the third issue [April 1963]. The title ran 95 issues, ending with the issue dated February 1980.

Gold Key comics of this time period generally devoted the inside front and back covers to the “Keys of Knowledge” feature. These were non-fiction comics pages on a variety of subjects.

“The Tomb of Ti” (Archaeology Number 7) was drawn by Joe Certa, a prolific contributor to Gold Key’s comics and the artist for DC’s “John Jones Manhunter from Mars” series, which ran as a feature in first Detective Comics and then House of Mystery. Here’s what a 1963 reader could learn from this page:

Auguste Mariette, a Frenchman, digging at Sakkara, came upon the tomb of Ti, a wealthy man who lived 4500 years ago. The walls of the tomb were covered with reliefs which showed details of the life of Ti and the wealthy people of his period. The reliefs also showed the kind of tools and working methods used by craftsmen and artisans of the ancient Egyptian times. Mariette was made the supervisor of all Egyptian excavation. He had the power to forbid digging by unauthorized persons. He finally persuaded the Egyptians to build a museum in which they could preserve the priceless treasures of their glorious past.

The writer of “The Tomb of Ti” has not yet been identified, but it is known the prolific Gaylord DuBois worked on “Keys of Knowledge” in 1963-1965. Carl Fallberg wrote railroad-based pages around the same time and might have written on other topics as well.

“The Sorcerer's Potion” (9 pages) is the cover story and, frankly, it’s a mess. Drawn by Ray Bailey from a script by a writer who has not yet been identified, the plot charges course every other page or two. We start with the clearly evil sorcerer talking to a large caged cat, telling it that, when he is finished with it, it’ll have the strength of a lion and the killer instinct of a panther. Don’t fixate on the cat. We never see it again.

The also evil Sir Hubert the Gaunt comes knocking on the sorcerer’s door. The two are hatching a plot for world domination. Disguised as the Red Knight, Hubert will kidnap a duke’s daughter. She will be given a mind-control potion. Step by step, other nobles will be given the potion until Hubert and the sorcerer control England and the world. No one ever actually drinks the potion.

Lady Eleanor, the Duke’s daughter, is defended by Sir Malcolm, who keeps getting taken by surprise. But he recovers from the attack, rides to her rescue and, more by luck than skill, sends Sir Hubert to his maker.

Fearful of the consequences of his actions, the sorcerer uses his powers to hide in a wine container. Eleanor figures this out, then traps him in the container for all eternity. She thinks.

Jump forward 800 years. The container is one of the exhibits at the sorcerer’s remarkably preserved tower. A mischievous youngster gets his hands on the container and releases a cloud of smoke that is, apparently, the sorcerer. No one believes the kid. That’s where the story ends. What the heck?

This issue has stories identified as being written by Dick Wood and Leo Dorfman. We know Newman wrote for the book as well, but he kept excellent records of his work. Two possible writers for this clumsy story would be Eric Freiwald or Robert Schaefer, TV writers who did many scripts for Gold Key. I’m going to wildly speculate on another possibility.

Though I can find no record of Charlton Comics icon Joe Gill doing scripts for Gold Key in 1963, “The Sorcerer’s Potion” reminds me of a Gill trait when he was writing for Charlton. Some of his scripts there read as if he didn’t have a firm grasp of where said scripts were going. He’d start a script and take it to whatever page count he was writing to. The scripts would go all over the place and just kind of sort of end.

Next up is “Possessed” (11 pages) by Dick Wood with pencils by Alex Toth and inks by Mike Peppe. This is an unsettling story with its suburban black magic club that conjures up the spirits of X, Y, and Z. In turn, they possess housewife Betty, making her slovenly and then reckless and then flirtatious. At the end of the story, these spirits make it clear that they like possessing Betty and will not be going anywhere. Considering that Gold Key comics had a squeaky clean reputation, this story is shocking. Not only do the spirits win, but, reading between the lines, Betty is looking for a bit of  loving outside her marriage. Still, it’s a terrific yarn with great art by the Toth/Peppe team.

“The Master’s Touch” (2 pages) is a prose piece telling of 1930s Dutch artist Han van Meegeren who created original paintings in the style of the 17th Century master Johannas Vermeer. Van Meegeren then sold them as previously unknown works of Vermeer. Though the paintings were proven to be fakes, critics were amazed a mediocre artist like Van Meegeren could create them.

The artist? He claimed he was guided by the spirit of Vermeer, who approved of the paintings and helped the artist through the process of creating them.

Van Meegeren did exist and he was the skilled forger described in this prose piece. I have not yet been able to document the artist claiming to be guided by Vermeer’s spirit. I’m thinking that was an embellishment added to the piece to make it a better fit for Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery.

“A Cage for Hassan” (9 pages) is by Leo Dorfman with art by Frank Springer. The esteemed Karloff sets up the story:

For years, the wealth of oil-rich Suwat has flowed into the coffers of grasping Sheik Hassan.

While demanding every more gold for his oil, Hassan turns his back on the abject poverty of his people. Prince Ali, his nephew, tries to get his uncle to help the poor, but Hassan refuses his requests. Ali leads an uprising against Hassan, but his forces are crushed. Ali is captured and put in a cage hanging above the marker place. Given no food or water, Ali dies, but not before predicting Hassan will end up in a cage begging for help.

Hassan’s advisers believe the curse can be thwarted if there were no cages in Suwat. The sheik orders all cages be destroyed, freeing the animals who were in them.

Ali’s curse still weighs heavily on Hassan. On his birthday, he’s given an ape dressed like the sheik him in a cage. A caged vulture is snuck into the palace.

Terrified, Hassan doesn’t eat for days at a time. A sand-diviner offers a solution. If Hassan leaves Suwat, he can avert the curse. The sheik heads for the finest hotel on the Riviera.

The change of scenery doesn’t help. Hassan imagines assassins are following him everywhere. When he is shown the most beautiful villa  in the area, he panics when he sees the elevator that leads to the highest floors. It looks like a cage to him.

Given the villa’s keys, Hassan goes there alone to overcome his fears. He gets trapped in the elevator and is not found until days later. Physically, he recovers. Mentally, his mind is shattered. He imagines that his room at the sanitarium is the very cage where his nephew Ali died.

“The Enigma of Shanti Devi” is a one-page comic sub-titled “A True Tale of Mystery.” It’s drawn by Tom Gill and might’ve been written by him as well.

Young Shanti insists she lived a previous life as a married woman in the city of Muttra. A few years later, though she had never been there previously, she guides scientists to the city. She leads them to her husband and her sons and, by digging up coins the man’s wife had seen him bury, forces the astonished scientists to conclude that, given the evidence, reincarnation is the only answer to this mystery.

This does seem to be a “true” tale. There’s a brief Wikipedia entry on Shanti Devi that matches this one-page comics story.

The “Keys of Knowledge” page on the inside back cover of this issue is “Sawfish.” The overall category is “Fish” and this is number 38 in the series. Drawn by Ray Bailey, here’s the info:

In the tropical waters of the Atlantis and in the eastern Mediterranean lives a very large fish that is known as the Common Sawfish. The “saw” is actually a blade with teeth on both sides. The ray possesses another set of teeth, but very much smaller, in his mouth. When fully grown, this dangerous ray reaches 20 feet or more in length. The vicious-looking saw accounts for one third [of that length]. Some people mistake the Swordfish for the Sawfish. The Swordfish pierces with his sword while the Sawfish slashes and digs. Commercially, the Sawfish had very little value. The Chinese make soup from the big fins. The “saw” is sold to tourists.

The back cover of this issue is the George Wilson cover painting, but without the logo, cover copy and other trade dress. This was a common thing with Gold Key comic books of the era.

Look for another “July 1963" episodes in the near future. I’m hoping to complete the second volume as soon as possible.

Come back tomorrow for our first new “Western Wednesday” column. It will be followed on Thursday by a look at recent issues of the UK’s Commando comics. See you then.

© 2017 Tony Isabella

TONY'S TIPS #254

This week in TONY'S TIPS at Tales of Wonder... Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery by Mat Johnson with artist Warren Pleece, a new edition celebrating the graphic novel’s 10th anniversary; Puerto Rico Strong, an amazing anthology of over 200 pages to support Puerto Rico disaster relief and recovery; and Dave Hunt: An Artist’s Life by Hunt and Lee Benaka. 

MONDAY MORNING REVIEWS

Pre-Code Classics: Beware Volume One [PS Artbooks; $59.99] is one of the better collections of 1950s horror comics the U.K. publisher has released. It collects the first seven issues [January 1953 to January 1954] of the title from Trojan Magazines. During its brief existence, Trojan only published six genre titles: horror, crime, romance, war and western. Given the quality of this collection, I’d likely buy collections of the other titles as well.

Beware ran fourteen issues. The covers of these first issues were striking without being especially gory. Harry Harrison did most of them with the legendary Roy G. Krenkel penciling one cover inked by Harrison. Myron Fass did a couple as well.

Beware’s stories, whose writers include Richard Kahn, Jack Miller and Paul S. Newman, are a cut above the usual 1950s horror comics stuff. There are the usual ghosts and ghouls, monsters of various origins, extraterrestrial aliens and a couple shape shifters. One of my favorite tales has a hunter punished for killing a sacred tiger by being changed into a succession of animals and killed by fellow hunters over and over again. Another favorite features a vengeful spirit who manifests in a variety of paper products.

Notable interior artists include Harrison, Fass, Sid Check, Henry Kiefer, John Forte and A. C. Hollingsworth. As with the writing in this title, the art is a cut above the usual.

In these times of economic concern, I’m taking a close look at my comics buying. But I’m looking forward to the concluding volume of Beware. Since it’s doubtful PS Artbooks will reprint Trojan’s crime and other titles, and since the Trojan Magazines stuff seems to be in the public domain, I’ll try to find time to read those online at Comic Book Plus.

Pre-Code Classics: Beware Volume One is recommended. Search a bit and you might be able to find it at a good discount.

ISBN 978-1-78636-134

                                                                                   

Final Straw by Kathleen M. Fraze [Xlibris; $21.99] is the first in a series of novels featuring small-town police detective Jo Ferris. Fraze is an Ohio writer and reporter for the Akron-Beacon Journal. Much of my prose fiction reading falls into the category of police procedurals and I tend to gravitate towards novels set in Ohio or with some connection to Ohio. In Final Straw, the small town’s police chief is murdered. Ferris, one of the detectives working the case, is a widowed mother whose child has also passed. She’s in a relationship with a man who does not much like cops. Her mother, who has gone back to college, lives with her and also doesn’t much approve of her daughter’s job. Her new acting police chief is a married man with whom she had a torrid affair. Even with so many choices in her life - she should kick her snotty boyfriend and her mother to the curb, though the latter can be useful sometimes - Ferris is a character a reader can root for. I’ve already ordered the next book in this series.

What fascinates me most about this novel is how incredibly bad the local cops - and the F.B.I. agents who’ve tracked a fugitive who’d sworn to kill the chief to the small town - are at their jobs. At every turn, they make the wrong call or violate procedure or fail to investigate glaringly obvious avenues. These cops are so awful at their jobs that they constitute an ongoing threat to themselves and the community they serve. If this is what subsequent novels in the series are like, Fraze is brilliantly mining a new vein in cop and detective stories.

The bottom line? I enjoyed this book and I suspect those of you who also enjoy cop books will enjoy it as well.

ISBN 1-4134-4131-9
                                                                                 

Batman/Shadow #1-6 by Scott Synder and Steve Orlando with art by Riley Rossmo [DC/Dynamite; $3.99 per issue] was intriguing. There was a key element I wasn’t completely on board with - I’ll discuss that in a bit - but this teaming of these two damaged individuals was darkly entertaining.

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In this series, the Shadow is over a hundred years old, kept alive and vital through some mystic Shamba-la stuff, wants release from his endless existence of battling evil and wants Batman to assume his immortal mantle. Batman doesn’t care if he lives or dies, but doesn’t want to live forever. I don’t know if the whole “immortal Shadow” is canon to the Dynamite canon, but it upends the Shadow’s story as I knew it. That’s not unusual for the Shadow. We’ve seen such seismic shifts since the 1960s when Archie Comics put Cranston into garish super-hero tights. But it seemed like such an odd thing to me that it regularly took me out of what was otherwise a pretty good pulp adventure yarn.

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An opening scene introduces us to a man named Lamont Cranston, who, while not *the* Lamont Cranston, is a damn good man. His subsequent brutal murder is all the more horrifying for that. This character got me hooked on this series.

The villains of the piece were the Stag, a force of mystical evil with a limited vocabulary, the Joker (of course) and a handful of other Bat-villains. It seems like too many Batman crossovers call on an entire mob of Bat-villains. I understand the creative desire there; Batman not only has the best toys, but he also has some of the best foes. We’re just seeing this bit too much.

Interesting subplot. The Shadow has been far more involved in the Batman’s life than the Batman ever realized.

Nice notion. Neither hero is done evolving.

The art? I love what Rossmo brings to this series. He reminds me of a modern Frank Robbins, masterfully combining frantic action with moody moments of darkness. I think he’s the sort of artist that a writer should write for, making sure the story has plenty of room for Rossmo to do his thing.

My mildly negative comments aside, I enjoyed these six issues. I’m thinking I need to read the other Shadow comic books published by Dynamite in recent years.

Batman/The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses [DC; $24.99] was published in hardcover in November. The book collects this six-issue series as well as stories from a recent Batman Annual. Recommended.

ISBN 978-1401275273

                                                                                  

One more for the road and, fittingly, it’s the conclusion of a 21-volume road. Yusei Matsui’s Assassination Classroom Volume 21 [Viz Media; $9.99] is the epilogue to the brilliant manga series about a powerful monster who chose to become a middle-school teacher and help the despised Class 3-E reach their potential. Koro Sensei, the octopus-like creature, said he would destroy the world in a year’s time. His students were offered billions of dollars if they could assassinate their teacher before then. Koro Sensei was all in favor of this and even helped honed their assassination skills. Yeah, it was that kind of action-packed, hilarious, emotional and downright poignant series. It quickly became my favorite manga of all time. It still holds that position.

This final volume has the final three chapters of the manga itself. They show what happens to the main characters after the major event of the previous volume. In addition to those thee chapters, we get a wonderful side story of Koro Sensei on his winter break and the insane non-related story Matsui created and pitched unsuccessfully before he created Assassination Classroom.

The ending of the main manga was satisfying, but still left me sad at the thought of its conclusion. I really loved this series. I’ll probably be recommending it for decades to come. However, I’ll get some consolation from the knowledge that, even as I write this, the anime version of Assassination Classroom and a live-action version are on their way to me. I’ll let you know what I think of them once I’ve watched them.

ISBN 978-1-4215-9339-5

That concludes today’s bloggy thing. Coming up tomorrow is a new installment of our "July 1963" featured, followed by the first installment of our new “Western Wednesday” ongoing feature.

That’s for stopping by. See you tomorrow.  

© 2018 Tony Isabella

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL

Don’t let my title fool you. This occasional series of bloggy thing has nothing to do with Rod Serling or The Twilight Zone. You see, as I was going through my Vast Accumulation of Stuff, I found several file folders with pitches I sent to various publishers over the years. Some of them date back to before I start working in comics professionally.

I thought my bloggy readers might enjoy seeing these concepts that didn’t go further than my original pitches. Since “never say never” is a mantra of mine, I won’t entirely rule out my revisiting them in the future, but, for now, I have no plans for them. This first one is from January, 2013...

THE ADVENTURES OF PSY
pitch for licensed comic book

Korean entertainer Psy’s "Gangnam Style" reached 1 billion views on YouTube, becoming the first video to do so.  It’s easy to see why. It’s a catchy tune, but it also has a most appealing singer in Psy himself.  He moves like a comical action hero and he’s clearly very willing to poke fun at himself.

Psy is an international sensation and I think that could translate into a very funny and successful comic book.  After all, DC Comics managed to publish over 100 issues each of comics starring Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis.  With some updating, I think their basic formula could work for us as well.

The concept would be to treat Psy as an actor playing our version of Psy.  His music could be a cover for his secret identity as an agent for a world-wide good guy association.  Or we could use his touring as an excuse for putting him into adventurous situations of a comedic and outright wacky nature.

We start with him touring the United States as a way of introducing him and his supporting cast to our American audience.  I’m thinking he has an enthusiastic agent who sometimes commits him to more than he can actually accomplish.  Which won’t stop him from triumphing over ridiculous odds and succeeding anyway.  No matter how many missteps they might make, the good guys always win.

Just as the happily-married Bob Hope was always shown with gorgeous women in his comic-book adventures, our Psy will not be a married man.  He’s not going to be hot and heavy with any of his comic-book co-stars - that would be inappropriate for an all ages audience - but pretty girls will be an added attraction to young male readers. If we take care to make those girls laudable characters who dress really cool, that will draw young female readers as well.

With a set-up like this, we can send Psy anywhere in the world and even indulge in the occasional fantasy or science fiction stories. By keeping him on the move, we can always keep the stories fresh. We can also do mild spoofs of anything else that happens to be big in pop culture.

Psy’s international following also means that we should be able to sell this all over the world.  Given [redacted] relationship with so many foreign markets, [redacted] is positioned to go after that international market.

If you like this idea, I can work on whatever further materials you need to make the series a reality.

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I sent something like a dozen pitches to Roy Thomas when he became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. This was 1972.

THE FABULOUS BARON MÜNCHHAUSEN

Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymys von Münchhausen, the sportsman and soldier of Gottingen, was either the most extraordinary figure of the 17th Century or its most outrageous liar. His exaggerated, often fantastic adventures have thrilled and entertained millions since they first appeared in book form in 1785.

This book would treat the Baron’s adventures as gospel truth, but with typewriters planted firmly in our cheeks. Issue #1 would introduce the Baron in the story of how he battled some 100 demons to kidnap a sultan’s daughter and reunite her with the man she had wanted to marry. Succeeding issues would introduce two companions for the Baron in Sinbad (who is hiding out from a shrewish wife he picked up during his travels) and Aladdin (who is one the outs with the genie of his lamp and trying to get back in her good graces by performing feats of bravery).

Stories will alternate between the Baron’s adventures against the Turks, who in these stories will be a lot like the Romances that Asterix fights in Gaul, and his more fantastic adventures. In the latter category, for example, the Baron invents the submarine some years before the fact because he has fallen in love with a mermaid and seeks to steal her away from her father.

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This 1972 pitch to Roy embarrasses me, even beyond being a blatant  rip-off of Cat Ballou. Let’s just say that I wasn’t as “woke” back then as I would become in later years.

BLAZE GLORY

One-third of the town of Busted Skull, Texas, praises the day the daughter of the late Sam Glory returned from the Boston school he had sent her to. One-third of Busted Skull curses the same day that brought Beatrice Glory back to the place of her birth. Those in the remaining third haven’t decided if that day should be celebrated or mourned.  

Before she had spent twenty-four hours back in town, Beatrice had made an enemy of Ben “Cattle” Baron, who wants her to sell him the Glory ranch. Beatrice wins her “Blaze” nickname by taking first prize in a local shooting contest, then hires four of the most incorrigible outcasts in town and chases off Ben Baron and his men when they pose as Indians and try to scare her off her ranch.

The four outcasts consist of Kid Galahad, formerly a hero of dime novels and now little more than a bum; Johnny One-Eye Crazy Fox, an Indian philosopher sworn to drive the white man from the West; Rev. Righter, who was a fire-and-brimstone traveling preacher until he start getting his fire from firewater; and young Steve Mina, a new reader who models himself after the hero of whatever novel he is currently reading.

Some of the stories for this book will be in a humorous vein, as when Johnny One-Eye Crazy Fox decides to challenge the saloon’s rule against serving Indians. Some will be serious, as when an ex-convict threatens revenge on the town and it’s up to a nervous and scared Kid Galahad to defend the citizens.

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One more. Before I was hired at Marvel, while I was trying to sell stories from my native Cleveland, Ohio, Roy suggested I pitch for Chambers of Chills and Tower of Shadows. The titles either were in the planning stages or had just made their debut. This story pitch actually resulted in a sale after I started work for Marvel. Alas, I only had three pages to tell the tale. It wasn’t enough and, to add to the difficulty, I had to work “Marvel style” with an artist who was years past his prime. I froze when I got the pencils and it took me a week to script the three pages. That almost torpedoed my Marvel writing career, but that’s a story for another time. Here’s my plot for what eventually became “Haunt and Run.”

“THE LONG ROAD HOME”

James and Linda Tilburn are heading home for a late party at the house of some suburban friends. They are “social drinkers.” When they get on the entrance ramp, James doesn’t see a young hitchhiker in time to avoid hitting her. The entrance ramp is deserted. Linda convinces James to drive on as it nothing had happened. No one can prove them guilty of anything.

They get on the freeway. They are haunted by the ghost of the young woman. Every time they try to exit, she appears and prevents them from doing so. On and on they drive, unable to exit from the freeway. They find they can’t even slow down. Their only hope is to run out of gas. Then they can get out of the car and walk to the exit. The gas meter reads “empty.” Surely this means they’re almost out of gas. But as the minutes stretch into hours and they do not even slow down, they realize their horrible fate. To travel this freeway forever as if their car was a modern-day Flying Dutchman.

I have an entire file folder full of other anthology ideas, plots and a script or two. With a little encouragement, I could share some more of them with you in future bloggy things.

That’s all for today. See you tomorrow.

© 2018 Tony Isabella

SATURDAY MORNING WITH THE MONSTER MOVIES

Monster movies are my second love after comic books. It’s been some time since I last reviewed any of them. Please note my definition of “monster movies” is inclusive of movies that feature aliens and dinosaurs and serial killers and, to be honest, anything I say is a monster movie. I am vast.

Caution. There will be some spoilers ahead.
                                                                                 

Caltiki, the Immortal Monster [1959] was a youthful favorite back when practically my only source for such movies was watching them on the Ghoulardi show. Late at night, hunched close to the family black-and-white television, I watched Ernie Anderson introduce and sometimes interrupt these movies with his hilarious skits. I believe watching these movies are why I wear glasses and, by the way, it was totally worth it. Here’s the Internet Movie Database summary:

Archaeologists investigating Mayan ruins come across a blob-like monster. They manage to destroy it with fire, but keep a sample. Meanwhile, a comet is due to pass close to the Earth - the same comet passed near the Earth at the time the Mayan civilization mysteriously collapsed. Coincidence?

Caltiki had a major impact on me as a kid, so much so that, years later, I could have sworn there was a scene in it that was a heck of a lot more gory than in reality. I recalled a scene where one of the characters stuck his hand in the titular monster and, when he pulled it out, there was nothing left but a skeletal hand. That sort of happens, but it’s not as graphic as my childhood memory of the scene.

This Italian-made movie was directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava and written by Filippo Sanjust. It starred John Merivale as Professor John Fielding, Didi Sullivan as his wife Ellen, Gérard Herter as the luckless guy who loses his hand and his mind to the blob-monster and Daniela Rocca as Herter’s kept woman. Rocca gives the best performance of the film as a smouldering woman who is torn between her dependence on Herter and her sense of right and wrong.

Seeing this movie again as an adult, I found it even better than I remembered. Though the monster - made from tripe and often lost in the black-and-white photography - isn’t as cool as the one in The Blob [1958], it’s effectively terrifying. When the original monster gets destroyed in the ruins, the typically thoughtless scientist remove and preserve the remnant that ate Herter’s hand. The hero takes it home. Big mistake.

When the old comet comes around again, the specimen in Fielding’s home laboratory starts to grow and grow and grow. At the same time, Herter has escaped from the hospital to go on a killing spree. He is as scary as Caltiki. The movie finishes with thrilling scenes of Fielding trying to rescue his wife and child, and a pitched battle between the monster and the police. The cops have flame-throwers, which doesn’t bode well for Casa Fielding.

From one of the reviews on the movie’s IMDb page:

Lamberto Bava, son of Mario Bava who (it’s said) finished this film after Ricardo Freda walked off the set once recalled that the house destroyed by Caltiki at the end was actually a model of his dad's real home and the miniature furniture was contributed by Mario's father Eugenio. That explains the meticulous attention to detail in the miniature sets.

The model house and its interior are incredible. Better than what we were seeing in the Godzilla movies of the era.

From Wikipedia:

Caltiki - The Immortal Monster was published as a photonovel in the magazine I Vostri Film in its July 1, 1962 issue.

I’d love to see that photonovel.

Caltiki, the Immortal Monster is an entertaining film. Though not a classic, it’s well worth watching.
                                                                              

I was looking forward to seeing Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters [2017], an anime take on my favorite movie monster. My anticipation made my disappointment all the more keen. Here’s the IMDb summary of this film:

Years into the future and the human race has been defeated several times by the new ruling force of the planet: "kaijus". And the ruler of that force is Godzilla, The King of the Monsters. Humanity is in such defeat, plans to leave the planet have been made, and several people have been chosen to look at a new planet to see if it is inhabitable. Realizing it's not, though, the human race resorts to plan B: to defeat Godzilla and take back their planet.

The movie was directed by Hiroyuki Seshita and Kôbun Shizuno from the original story and screenplay by Gen Urobuchi. First conceived as an animated series, it became a trilogy of animated features in the wake of the success of the live-action Shin Godzilla. While the animation is stylish and occasionally interesting, this struck me as pretty much 89 minutes of depressing tedium.

Godzilla only appears in the movie to further crush the dream of the devastated humanity to return to its home world. It’s as if those making the film forgot who its star was. The dialogue falls flat at almost every turn. The voice acting is so-so at best.

Though some critics describe the movie as being equal parts about revenge and the regaining of hope in a hopeless situation, I see it as being about hopelessness with no redeeming character or plot development. I’m not looking forward to the next movie. I’ll watch it because it’s still going to be a Godzilla movie, but I’m not getting my expectations up. It’ll take a major course correction to turn me around on this trilogy.

If you’re a Godzilla fan who has to see every Godzilla movie, then you’ll need to see this one. If you’re a more casual fan, you can give it a pass.    

                                                                           

Revenge of the Lost [2017] was made on a very low budget, which was obvious from the start of this 100-minute mess-terpiece. I watched it via Amazon Prime because it was free and I was too tired to find something better. Oh, who am I kidding? If a cheesy monster movie crosses my line of sight, I watch it. It’s my blessing and curse. Here’s the IMDb summary:

A group of three survivors must make their way through the dinosaur apocalypse to a military base, the last safe place on earth. Once there, they come across a plot that's more terrifying than the dinosaurs themselves.

Directed by Erik Franklin, written by Franklin and Daniel Husser, this movie fell short of its Indiegogo fund-raising goal, but these spunky kids made it anyway. The three survivors are played by the director, Ivey Bronwen and Jerry Nash. Financial contributor Erika Chang played a military officer. If I contribute to movies, I may start asking for parts, too. I might need something to fall back on if the writing thing doesn’t pan out.

No clear explanation is given for why the dinosaurs are back or why they are made of terrible CGI. There’s a mad scientist involved in this somehow and a evil general. I’m guessing they had something to do with the dinos, but, as I said, the film didn’t make this clear.

One reviewer compared this to a zombie movie with dinosaurs taking the place of the zombie. Another mentioned Sid and Marty Kroft in his review. Both are fair comparisons, though the second is kind of insulting to the Krofts.

The plot just peters out by the end. There doesn’t seem to be any long-term solution to not getting eaten by dinosaurs. The liberals won’t pay for a wall to keep them coming into the United States and taking our jobs, raping our women, dealing our drugs and making fun of wacky orange toupees. I’m not even sure what the title means on account of it was an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs before we humans came along.

I’m an addict. That’s why I watched this movie. Don’t fall for the “free” come-on. The first one is always free. Take a few extra minutes as you scroll through Amazon Prime’s free films. You’ll find something better. You don’t want to end up like me.

That’s a wrap for today’s bloggy. Come back tomorrow and we’ll have fun with other stuff.

© 2018 Tony Isabella