Princesses of Mars, Part 22

More artist's conceptions of what the Rover will see when it makes contact with the Martians!

By Dean Juliette

By Aaron Lopresti

By Bret Blevins

By Frank Cho

NUELOW Games and Marv Wolfman

Through an arrangement with Marv Wolfman, NUELOW Games recently published a collection his "Love Witch" stories. These were originally published by Skywald back in the early 1970s. Here are a couple sample pages.

Art by Ernie Colon

Art by Ernie Colon & Jack Able

The book featuring the comics is titled, not surprisngly, "Love Witch." In addition to the two fantastic excursions into dark fantasy that is "Love Witch," the book features a third Wolfman fantasy story--"Cassandra of the Seventh Wind"--and an RPG section by yours truly that lets you bring Cassandra and the Love Witch's magic to d20 System campaigns.

"Love Witch," however, isn't the only work by Wolfman that graces NUELOW's line-up of titles. He also wrote the comics featured in NUELOW's "Monster Monster: Soul Drinkers" (which contains RPG rules by Andrew Pavlides that translates the creature featured in Wolfman's story to D&D 5th Edition), and in "Lady Satan 2004" (where you will find d20 System game rules that let players create characters who are the literal children of Satan, designed once again by yours truly). Here are sample pages from those books:

Art by Pablo Marcos
(from "Monster, Monster: Soul Drinkers")

Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito
(from "Lady Satan 2004")

Click here to see additional previews of these three great titles,  or to get your own copies of them.

They are part of NUELOW Games's ongoing effort to put unjustly forgotten comics for year's past in front of new readers. Each title includes the comics, together with all-new roleplaying game material and fiction inspired by them. Click here to see the complete line-up of NUELOW's comics/rpg hybrid titles. You may find your new favorite comics among them.

Wonder Woman Wednesday!

The first offering this time out is the image for a Wonder Woman cover that caused a stink and led Frank Cho to quit was supposed to be a 12-issue gig doing WW covers:

By Frank Cho

By Jose Luis Garcia Lope

By Sergio Aragones

Fantastic Friday!

At various times, Sue Storm has taken leaves of absence from the Fantastic Four, usually because she wanted to spend more time being a mother to her and Reed's son, Franklin. Her spot in the line-up was filled by Crystal or Medusa of the Inhumans, or, most noteworthy, by She-Hulk.

Princesses of Mars, Part 21

The exploration of the beautiful sights the Red Planet has to offer continues.

By Fred Grid

By Ron Adrian

By Frank Cho

It's a Wonder Woman Wednesday!

More portraits of the world's most famous Amazon!

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By Schumacher

By Brian Bolland

Happy Fourth of July!

Joan Bennett is making sure this Fourth of July goes out with a HUGE bang!

Fireworks safety...

... means nothing--NOTHING!--to Rochelle Hudson! (Don't follow her lead... have a safe and happy Fourth of July!)

It's a Wonder Woman Wednesday!

Wonder Woman gets armored up in this month's edition of Wonder Woman Wednesday.

By Darryl Banks

By Jason Mettcalf

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

Darro & Moreland bring value to an otherwise weak film

You're Out of Luck (1941)
Starring: Frankie Darro, Mantan Moreland, Richard Bond, Kay Sutton, Tistram Coffin, Janet Shaw, Vicki Lester, Paul Maxy, Alfred Hall, and Willy Castello
Director: Howard Bretherton
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Friends, co-workers, and brothers-in-slackerhood Frankie and Jeff (Darro and Moreland) become involved in a police investigation of a murder linked to a gambling ring. Will they help Frankie's police detective brother (Bond) solve the case, or will they end up the next victims of the gunmen?

"You're Out of Luck" is a fun little mystery/comedy that is another showcase for the talents of Darro and Moreland. It's not quite as good as "Up in the Air," mostly because the way Frankie and Jeff become involved in the murder investigation, and remain involved, feels forced at every turn. The film is further weakened by the fact the paltry budget is made on shows multiple times on the screen through recycled and thinly disguised sets and cheaply done effects used in place of location shots. There's also the issue that the story feels a bit haphazardly put together and overcrowded with characters--most of whom serve no purpose in the story whatsoever. (Darro's character is given two possible love interests, neither of which do anything for the story nor his love life, and his cop brother's girlfriend likewise does nothing for the story. These characters are so pointless that I don't remember any of their names and I had a hard time telling two of them apart while the film unfolded.)

The film's weaknesses are almost made up for by Moreland having some of the best quips of any of the films he made together with Darro... and by Moreland once again being the smarter of the characters (even if no one ever listens to him). The film is completely carried by the charm of its two leads and the feeling that a true, warm friendship exists between them, and even that barely manages to drag it up to a low 5 rating.

If you're a big fan of Darro & Moreland, "You're Out of Luck" is worth checking out, but it may not be worth going too far out of your way for; look to see if you can find it in a DVD multipack. If you're not familiar with their work, "Up in the Air" is a far better place to start.