Cool! A Groot pin for Earth Day

Earth Day is this weekend and the folks at Mondo have revealed a limited-edition Groot pin in celebration, and to raise some money.

... we're thrilled to participate in the 9th Annual Austin Give 5% to Mother Earth campaign, which teams up with businesses to support local environmental non-profits. We’re donating 5% of all website sales today to help support the cause, plus we have an enamel pin of everyone's favorite music-loving, galaxy-saving, regenerating tree - Groot.
Find out more about Austin Give 5% to Mother Earth (aka Austin Give 5) hereThe Earth Day Special Edition Groot Enamel Pin is available now on mondotees.com.

New Music Friday April 20, 2018: The Who; Pete Townshend; Neil Young; Flaming Lips; Todd Rundgren and Utopia; Donna Summer

The Who - Live at the Fillmore East 1968


Pete Townshend: Who Came First 45th Anniversary Expanded Edition

Neil Young - Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live

Scratching the Door: The First Recordings of the Flaming Lips

Todd Rundgren and Utopia - The Road To Utopia-The Complete Recordings 1974-82 Original Recording Masters

Donna Summer - Summer: The Original Hits





Pop Culture Roundup: Post-punk; Spielberg's Blackhawk; Superman on Snapchat; MLK mystery artist

A cool print celebrates the graphics of the 1980s post-punk sound.


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Steven Spielberg plans a big-screen adaptation of the Blackhawk comic books series, which dates back to the early 1940s and has been revived by DC numerous times since then.

The series, which tells the story of a a wartime air squadron led by the title character, spawned a 15-chapter movie serial in 1952 that starred one-time Superman actor Kirk Alan in the title role.


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Evidently "Snapchat" is something the kids are "into" and now you can get Superman-themed "lenses"  and "emojis" for it. "Whatever."


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The identity of the uncredited artist who drew a 1957 comic book biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., is a longtime mystery, now solved.

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Former Python Michal Palin pens an essay in tribute of his comedy hero, Spike Milligan.





TwoMorrows publishes expanded, hardcover edition of "The Complete Jack Kirby Checklist"

You can order it here.

Jack Kirby Checklist: Centennial Edition
Limited Edition Hardcover (only 1000 copies)
 

Now 270 pages (more than DOUBLE the size of the 2008 Gold Edition shown with it here). We originally planned for 256 pages, but simply couldn't fit it all in, so we sprang for those extra pages at no extra cost to you. 

This is truly definitive: fully updated through Jack's 100th birthday in August 2017, with detailed listings of all of Kirby’s published work, reprints, magazines, books, foreign editions, newspaper strips, fine art and collages, fanzines, essays, interviews, portfolios, posters, radio and TV appearances, and even Jack’s unpublished work! 




Time Capsule: Cream live in Detroit


Vintage Fu Manchu paperbacks













Review: "Isle of Dogs"



Wes Anderson's films are so singular in their stylistic obsessions and quirks that it's amazing he's attained the large-ish following he enjoys today.

The key to his films' appeal, I think,  is their quirkiness but also Anderson's humor and his well-defined, oddball-but-engaging characters. Weird as they are, you like these people.

"Isle of Dogs," however, is the first of Anderson's films I can recall where the characters don't draw me in. It's not that they aren't appealing, but I didn't get to like them as much as, say, those in "Moonrise Kingdom," "The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou" or "Rushmore."

Part of the challenge is that this new film is a blend of stop-motion and traditional animation. Yet Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox," also animated, had no trouble making it's characters instantly engaging and likable.

"Isle of Dogs" looks great. I was attracted to its weird mix of 1950s-60s design and modern tech and the use of what look like vintage 1960s Japanese action figure/dollls as the film's human characters. The lead human character, Atari, a boy pilot dressed in a shiny, G.I.-style astronaut outfit, looks supercool.

And I love dogs, of which there are many in this movie. They all look cute and have endearing, quirky personalities (along with voices supplied by Bryan Cranston, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson and others), yet none of them, or Atari or any of the other humans, seemed entirely real to me.

Anderson doesn't quite breathe life into his creations here and, as a result, I became fixated on the film's incredible craft. As in all his films, the director's crazy attention to detail, the trademark symmetry of his staging and camera work and the overall lovely design of everything on screen came to the fore. The story and action, however, seemed remote, like watching an extremely witty and imaginative child playing with toys. Ultimately, it's a film I appreciated more than enjoyed.

Best comics covers of the week






New on Video April 17, 2017: The Awful Truth Criterion Edition; The Post; Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey

The Awful Truth  Criterion Edition

Doris Day: A Sentimental Journey

The Post

Out June 8: "Paris in the Spring" compiles 60s and 70s sounds from France


Details:

The events of May '68 are seen as a turning point in France's social history - pictures of the barricades are still potent images. Lines were drawn politically, culturally, socially, and pop music was not exempt. 'Paris In The Spring' is a collection of the new music, put together by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, that emerged from France between 1968 and the mid-70s, an extraordinary blend of several previously independent strains - French chanson and y-y, American jazz and funk, British chamber pop - shot through with the era's underlying mixture of optimism, uncertainty and darkness. This is the first collection of its kind, released on the 50th anniversary of the Paris uprising.

Tracks:

1. La Victime - Karl Heinz Schäfer
2. Hélicoptère - Mireille Darc
3. Les Aventures Extraordinaires D'un Billet de Banque - Bernard Lavilliers
4. Roses and Revolvers - Janko Nilovic
5. L'elu - Ilous & Decuyper
6. La Metaphore - Jacques Dutronc
7. Dommage Que Tu Sois Mort - Brigitte Fontaine
8. Les Garde Violent Au Secours Du Roi - Jean-Claude Vannier
9. Looking for You - Nino Ferrer
10. Chanson D'un Jour D'hiver - Cortex
11. Viens - Françoise Hardy
12. Couleurs - Léonie
13. Leslie Simone - William Sheller
14. Litanies - Triangle
15. Baleines - François de Roubaix
16. Encore Lui - Jane Birkin
17. Evelyne - Serge Gainsbourg
18. Le Bal Des Lazes - Michel Polnareff
19. Lileth - Léonie
20. Ystor - Ys
21. Chanson Pour Que Tu M'aimes Un Peu - France Gall
22. La Victime - Karl Heinz Schäfer
23. La Chanson D'hélène - Romy Schneider & Michel Piccoli

Video Find: "Kerb Drill with Batman" - rare 1960s British road safety film starring Adam West


New Music Friday April 13, 2018: Bowie; Glen Campbell; The Damned; Louis Armstrong

Click the links to order items from Amazon.




Pop Culture Roundup: Mad Magazine; Micronauts; Lone Ranger; spinner racks

Seven decades of Mad Magazine will be the focus of an exhibit opening at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University.

"Artistically MAD: Seven Decades of Satire!" features presentations by legendary MAD cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, collectors Glenn Bray and Grant Geissman, exhibit curator Brian Walker, and MAD editor Bill Morrison.



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The Tampa Bay Times spotlights comics artist Pat Broderick, famed for his run on Marvel Comics'  toy-based title, the Micronauts, which is set for a big-screen adaptation soon.

"People do always want to talk Micronauts," said Broderick, 64 and a lifelong Tampa resident. "And I still think of it a lot, too. It’s been 40 years and they are still in my head."

... he penciled Micronauts’ writer Bill Mantlo’s existing characters like Bug — a master thief who looks like a grasshopper and has insect abilities — and helped create new members of the cast, like the butterfly-winged singing sprite Fireflyte.

His stint marked the peak of popularity for Micronauts.

"It was Marvel’s second-best selling comic at the time," Broderick said. "It was a unique universe to imagine. Even though the toys were the creative base we derived the characters from, the Microverse came from the imagination."



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Via Plaid Stallions, more great promotional materials for the early 1980s Lone Ranger figure line from Gabriel Toys.


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There's a Kickstarter afoot to manufacture classic-style comic book spinner racks. Man, I remember buying my comics off of these in the 1970s, flipping through the titles to see if there were any stray DC or Marvels hiding behind all those Archie comics.