Shades of Gray

Gangsters. Real Gangsters.

2012-02-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's June Collyer vs. a love-crazed superhero!

2012-02-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

If it's not obvious from this blog, I love old movies and I love old comic books. I also love writing silly supplements for NUELOW's "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters".

Those three favorite things collide in "Black Kitten vs. June Collyer", a ROLF! Valentine's Day Special where actress June Collyer (star of some 30 films between the years of 1927 and 1936, including "Hangman's House" (1928), "The Drums of Jeopardy" (1931), and "A Face in the Fog" (1936)) becomes the object of a superhero's jealous rage when Black Kitten becomes convinced that June Collyer is standing between her and the object of her love, Black Cobra.

June Collyer

"Black Kitten vs. June Collyer" was written by Steve Miller and L.L. Hundal and features artwork by Darrel Miller. It has game stats for obscure Golden Age comic book heroes Black Cobra and Black Kitten, actress June Collyer, and Communist Zombies; rules that expand upon the material presented in the core ROLF! game; and three battle scenarios.

Click here to get a copy of the NUELOW Games Valentine's Day special for just $0.50! It will be just like spending the holiday with June Collyer, superheroes, and me, your kind host. (And it will also let you understand why I never get any second dates.)

If you've never played ROLF! before, you can use this to get a copy for $1, thanks to a special link for a special discount available only for Shades of Gray readers.

More Paul Gulacy: Promo art for 'Sabre'

2012-02-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

It's Black History Month, so I am throwing out a couple questions for the assemblage: Was the Don McGregor scripted and Paul Gulacy/Billy Graham illustrated series "Sabre" the first American sci-fi comic book to feature a Black headliner?

And while it wasn't the first series to feature an inter-racial relationship--I believe that honor goes to Marvel's "Iron Fist"--was the first to have an inter-racial couple with children?

Picture Perfect Wednesday with Paul Gulacy

2012-02-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

Although I think the poor ladies might disagree about this being a perfect day....

Cover pic for the next NUELOW Games release

2012-01-31T11:53:00.000-08:00

"ROLF!: The Grim Reaper vs. the Fertility Goddess" will be released late today or early tomorrow via my online outlet at RPGNow.com, but in the meantime, here is the cover illo.

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

2012-01-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (Little-Brown 2007)
Writing and Art: Hergé
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Tintin, a young Belgian reporter, travels to the Soviet Union during the late 1920s to report on the socialist government of Joseph Stalin. He uncovers vast corruption in the "workers' paradise" and becomes marked for death by Stalin's secret police, prompting a string of adventures as he escapes back to Belgium.

"Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" was the first tale of the intrepid "boy reporter" and his dog Snowy that Herge wrote and drew. It is different in tone and style than all works that followed, and it is clearly the product of an artist still mastering his craft, not to mention finding the proper tone for the series that became his most celebrated.

Originally serialized in magazine from in 1929 and 1930, and published in book form shortly after completing its magazine run, Herge later a low opinion of this work. It's the only one of the 23 completed Tintin adventures that Hergé did not subsequently redraw in a color edition and/or update with more modern panels and references as the years went by. In fact, for decades, Herge blocked any efforts to republish "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets," and it wasn't until 1989 that he allowed an English translation of the book.

The style of story-telling "Tintin in the Land of the Soviets" is very different than the later stories that almost all saw some degree of revision by Herge over the years. It's closest in tone to "Tintin in the Congo" and "Tintin in America," which, if you read those three early works back-to-back, you can see the evolution of Tintin, even though Herge revised the two latter ones for later editions.

And, the art here is also far cruder than anything else I've ever read by Herge--it is barely recognizable, in fact. That said, I've never seen the original "Tintin in the Congo" nor "Tintin in America", but only the revised color versions. (And it's been 35 or so years since I read "Tintin in the Congo... and I'm not likely to get my hands on a copy again any time soon, as the hystrionics of the politically correct crowd and over-sensitive cry-babies successfully blocked its paperback re-issue back in 2008.)

The overall style is also more in line with newspaper comic strips of the 1920s and 1930s rather than the action-adventure of later Tintin stories. While there are some serious matters addressed--such as the portrayal of the Soviet government as murderous, corrupt, and predatory toward the people they were supposedly protecting and serving, portrayals which history has shown to be mild when compared to reality--the over-the-top cartoon action is what is most memorable about the book... and which is not found on this level in later works. Scenes where Tintin builds a plane over night or is frozen solid after wet from a river into the cold Russian night are almost without equal in Hergé later Tintin efforts, with the possible exception of the major city being built overnight or some of Tintin's interactions with Indians in "Tintin in America."

Still... if you like Tintin, you're bound to like this book. I don't think Hergé ever told a bad Tintin story.

DeStorm & Epic Meal Time: No fakin'... just bacon!

2012-01-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

DeStorm, Harley, and Mike Diva (l to r). Keeping it Real. With Bacon.

I'd never heard of DeStorm (a YouTube channel for an up-and-coming musician/comedian) or Epic Meal Time (a YouTube gonzo cooking channel with a bacon focus) before I stumbled across this video where these these two YouTube Channel owners teamed up for an Epic Rap Bacon Crossover. However, I have to delve deeper into their respective works, because this rap song and video is a lot of fun. Not to mention very arty, what with it being in black and white and all. :)

(The video was directed and produced by Mike Diva.)

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Justabuncha Skirts!

2012-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

"The Three Dancers" by Neil Folberg. Click here to see more of his work.

Sketches by Don Hudson

2012-01-16T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a small sampling of work by artist Don Hudson.

Somebody's Watching Thriller

2012-01-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

While grabbing YouTube videos for my job application for the Department of Homeland Security, I came across this mostly black-and-white and occasionally clever video for a mash-up of classic 1980s pop tunes "Thriller" and "Somebody's Watching Me".

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Anita Garvin

2012-01-11T00:22:00.000-08:00

Anita Garvin is a nearly forgotten comedienne who was a frequent co-star of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in silent movies during the late 1920s before they were a formal comedy team. She made a successful transition from the silent era to the talkies, but but by the late 1930s, she was ready to quit acting to raise a family.

Stan Laurel convinced her to delay her retirement long enough to join him in remaking one of their last silent films together, "From Soup to Nuts", as a segment in the 1940 film "A Chump at Oxford", with Oliver Hardy joining them in reprising the roles they had originally performed in 1928.

In her day, Garvin as a queen of slapstick comedy who could give any of her more famous male co-stars a run for their money in just about any area. Hers is a face and body that any fan of classic comedies is sure to admire if they keep an eye out for her.

Garvin passed away in July of 1994 at the age of 88.

'A Chump at Oxford' is funny but infuriating

2012-01-10T08:30:00.000-08:00

A Chump at Oxford (1940)
Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Anita Garvin, Forrest Harvey, Eddie Borden, Wilfred Lucas, and Peter Cushing
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A pair of down-on-their-luck laborers (Laurel and Hardy) receive a scholarship to Oxford as a reward for foiling a bank robbery. They are greeted with cruelty by the snobbish student body until one of them is revealed to be the long-lost Lord Paddington.

"A Chump at Oxford" is the first Laurel and Hardy film I've seen where I remember being irritated. I wanted the collection of entitled, self-important jerks who decide to make their lives Hell when the arrive at Oxford to get what they dished out ten-fold, yet they never seem to be adequately punished to my mind. While Stanley beating them up after he regains his memories as Lord Paddington is a good start, but nowhere near enough--I wanted to see them tossed out of the school, not just out a window.

The rest of the film more than makes up for it though. From the pair's attempt to work as domestics at a fancy mansion through the various bits at Oxford--even if they were mostly brought on by mean tricks--are all very funny. An added bonus for Peter Cushing fans is that you can see him in an early role as one of the cruel students... it's not a big part, but he's there. And he's the only one who doesn't get to wear a silly mustache when the gang is passing themselves of as professors to Stan and Ollie.

An interesting note about this film is that it was originally intended to be released in two versions--a 40-some minute version for the American market an a 60-some minute version for Europe. The first part of the film--where Laurel and Hardy work as servants at a fancy party--was to have been omitted in the American release.

Picture Perfect Special: Welcome to 2012!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

The New Year can be as impatient as she wants, but, while time keeps slipping into the future, the images of Myrna Loy stays here forever.

Out with the Old, and In With the New (or visa-versa?)

2011-12-31T23:11:00.000-08:00

It's a new year in Krazy Kat's "heppy land, furfur away"! (Click on the cartoon for a larger, more legible version.)

Puttin' on the Ritz!

2011-12-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

It's almost the end of 2012, but here at Shades of Gray, we're gonna party like it's 1929! :)

Here are some party tips from Clark Gable

And Harry Richman has a little advice/demonstation ready for us as well.

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part Four

2011-12-28T00:02:00.000-08:00

A few more images of the Amazing Amazon, as the year of her 70th birthday comes to a close.

By Mike Sell

By Brandon Peterson

By Chris Samnee

By Geoff Isherwood

By Al Rio

Two careers cross in 'King of the Underworld'

2011-12-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

King of the Underworld (1939)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson, Jessie Busley, John Eldridge, and Raymond Brown
Director: Lewis Seiler
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

When her husband (Eldridge) is killed in a raid on a gangster hide-out and is revealed to have been their physician of choice, Dr. Carole Nelson (Francis) has her reputation tarnished and career destroyed when no one believes she was ignorant of his activities. When she discovers the gang is hiding in a small town, she relocates there as well, in the hopes of finding the means to clear her name. When Carole discovers the megalomaniac gang-leader (Bogart) has kidnapped writer Bill Forrest (Stephenson) to force him to write his biography, she knows that more is now at stake than just her reputation and livelihood--the gangster is not going to let Bill live once the book is finished.

When "King of the Underworld" was made, Humphrey Bogart's star was on the rise, and Kay Francis' was quickly falling and burning out. Some sources indicate that this film was cast as it was because Warner Bros. executives were trying to force her to abandon her contract because of the non-glamorous nature of the part, and because she was given second billing to an actor with a far lesser stature than she had obtained. But, like the character she portrays in this movie, and like the strong women she had built her career on playing during the 1930s, Francis kept plugging on against the odds and in defiance of those who would bring her down. Despite the best efforts of studio suits, Francis still comes across as every bit the movie star that she was.

Part of the reason that Francis comes off looking so great in this movie is that Bogart's character, Joe Gurney. is a stereotypical, brutish and socipathic gangland thug with the mildly interesting character quirk of being obsessed with Napoleon Bonaparte, and considers himself the French general's modern-day intellectual counterpart. Of course, Joe doesn't really understand half of what Napoleon did during his lifetime and some houseplants are smarter than him, but what he lacks in intelligence he more than makes up for in animal cunning and brutality. Joe's gang isn't much smarter or classier than he; at least "Scarface" had George Raft playing a gangster possessing an air of class and intelligence... Joe Gurney's gang seems is a collection of dim bulbs with Joe merely being the smartest and toughest guy in a collection of idiots. He is so dumb that I kept expecting one of the other gang members to shoot him and take over when it became apparent their hideout had been compromised.

As a launching pad for stardom, this was not the greatest of choices... but, for Bogart, "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" were just around the corner, and with them finally came the great parts he'd been begging for.

Francis, on the other hand, portrays a character whose only flaw is that she is a little too trusting of the people close to her. She is brilliant, sensitive, and possessed with an unwavering sense of personal honor... and a sharp mind married with a drive to succeed with her honor intact that the likes of Joe Gurney wished he had. These traits not only let her outsmart petty "community leaders" in the little town she relocates to, but also outsmart Joe and gang in a clever, if mildly far-fetched way.

The best part of this movie, in fact, is the interaction between Joe and Carole. These are very tense and suspenseful scenes, because both Bogart and Francis were great acting talents and they both conveyed their characters so strongly that viewers have a sense throughout those scenes that this could all end very badly for Carole at any moment.

Francis' Carole is so stubborn that her drive to clear her name won't be stopped. Bogart's Joe is such a vicious monster that when he is being gregarious it feels forced and that he would rather kill someone than walk across a room. Each scene they have together feels like the unstoppable force is about to collide with the unmovable object with all the disaster that would follow such an event.

These two great screen talents are what makes this movie worth seeing, as it emerges as proof of the fact that great actors can transcend the material they are working with. It features Francis' last great role at Warner Bros. even though it was intended to be a bad part, and Bogart takes a bad part and makes it spectacular.

This review is part of Forever Classic's Humphrey Bogart Blogathon (Bogarthon?). Click here to see links to other entries.

Celebrating the birth of Jesus with song...

2011-12-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

... and a parody of "Hotel California".

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part Three

2011-12-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

Continuing our month-long celebration of Wonder Woman, with some of the best black-and-white illustrations of her ever digitized.

By Leonard Kirk

By Thomas Yates

By June Brigman

By Carlos Anda

By Al Rio

By Ben Dunn

Eduardo Barreto & Sinbad's Unfinished Voyage

2011-12-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

When the criminally under-appreciated artist Eduardo Barreto passed away last Thursday (December 15) 1 at the all-too-young an age of 57, one of the unfinished projects he left behind was "Sinbad and the Coils of the Serpent", a graphic novel he was pitching to publishers in colaboration with writer Christopher Mills.

Here are some character designs he created for that project. They show more clearly than any words I could write that another great talent has left us.

And here is a neat portrait of three famous characters from the comic book publisher Barreto was perhaps most closely associated with in the minds of those who loved his art.

Forgotten Comics: Jake Thrash

2011-12-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

Jack Thrash (Malibu Graphics 1989)
Writer: Barry Blair
Artist: Dave Cooper
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

During the 1980s, Barry Blair and Aircel Comics were front and center for the "black-and-white boom"... and Blair rode the wave as the "black and white bust" crashed onto the shores of comics publishing during the 1990s and ended a very exciting and creativity-filled time in the North American comic book industry... a time of such creativity and comics in such a spread of genres that had not been seen since, perhaps, the 1940s. And at the rate things have been doing in the years since, i don't think we'll ever see it again.

Writer/Artist Barry Blair

Aircel Comics published some of my favorite comics of that period, and Blair created, wrote, and/or drew many of them. I eagerly awaited the arrival of each new isssue of "Samurai", "Elf Lord" and "Dragon Ring"/"Dragon Force" when those titles were at their height, either as black-and-white comics, or, for a time, color. In fact, I first became interested in game design as possible income source when an idea for an RPG (which was my main vocation from 1993 to 2003, and which continues to be a strong sideline) that could be serialized in the back of "Elf Lord" struck me... and Eiwin Mark, editor at Aircel, seemed interested in the proposal.

The idea ultimately came to nothing as Aircel hit a rough patch during 1988 during the first signs of trouble in the booming alternative comic book market, was acquired by Malibu Graphics, and everything changed. Such is life. (Echoes of that approach to publishing an RPG have been present in NUELOW Games' recent "ROLF!" game line that I've been producing, and it may become fully manifested in a possible new product we are looking into developing... time will tell.)

The notion of an "Elf Lord" RPG wasn't the only thing that fell by the wayside during Aircel's transition. There was the extremely interesting three-issue mini-series "Jake Thrash", a cyberpunkish dark future story about a drifter squaring off against a group of man-eating mutants to save the lives of some young thrill-seekers too dumb to stay out of the bad parts of a war- and toxic-waste scarred urban sprawl. The overall tone of the series, and personality of the title character, was as if the main character from "For a Few Dollars More" had been transplanted from the grimy wild west to an even grimier and wilder dark future.

Two full-color issues of "Jake Thrash" were published in 1987, then sky-rocketing printing costs forced Aircel Comics to convert their titles back to the black-and-white they had started as, the operation was acquired by Malibu Graphics... but the third chapter in the tale of "Jake Thrash" never appeared, an apparent victim of changing market conditions and business decisions.

But in 1989, Malibu Graphics published a "Jake Thrash" graphic novel that collected a six-page teaser that had appeared in several of Aircel's titles prior to the debut of the aborted mini-series, the two issues that had seen print, and the lost third issue between two covers. It was a handsomely designed book that mostly did the material proud. Some of the gray-scale art is a bit muddled, but in general what had been intended to be elaborately colored pages--Aircel's color comics were amazing for what was industry standard at the time--comes across nicely. Dave Cooper's unusual line-art almost looks better this way, so, in the end, a black-and-white Jake Thrash might be been best after all.

Like is so often the case when revisiting something we loved when we were young, I found that reading "Jake Thrash" again 20+ years later, it's not quite as perfect as I remembered it, but it's still much, much better than many comics modern comics I've had the misfortune of flipping through in bookstores of late. Barry Blair's dialogue is clunky in many spots, and there are times when Dave Cooper's presentation of a fight scene or chase scene is a little hard to follow, but these are minor flaws in what is, generally speaking, a pretty intense reading experience. Blair and Cooper are far more effective and clear in their story-telling techniques than many modern artists and writers and it's a shame that I have to list this book under the "Forgotten Comics" heading.

I find it to be doubly a shame, because, even though I now see the imperfections in Blair and Cooper's work, the scene I remembered the clearest from the book was exactly as I recalled it, and I still consider it one of the greatest comic book moments I've ever read:

Barry Blair passed away in 2010 after spending his last few years drawing comics that can generously be described as "adult comics" or "erotica," but his output declined steadily in quality from the mid-1990s on, and Cooper has left the comic book field in favor of children's book illustrations, but during the 1980s, both men produced some excellent material. I will have to revisit more of it in this forum.

Princesses of Mars, Part Seventeen

2011-12-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

We return once again to that far-away and long-ago world where Martian princesses battle creatures while nearly naked.

By Sanjulian

By Buzz

By Mike Hoffman

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part Two

2011-12-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

By George Perez

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By Georges Jeanty

By Bruce Timm

By Ed Benes

By Adam Warren

Space Girl Adventures, Part Sixteen

2011-12-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

By Travis Charest

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Sixteen

To Be Continued....

The Milla Jovovich Quarterly:Milla and the Gentleman Who Fell

2011-12-07T18:01:00.000-08:00

Here's the video for "The Gentleman Who Fell" off of Milla Jovovich's 1994 album "Divine Comedy."

(BTW, if you can explain what's going on in the video, you're a smarter person than I.)

Milla models, sings, kicks monster butt, and poses awkwardly above a fireplace with a guitar. Is there anything this woman can't do?

Celebrating Wonder Woman, Part One

2011-12-07T00:02:00.000-08:00

In December 1941, Wonder Woman made her first appearance in "Sensation Comics". Seven decades later, she remains the most iconic superheroine of them all.

Every Wednesday this month, I'm celebrating the debut of Wonder Woman with a selection of artwork by illustrators famous and not so famous.

Happy 70th birthday, Wonder Woman! You don't look a day over 25!

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By Mike Wieringo

By Adam Hughes

By Chris Samnee

By John Byrne

If anyone out there who can draw wants to get in on the Wonder Woman celebration, feel free to send me a picture as a jpg or gif attachment at stevemillermail [at] gmail.com. :)

For more Wonder Woman pictures, visit Steven Lee's online gallery of comics art.

Will the black-gloved killer face the music?

2011-12-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

The Black Glove (aka "Face the Music") (1954)
Starring: Alex Nicol, Eleanor Summerfield, John Salew, Ann Hanslip, and Paul Carpenter
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An American band leader on a European tour (Nicol) becomes a murder suspect after he is the last known person to see a murder victim (Hanslip) alive. Using a mysterious bootleg recording as his only clue, he sets out to find the murderer.

While spooky black-gloved hands in movies have become associated mostly with Italian murder mysteries, they were presaging villainy and mayhem in films from all nations as early as the 1920s. The association with Italians come to a large degree from their persistent overuse by Dario Argento, but they are on display here both in the American market title and during the murder sequences in a British film.

Although, from a story perspective, the film isn't unlike something that might have been created by Argento, as its full of characters behaving oddly and downright stupidly because the plot dictates it. And the plot is loose to say the least, held together mostly by coincidences.

However, unlike the Argento films that post-date this one by more than a decade, this film is blessed by the superior direction of Terence Fisher. Once again, Fisher takes a modest creation and deploys all its parts in a manner so efficient that he so smooths over all the weaknesses so as to make them almost irrelevant.

Between eliciting a strong performance from lead Alex Nicol and the way he makes sure that the film keeps moving at a lightning-fast clip, you hardly have time to notice the film's shortcomings. Heck, Fisher keeps it moving so fast that even the musical numbers, which in many similar films bring things to a stand-still instead of driving them forward.

"The Black Glove" is another one of the nearly forgotten couple dozen black-and-white crime dramas that Hammer Films produced during the 1950s and 1960s in collaboration with American production companies, first with independent producer Robert Lippert and later Columbia Pictures. Like almost every film Fisher helmed, it is well worth a look.

Christmas with the Monsters!

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

The moment before Frankenstein's Monster kicks Dracula's ass for opening his Christmas present early... again!

Picture Perfect Special: Princesses of Mars, Part Sixteen

2011-12-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

And now for another trip to Mars, where the princesses continue their battles against monsters and clothes.

By Frank Brunner

By Michael Dooley

By John Heebink

By Bruce Timm

Wonder Woman is turning 70

2011-11-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

Seventy years ago next month, Wonder Woman made her first comic book appearance. I'm celebrating her every Wednesday in December. I hope you'll join me.

By Adam Hughes

'The Cat and the Canary' is a cool silent flick

2011-11-29T23:55:00.000-08:00

The Cat and the Canary (1927)
Starring: Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, Martha Mattox, Tully Marshall, Gertrude Astor, Flora Finch, Forrest Stanley, Arthur Edmund Carewe, George Siegmann, and Lucien Littlefield
Director: Paul Leni
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Twenty years to the hour after the death of millionaire Cyrus West, his relatives gather for the reading of his will; West loathed all of them, and he was determined to make them wait to pick at his dead reamins. His strange will leaves everything to his niece (La Plante) but only if she is certified sane by a doctor before dawn. If she is not declared mentally fit, a back-up heir--supposedly unknown to any living soul as the name is on a paper in a sealed envelope--will receive West's estate. As the relatives spend the night, soon the mansion becomes filled with strange and terrifying events... which may or may nt be in the mind of the young heiress--or perhaps even caused by her! Is she insane, or is someone attempting to drive her insane, so that they might gain the West fortune?

The grand-daddy of all Dark Old House mystery films and a collection of what would become standard fare in 1930s horror flicks and B-thrillers--gnarled grasping hands, masked killers, vanishing bodies, secret doors and passages, stylish damsels in distress, inept leading men, and just about anything else you can think of--this film is great fun and a must-see for anyone with a serious interest in the horror genre as an art form, or just a love for the gothic horror genre.

Your level of enjoyment of the early part of the picture will be dictated by your tolerance for the acting style of silent movies, but once the will has been read things start revving into high gear and the tension and action keeps building until the "big reveal" of the villain at the end. What's more, the bits that were supposed to be suspenseful in 1927 remain so today, and the same goes for the bits that were supposed to be funny.

There are a couple of disconnects story-wise--such as the point where one character talks another out of going for the police by saying that she'll do it... but then never goes anywhere--but those are more than made up for by scenes such as the one with the character fleeing in terror down a curtain-lined hallway, the stylish arrival of the police on the scene, and the action-filled climax that is equal-parts funny and frigtening and which cuts back and forth between a milk-cart speeding through the night and a furious battle between the comic relief character who's emerged as the film's hero and the caped, murdering madman.

If you enjoyed just about any horror film from Monogram Pictures or "The Old Dark House", you should check out this flick, even if you have yourself convinced you "hate silent movies."

Sampling one of the greats: 'Oh, My Goddess!"

2011-11-26T03:13:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, I bought and read my last volume of English-language reprints of Kosuke Fujishima's "Oh, My Goddess!"

It wasn't because I'd grown tired of the series--while I thought Fujishima's art was starting to fray a bit around the edges as he was seeming to begin to succumb to the stagnation that seems to hit every comic book artist whose style stops evolving for a long period of time, I still loved the sweet humor and overall story-lines of the books.

No, I abandoned this series, because, within two more releases in the series, Dark Horse Comics went from providing properly translated, flipped versions of the comic, to the slip-shod non-flipped translations that are now the norm in the marketplace. As much as I liked "Oh, My Goddess!", I didn't want to support that move with my patronage.

No matter... Dark Horse and Fujishima didn't need my money, as the series is still going strong and into the 40s as far as the number of reprint books go.

I was going through some archived files, and I found this review from October 2005. I figured I'd repost it. It may be the first in a series of "Oh, My Goddess!" reviews, as I may enjoy my improving eyesight by re-reading those great graphic novels.

And now... re-presenting a review exactly as it first appeared on "Rotten Tomatoes" in 2005...

"Oh, My Godess!" Vol. 17: Traveller
Story and Art: Kosuke Fujishima
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Kosuke Fujishima's "Oh, My Goddess!" series has ranked among the very best graphic novel series in the world for at least the past decade. His story-telling techniques have continued to evolve, and while I have some personal nitpicks with where his art style is heading, they are exactly nothing but nitpicks. The latest volume in the series shows that this series will be going strong for years to come. The art is gorgeous, the stories are funny and touching, and the characters are as charming as ever.

In "Traveler," the threats faced by mechanic and college student Keiichi and the three goddesses (Belldandy, Skuld, and Urd) that have taken up residence with him in an abandoned temple are not of the reality-shattering variety--they prevented all of time from being unraveled in the previous volume, "Mystery Child"--but instead are on a smaller, more personal scale.

The first half of the book introduces a new continuing cast member--a sentient robot built by Skuld as a companion to Banpei, Skuld's first self-aware robotic creation. Unfortunately, the new robot hates Banpei with a passion.

The second half of the book opens with Belldandy losing her divine powers at a very inopportune moment. The timing becomes even worse when she and Keiichi become stranded at the center of an infinite space generated by another of Skuld's inventions. To make matters worse something is in the space with them....

This second half of "Traveler" is Fujishima's finest effort so far. Keiichi is firmly at center stage, shining like he never has before even while dealing with yet another weird creature that's ended up in his life due to the presence of the goddesses. The flow of the story is perfectly paced and the ending is very satisfying.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Alix Talton, American Native

2011-11-23T00:06:00.000-08:00

Authentically politically incorrect.

Picture Perfect Special: Princesses of Mars, Part Fourteen

2011-11-18T00:02:00.000-08:00

For the rest of the year, we will be traveling to Mars every other week for visits with the deadly and exotic princesses who dwell there. Keep your arms inside the ride at all times, or they may get cut off.

By Mike Hoffman

By Adam Hughes and Karl Story

By Gene Gonzales

By Anna-Marie Cool

No posts on any of my blogs this week.

2011-11-17T09:17:00.001-08:00

I am having really bad eye trouble. Hopefully, tomorrow's trip to the doctor will start to make things better.

I hope you'll check in at some point in the future.

Bringing some class to NUELOW Games

2011-11-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

One of the first releases in the NUELOW Games fiction line was my "remaster" of John Kendrick Bangs' fabulous tales of the Associated Shades of Hades, "Houseboat on the River Styx". We felt the fact we could say "Look! It's Shakespeare!" lent a touch of class to an outfit that otherwise specializes in offerings featuring supermodels beating each other up, and mockery of current political and pop cultural events.

But, seeing that I'm desperate to be respected and taken seriously as a writer, critic, and game designer, I'm once again trying to infuse a little class into the NUELOW Games line-up. I'm returning to the Shakespeare/Houseboat well.

Here's the cover for the next release for the "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters". Shakespeare and other Houseboat characters make a return, and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, is added to the mix. There will also be a very special guest star, a newcomer to the Houseboat crew. Can you spot him in the picture?

NUELOW Games: Putting the ass in Class Since 1994!

Space Girl Adventures, Part Fifteen

2011-11-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm running low on Spacegirl material (and catching up with Travis Charest's creation of new material), so this series is going bi-weekly... and there will be a little less stuff in each post.

By Adam Warren

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Fifteen

To Be Continued....

By Terry Moore

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Random Ninjaosity

2011-11-09T01:01:00.000-08:00

From Pale Rider 2: A Town Called Sakura

Ninjas support a woman's right to choose--the sword she kills you with.

(Yeah, I'm just making crap up. I don't know where those pictures are from--although the top one is probably a publicity still for one of the many versions of "Black Hood". I think I grabbed them from this very excellent site for reasons I no longer recall.)

Space Girl Adventures, Part Fourteen

2011-11-04T00:02:00.000-07:00

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Fourteen

To Be Continued....

By Les McClane

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Here be Ninja Babes

2011-11-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by the letter N and the annual Cinema Steve Nine Days of the Ninja mini-blogathon.

By Kim DeMulder

By Karlonne Santos

By Adam Warren

By Louie Snoozzzzzz

The deadliest of blogathons....

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-31T00:02:00.000-07:00

There is no time left...

Vampirella Wishes You a Very Scary Halloween!

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

There Are Two Days Left....

Space Girl Adventures, Part Thirteen

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Monsters are lurking everywhere as Halloween draws near....

By "Buzz"

Travis Charest's SPACEGIRL returns in November!

By Mike Hoffman

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-27T01:51:00.000-07:00

There are Four Days Left....

By Joe Jusko

Picture Perfect Wednesday:Halloween is almost here....

2011-10-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

... and Clara Bow is wondering if she has enough protection from the goblins and ghouls. Not to mention enough candy to sate the trick-or-treaters. How about you?

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

There are Six Days Left....

By Jim Balent

Male Call Monday: Taking a Break from Spooky Stuff!

2011-10-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

Here are more highlights from Milt Caniff's WW2-era strip created specifically for American troops. Click on each strip for a larger, more legible version.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

There are Eight Days Left...

By Sanjulian

No doubt that 'Shadow of a Doubt' is great

2011-10-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Starring: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotton, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, and Patricia Collinge
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: Ten of Ten Stars

Ennui-ridden teenager Charlie (Wright) finds her drab world filled with life and hope of excitement when her legendary, globe-trotting Uncle Charlie, the man she is named for, pays a surprise visit to her and family. But Charlie's delight soon gives way to suspicion, then fear, then terror as she gradually comes to realize that he is hiding a dark secret -- that he is a serial killer on the run.

This is said to be Hitchcock's personal favorite among all the movies he made, and he was well within his rights to be very, very proud of it. With a script that is absolutely perfect in every way, a setting that captures the essence of the idyllic small American town so perfectly that Ray Bradbury would be moved to tears, and a cast that all deliver great performances in parts it seems they were born to play, there simply is not a single sour note in this movie.

It starts with a script that deftly sets up all its characters and manages to draw them as fully realized, three-dimension people within minutes of their first appearances on screen... usually through subtle character actions or exchanges. The most impressive of these is the film's lead character, a typical whiny restless teenager who in a script from lesser writers and interpreted by a lesser director would have been extremely annoying and someone you might wish ill upon. However, the character is so deftly written here and her reactions so believable--a mixture of childishness and adult and perception of what it means to be an adult--that you are rooting for her almost from the moment she is introduced into the story.

The same is true of the opposite side of the coin, the film's other Charlie... a man on the run with a secret, who may or may not be a serial killer. Like Young Charlie, he is deftly established a few touches that are followed up with further development that lends texture and deep character to him.

These two characters, and the oft-referenced "special bond" that exists between them, are the solid center around which story and other characters rotate, each developed as they relate to the two Charlies and each eventually emerging as fully realized as they are. Even the "special bond" ends up taking on personality, evolving from childish imaginings born of coincidences to something more real and that gives sinister weight to either Charlie when the younger of the two promises she will kill the older one if he hurts her mother.

Heck, this script is so perfect that the insta-romance the develops between Young Charlie and one of the detectives who come into town on Uncle Charlie's tail doesn't bother me one bit. Where this has nearly ruined a couple other Hitchcock films for me, here it

Of course, as well-written as these characters are, they would have withered in the hands of the wrong actor. Here, the casting is so absolutely perfect that the actors have an exponential impact when it comes to breathing life into the characters. Casting Joseph Cotton as a serial killer, who up to this point in his career had played nothing but lovable good guys, was a stroke of genius, and petite Teresa Wright nails her teenaged character perfectly despite being 25 at the time this film was made. Even the bit-players--like the small town's librarian and traffic cop--fit their roles perfect and instantly make the audience feel they know the person in question.

The great script and the perfectly cast actors are further supported by a great location and even better sets. A problem I sometimes have with Hitchcock's American films is sometimes jarring and obvious difference between footage made on sets or the studio back lot versus footage made on location. The quality of the environments change so drastically that I am sometimes pushed out of being absorbed in the movie. Not so here. Location and sound stage merge seamlessly and undetectably to form a perfect whole.

If you only watch one Hitchcock film, this is the one to choose.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

There are Ten Days Left...

By Joe Jusko

Space Girl Adventures, Part Twelve

2011-10-21T00:02:00.001-07:00

Even the Space Girls must battle monsters as Halloween draws near!

By Dennis Fujitake

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Twelve

TRAVIS CHAREST'S SPACEGIRL RETURNS IN NOVEMBER!

By Mike Hoffman

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-19T12:01:00.000-07:00

There are Twelve Days Left....

By Tony DeZuniga

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Halloween is Coming....

2011-10-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

... and Kay Johnson is ready. How about you?

I think there's a ROLF! cover style evolving...

2011-10-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

My latest bit of "art work."

I think this might have been better in concept and/or in my head than it ended up in reality. Can anyone but me see what those guys at the bottom are?

(This one is the cover for "ROLF!: The Breast Hope for Peace," which releases Wednesday, October 19.)

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-17T02:02:00.000-07:00

There are 14 Days Left....

By Mike Hoffman

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are 16 Days Left....

By Joe Jusko

Space Girl Adventures, Part Eleven

2011-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Halloween draws closer... and the monsters are closing in on the Space Girls!

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Eleven

By Shane White

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-13T01:01:00.000-07:00

There are 18 Days Left....

By Rudy Nebres

The Shadow Knows....

2011-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

... if you're hiding behind drawn shades on Halloween, and he'll bust in anyway.

So remember: Don't be a douche-bag. Be ready with candy and open the door when the Trick Or Treaters knock.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-11T02:02:00.000-07:00

There are 20 Days Left...

By Alan Davis

The impossible HP Lovecraft movie got made!

2011-10-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)
Starring: John Klemantaski, Matt Foyer, Noah Wagner, Patrick O'Day, Dan Mersault, and John Bolen
Director: Andrew Lehman
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

While trying to get his uncle's estate in order, a scholar (Foyer) discovers a web of horror and madness that spans the globe.

"The Call of Cthulhu" is the most famous story by pulp fiction horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and it's one that conventional wisdom (and, frankly, common sense) said could not be adapted to the screen. And certainly not on a low budget. It's a story that literally covers five decades and spans the globe with four plot-lines--one featuring a demonic cult performing human sacrifices deep within a swamp and the police officer who interrupts them, of a doomed ship's crew who encounter an uncharted island and a gigantic monster during a savage storm, one of a mad that is driven mad by strange dreams, and finally the tale of the narrator himself and how he was driven insane by completing research started by his uncle and discovering how those other three events were connected in a terrible chain of cosmic cause and effect.

It's a story that's both grand in scope, with world-spanning travel and dimension-spanning devil-worship, and yet subtle and intimate in the sources from which it draws its horror, because the tale ultimately deals with a man driven insane when he realizes that humans are insignificant cogs in a machine that hums along as it creates through through actions that have no obvious connection yet are bound together through unseen and unimagined forces of fate and destiny. To top it off, even though humans are incapable of comprehending the vast cosmic destiny unfolding around us, if we get a glimpse of it, we are then driven to attempt to understand it or become part of it, lured to madness by the titular "Call of Chuthulu."

But the filmmakers and cast behind this movie managed to do the impossible. They not only created the most faithful screen adaptation of a Lovecraft story I've yet to come across, but they did while capturing the tone and flavor of Lovecraft's layered writing style.

And they did it for around $50,000... delivering a horror movie far better than ones made with 100 times the budget level.

Part of the success of this film actually grew out of its low budget. It caused the filmmakers to settle on the idea of making the film as if it had been made during the time Lovecraft's original story had been published. It let them build sets and props for less than it would have cost them to do in color--because there are things that can be more easily hidden in black-and-white than when shooting in color--and it let them take approaches to special effects that are perfectly acceptable in a movie with apparent 1920s production values but which would have been outrageously laughable if used in a film with a modern feel.

The shot a silent movie, with the actors doing their level best to capture the gestures and performance styles of performers from that that time and making the movie using a mix of vintage and modern techniques--working at the intersection of digital compositing, stop-motion photography, miniatures, and forced perspective camera angles.

The filmmakers were mostly successful in creating a movie that feels like it dates from the 1920s. I'm sure uber-geeks would be inclined to nit-pick it for featuring things like zooms and pans and otherwise having the camera moving during shots, but I didn't find those obvious bits of modernity distracting from the overall effect. Heck, they even avoided the pitfall that has ruined several other contemporary films made to look old... they didn't go overboard with the digital "aging" to the film. There's just enough here to create the illusion that I'm watching some almost-lost film transferred to DVD Alpha Video rather than something made in 2005, but they don't go overboard to the point where it becomes distracting and obnoxiously fake.

In fact, the only thing I that hurt my impression of this film is that they were not able to afford was film stock but instead shot on video.

The biggest weakness of the film is that it has that it has that slightly bland look that I've found to be the hallmark of so many shot-on-video films, with the highlights and the shadows not being as starkly contrasted as they need to be. And that harms this film is some places. It's not a fatal flaw, but it takes knocks it down from ALMOST PERFECT to just GREAT (and from a Ten-star rating to a Nine-star.)

That said, this is a great recapturing of a cinematic style that's been gone for almost a century now. It's also a film that makes one dream about what Robert Weiene, Guido Brignone, Fritz Lang, or even Alfred Hitchcock, might have with H.P. Lovecraft.

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-09T06:01:00.000-07:00

There are 22 Days Left....

By Sanjulian

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

There are 24 Days Left...

By Bruce Timm

Space Girl Adventures, Part Ten

2011-10-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's the monstrous month of October,
and not even the Space Girls are safe!

By David Miller

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Ten

To Be Continued....

By Gene Gonzales

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

There are 26 Days Left...

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Claudia Dell is ready for Halloween!

2011-10-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

How about you?

'The Pimp, The Protester, and The Po Po'

2011-10-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a statement of great significance from NUELOW Games, relating to the Occupy [Whatever Open Space] movement sweeping America:

Because we desperately want to be viewed as important, we here at NUELOW Games are jumping on the band-wagon of media and celebrity celebration of the brave activists in New York City and Seattle protesting... um... something. Tomorrow, we will proudly bring you "ROLF!: The Pimp, The Protester, and The Po Po."

Here's the cover that Karl M. has created for the supplement:

(We're not sure how to spell "PoPo" but maybe we'll do whatever we damn well please in the spirit of civil disobedience. Fight the power--but just be careful you don't develop tennis elbow or carpal tunnel syndrome from all that drumming!)

Look for "The ROLF!: The Pimp, The Protester, and the PoPo" tomorrow, Wednesday 10/5/2011, in the NUELOW Games section of RPGNow.com!

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

28 Days Left....

By Mike Hoffman

Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella

2011-10-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Thirty Days to Go...

By Jim Ordliss

Space Girl Adventures, Part Nine

2011-09-30T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's time for the weekly visit from the Space Girls. Click on the images for larger, more legible versions.

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Nine

To Be Continued....

By Phil Noto

Coming in October....

2011-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Starting on October 1 and continuing until October 31, it's the Countdown to Halloween with Vampirella. And not even Batman can stop it!

'One Girl's Confession' is barely worth hearing

2011-09-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

One Girl's Confession (1953)
Starring: Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, and Glenn Langan
Director: Hugo Haas
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Tempered by the school of hard knocks from an early age, Mary (Moore) robs $25,000 from her mobbed-up employer out of revenge for him ruining her father many years earlier. She then confesses to the theft, but never reveals where she hid the money, so she is sent to prison where she is safe from retaliation. All she has to do is serve her time and then quietly retrieve the hidden fortune once she is released. But when the kindness shown to her by a professional gambler (Haas) inspires her to share the money with him to help him out of a tight spot, and he appears to repay her by stealing the entire secreted fortune, she sets out get "her" money back or to gain revenge.

I imagine that in 1953 "One Girl's Confession" had all the plot twists and reversals to keep viewers satisfied. Further, the acting is good, the cinematography is serviceable, and the direction is steady and well-focused. Personally, I think that Cleo Moore's character of Mary was a little too quick to develop such trust in Hugo Haas' character given her background, but if one accepts the idea that she was just a little girl at heart looking for decent father-esque figure.

But nearly seventy years later, the film's story comes across as feeling too straight-forward, too pat, and under-developed. When watching it, there are numerous complications that seem to be set up as the story unfolds, but which are brought to fruition. The mob angle is dealt with kinda-sorta, but it feels too easy for someone watching the film in 2011, and there are a couple of characters that are just begging to be revealed as duplicitous or as something other than what they appear to be on the surface. But, without spoiling anything, I can tell you that whatever twists you THINK might be coming, you'll only get a tiny fraction of the proverbial "storm" can one would expect to come down on Mary's head as she moves to collect the money she's "worked for."

Now, the plot twists that do materialize are all well-executed, and the signature "ironic twists" in a Hugo Haas picture are here in spades, but as "The End" flashed on the screen, I was left feeling like I'd somehow been short-changed. This isn't exactly a bad movie, it's just a little tame.

I suppose it might be a nice, light-weight introduction to the film noir genre if you have a 11-14 year-old girl in your household with a love of crime fiction and mysteries (and the same might be true of a boy, but I think it might be less likely), but I think time has left this movie behind as entertainment for adults. I'd move to hear other opinions, though.

Psychic or Psychotic? That's a question for a'Seance on a Wet Afternoon'

2011-09-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Starring: Richard Attenborough, Kim Stanley, Judith Donner, Nanette Newman, Gerald Sim, and Patrick Magee
Director: Bryan Forbes
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A spineless husband (Attenborough) is bullied by his would-be-celebrity medium wife (Stanley) into kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy industrialist and demand a ransom, so she can use her "psychic powers to save the child. As he executes the hoax, he starts to fear that his increasingly delusional wife will cause the girl's death.

This is a slow-moving, deliberate, and decidedly talky psychological thriller where the fate of a naive child rests entirely in the hands of a man too weak to either stand up to his unhinged wife, or to get her the help she needs. In the end, his weakness brings a predictable doom down upon him, but the way its executed is brilliantly done.

With the only remotely action-oriented scenes being the ones surrounding a ransom drop and the nominal hero of this tragic story's efforts to avoid the police, this is a film that succeeds due to the superior acting abilities of the cast and the well-crafted script they had to work with. If a lesser performer than Kim Stanley--as a psychotic woman who has been encouraged in her delusions of a psychic gift since childhood and who now is driven to desperate measures to gain the recognition she believes she deserves--had been portraying the part, this is a character who would come across as ridiculous instead of sinister and obnoxious instead of pity-worthy, despite the depth of her madness and evil.

Similarly, if a lesser actor than Richard Attenborough had been playing the wimpy, conflicted Billy--with brilliant subtlety in contrast to Stanley's over-the-top, in-your-face performance--he would have come across as sniveling instead of distraught and disgustingly pathetic instead of deeply sympathetic.

Although this is film with virtually no likable characters--with the exception of the kidnap-victim played ably by cute child actress Judith Donner--Attenborough and Stanley nonetheless make us care about the people they are portraying. (The cops come across as basically unlikable, because as the film unfolds, we become emotionally invested with Billy and his wife, so we them from their point of view.) We want Billy to grow a spine and to do what he knows is right before it's too late for him and the innocent child.

And we are kept guessing up to the very last moment of the film whether Billy's weakness has turned him from kidnapper to killer, with one final tense scene and seance on the titular wet afternoon.

This is an excellent film that anyone who appreciates psychological thrillers should seek out.

Space Girl Adventures, Part Eight

2011-09-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Robert Ullman

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Eight

To Be Continued....

By Mark Morales

By Mike Hoffman

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Princesses of Mars, Part Thirteen

2011-09-21T00:33:00.000-07:00

Our thirteenth trip to Mars for an audience with the beautiful princesses that dwell there is the first to take place on a Wednesday.

By Kim DeMulder

By Mike Hoffman

By Chad Spiker

By John Lucase

Male Call Monday!

2011-09-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

More comic strips featuring Shades of Gray's unofficial mascot, Miss Lace. (As always, click on the individual strip for a larger, more legible version.)

Meet the Dead Pirates...

2011-09-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

What has the gang from Merrie Melodies been up to? The answer lies here, in these animated music videos for tunes from the Dead Pirates by French artist Matthieu Bessudo (aka McBess).

Click here to see more drawings by McBess.

Space Girl Adventures, Part Seven

2011-09-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, so that means another visit from the Space Girls!

By Joe Benitez

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Seven

To Be Continued....

By Joe Fife

My latest artistic masterpiece....

2011-09-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Given that this is Picture Perfect Wednesday, I thought I'd post my latest, greatest piece of "art."

It's the cover for "Supermodel Slapfest," the latest supplement for "ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters". It will be available from RPGNow and DriveThruRPG a little later today.

True Statement

2011-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

'The Snorkel': Low-key thriller with nice pay-off

2011-09-13T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Snorkel (1958)
Starring: Peter Van Eyck, Mandy Miller, Betta St. John, William Franklyn, and Gregoire Aslan
Director: Guy Green
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Paul Decker (Van Eyck) constructs the perfect locked-room murder by drugging his wife and filling the sealed room with gas while he hides under the floor breathing through a snorkel connected to fresh air via tubes in the outside wall. He remains hidden until the body has been discovered and taken away, and with everyone believing he is across the border on business, he seems to have the perfect alibi. Everyone that is, except for his teenage step-daughter Candice (Miller) who is convinced he murdered her. Although no adults believe her, Candice continues to push and investigate on her own, and soon Decker realizes he must eliminate her, too.

"The Snorkel" is a mystery in the vein of the "Columbo" television series, in the sense that the audience is shown how the murderer sets up his "perfect crime" and the subsequent enjoyment comes from watching his said perfection be picked apart and his crimes ultimately coming to light due to something he overlooked or an attempt to stop whoever it is who is investigating him from succeeding.

Like a "Columbo" episode, the murderer here is such a vile individual that viewers can't wait to see him exposed--there's every indication that this is his second murder as part of a long-term plan to gain access to his wife's fortune, and he is so base and arrogant that his wife isn't even buried before he starts putting the moves on Candice's hot young governess (Betta St. John)--but unlike on "Columbo" we're not given insight into the entire method by which Decker commits his crime, but the film lets viewers work it out at the same time Candice does.

And that's the point where the film starts to get really fun, the point where Decker realizes that he needs to get rid of Candice, but also the point where he starts being too smart for his own good.

The film's closing minutes represent a near-perfect ending. Candice turns key parts of Decker's scheme on him, with the help of a little bit of coincidence, and sets him up for a heaping helping of poetic justice... a great pay-off for the hour's time during which we've watched Decker ooze his way across the screen with an ever-growing wish for the ability to reach into the film and beat him to a pulp.

With a script that moves so fast that we can barely notice its populated by two-dimensional characters; great performances by Peter Van Eyck, as a slimy villain you'll love to hate, and Mandy Miller, in one of her 'wounded kitten'-type roles that she so excelled at; and director Guy Green who brings across Candice's pursuit for truth with such conviction that viewers will be with her all the way, but will also wonder if her fanaticism isn't evidence that she's not just a child but also more than just a little crazy, "The Snorkel" is an excellent film from a nearly forgotten chapter in the history of Hammer Studios... from a time when they were more known for their thrillers than their technicolor Gothic horror romps.

Check it out. It's one of six undeservedly obscure films presented in the "Icons of Suspense" DVD collection.

Space Girl Adventures, Part Six

2011-09-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Chrissie Zullo

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Six

To Be Continued....

By Ethan Van Sciver

By Stephane Roux

The Milla Jovovich Quarterly:How Milla Spent Her Summer Vacation

2011-09-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Introducing Miss Lace of 'Male Call'

2011-09-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

I recently got another question about the illo on the masthead of Shades of Gray. Who drew it and where is it from, was the basic question.

Well, the drawing is by Milton Caniff of "Terry and the Pirates" fame, and the lovely lady in question is Miss Lace. She appeared in a WWII-era strip, "Male Call", that Caniff created initially for the weekly newspapers published on Army bases and in camps, but it also appeared on the comics pages of civilian newspapers.

Don Markstein has written a brief history of the strip, which you can read by clicking here.

Meanwhile, here are a few of Caniff's strips to brighten your day. (I've got about a dozen of my favorites that I'll be posting over the next couple of weeks.)

By the way, the strip detailing the as-of-yet unnamed Miss Lace's arrival at the Army Base is a reference to the fact that the strip initially starred Burma, a ditzy blonde from Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" strip. However, Caniff had not received permission from the syndicate that owned the "Terry" strip, so he had to replace her with a different character to keep "Male Call" going.

As always, click on the individual cartoons for larger, more easily read versions.

'Horrors of Spider Island' is horrible

2011-09-05T12:15:00.001-07:00

Horrors of Spider Island (aka "The Spider's Web", "It's Hot in Paradise", and "Girls of Spider Island") (1962)
Starring: Alex D'Arcy, Helga Franck, and a bunch of washed-up dancers and wanna-be porn actresses.
Director: Fritz Boettger
Rating: Two of Ten Stars

An impresario (D'Arcy) and his Girl Friday (Franck) are on their way to Singapore with a recently hired troupe of obnoxious, bitchy strippers and chorus girls when their plane crashes. They take refuge on a desolate south sea island, where the heat makes the girls strip down to bare essentials, where they are menaced by a goofy-looking spider puppet, and where their fearless leader (who's named Gary) is soon transformed into a hideous half-man, half-spider creature. And that's when things get REALLY boring.

I understand there's an "adults only" version of this film that was released, That's not the version I saw. Maybe nudity makes it more interesting, although I sincerely doubt that. Aside from being boring and full of unsexy sexiness, this film features such slipshod use of stock footage that even Edward D. Wood, Jr would grab director Fritz Boettger by the lapels and scream, "What in God's name were you doing man?!" For example, the doomed plane that carries Gary and the babes to Spider Island starts as a two-engine jet, becomes a four-engine plane while in the air, and transforms into a completely different kind of plane (a bomber, I think) as it crashes.

The only horror you'll find in this film is the realization you will never get the 80 minutes you spend watching it back.

It's Godzilla's betentacled cousin!

2011-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)
Starring: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Don Curtis, and Chuck Griffiths
Director: Robert Gordon
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A giant octopus-like sea monster rises from the deepest canyons of the Pacific Ocean to attack experimental nuclear submarines and the San Francisco waterfront.

A bit slow-moving by modern standards, this is nonetheless a fine example of the "giant sea-monster runs amok due to the radiation from atomic bomb tests" that was kicked off by "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and "Gorjira" (aka "Godzilla").

The main attraction of the film is, of course, the rampaging creation, which is "octopus-like" because it actually only has six arms. It's not bad as far as these movies go, particularly during the sequence where it's tearing down the Golden Gate Bridge. According to movie legend, the notoriously budget-conscious producer Sam Katzman only gave animator Ray Harryhausen enough time and money to build a six-armed creature. (I suspect there are many execs at present-day Warner Bros., Disney, Universal, and Sony Pictures [formerly Columbia] who would give their right arms for someone like Katzman or Mario Bava to come back from the dead and share their methods for making good looking movies on the cheap with the current crop of big spending producers and directors.)

As for the human cast, the acting and characters are typical for a 1955 sci-fi flick. The most interesting character in the film, especially considering its vintage, is Dr. Lesley Joyce, played by Faith Domergue. While early in the film she seems to be mooning over her male scientific colleague and rival early in the film, and ultimately shifts her affections to a submarine commander, unlike most women characters of this period finding a hubby and giving up her career in exchange for staying home and having kids and mixing his martinis at night. Domergue's character is strong-willed without being shrewish and career-oriented without being frigid--as her final lines of the film drive home when she puts off a romantic advance by Kenneth Tobey's naval officer by stating that they can continue when she's back from her long-time planned scientific expedition to the Nile river.

Although the budgetary constraints are occasionally evident--I really think Katzman and Gordon's vision for the Golden Gate bridge sequence mixing live action actors with animated monster mayhem outstripped the money and time at their disposal--this is still a film that's well worth the time of anyone who enjoys 1950s sci-fi flicks.

Space Girl Adventures, Part Five

2011-09-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Bill Sienkiewicz

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Five

By Al Bigley

Picture Perfect Wednesday:You Know Your Ballet Stinks...

2011-08-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

... when the dancers insist on wearing gas masks while performing.

'Never Take Sweets from a Stranger' is an undervalued gem from Hammer Films

2011-08-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

Never Take Sweets from a Stranger (aka "Never Take Candy from a Stranger") (1960)
Starring: Janina Faye, Patrick Allen, Gwen Watford, Allison Leggatt, Frances Green, Bill Nagy, and Patrick Aylmer
Director: Cyril Frankel
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

After his daughter (Faye) is victimized by a pedophile, a school principal (Allen) finds himself faced with indifferent law enforcement and fearful citizens of the small town he lives in... because the man who abused his daughter is the patriarch of the rich family who unofficially runs the community.

If you're prone to write off Hammer Films as merely the creators of old horror movies and cheap thrillers, you need to see this movie. It's the one of the most realistic treatments of a child molestation case to ever be put on film, with its portrayal of people willing to allow a known pedophile prey on their children in order to preserve their jobs and reputations, and with its portrayal of the difficulty the justice system can face when attempting to address criminals like this--especially when they hire ruthless attorneys with morals not much different than their own.

Painfully and frighteningly realistic--and perhaps even depressingly so, as not much seems to have changed when it comes to the world turning a blind eye toward and making excuses for rich and powerful pedophiles--this is a film that builds steadily and relentlessly toward a shocking finale... which must have seemed even more-so to audiences in 1960 when this film was first released. Great performances from child actress Janina Faye and Patrick Aylmer go a long way to making this movie as great as it is--Faye is perfect as girl around which the story swirls, coming across as believable and realistic throughout; while Aylmer manages to portray menace and outright evil in his scenes without uttering a word. The talent of these two performers is what makes the climax of the film as harrowing as it is... especially once it becomes clear that the filmmakers are going to break one of the biggest film taboos of all and that a little child will be dead by the hands of a human monster before the end credits roll.

Although this is probably not one of Roman Polanski's favorite films--not only does it deal with the damage pedophiles can do to victims (even when they don't rape them, like he does) the pedophile here is ultimately brought to justice--it is worth seeing by anyone who can appreciate a well-made drama.

Sgt. Pepper's Stairway to Heaven

2011-08-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

Here's something odd but very fun: A Beatles tribute band performing "Stairway to Heaven".

Space Girl Adventures, Part Four

2011-08-26T00:03:00.000-07:00

By Tony DeZuniga

SPACEGIRL
By Travis Charest
Part Four

To Be Continued....

By Les McClaine

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Beating the bad economy...

2011-08-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

If you can't find work, one option might be to create a service and find a market for it.

One possibility is to join work and pleasure and start a Bathing Beauty Custom Painting business. It sure beats moronic rioting and trashing your own neighborhoods.

(This photo was originally spotted at Pretty Pictures.)

A better movie than I had expected

2011-08-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)
Starring Darrell Howe, Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln, Michael Granger, Frank Killmond, Judy Howard, and Don Devlin
Director: Boris Petrof
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

An emotionally unstable young man (Howe) is driven over the edge when the brother he hero-worships is executed for murder. He embarks on a campaign of revenge against those he blames for his brother's death, starting with assault, moving onto arson, and ultimately murder.

"Anatomy of a Pyscho" is one of those juvenile delinquent dramas that seemed to be very popular fare during the 1950s and into the 1960s, but which I have only seen a precious few that weren't either so deadly dull and/or bone-achingly preachy that I wanted to start hitting myself over the head with a hammer just to make watching less painful. Either I have been unlucky in my picks, or this film genre saw a higher quotient of crap than most others because the fact that I have to count "The Violent Years", which was written by Edward D. Wood Jr. and directed by a fellow not much more competent than he was, as one of the best examples of the juvenile delinquent drama. (Even if most of the juveniles seem to be in their early 20s, as is usually the case with these movies.)

So, given my past experience, it was a pleasant surprise to find this film to be quickly paced, decently acted, and refreshingly free of heavy-handed messaging. The dialogue is awful--vacillating from over-the-top 1950s hep-catness to old-school over-the-top melodrama, but the effort put in by the cast of the film goes a long way to proving the adage that a good actor can save a lousy script as everyone featured elevates the material to a level beyond its natural worth. Heck, Pamela Lincoln and Michael Granger must have been downright acting geniuses, because they manage to make their cheesy, stilted lines sound completely natural.

Still, not even the greatest actors of them all can overcome the shortcomings of indifferent cinematography and lighting, and a weak director who seems to lose his grip on the movie in the final few minutes. After building to what promises to be an explosive finale with the titular psycho going on a rampage that will at the very least destroy himself, the filmmakers chicken out at the last moment and we're left with a badly edited, boring and repetitive closing scene.

It's a shame the film's director and/or screen-writers (which some sources claim include Edward D. Wood Jr. working under the pen-name Larry Lee) couldn't keep it together for the 70-minute run-time, because the weak ending drags this one to the very low end of average.

Space Girl Adventures, Part Three

2011-08-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

Every Friday, lovely Space Girls drop by at Shades of Gray, bringing with them another installment of Travis Charest's Spacegirl strip.

SPACEGIRL
By Travis Charest
Part Three

To Be Continued....

By Bob McLeod

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Conan the Pin-up!

2011-08-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

Here's something to get you ready for the "Conan the Barbarian" movie that's coming to theaters this Friday, August 19: Great drawings of Conan from when Marvel Comics held the comics rights to the character during the 1970s into the 1990s.

By Alfredo Alcala

By John Buscema and Joe Sinnott

By Gil Kane

By John Busema and Ernie Chan

By Alex Toth

'Women's Prison' isn't very arresting, but still worth watching

2011-08-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

Women's Prison (1955)
Starring: Ida Lupino, Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter, Howard Duff, Barry Kelley, Warren Stevens, Mae Clarke, Gertrude Michael, and Cleo Moore
Director: Lewis Seiler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Amelia Van Zandt (Lupino) is the warden of a women's prison who runs her institution with an iron fist, dominating the lives of both prisoners and prison matrons. Her fiercely controlled world starts coming unraveled when her abuses of a delicate housewife incarcerated for involuntary manslaughter (Thaxter) and a prisoner who becomes pregnant (Totter) when her husband (Stevens)--who is incarcerated in the male side of the prison--breaks into the women's prison to an illicit rendezvous provokes both the anger of the prison doctor (Duff) and the prisoners.

Compared to the "women in prison" movies that followed in the 1970s, this is very, very tame stuff, even if the publicity campaign at the time if its release tried to position the film as if it wasn't. The still I chose to illustrate the film implies atmosphere and situations that are nowhere to be found in the film (while demonstrating that Cleo Moore was literally the poster-girl for Columbia Picture's marketing department when it came to "sexing things up"--her part in the film is very small, yet she is the subject of a publicity still). The prisoners here seem more like members of a professional association on a retreat than hardened criminals worthy of being locked away, the guards are all professional and appropriately concerned with the well-being of prisoners, the prison is neat and clean and well-lit. If not for the hell-beast of a warden, the prison in this film and the people in it are nicer than some places I've been on vacation at.

In fact, the prisoners are so nice that the over-the-top hysterics of the poor housewife who is sent up for killing a child with her car become very irritating after a while. While she doesn't deserve to be straight-jacketed or thrown in solitary for being frightened, it's a mystery where her over-reaction to normal prison procedures came from, since every prisoner she meets is nice and chatty and no different than the girls at the hair salon or in the grocery store checkout line. Hell, one prisoner could even find work as a tour guide, I'm certain, given how quickly she steps up to show the "new kid" ropes.

Although the strangely gentile nature of the inmates seemed a bit odd to me, I did appreciate the fact that the film didn't try to paint them as victims of the justice system like some other prison movies I've watched. Most of the inmates are exactly where they belong, and they make no bones about it. I also liked the fact that the matrons and guards were shown as decent human beings who were just doing their jobs.

I also liked the fact that the decency and professionalism of the prison's staff was contrasted with the indifference of the men's prison warden (Barry Kelley)--who may have worked his way up through the system, but who somewhere along the way forgot that the inmates and those working under him are human beings--and the calculated cruelty of women's prison warden, the aforementioned Ida Lupino. In fact, Lupino does such a great job at portraying a sociopathic cast-iron bitch that I almost wished her end had been a little less predictable and pathetic... I wanted her to get a "top o' the world, ma!" sort-of memorable exit, even if the way the film does dispatch her is adequate and dramatically fitting.

Well-acted, well-scripted, and effectively paced, "Women's Prison" is worth a look if you're a fan of Ida Lupino and have a high tolerance for melodrama. But this is not the place to look if you have a hankering for a Roger Corman or Jess Franco "birds in cages"-type sleaze.

Coming Monday from NUELOW ....

2011-08-12T20:00:00.001-07:00

"The Deadly Sword of Cormac", featuring two tales from Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan! (Special sales price just $1 through 8/19.)

(The illo is a mash-up assembled from Larry Elmore art and a woodcut from ca. 1200 AD.)

Space Girl Adventures, Part Two

2011-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Dave Stevens

SPACEGIRL
by Travis Charest
Part Two

To Be Continued...

By Neal Adams

Picture Perfect Wednesday: John Buscema's Conan

2011-08-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

No artist has drawn more Conan portraits and stories than John Buscema, and no one has ever drawn him better.