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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 12, 2023 23:01:02 GMT -5
Was the 1988 Flash Gordon mini-series from DC any good? My best friend back then bought all 9 parts and reckoned it was excellent, but for whatever reason I never read it myself. It's a series that in recent years has interested me, probably due to some kind of nostalgia. It was decent, if a bit bland, in parts. Making him a basketball player didn't work, for me, as that has no suggestion of the martial skills that Flash demonstrates in his adventures. Ming is removed from the racial problem of being a Yellow Peril villain, by making him grey skinned, with a skull tattoo over one eye. Dale is a journalist and Zarkov is Zarkov. The princes are busy fighting among each other until Flash wins them over. Pretty much the basic plot line that the Filmation cartoon series followed (based on the main adventures in the strip); thought he cartoon was better adventure. Jurgens was decent at the swashbuckling stuff, having done Warlord; but, I kind of felt that he kind of lost the spark that the original strips had and that the Filmation cartoon captured. I always felt, if you wanted to modernize him, make him a Marine Corps pilot, a veteran of a recent era war, like the Gulf War or Iraq (or similar), who had competed in the Olympics, in the modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, equestrian jumping, swimming and footrace) and was an astronaut, with NASA. Zarkov is an expert pulled in to consult and Dale is another NASA crewmember, someone with an issue with military astronauts, especially in light of recent military conflicts, to put her and Flash at odds, at first. i figured make Zarkov actually Russian, with a nephew who competed against Flash, at the Olympics, to let them bond a bit. Some kind of advanced probe appears, NASA launches a joint space mission with Russia, they take the probe on board the Space Shuttle, it activates a dimensional gate, and they find themselves in orbit around Mongo and forced to land. Then, things follow the basic plot progression of the strips, with a bit of clean up on racial stereotypes/depictions. The reason I say Marine Corps pilot is because all Marine Officers have to attend The Basic School, where they are first trained as infantry officers, before going off to train in their specialties. The idea is that they are able to command an infantry unit, if the situation requires it, like a pilot shot down, who finds himself in command of a Marine formation, as senior officer. Thus, Flash would have piloting skills and extensive training in basic infantry tactics. The astronaut part gives him extensive engineering and technological skills and the Olympic part provides the martial skills for the swashbuckling adventure. Dale being with NASA gives her a better background and skill set to be more involved with the action, while Zarkov is still a scientific expert, with an ability to build working concepts, and an expert at reverse-engineering (a skill much used in the Soviet period, for developing technology from Western models). That gives them a modern, logical basis to build from. Then, treat them like real people.
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Post by MDG on Dec 13, 2023 10:33:03 GMT -5
Was the 1988 Flash Gordon mini-series from DC any good? ... I know you didn't ask, but if you haven't read it I gotta recommend the 1995 Marvel Flash micro-series (two issues) by Mark Schultz and Al Williamson. After years of increasingly photo-referenced work on Secret Agent Corrigan and being a utility inker at DC and Marvel to pay the bills, this was a chance for Williamson to get back to what he loved best and he turned in some of the best work of his career.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 13, 2023 11:30:24 GMT -5
Was the 1988 Flash Gordon mini-series from DC any good? ... I know you didn't ask, but if you haven't read it I gotta recommend the 1995 Marvel Flash micro-series (two issues) by Mark Schultz and Al Williamson. After years of increasingly photo-referenced work on Secret Agent Corrigan and being a utility inker at DC and Marvel to pay the bills, this was a chance for Williamson to get back to what he loved best and he turned in some of the best work of his career. All of the King Features series Marvel did at that time were very good, but Flash and Prince Valiant stood out as the 2 best. -M
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 13, 2023 11:38:31 GMT -5
Except they seemed to do F-all to promote them. DC at least marketed their King features material, with house ads for Flash and the Phantom, as well as their other promotional avenues. Marvel's just kind of slipped out there. if I hadn't seen them in previews, I would have missed them completely. As it was, I did miss Prince Valiant, though I got both Flash and Phantom.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,039
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Post by Confessor on Dec 13, 2023 13:46:31 GMT -5
Was the 1988 Flash Gordon mini-series from DC any good? ... I know you didn't ask, but if you haven't read it I gotta recommend the 1995 Marvel Flash micro-series (two issues) by Mark Schultz and Al Williamson. After years of increasingly photo-referenced work on Secret Agent Corrigan and being a utility inker at DC and Marvel to pay the bills, this was a chance for Williamson to get back to what he loved best and he turned in some of the best work of his career. I've not read those, no, but I have heard great things about them. I'm a big, big Al Williamson fan too, so I really need to check these out. They are included, along with Williamson's adaptation of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie and some of the 1966 King Features series, in the long out-of-print book Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic. That book has been on my "wants list" a long time, but it's very pricey if you ever see it online.
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Post by Rags on Dec 19, 2023 19:53:41 GMT -5
I don't usually go for recent books graded 6.0 - 6.5 but this is the rare Batman Damned Uncorrected Proof which preceded Batman Damned #1. I've been told there are only a few hundred of these in existence which makes even a FINE copy quite desirable, so I gave it a home. This one had a ding in the back that can't be pressed out. (I have a couple NMs too, got them on the night prices began to go absolutely crazy). My question is, what other (hot) books have had Advanced Readers? Incidentally, this book is identical to Batman Damned #1 in almost every way except for the text - which is completely omitted between the covers.
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 19, 2023 21:29:22 GMT -5
Advanced Reader Copies are and were a staple of the publishing industry, though the only one I ever saw for a graphic novel was for Max brooks and Caanan White;s Harlem Hellfighters graphic novel, about the African-American unit, in World War 1. That was from Broadway Books, which was an imprint of Random house (at that point). I never saw one for a DC or Marvel product. I do know that both companies sent out xeroxed advanced copies of new titles, to letter hacks and similar, to solicit early reviews of new series.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 19, 2023 21:41:41 GMT -5
I picked up a couple of advanced reader copies of trades in a bargain bin a few months back. One was a copy of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting, one was a Vertigo crime OGN, and there was one more I can't recall off hand. They were $1-$3 each so I picked them up as curiosities (though I am a big fan of Castle Waiting and need to replace copies I lent out years ago and never got back.
-M
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Post by Rags on Dec 20, 2023 21:27:26 GMT -5
I picked up a couple of advanced reader copies of trades in a bargain bin a few months back. One was a copy of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting, one was a Vertigo crime OGN, and there was one more I can't recall off hand. They were $1-$3 each so I picked them up as curiosities (though I am a big fan of Castle Waiting and need to replace copies I lent out years ago and never got back. -M
Did you notice any differences between the Advanced Readers and then the actual trades which were released subsequently? Sometimes I think there's no difference at all as far as contents go.
I think the Batman Damned proof is the only Black Label imprint to have an Advanced Reader so far.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 20, 2023 22:42:09 GMT -5
I picked up a couple of advanced reader copies of trades in a bargain bin a few months back. One was a copy of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting, one was a Vertigo crime OGN, and there was one more I can't recall off hand. They were $1-$3 each so I picked them up as curiosities (though I am a big fan of Castle Waiting and need to replace copies I lent out years ago and never got back. -M Did you notice any differences between the Advanced Readers and then the actual trades which were released subsequently? Sometimes I think there's no difference at all as far as contents go.
I think the Batman Damned proof is the only Black Label imprint to have an Advanced Reader so far.
Yes lots of differences. 1) both are softcovers and the initial release for both were hardcovers. 2) It states on Castle Waiting that it is no the final cover. The final cover actually had cover art, and as you can see in the pic, this reader doesn't really. 3) The Cuba book is in b&w on the cover, the actual printings of it had color covers, but the art was the same otherwise. There maybe other changes I am not aware of. These were printed from the proofs sent to the creators before any corrections were made by the creators for final printing, so there may be lettering or art corrections, balloon placement adjustments, or any number of final edit changes that were made that would be different in the actual printings of the books. -M
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Post by codystarbuck on Dec 21, 2023 0:06:17 GMT -5
One of the most fun Advanced Readers we got in was for a James Patterson thriller, where not only was the grammar atrocious and misspellings abounded; but, he kept mixing up Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson across chapters.
Prose works might be cleaned up for punctuation and grammar and covers might be generic (Paul Malmount's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril had a vague picture of a sepia backstreet, while the actual cover had a reproduction of a pulp magazine cover, since the novel revolved around a specific group of pulp giants caught up in a pulp mystery); but, the content is relatively the same. Since we didn't really get many Advanced Readers with illustrations or other imagery, we couldn't see changes with the final product.
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Post by driver1980 on Dec 25, 2023 6:28:54 GMT -5
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was released 30 years ago today, which begs the question: were there any animated superhero movies prior to this one? Not TV shows, not serials, not TV movies, but an animated superhero movie released theatrically?
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 25, 2023 8:48:19 GMT -5
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was released 30 years ago today, which begs the question: were there any animated superhero movies prior to this one? Not TV shows, not serials, not TV movies, but an animated superhero movie released theatrically? Does Akira count? I don't think so if you mean Marvel and DC... but Anime OVAs have been around for quite a while.. those often get theatrical release.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Dec 25, 2023 10:42:53 GMT -5
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was released 30 years ago today, which begs the question: were there any animated superhero movies prior to this one? Not TV shows, not serials, not TV movies, but an animated superhero movie released theatrically? Would you count the Fleischer Superman shorts that were released theatrically in 1941? -M
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Post by driver1980 on Dec 25, 2023 11:08:27 GMT -5
Ah, they had theatrical releases? I didn’t know. But thanks. I should revisit those soon.
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