Funny Picture Stories #4 (1937)

Funny Picture Stories v1#4 [Grand Comics Database links: 4; Comic Book Database: 4]
(February 1937)
Comics Magazine Co., Inc.
(Version read: Will Eisner: Edge of Genius trade paperback edition (2007) [LibraryThing])

"Brothers 3" story
Credits:
Writer: Will Eisner
Penciller: Will Eisner
Inker: Will Eisner


(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

The Comics Magazine #1 (1936)

The Comics Magazine #1 [Grand Comics Database links: 1; Comic Book Database: 1]
(May 1936)
Comics Magazine Co., Inc.
(Version read: Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 trade paperback edition (2009) [LibraryThing] [Amazon])

"Dr. Mystic" story
Credits:
Writer: Jerry ("Jerome") Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster


(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

Star Wars #81-82 (1984)

Star Wars #81-82 [Grand Comics Database 81, 82; Comic Book Database 81, 82]
(March 1984, April 1984)
Marvel Comics

(#81) "Jawas of Doom!"
Credits:
Writer: [Mary] Jo Duffy
Penciller: Ron Frenz ("breakdowns")
Inker: Tom Palmer, Tom Mandrake ("finishes")

(#82) "Diplomacy"
Credits:
Writer: [Mary] Jo Duffy
Penciller: Ron Frenz ("breakdowns")
Inker: "M. Hands" (as in, "Many Hands"; i.e., multiple, uncredited inkers) ("finishes")

(See Star Wars Blog entry.)

Star Wars Tales (stories from #15, 12, 10, and 23) (2001-2003, 2005)

Star Wars Tales #15 [Grand Comics Database 15; Comic Book Database 15, 15 (photo cover)]
(March 2003)
Dark Horse Comics

"Do Or Do Not"
Credits:
Writer: Jay Laird
Penciller: Timothy II
Inker: Timothy II

Star Wars Tales #12 [Grand Comics Database 12 (photo cover); Comic Book Database 12, 12 (photo cover)]
(June 2002)
Dark Horse Comics

"A Day in the Life"
Credits:
Writer: Brett Matthews
Penciller: Adrian Sibar
Inker: Adrian Sibar

Star Wars Tales #10 [Grand Comics Database 10; Comic Book Database 10, 10 (photo cover)]
(December 2001)
Dark Horse Comics

"Free Memory"
Credits:
Writer: Brett Matthews
Penciller: Vatche Mavlian
Inker: Vatche Mavlian


Star Wars Tales #23 [Grand Comics Database 23; Comic Book Database 23, 23 (photo cover)]
(March 2005)
Dark Horse Comics

"Lucky"
Credits:
Writer: Rob Williams
Penciller: Michel Lacombe
Inker: Serge LaPointe, Andrew Pepoy


Star Wars Tales #10 [Grand Comics Database #10; Comic Book Database 10, 10 (photo cover)]
(December 2001)
Dark Horse Comics

"A Wookie Scorned"
Credits:
Writer: Jason Hall
Penciller: Christina Chen
Inker: Christina Chen


(See Star Wars Blog entry.)

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968)

Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968)
Ted White
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Introduction by Stan Lee. Second novel based on Marvel Comics characters ever published (following The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker). At the point when The Great Gold Steal first came out, the Marvel era--which began with the release of Fantastic Four #1 in August 1961 (cover dated November)--was only seven years old. To give those familiar with Marvel's publishing history an idea, STEAL has a July 1968 publishing date. According to Mike's Amazing World of DC website (the "Amazing World of Marvel" part of it), these are some of the comics that were coming out in July 1968: Amazing Spider-Man #68, Avengers #56, Captain America #106, Iron Man #6, Mighty Marvel Western #1, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #5, Silver Surfer #2, Tales of Asgard #1, Avengers Annual #2, Incredible Hulk Annual #1, and Fantastic Four #79.

As regarding novels based on comics characters in general, there were still very few of them at this point based on comic book characters. There had been a full length Superman novel for younger readers back in 1942 (just four years after he'd first shown up in Action Comics #1). Then, over twenty years later, the "Batmania" craze produced by the 1960s BATMAN television series led to a couple TV series tie-in novels (Winston Lyon's Batman Versus Three Villains of Doom and Batman Versus the Fearsome Foursome, both 1966). And that was pretty much it before the Avengers and Captain America novels I talk about here came out in 1967 and 1968. (For more info, see Wikipedia list page I put together on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_novels_based_on_comics .)

As for The Great Gold Steal, overall, I enjoyed it. I have to say right from the start that it is a *MUCH* better novel than The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker. In that one, the author, Otto Binder, tried to emulate the then current style of the Avengers comic books in both plot and the "hip" dialogue. The end product was a novel that was at times a bit painful to get through.

The Great Gold Steal, however, is written by science fiction author, Ted White. By the time Steal came out, White had already had published seven or eight other novels, so he was much more experienced than Binder (which wasn't really a novel writer; he came primarily out of the comic book writing field, I believe). White wrote Steal as a much more "adult" novel (for instance, people--police and bank security officers mostly, but also some of the crooks--actually get shot and killed in this one). The plot deals with Captain America uncovering a plot to steal billions of dollars' worth of gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. White starts the novel off with just enough of the main plot to get you hooked, then jumps back in time for a few short chapters to World War II to introduce new readers to Captain America's origins, before returning again to the gold stealing plot.

The Captain America we read about here is a *bit* different from the one in the comic books (the World War II experiment that gave him his powers in the novel also included steel reinforced bones and the ability to completely control his body's various processes, like slowing down his own heartbeat or channeling all of his energies into healing from wounds faster), but not so much as to be a distraction for those familiar with the comics, I don't think. There is still that "fish out of water" element here--1940s Captain America adjusting to his new life in the 1960s; the Avengers are discussed but are all away so we don't see them--prevalent in the Captain America comics of the time.

The first two thirds or so of the novel (getting us into the plot and seeing Cap's origins) is better than the last part. Once it is time for the novel's climax, it starts to be a bit more predictable what's going to happen next. Still, I found it to be a pretty enjoyable novel. Enough so that at some point I might try to hunt up some of White's science fiction novels..)

The Great Gold Steal would turn out to be the last Marvel based novel for ten years. It wouldn't be followed by another Marvel novel until 1978's The Amazing Spider-Man: Mayhem in Manhattan by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman (which was the start of an eleven book series of Marvel books--ten novels and one short story collection--published by Pocket Books from 1978 to 1979). (Finished reading 4/16/10)

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 (1984-1985)

Siegel and Shuster: Dateline 1930's #1-2 [Grand Comics Database links 1, 2; Comic Book Database: 1]
(November 1984, [no month] 1985)
Eclipse Comics

Credits:
Writer: Jerry Siegel
Penciller: Joe Shuster
Inker: Joe Shuster

(See Comics Index Blog entry.)

How Few Remain (1997)

How Few Remain (1997)
Harry Turtledove
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Finished reading How Few Remain today. It took me a while but that wasn't because I wasn't enjoying it. Quite the contrary. This is the second of Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels that I've read (the first also being Civil War based, The Guns of the South) and I love just how historically authentic feeling Turtledove is able to make the various characters and period settings while at the same time spinning them off into completely different directions from what actually occured in "real life".

How Few Remain is about (another) alternate history in which the Confederate States won the Civil War. The "point of divergence" (as alternate history fans call the exact historical point at which the work diverges from actual history) is covered briefly in the book's prelude, which shows a Confederate courier *not* accidentally losing General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 which detailed Lee's plans for the invasion of the North. In reality, this order was recovered by Union forces allowing them to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Antietam. In How Few, the order is not compromised and Lee's forces succeed in capturing Philadelphia, which convinces Britain and France to side with the Confederate States and effectively ended the war.

Aside from the prelude (which takes place in 1862), the novel takes place entirely in 1881. After nearly twenty years of having to share the North American continent with the Confederate States of America (and also twenty years of Democratic presidents following Abraham Lincoln's electoral defeat in 1864), the United States of America, at the order of Republican President James G. Blaine, launches a second war with the CSA after the Confederate States purchase from Mexico two key territories (Sonora and Chihuahua) which expands the CSA's overall territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Turtledove's novels are especially rich in the amount of characters he includes. In this one we have Lincoln, much older than he lived in real life and now a man general disdained or outright hated by most as the man largely responsible for the USA's losing the "War of Secession". Lincoln by this point has turned the focus of his attention to crusading for the working man against the powers of big business.

Military figures include U.S. Lt. General George Armstrong Custer, Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (head of the Confederate General Staff), General John Pope (commander of U.S. forces in Utah), Confederate General James Ewell "Jeb" Stuart, and a young Theodore Roosevelt, who leads a U.S. volunteer cavalry unit (Roosevelt and Samuel Clemens are especially fun characters in this novel).

Other key characters include the President of the Confederate States James Longstreet, Frederick Douglass, Geronimo (who first works with Jeb Stuart's forces to ambush U.S. troops in Mexico but after which Stuart must somehow keep from waging war with the local Mexican people in what is now Confederate territory), Colonel Alfred von Schlieffen (here, the German military attache to the U.S.), Mormon leader John Taylor (the Mormons decide to take advantage of the war between the USA and CSA to attempt to break away from the U.S.; Custer and his men are sent into Utah to put down the Mormon rebellion), and Samuel Clemens (who never went on to write under the pen name, Mark Twain; instead, Clemens is a San Francisco newspaper editor).

How Few Remain is a stand alone novel but it establishes what fans have come to refer to as the "Timeline-191" series, of which Turtledove went on to write nine more novels (three separate trilogies) in. Following How Few Remain is The Great War: American Front, which picks up in 1914 and the start of World War I (which, in this timeline, will include the additional plot element of there still being *two* American nations in existence: the United States of America and the Confederate States of America). (Finished reading 4/11/2010)

New Comics Index Blog

Decided to reconfigure things here a bit (hopefully to make things a bit clearer.)

I've created an entirely new blog I'm calling my "Comics Index Blog". It is here that I'll include month-by-month labels in order to more specifically index what I've read by original release (and, potentially, other factors, although I'll still be limited by the maximum number of text characters Blogger allows me to put in each blog entry's label's field).

I've started off by carrying over portions of the posts I made about comics that I posted in 2009 to this new blog (specifically, the posts about Watchmen and Star Trek: Countdown). I've included links back to the original posts on the main Reading/Viewing blog page.

The only changes I made to the original blog entries was removing the month-by-month labels ("1986-09 (Comics)", "1986-10 (Comics)", etc., and replacing them with the more general, by the decade style that I use for novels, nonfiction, movies, etc. ("1980s Comics").

As with Star Trek related entries, I still intend on posting at least brief entries to the main page about everything that I read, but the comics ones will become less detailed, referring one over to the Comics Index Blog page.

Avatar

Avatar (2009) (Movie)
(Opened in the U.S. 12/18/09; seen 3/14/10).

It's been nearly a year since I last posted a blog entry about a movie I've seen. Partially that's because I haven't been out to see very many movies lately. Also, I've been very busy with various other things (moving again in November of '09 and some pretty big work changes coming up are just two of those; plus, I've gotten pretty active on Facebook which is where I've shifted a lot of my internet time).

Here's something I wrote about Avatar over on my Facebook page:

Avatar was good. ...[I]t "rocked" in all the areas where one would expect it to. Everything looked awesome. Cameron really raised things up another notch in terms of creating an incredibly exotic looking alien world. The action scenes were exciting and some of the best I've seen, both the ground and air based combat.

If you're looking for a really deep plot you might be a bit disappointed as it's pretty predictable (the old "natives being persecuted and driven off their own land by technologically superior invaders" theme) and it follows a lot of the standard action movie conventions, as well. The lead two or three characters are *just* developed enough to keep one interested in what was happening (aside from the pretty stereotypical tough guy drill sergeant bad guy, and even he "works" in the context of keeping things moving along and providing the necessary danger/conflict).

But I think for most people going in to see Avatar, they don't mind those relatively minor quibbles. It's obviously marketed as a big action/sci-fi "blockbuster" type movie so people should realize what type of movie they are going to see. (I have to admit that, aside from visual effects wise, I'm a bit surprised that it got so much Oscar notice. It didn't seem like an "Oscars type" movie to me. Then, again, what it actually won was in the areas of art direction, cinematography, and visual effects.)... See More

I saw the 3D version (which costs me an additional $3 on top of the matinee price for a regular movie). It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust. (Just a few minutes into the movie they do one of these cool looking shots where you are inside the space ship and the interior walls seem to recede back many miles into the distance. My eyes hadn't adjusted quite yet so it had a brief vertigo-like effect on me. And near the end of the movie during the big, climactic battle things got a bit fast, action wise, which I had a little trouble following every now and then with the 3D effect. But, otherwise, it was an enjoyable experience, one that I wasn't going to be able experience unless I went out and saw it at the theater. (I will find it interesting to watch the standard "2D" version when it comes out on DVD to compare.)

Warning, Avatar's running time is 162 minutes. So over 2 1/2 hours long. Plan your day accordingly. :) (Not quite as long as Titanic--which I'm actually one of the seemingly few people who actually enjoyed, at least going by most of the people I talk to--which was 194 minutes long. But, don't worry, I heard on the radio that Fox is thinking about re-releasing Avatar with additional scenes this summer. They wanted to keep the movie in the digital 3D and IMAX theaters longer but it got bumped from them when Alice in Wonderland came out in 3D on March 5. One source said that there could be as much as 40 more minutes of additional material, but IMAX movies can only be 170 minutes long, so that only about 8 additional minutes if IMAX theaters are one of their primary concerns.)

Oh, and sequels are pretty much a sure thing as Avatar is currently the highest grossing movie ever (and Cameron already had plans for a couple of sequels when he was making it should it do well enough.)

Vulcan's Soul Book 3: Epiphany (2007)

Vulcan's Soul Book 3: Epiphany (2007)
("Star Trek" novel)
Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Third book in the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy (follows Exodus and Exiles). In this final novel in the Vulcan's Soul trilogy, we see the fate of Karatek and his people stranded and enslaved on the frozen half of the Romulan twin world, Remus, and also the origins of both the Remans and the Watraii. In the present, post-Dominion War Next Generation time frame, Ambassador Spock, Captain Saavik, and the others aboard the U.S.S. Alliance face a confrontation with not only the Watraii but also the Romulans over the ancient Romulan relic stolen by the Watraii and recovered by Spock and company. Adding to the situation is the kidnapping of the Romulan Praetor by the Watraii, to which Starfleet sends in Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E to assist. Over the course of the novel, the connections between the various sub-plots (the "Memory" sections from the time of the Sundering and those in the present) become apparent. Opinion: best of the three (then, again, I'm a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan in general, so my interest picked up even more when Picard and company came into the story. The Karatek storyline gets better here, too, however, as it nears it's inevitable conclusion. There are even some somewhat interesting side chapters delving into the minds of the various high ranking Romulan and Federation political figures. However, there are also a few parts where it is not entirely clear just what is being referred to if one has not already read Sherman and Shwartz's earlier novels, Vulcan's Forge and Vulcan's Heart. (Finished reading 2/2/10)

Work Related Reading (Children's Books)

A Book (2009)
Mordicai Gerstein
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Children's picture book. (Finished reading 1/20/2010)

*****
How Oliver Olson Changed the World
Claudia Mills; pictures by Heather Maione
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Children's chapter book. (Finished reading 1/20/2010)


(Quick blog entry. May go back and add more details at a later date.)

The Texas Run (1985)

The Texas Run (1985)
("V" novel)
Geo. W. Proctor
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Tenth original "V" novel (eleventh overall). California resistance member, Rick Hurley, unexpectedly finds himself drawn into the middle of a medical supply run into Visitor occupied Dallas/Fort Worth. Meanwhile, the Houston Visitor mothership commander has ambitions not only to further his own career status but also to capture resistance member, Sheryl Lee Darcy (whom Rick has fallen for). His goal: to force her to conceive another "star child" (like Elizabeth from the television series). When Sheryl Lee's mother, whom the commander is obsessed with, turns out to have died, the commander turns his sights on her daughter, Sheryl Lee. An okay enough "V" novel. Nothing special though. (Only television character in the book is Mike Donovan, in the first chapter.) Next book in my chronological "V" reading/viewing: The New England Resistance. (Finished reading 1/13/10)

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker

The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker (1967)
Otto Binder
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Introduction by Stan Lee. First novel based on Marvel Comics characters. The Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Goliath/Ant-Man, and the Wasp) must defeat "Karzz, the Conqueror" (an alien time traveller from the 70th century) who threatens to set in place "four world-doom catastrophes" to destroy the Earth out of revenge for humanity's stepping in the way of his complete rule over the galaxy in his own, future, time. By destroying the Earth in the 20th century, he plans to create an entirely different timeline where he is ruler of all. Notable for being the first novel based on Marvel Comics characters more than anything else. Very campy. (Makes Batman Versus Three Villains of Doom--see below--downright serious, in comparison.) Doubtlessly, Binder was trying to emulate the then "hip" writing style Stan Lee was using in the Marvel Comics of the time, but an entire novel of said style can be rather difficult to take, to put it lightly. For collectors/completists only, I'm afraid. (Oh, and by the way, while Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch appear on the book's cover, they are not actually present in the novel itself. However they and Thor are described as "former members" early on in the novel, and are represented by statues dedicated to each of them during an Avengers themed telecast.) (Finished reading 1/6/10)

Vulcan's Soul Book 2: Exiles (2006)

Vulcan's Soul Book 2: Exiles (2006)
("Star Trek" novel)
Josepha Sherman and Susan Schwartz
([LibraryThing] [Amazon])

Second book in the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy (follows Exodus and continues in Epiphany). The two separate (but presumably related) stories begun in book one continue onward. The first, that of Karatek, his family, and contemporaries aboard the ships that thousands of years ago left their homeworld of Vulcan behind in what would later be referred to as "the Sundering". They eventually arrive at their new home. But, after surviving the many trials of the long voyage, Karatek and his family have one last betrayal to face upon their arrival. The second storyline, which takes place in the Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 24th century time frame, follows Ambassador Spock, Captain Saavik, Captain Montgomery Scott, Lt. Commander Data, and Romulan expatrate Ruanek's attempt to rescue Admiral Chekov from the Watraii. (Finished reading 12/26/09)