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Post by berkley on Jun 21, 2024 21:42:23 GMT -5
The Dice character, no; but, the actor behind the character was capable of being a good actor, with better material. Unfortunately, his stand-up got even worse, with outright offensive jokes (not just the dirty rhymes) and I caught part of Whoopi Goldberg's short-lived late night talk show, with him, trying to defend rape jokes and her not buying the defense. Clay had a small part in the mid-80s TV show Crime Story and was pretty darn good in it. That show had so much potential that was frequently squandered. In a lot of ways prefigured what HBO would start to do with Oz and The Sopranos. I don't remember Clay in it but that was a great show. I must watch the whole thing from the beginning some time because I missed some of the earlier episodes. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 21, 2024 21:47:36 GMT -5
Clay had a small part in the mid-80s TV show Crime Story and was pretty darn good in it. That show had so much potential that was frequently squandered. In a lot of ways prefigured what HBO would start to do with Oz and The Sopranos. I don't remember Clay in it but that was a great show. I must watch the whole thing from the beginning some time because I missed some of the earlier episodes. I prefer the earlier part of the first season, when they are in Chicago, rather than Vegas.. At one point, I picked up a dvd of the pilot, for like $3, in a supermarket, in a bargain bin. It was from an Asian Region-free disc. A little bit later, I bought the first season DVD. Never did pick up the second season, though. I only saw a few episodes, when it originally aired. |
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Post by commond on Jun 22, 2024 16:35:18 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #29 (Books shipping in June, 1990) The lead feature this month is Dave Gibbon and Steve Rude's World's Finest miniseries, which was okay but not that great in my humble opinion. I don't consider writing to be a strength of Dave Gibbon's, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Inside, we've got The Greatest Team-Up Stories Ever Told in trade paperback edition, a pretty shoddy looking adaptation of Total Recall, a radical new take on Who's Who, and the first two years of Batman comics in a deluxe hardcover edition. If you were a Batman fan and you could afford a hardcover book that must have been a nice piece. I remember studying the first 10 minutes of Total Recall in screenwriting class. Try having a drink every time Arnie says "Maaars." Who's Who is being published in a loose leaf format so that kid can totally wreck it. I had been wondering if Firestorm would make it to 100 issues and sure enough issue #100 is the final issue of the series. The series signs off in style with a 54 page issue. Also reaching the end of its run with a milestone issue is Secret Origins which wraps up with issue 50. This month's interview is with Jerry Robinson, whose work is included in the Batman hardcover book. They do a nice job of covering his career and accomplishments. The cover of the month is the final issue of Firestorm. The back cover is the cover of Action Comics #544 from 1984, which features Siegel and Shuster as kids. Editor Peggy May says, "It has been my pleasure over the last six years to meet and work with Jerry and Joe and the generations of people and creations they inspired. See ya, Peggy." It's not made clear in the issue, but May has left DC and this is her goodbye message to the readers.
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Post by Doghouse Reilly on Jun 22, 2024 16:56:35 GMT -5
I had been wondering if Firestorm would make it to 100 issues and sure enough issue #100 is the final issue of the series. The series signs off in style with a 54 page issue. Also reaching the end of its run with a milestone issue is Secret Origins which wraps up with issue 50. This numbering makes no sense. Only a select few titles survived COIE with their numbering intact. A B-lister like Firestorm would have started with a new number one after the Crisis. And I know this title would not have been twice-monthly for its whole run. There's no way it gets to 100 in 1990. GCD only shows a handful of issues, from 93 to 100. What's the story? |
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Post by commond on Jun 22, 2024 17:42:09 GMT -5
I had been wondering if Firestorm would make it to 100 issues and sure enough issue #100 is the final issue of the series. The series signs off in style with a 54 page issue. Also reaching the end of its run with a milestone issue is Secret Origins which wraps up with issue 50. This numbering makes no sense. Only a select few titles survived COIE with their numbering intact. A B-lister like Firestorm would have started with a new number one after the Crisis. And I know this title would not have been twice-monthly for its whole run. There's no way it gets to 100 in 1990. GCD only shows a handful of issues, from 93 to 100. What's the story? Cover title changes: The Fury of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #1-20 The Fury of Firestorm #21 The Fury of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #22-49 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #50-54 Firestorm #55-58 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #59-63 Firestorm #64 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #65-83 Firestorm #84-100 Technically, the indicia changed with issue #93 from "Firestorm the Nuclear Man" to "Firestorm", and issues #93-100 are considered a separate 1990 series by GCD. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 22, 2024 17:54:26 GMT -5
Rude's art was sweet on World's Finest, which was really all I cared about. I thought the story was decent.
The loose-lead format sounded great, and I also order the binders; but, when you got the finished product and saw how thin the paper was, plus it was pad-glued together, necessitating the tearing off of the pages, I wasn't happy. Still, I liked the basic concept and I used several pages as models for designing characters, as it helped me with poses. Marvel did their OHOTMU loose-leaf, around the same time; but with the characters all in the same front, back and side view and a smaller size, though a heavier cardstock. I didn't continue it, beyond the first couple of release; but, bought the whole Who's Who and the Impact Line sets and binder. Used them for art reference for about another decade, before getting rid of them.
Loved interviews with Jerry Robinson, around that time frame, because he didn't give a @#$% and punctured all of Bob Kane's BS, as well as some of the DC editors. Loved his work, at Nedor, with Mort Meskin inking, on The Black Terror and Fighting Yank. Really the only stories worth collecting, from their runs. It took a while; but, I eventually got ahold of a copy of his history of comics, covering newspapers and comic books. Good book, though better on the strips.
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Post by Doghouse Reilly on Jun 22, 2024 18:11:00 GMT -5
This numbering makes no sense. Only a select few titles survived COIE with their numbering intact. A B-lister like Firestorm would have started with a new number one after the Crisis. And I know this title would not have been twice-monthly for its whole run. There's no way it gets to 100 in 1990. GCD only shows a handful of issues, from 93 to 100. What's the story? Cover title changes: The Fury of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #1-20 The Fury of Firestorm #21 The Fury of Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #22-49 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #50-54 Firestorm #55-58 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #59-63 Firestorm #64 Firestorm the Nuclear Man #65-83 Firestorm #84-100 Technically, the indicia changed with issue #93 from "Firestorm the Nuclear Man" to "Firestorm", and issues #93-100 are considered a separate 1990 series by GCD. Ah, so Firestorm's numbering did survive the Crisis. It's just that the official title of his comic didn't survive... anything, apparently. |
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Post by commond on Jun 23, 2024 15:46:12 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #30 (Books shipping in July) The cover feature this month is Enemy Ace hardcover graphic novel by George Pratt. I don't have much to add other than that is a striking visual. Inside, the Justice League International is getting a quarterly mag. They shill some annuals. Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel are producing a miniseries about a succubus called Breathtaker. There's also another TSR collaboration called Spelljammer Comics. There's got to be someone out there who's a mega fan of all these TSR comics. Tammy Brown is the new editor. It appears Peggy left DC to become the director of marketing at a metropolitan area historical museum. The interview this month is with Wheatley and Hempel and reminds me that there's a lot of their stuff I haven't read. The cover of the month is a Green Arrow cover since that book has gone bi-weekly. The back cover is Strange Adventures #180 featuring the origin of Animal Man. Which lets me know that Grant Morrison has finished his run on Animal Man and a new chapter is beginning under Peter Milligan. The Animal Man series lasted a surprisingly long time despite the fact that the writers who followed did incredibly strange things with it.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 23, 2024 19:39:10 GMT -5
The Enemy Ace GN wasn't quite what I expected, when it was announced; but, it turned out to be really good. A real anti-war story, instead of something reveling in combat, with a "Make war nor more" tag at the end. The device of a Vietnam vet interviewing Von Hammer is very effective and highlights the senseless waste of both wars To me, this was the right ending for Von Hammer. I liked Garth Ennis' 2-part mini; but, could never buy into Von Hammer flying for the Luftwaffe, with the Nazis in power.
I don't think I ever encountered anyone who ever brought up the TSR comics, including friends who were gamers and comic book fans. I don't think I ever saw anything from TSR promoting them.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 23, 2024 19:57:19 GMT -5
Just found this link......... which talks about the comics and has a comment from someone who worked at TSR, with the books and comics. Basically, The comics were doing well enough and, the early days were in the Top 100 of sales to comic shops, for their first three months (about middle of the pack, in the bottom 50 of those books); but, then, sales dropped them down near the bottom of that tier. At bigger issue was that DC passed on licensing their Buck Rogers gaming module for a comic book series. TSR's owner was part of the Dille Family Trust, which owned the rights to Buck Rogers and were trying to make money off of it. They published their own Buck Rogers comic, with more gaming content than DC was doing with the Dragonlance & Advanced D&D. I picked up the first couple of issues and the story was rather lackluster and I could care less about the gaming stuff. The comic didn't do well; but, DC considered it a violation of their exclusive arrangement and that killed the deal, ending their publication of material. I know the comics had some good artists, like Tom Yeats, Jan Dursema and Tom Mandrake, among others. Dan Mishkin did a lot of the writing and Barb Kesel edited and did some writing, as did Kim Yale. They were actually planning on doing some additional mini-series, when the higher ups killed the line. So, blame Buck Rogers for killing it off.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 23, 2024 19:58:27 GMT -5
The Enemy Ace GN wasn't quite what I expected, when it was announced; but, it turned out to be really good. A real anti-war story, instead of something reveling in combat, with a "Make war nor more" tag at the end. The device of a Vietnam vet interviewing Von Hammer is very effective and highlights the senseless waste of both wars To me, this was the right ending for Von Hammer. I liked Garth Ennis' 2-part mini; but, could never buy into Von Hammer flying for the Luftwaffe, with the Nazis in power. I don't think I ever encountered anyone who ever brought up the TSR comics, including friends who were gamers and comic book fans. I don't think I ever saw anything from TSR promoting them. I bought Forgotten Realms and AD&D and the first dozen or so issues of Dragonlance. They were fine for what they were. I was big into D&D at the time. |
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Post by commond on Jun 24, 2024 15:48:29 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #31 (Books shipping in August, 1990) The cover feature this month is Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol with issue #37 being touted as a jumping on point for new readers. Inside, there's a trade paperback of A Lonely Place of Dying available and Swamp Thing reaches its milestone 100th issue. It must have been as slow news month as both previews take up an entire page with a lot of art included. Doug Wheeler was the writer on Swamp Thing at this time. Pat Broderick, Kelley Jones, and Alfredo Alcala handled the art on the anniversary issue. Interestingly, there's a solicitation for Ms. Tree Quarterly #2, but I don't remember seeing one for Ms. Tree Quarterly #1. This month's interview is with Grant Morrison and includes an absolutely ridiculous picture of Morrison. I like Morrison's work and even I rolled my eyes during this interview. The cover of the month is an okay Mister Miracle cover. The back cover is New Teen Titans #1 for reasons unknown. I would have thought a Swamp Thing cover would have been more apropos.
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Jun 24, 2024 19:07:03 GMT -5
I think 10th anniversary of NTT #1 is the reason, which was also the beginning of a major storyline in the New Titans issue that (I assume) came out that month
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 24, 2024 21:26:02 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #31 (Books shipping in August, 1990)The cover feature this month is Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol with issue #37 being touted as a jumping on point for new readers. Inside, there's a trade paperback of A Lonely Place of Dying available and Swamp Thing reaches its milestone 100th issue. It must have been as slow news month as both previews take up an entire page with a lot of art included. Doug Wheeler was the writer on Swamp Thing at this time. Pat Broderick, Kelley Jones, and Alfredo Alcala handled the art on the anniversary issue. Interestingly, there's a solicitation for Ms. Tree Quarterly #2, but I don't remember seeing one for Ms. Tree Quarterly #1. This month's interview is with Grant Morrison and includes an absolutely ridiculous picture of Morrison. I like Morrison's work and even I rolled my eyes during this interview. The cover of the month is an okay Mister Miracle cover. The back cover is New Teen Titans #1 for reasons unknown. I would have thought a Swamp Thing cover would have been more apropos. I don't think I have ever read an interview with Morrison that didn't make me think he was feeding some line of BS to the interviewer. He definitely comes across as playing to his audience. I had been picking up Doom Patrol, with the initial revival, largely due to Steve Lightle's art. Once Eric Larson came in, I was gone, as I hated the work, especially after Lightle's slicker style. I didn't pick up the book here, but did eventually pick up the trade of the first several issues, with Morrison. It was interesting, but not enough to get me to read it regularly, though I did pick up the X-Force parody he did, within the series (or was that a special?) I had a couple of friends who were into the series; but it was a little too weird, for weirdness sake, for my tastes. Animal Man was a bit more relatable. Given how little DC seemed to promote it, I could see them forgetting the notice for Ms Tree Quarterly #1....though that had the Mike Grell cover and an interior story and Green Arrow was going strong. |
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Post by commond on Jun 25, 2024 14:53:59 GMT -5
I think 10th anniversary of NTT #1 is the reason, which was also the beginning of a major storyline in the New Titans issue that (I assume) came out that month Right you are, but that issue is published the following month. The issue of New Titans on sale in Direct Currents #31 is a solo Deathstroke story. |
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