It's 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day 2011'!

Why we draw:

And we'll keep drawing until they get the message. Click here for my 2011 ceremonial Mo-toon.

Death threats and actual murders are not an appropriate response mere words and scribbles on pieces of paper. If Muslims want the world to respect them and their all-precious Prophet, they need to behave like they are deserving of respect and they need to join in the condemnation of those who don't. Like, for example condemning in no uncertain terms those who issue death threats or commit mayhem and murder over "blasphemy against the Prophet" instead of making excuses for them.

It's 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day 2011'!

Later today, I'll be posting some oldies-but-goodies I've been saving for Mohammed Mondays, but if you have original black-and-white Mo-toons you would like me to host, I'll be happy to put them up. Just send them to me as email attachments. You can also click here to see my contribution to this blessed day when sane people let blood-thirsty idol-worshipers know that they don't scare us, and that we don't subscribe to their belief that drawings of the Prophet Mohammed (may peas be upon him) have the power to corrupt the souls of human beings.

Celebrating Dracula, Part Two

Here are a few more illustrations of the world's most famous vampire, in celebration of the month when Bram Stoker's "Dracula" was originally published in 1897.

By David Hoover

By Chris Samnee

By Tony Harris

By Dick Giordano

By Gene Colan

A Batman that I can't love

DC Showcase Presents: Batman, Volume One (DC Comics, 2007)
Writers: Ed Herron, Gardner Fox, John Broome, and Bill Finger
Artists: Carmine Infantino, Bob Kane, Murphy Anderson, and Various
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Batman and the characters of the Fantastic Four are my favorite superheroes. But the FF left me behind some time in the early 1990s--the issue with the image of the Wizard snatching Franklin from a sleeping Ben Grimm is the last FF story I acknowledge--and Batman moved beyond me around the time "Batman Year Two" saw print.

With the FF, I LOVE everything from the first issue (where they were Kirby's recasting of DC's Challengers of the Unknown with superpowers) through the above-mentioned issue, which was #302 or something like that. I like the FF as porrtrayed in the "Spider-Girl" M2 universe, but mainline Marvel is dead to me. (Okay... I could do wihtout most of the Inhumans, but Crystal and her romance with Johnny I liked.)

With Batman, I LOVE just about everything from the late 1970s through the early 1990s... "Detective Comics", "Batman", "Batman Family", "The Brave & the Bold", "Worlds Finest's Comics"... I love 'em all. The Doug Moench scripted, Don Newton/Gene Colan/Alfredo Alcala illustrated tales in "Detective" and "Batman" are the high points of my Batman experience, along with the Bob Haney-written, Jim Aparo illustrated tales from "The Brave and the Bold".

So, I figured I'd enjoy "Showcase Presents: Batman"--a massive, 500+ page book reprinting stories from "Detective Comics" #327-342 and "Batman" #164-174--because I love the FF from the same period, and I greatly enjoy the 1960s Batman TV show.

I was, however, wrong. While I detest the psychotic, grim-and-gritty Batman that came into fashion in the 1990s, I found myself equally turned off by the frivolous stories in this volume. They were virtually all forgettable, too cutesy and self-consciously camp, and downright embarrassing whenever they attempted to get "hip." Even the great artwork of Carmine Infantino can't dress up these turkeys... and the always mediocre Bob Kane only manages to drag down a few of the better tales. (Yes, he created Batman... and yes, I enjoy the early tales he produced. But there were far more talented creators working at the same time he was.)

There were a few memorable highlights--such as when the killed off Alfred to the point where his dead body is even shown on panel--and a handful of borderline film-noir crime tales and a couple of stories featuring Patricia Powell, a clever police woman and potential romantic interest for both Bruce Wayne and Batman. (The only two things I'm curious about in this book is how Alfred came back to life, and whatever happened to Powell. Maybe I'll have to pick up Volume 2 and find out.)

It's interesting to me that Batman is such a huge character, given that comics from the same period featuring Hawkman, Elongated Man, and the Flash were so vastly superior. The power of marketing and branding at work, I suppose. I can, however, easily see why Marvel Comics caught on the way they did. The quality of those early Marvel tales are heads and shoulders above those featuring the DC headliners of Superman and Batman.

Celebrating Dracula, Part One

In May of 1897, Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" was first published. It went on to popularize vampires and become one of the most adapted books ever. Counting the numerous spin-offs, Dracula may well be the most written-about figure in all of pop culture.

This is the first in a series of posts presenting artist visions of the King of Vampires. This week's selection are all interpretations of Dracula as viewed through the editorial lens of Marvel Comics.

By Russ Heath

By Dick Giordano

By Gene Colan

By Bob Hall

Featuring the craziest pre-1960s femme fatale?

Night Editor (1946)
Starring: William Gargan, Paul E. Burns, Janis Carter, Frank Wilcox, and Jeff Donnell
Director: Henry Levin
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A homicide detective (Gargan) having an affair with a thrill-seeking married wealthy woman (Carter) witnesses a murder during one of their trysts. Even though he can identify and arrest the killer (Wilcox), he can't do so without causing a scandal, destroying his family and ruining his career. Will a good cop who made a bad call do the right thing, or go further down the path of corruption?

This is the stuff good 1940s film noirs and crime dramas are made of, and this is pretty good crime drama. Part proto-police procedural, part film noir, part melodrama, this film is fun! It gets really exciting when classism enters the picture, and the psycho dame the cop is fooling around with decides to choose between "her kind" and doing the right thing when the cop's conscience really starts bothering him. It's a nice twist that comes at just the right moment to kick the film's suspense level up even higher.

While the high quality of the film--with its perfect pacing, appropriately moody lighting, superior cinematography, and a cast that gives excellent performances all around--is to be expected from a major studio like Columbia, the film offers the surprise of what is perhaps the most sociopathic/borderline psychopathic femme fatale I recall seeing in a Hollywood movie made before the 1960s. From her demand to see the body of the murder victim to the icepick action late in the film, I was surprised by just how nasty she was. She makes the crazy scheming women of "Strange Woman" and "Lady From Shanghai" look like they should be selling Girl Scout cookies. While Janis Carter made a career out of playing characters like this, this is the most twisted character I've ever seen her play, and I wonder if this extreme character could be a reason the film sank from view after its initial release.

The only serious complaint I have with "Night Editor" is that they filmmakers, aside from the cars being driven, didn't make even a halfhearted attempt to match the look of the characters to the late 1920s time-frame the bulk of it takes place in. Would it really have been that hard for a major operation like Columbia to adjust the hairstyles of the women and get proper wardrobe for the entire cast instead of having everyone in contemporary mid-1940s styles?

A smaller complaint is that the film's resolution is ultimately predictable (doubly-so if you pay close attention to the exchanges that take place in the newsroom as the story unfolds). However, getting there is so much fun that it doesn't really matter.

Fans of film noir pictures, classic mysteries, and the type of crime dramas where the hero has to work backwards to prove the guilt of a murderer he has already identified will find plenty of entertainment here. This is one of the many movies that could do with a little more recognition from us film-fans.




Trivia: "Night Editor" was a popular radio anthology series where the editor of title would relate the "unreported facts" of some news item. It later became a television series.

Picture Perfect Special: Princesses of Mars, Part Eight

Dejah Thoris and other Martian Princesses are hanging out at my house, celebrating my birthday! (Okay, so it's just my cats and I. But a guy can dream, can't he?)

By Bruce Timm

By Randy Green

By Mitch Foust

By Paul Renauld

In all seriousness, I'm getting together with friends. But Martian Princesses would be welcomed at the table if they chose to show up!

'The Capture' fails because it is well done

The Capture (1950)
Starring: Lew Ayres, Teresa Wright, Victor Jory, Jimmy Hunt, and Barry Kelley
Director: John Sturges
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Oil-man Lin Vanner (Ayres), haunted by guilt after killing a suspected murderer and payroll thief, seeks out the dead man's family (Hunt and Wright) to make amends. He soon discovers that he may have killed an innocent and sets his mind to finding the real thief.

In concept, "The Capture" is interesting enough. It is a modern-day (well... 1930s, which is more modern than the 1870s) Western that deals with the emotional impact killing another human being has on an Everyday Joe who isn't a trained soldier or police officer, as well as the void that person's death leaves for those who love him. The tale is spiced up with some romance, intrigue, drama, and true crime-style action, but it ultimately comes off as less than interesting.

The biggest problem with the film is that its central character, Lin, is just a little too much of an Everyday Joe. Lew Ayres does a fine job of portraying this character... a hard working, honest man who is concerned with all the usual things--earning a living, impressing his boss, looking good to his girlfriend--when his life is thrown into turmoil because of a single snap decision. But Lin is such an Everyday Joe, both because of the way the script is written and Ayers performance, that he is boring. There's a reason they don't make movies and write adventure stories about people like you and me, Dear Reader, it's because we're boring. And Lin is like us, just an Everyday Working Stiff. Lin's ordinariness also makes it very hard to suspend disbelief during the film's third act when he turns hardcore amateur investigator/tough guy in his search for the real thief and peace of mind. In other words, the filmmakers and Ayres do such a good job of portraying Lin as just a normal guy that it ends up working against the entertainment value of the film.

Another problem rests with Teresa Wright's character. Wright struggles mightily to give texture to her, but she can't overcome the fact that the character is written to be a dishrag who can't even pull of a revenge scheme properly when she discovers Lin killed her husband. Then, to make her character even lamer, she becomes the subject of another movie Insta-Romance when she marries Lin is what seems like an overnight conversion from resentment to true love.

Despite the good acting on the part of both Ayres and Wright, the film becomes almost unbearably boring in the middle when it's mostly about them--two characters that are written to be uninteresting. However, viewers who stick with the film are rewarded when things pick up toward the end, even if Lin's transformation into a sort-of tough guy is unbelievable.

"The Capture" isn't a film that's worth seeking out on a stand-alone DVD, but it's harmless filler if you see it in one of those big 20 or more movie multi-packs.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Happy Almost-Cinco de Mayo!

May your celebrations tomorrow be filled with beverages and bull fights!

Mohammed Monday:Remembering Osama bin Laden

By now you've probably heard that Osama bin Laden is dead. If you haven't, click here for that important news.

Today, we pay homage to Bin Laden and his love for the Prophet Mohammed (may peas be upon him) as well as the male prostitute Mohammed with whom Osama shared his bed these past six years (when he wasn't taking it up the ass from Mullah Omar or Aymen Al Zahrawi).

Osama did truly loom large among those who idolize the Prophet Mohammed (may pecans be upon him). Never before has a mere mortal so embodied the values of Jihad, with a life so full of murder, mayhem, misogyny, homosexual escapades, and sex with little girls.