Michael May's Blog, page 173
October 15, 2013
Happy 101st Anniversary, Tarzan!
My original plan for Tarzan 101 was to take the month of October off so I could focus on the Halloween Countdown, but once we finally got here, it seemed silly not to talk about Tarzan in the very month of his anniversary. That's why I've been ramping up the 101 posts lately and here we are.
If anyone knows for sure which date the October 1912 All-Story hit the stands, they haven't shared it with me, but that was the issue that featured the first installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs' new novel about an English baby adopted by African apes.
I've had such a blast going through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration and I hope you've enjoyed this series of posts. Thanks so much to Griffin for writing the awesome book and to Titan Books for sending me a copy. It was a perfect way to celebrate the centennial, even if I did it a year late. And thanks to you guys for reading and sharing your own Tarzan experiences with me. You can be sure it won't be the last time the ape man comes up on this blog.
[UPDATE: The awesome @ERBurroughsFan tells me that the Oct. 1912 issue of The All-Story was copyrighted and put on sale on Sept. 10, 1912. So I'm way late, but really grateful for the info.]
October 14, 2013
31 Werewolves | Drak Pack
Hanna Barbera's monsters-as-superheroes cartoon, Drak Pack lasted a couple of seasons on CBS Saturday mornings in the early '80s. If features three high school students - Drak, Frankie, and Howler - who are actually descendants of classic monsters and "dedicated to reversing the evil image of their forefathers" by fighting the evil supervillain group, O.G.R.E.
When trouble appears, the three friends give each other the Drak Whack and transform into monster form. In keeping with the superhero theme, they have a flying, amphibious car and each of them has superpowers appropriate to his heritage. Drak's a telekinetic shape-changer, Frankie is super strong with electrical powers, and Howler the werewolf has a sonic howl and super breath.
Tarzan 101 | Further Reading
Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.
The final chapter in Griffin's book is a bibliography of other books that interested fans can go to for more information. The granddaddy of these is the 820-page Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan , written by Irwin Porges with the cooperation of Burroughs' family and access to their exhaustive archive of Burroughs' letters, photos, and other memorabilia. It was published in 1975, the year in which Burroughs would have celebrated his 100th birthday.
There are a ton of other books that get shout outs by Griffin - far too many to list here - so I'll send you to Griffin's book if you're interested in the entire list. Porges' biography is worth singling out though, so I wanted to make sure it got a post.
31 Werewolves | Creature Commandos
It took DC a lot longer than Marvel to work the classic monsters into their universe. Though I don't doubt that there were random appearances of vampires and werewolves over the years, it was 1980 and Weird War Tales #93 that finally gave the monsters their due.
War and horror comics were big genres in the '70s and DC published several of each. War comics had gotten popular after WWII and DC answered the demand with series like Star-Spangled War Stories and Our Army at War, which were both eventually renamed after their respective recurring characters, Unknown Soldier and Sergeant Rock. Meanwhile, the Comics Code Authority relaxed some of its rules in 1971, bringing about a resurgence in horror comics from lots of publishers, but especially Charlton and DC. DC returned House of Mystery to its horror roots (after spending a good part of the '60s on Martian Manhunter and Dial H for Hero) and introduced new horror titles like The Unexpected and The Witching Hour.
Introduced in 1971, Weird War Tales was a combination of the two genres, featuring war stories with supernatural elements and J.M. DeMatteis and Pat Broderick created the Creature Commandos as part of DC's attempt to revive interest in the nine-year-old series. The team was a group of soldiers brought together and modified by a secret government organization called Project M. The unit was led by a normal human, but consisted of a Frankenstein-looking soldier who'd been stitched back together after stepping on a landmine, a criminal who was given vampire-like abilities, the Gorgonesque Dr. Medusa, and a farm boy named Warren Griffith whom Project M turned into a werewolf.
The Creature Commandos appeared off and on in Weird War Tales for a total of 18 issues until the series was cancelled with #124. They remained more or less dormant after that until 2000 when Tim Truman and Scot Eaton revived them for an 8-issue mini-series, adding a mummy, a Creature from the Black Lagoon-like monster, and a cyborg. In Weird War Tales, Griffith had been more or less a normal person (though one who suffered from clinical lycanthropy) who - thanks to Project M - could also change into real werewolf form, but Truman and Eaton made him more feral and out of control.
Besides a few appearances in DC events like Villains United and Justice League: Generation Lost, the Commandos' next major role was in the Flashpoint mini-series, Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown. This version replaced the Frankenstein-like soldier with the actual Frankenstein Monster, but the other major Commandos stayed the same, including Griffith as the werewolf. That version of the team carried over relatively intact to support the Frankenstein Monster in his 16-issue series, Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE.
October 13, 2013
Gravity (2013)
Who's in it?: Sandra Bullock (Bionic Showdown, Demolition Man) and George Clooney (Return to Horror High, Return of the Killer Tomatoes!).
What's it about?: A novice astronaut (Bullock) is stranded in Earth's orbit without a ship when a space shuttle mission goes horribly wrong.
How is it?: My default setting is to have zero interest in movies about people stuck alone in one setting for an hour-and-a-half. Though I've heard good things, I've never seen Castaway, Open Water, or that one with Ryan Reynolds buried alive. That's why I resisted Gravity when I first heard about it, even though it stars two of my favorite actors and was made by one of my favorite directors.
The pull of Bullock, Clooney, and Alfonso Cuarón became too powerful though, especially when paired with almost universally great reviews and a serious admonition by the right people to see it in 3D. I'm almost as disinterested in 3D as I am in watching a person try to stay alive for an entire film without any antagonists, but when other people who don't care for 3D tell me that that's the way I need to see a movie, then I usually listen. And I'm glad I did.
Though the action of Gravity all takes place in Earth's orbit, it's not just 90 minutes of Sandra Bullock floating in space, which is what I sort of feared. She has plenty to do as she tries to make it back to solid ground and there are lots of complications to prevent her from getting there. Sometimes you don't need a bad guy.
There's also some light character development as Bullock - because of some trauma in her past - has to remember why it's even important to live. This is the weakest part of the movie, but it does drive her character's emotions which in turn gives her some great scenes that remind me why she's one of my favorite actors. George Clooney doesn't have to stretch as much, but he's perfectly charming as the more seasoned astronaut who commands the shuttle mission and it's not his movie anyway.
As thrilling as the story is though, the real treat is the way it's presented. Cuarón mixes live performance and CGI seamlessly to create some amazing and breathtaking shots. They really do need to be seen in 3D though to appreciate their full glory and should be viewed on the largest screen possible. I don't know how much Gravity will reward multiple viewings, but it's a powerful, immersive experience and needs to be seen the right way at least once.
Grade: Four out of five debris clouds.
31 Werewolves | Fangface
Fangface was a Saturday morning cartoon that ran for a couple of seasons in 1978-79. It was produced by Ruby-Spears, an animation production company started by a couple of guys from Hanna-Barbera. Ruby-Spears is best known for Fangface, the Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (a favorite of mine as a kid), a short-lived and critically panned Superman cartoon, and the notorious Rubik the Amazing Cube. They also did the '80s version of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I always liked the idea of Fangface more than the execution. Like a lot of Saturday morning cartoons in the '70s, it stole a lot from Scooby Doo, Where Are You with it's gang of teenagers who traveled around solving mysteries in a cool ride with a unique companion. (Funky Phantom is my favorite of these rip-offs, but that's a post for another year.)
Fangface is the werewolf name of one of the teenagers, cowardly Shaggy-analogue Sherman Fangsworth. Whenever Sherman sees the moon (or a picture of it or anything slightly similar to it) he spins around and turns into the Tasmanian Devil-like Fangface. He also has a weird habit of howling at himself any time he looks in the mirror. It was a bad, unoriginal show and we didn't watch it as kids until it got rolled in with the superior Plastic Man as part of his Comedy/Adventure Show. But what would childhood be without memories of awful cartoons?
