Month: November 2021 (Page 3 of 5)

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we’re going to recommend five comic books (or graphic novels) that are not just superhero comics. These are aimed at older readers, for the most part, and deal with topics that usually aren’t covered in mainstream comics. Two of them do have superhero ties, but these are recommended for the graphic novel fan on your shopping list who isn’t into capes.
You should be able to order these books from any bookseller, or just follow the link in the ISBN number to find them at  the evil empire, probably for a discount.

The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World
by various artists and writers
DK Publishing
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0744042825
$30.00

The Most Important Comic Book On Earth is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world.

Whether it’s inspirational tales from celebrity names such as Cara Delevingne and Andy Serkis, hilarious webcomics from War and Peas and Ricky Gervais, artworks by leading illustrators David Mack and Tula Lotay, calls to action from activists George Monbiot and Jane Goodall, or powerful stories by Brian Azzarello and Amy Chu, each of the comics in this anthology will support projects and organizations fighting to save the planet and Rewrite Extinction.

Among its 350-plus pages, you’ll find short comics written by Taika Waititi, Dame Judi Dench, Yoko Ono, Peter Gabriel, Lenny Henry and many more from a wide variety of fields, all expressing their concerns about the planet.

This is a great gift, appropriate for all ages, that will lay out how important environmental issues are.

Monsters
by Barry Windsor-Smith
Fantagraphics Books
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683964155
$39.99

The story behind this book is fascinating. Originally pitched by Barry Windsor-Smith to Marvel as an alternate-universe origin story for The Hulk in the early 1980s, he never got a contract to work on the book, and was shocked, years later, to discover that the key points in his pitch had been “borrowed” by the regular writer for The Hulk and had been incorporated into the mainstream version of the character.

Burned by Marvel, Windsor-Smith spent 35 years reworking the story with original characters replacing the Kirby-Lee creations, and the end result is a 380-page epic graphic novel that raises the bar for the art of graphic storytelling. No longer a mere throwaway Hulk story, Monsters is an entirely new work that explores the themes of control and abuse in searing detail. We go to the publisher’s blurb…

The year is 1964. Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to join up. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning.

Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters’ narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey across two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career.

Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastating violence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.

Definitely not for children, Monsters is a mature work of great beauty and ugliness. Recommended for fans of intense entertainment.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles
by Mark Russell (Author), Mike Feehan (Illustrator)
DC Comics
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1401275211
$16.99

From the acclaimed author of Second Coming and Snelson, we have this amazingly bizarre reboot that takes the second-tier Hanna-Barbera character, Snagglepuss, and reimagines him as a Southern Gay Playwright dealing with the cultural climate of the 1950s.

Let’s go to the blurb…

Drama! Comedy! Tragedy! For the renowned Southern playwright called Snagglepuss, these are the ingredients that have made him a star of the New York stage and the glittering world that surrounds it. But the year is 1953, and behind the bright lights, darkness is brewing. Snagglepuss is gay… and his enemies are out to destroy him for it.

The idea of Snagglepuss as some kind of alternate world Tennessee Williams could just be cheap fodder for comedy in lesser hands, but Mark Russell takes that idea and springboards into a rich tapestry of social commentary, satire, absurdity and fun. Mike Feehan’s art is the perfect complement, and together that makes Exit Stage Left a wonderful piece of work.

Recommended for mature readers interested in fresh takes on LGBTQ issues.

Amor Y Cohetes: A Love and Rockets Book
by Gilbert Hernandez , Jaime Hernandez , Mario Hernandez
Fantagraphics
ISBN-13 : 978-1560979265
$19.99

This is a new edition of a Love and Rockets book that was originally published in 2008. One never-before-reprinted single-page comic strip has been added for this printing.

Amor y Cohetes is the seventh volume in the “Complete Love & Rockets” series of compact, affordable paperbacks. I recommend all volumes of this incredible work. They are some of the best comics ever made, period. Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez are masters of graphic storytelling, and Mario is no slouch, either. I’ve praised their work in this blog since before the first printing of this book, and they still produce some of the best comics in the world.

However, since this collects some of the lesser-known works from one of the most important and influential comics of the 1980s, we’re going to take advantage of the new printing and revisit these gems. Amor Y Cohetes: A Love and Rocket Book collects together in one convenient package all the non-Maggie and non-Palomar stories by all three Hernandez Brothers from that classic first, 50-issue Love & Rockets series—a dizzying array of styles and approaches that re-confirms these groundbreaking cartoonists’ place in the history of comics.

People sometimes forget that there is a third Hernandez brother, Mario, who though less prolific than his siblings, is still a powerful storyteller. Because he never launched a long-form series within Love and Rockets, like Gilbert’s Palomar tales or Jaime’s Mechanics universe, he sometimes gets the short shrift. This book of short stories by the trio shows how good all three brothers are.

I don’t think I really need to sell experienced readers on Love and Rockets. If you’ve read their other works, you know how great they are. This is a good introductory volume for new fans because the shorter stories will allow them to become acclimated to the Hernandez’s classic storytelling style without being intimidated by tons of backstory.

Recommended for anybody who loves great comics, and Love and Rockets fans who might now have these stories in their collection.

Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon!
by Dennis O’Neil, Ric Estrada, Wallace Wood and various
DC Comics
ISBN-13 : 978-1779508102
$49.99

This one is a bit of a cheat. While Richard Dragon is not a superhero, per se, he does hang out with them, and characters created in this series have turned up in The Suicide Squad, Young Justice and Batman. But this collection is pretty much capeless, being Kung-Fu adventure, rather than pure superheroics.

This collection of mid-1970s comics is a rare treat for yours truly. Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon! collects the entire run of a comic book that I did NOT regularly read or buy back in my early days of comic collecting. I think I only had three or four of the stories reprinted here before the volume was released.

This is remarkable because the book is largely the work of one of my favorite comic book writers, Dennis O’Neil, who passed away last year shortly before the publication of this book was announced. The art assignment was passed around to many diverse hands before landing with the overlooked and underappreciated Cuban master of comics art, Ric Estrada.

The story itself is a wild adventure yarn, with one foot planted firmly in the early-1970s Kung-Fu craze and the other in the world of gritty pulp novel series like Mack Bolan and The Destroyer. Richard Dragon is a teenaged thief who is taken in, trained in martial arts and put on the right track by O-Sensei. Later Dragon and his dojo buddy, Ben Turner, join an international crime-fighting and anti-espionage agency. Most of this is new to me, and it’s a real kick.

These stories are top-notch globe-trotting martial arts adventure, presented for a mid-1970s comic book reading audience. There is no explicit sex or language, but there’s plenty of martial arts action and espionage intrigue to keep the action fun and entertaining, and O’Neil was a master at character development and direction.

Richard Dragon, Kung-Fu Fighter: Coming of the Dragon! is a damned fine collection of martial-arts adventures comics. It’s a time-capsule of the Kung Fu craze of the 1970s and it has some excellent storytelling. That DC is still mining this series for movies, TV and cartoons is a testament to its timeless qualities. Perfect for the fan of Martial Arts who also enjoys comics.

It’s Tuesday on The AIR  so open your ears and say “aaahhhh”  because we have new stuff on the internet radio. Today we bring you new episodes of Radio Free Charleston and The Swing Shift. That’s two mostly-new programs totalling four hours of particularly neat-o keen internet radio!  You simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay on this page, and  listen to the cool embedded player over at the top of the right column.

We have a  killer new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with a loaded new hour of RFC goodness, and then we re-present a 2017 edition of Radio Free Charleston International that hasn’t been heard in four years.

The first hour of RFC is jam-packed with new independent music, most of it local, from the likes of Cassius at Best, Static Fur, Mediogres, Hello June and more. We also have a couple of great Chicago acts making their RFC debuts, The Thin Cherries and David Stowell.  Then our second and third hours present a two-hour mixtape of live recordings of cool music, running the gamut from Oingo Boingo, to The Dickies, To Kate Bush, The Beatles, Ultravox and more.

Check out the playlist below to see all the goodies we have in store (live links will take you to the artist’s pages)…

RFC V5 070

hour one
Cassius At Best “Broadway”
The Thin Cherries “Trouble Lights”
Lost Decades “Chase Me”
Safetybelt “I Do This To Myself”
Joseph Hale “The Preacher”
Static Fur “Mosshaus”
Red Audio “Slo-Luv”
David Stowell “In Flight”
Morglbl “Brutal Romance (Live)”
Mediogres “Bad News For Spiders”
Hello June “Problem”

hour two
Oingo Boingo “Change”
The Stranglers “Toiler On The Sea”
The Police “Roxanne”
The Clash “Radio Clash”
John Entwhistle “905”
Joe Jackson “A Slow Song”
Reel Big Fish “The Kids Don’t Like It In The Pit”
Elvis Costello “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea”
The Dickies “If Stuart Could Talk”

hour three
Ultravox “The Voice”
DEVO “Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
Cheap Trick “Ain’t That A Shame”
Frank Zappa “Doreen”
Kate Bush “James And The Cold Gun”
The Beatles “Dig A Pony”
YES “Don’t Kill The Whales”
The Flaming Lips with Henry Rollins “Us And Them”
The Who “Love Reign O’er Me”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replaysWednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight,  and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different encore episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon of the most recent shows all night long Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I’m also going to  embed a low-fi, mono version of this show right in this post, right here so you can listen on demand.

After RFC, stick around for encores of MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and Ska Madness at 2 PM.

At 3 PM we have a brand-new episode of The Swing Shift. This week we bring you another Swing History show. This time we go back about a hundred years for a mixtape show featuring the prototypical Jazz/Swing of the 1920s. There are some real gems here, with music from legends, forgotten legends, near-legends and one-hit-wonders. This is when Dixieland and The Blues had a thing going on, and they named the baby “Swing.”

Check out the playlist…

The Swing Shift 121

Paul Whiteman “Charleston”
Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra “Sugar Foot Stomp”
Clarence Williams Jazz Kings “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home”
Louis Armstrong “Cornet Chop Suey”
Halfway House Orchestra “Pussy Cat Rag”
Cook’s Dreamland Orchestra “Hot Tamale Man”
Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra with Bix Beiderbecke “In My Merry Oldsmobile ”
Piron’s New Orleans “Kiss Me Sweet”
Kid Ory’s Sunshine Band “Ory’s Creole Trombone”
Ukelele Ike & His Hot Combination “Singin’ In The Rain”
Jelly Roll Morton “New Orleans Bump”
Johnny Dodd’s Black Bottom Stompers “Wild Man Blues”
Ted Weems “Piccolo Pete”
Harry Reser and His Six Jumping Jacks “Nagasaki”
Ben Bernie & His Orchestra “Crazy Rhythm”
New Orleans Wanderers “Perdido Street Blues”
Ambrose & His Orchestra “Singapore Sorrows”
Duke Ellington & His Washingtonians “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo”
Ted Lewis “Some of These Days”
Irving Aaronson & His Commanders “Let’s Misbehave”

You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesdays at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 7 AM, Friday at 8 PM and Saturday afternoon only on The AIR. You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursday and Sunday evenings.

Today in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we are going to run with the idea of suggesting early video gifts that can help get the Christmas grump on your shopping list embracing the holiday spirit.
These are all DVD or Blu Ray releases of classic and/or obscure Christmas shows. They may be available on streaming services or as digital downloads, but since those can’t be wrapped, I’m concentrating on physical releases.

All the links in the prices lead to Amazon, just to make life easier. I’m sure you can find these elsewhere if you don’t want to underwrite any more of Mr. Bezos’ space missions.

The Brian Setzer Orchestra
Christmas Rocks! LIVE
Blu-Ray
$15.99

Iconic guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and three-time Grammy award winner Brian Setzer and his 19-piece orchestra are featured in this special concert HD Blu-Ray.

Christmas Rocks! Live was filmed in Santa Barbara at the Granada Theatre and features timeless Christmas classics like, Rockin Around The Christmas Tree , Jingle Bells , and Here Comes Santa Claus as well as hits such as Stray Cat Strut , Jump, Jive An Wail and Rock This Town.

Track listing: Pennsylvania 6-5000; Rockin Around The Christmas Tree; Hoodoo Voodoo Doll; Stray Cat Strut Boogie Woogie Santa Claus; Gene & Eddie; Angels We Have Heard On High; Jump Jive An Wail; Here Comes Santa Claus; Wichita Lineman; Runnin Down A Dream; The Christmas Song; Rockabilly Boogie; Rocket In My Pocket; Fishnet Stockings; Rock This Town; Nutcracker Suite; Jingle Bells.

What better way to get into the Christmas spirit than by Swinging in with a hot Big Band?

Rankin Bass
The Original Christmas Specials Collection
DVD
$14.99

‘Tis the season to enjoy the timeless holiday classics in The Original Christmas Specials Collection featuring five unforgettable stories. Produced by Rankin/Bass, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town and The Little Drummer Boy feature iconic “Animagic” stop-motion animation and Frosty the Snowman and Cricket on the Hearth are traditionally animated.

Starring the voice talents of Fred Astaire, Jimmy Durante, Mickey Rooney, Danny Thomas, Burl Ives and many more, these favorites also feature some of the most beloved songs of the season and are sure to entertain audiences of all ages for generations to come.

There’s also lots of bonus content spread across these discs, including featurettes and extras: The Animagic World of Rankin/Bass; Restoring the Puppets of Rudolph; Reimagining Rudolph in 4D; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Attraction Film; T.E.A.M. Rudolph and the Reindeer Games; Frosty’s Original Pencil Test; Commentary by Animation Historians Mark Evanier and Greg Ehrbar.

Here is your Christmas special nostalgia mega-fix, all in one package. Guaranteed to melt the coldest, Scrooge-like heart.

The Johnny Cash Christmas Specials 1976-1979
DVD
$39.65

For the country music fan (or any fan of the Man in Black) who needs to be jolted into the holiday spirit, this collection of Johnny Cash Christmas Specials is manna from heaven.

From 1976 to 1979, CBS ran a Johnny Cash Christmas special every year. This boxed set collects them all, and they are equal parts classic Country music, corny comedy, top-notch musicianship and totally bizzaro 1970s showbiz weirdness.

Joining Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, on these specials is a wild mix of guest stars: Andy Kaufman, Jerry Lee Lewis, Steve Martin, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Billy Graham, Tony Orlando, Kris Kristofferson and more.

Among the Christmas songs we also get a Sun Records reunion on one show, with Cash joined by Perkins, Orbison and Lewis, and in another show, Andy Kaufman unleashes the full force of his Elvis impersonation.

It’s a good way to shake someone out of their pre-holiday doldrums.

Pee-Wee’s Playhouse: Christmas Special
DVD
$5.99

If Johnny Cash didn’t warp a person’s sense of reality enough to get them in the holiday spirit, then you have to pull out the big guns, and page Pee Wee Herman!

This stocking-stuffer-priced gem is Pee-wee’s Christmas Special “As You’ve Never Seen It Before: Beautifully Restored, Remastered and in High Definition!”

Join the whole Playhouse gang for one of the wackiest specials ever! With laughs for the whole family, this unique, triple Emmy nominated special offers all the imagination and charm of Saturday morning’s most outrageous TV series, which became a cultural milestone when it aired from 1986-1991.

Pee-wee gets into the spirit of the season with lots of singing, dancing and other holiday fun with his Playhouse pals and more than a dozen celebrity guest stars, including Frankie Avalon, Charo, The Del Rubio Triplets, Annette Funicello, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Whoopi Goldberg, Magic Johnson, Grace Jones, k.d. lang, Little Richard, Joan Rivers, Dinah Shore and Oprah Winfrey.

Everything is going great for Pee-wee… until his Christmas wish list becomes so long that there won’t be enough presents for all the other kids in the world! When Santa Claus pleads for help, Pee-wee reluctantly learns a lesson about the true meaning of Christmas.

If Pee Wee doesn’t cure the pre-holiday blues, then your grumpy giftee might be beyond hope. You’ll have to resort to something out of left field.

The Honeymooners Specials: A Christmas Carol
DVD
$10.49

You may not have even known orremembered that this existed. I know I didn’t.

In 1977, Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney and Jane Kean reunited for the second of four hour-long specials representing the final performances of their classic Honeymooners characters.

Ralph enlists Alice, Ed and Trixie to perform with him on stage after he agrees to supervise and star in the annual office holiday fund-raiser for a charity chosen by his boss’ wife.

Ralph ends up rewriting and reimagining Charles Dickens’ dramatic classic A Christmas Carol with comedic results when Ed serves as the inexperienced director.

Gleason is Bob Cratchit, and Carney does double duty as both Scrooge and Tiny Tim.  Chances are, everyone in the room will stare at the televsion, unable to look away, transfixed by the bizarreness of the entire production.

The set also includes Trixie’s Honeymooners Memories featurette with Jane Kean, and The Honeymooners’ Women’s Lib skit from 1973.

The fact that Carney returned to do this bit of classic TV comedy, light-hearted bizarreness after wining an OSCAR for Best Actor shows how much fun he must have had playing Ed Norton.

Between those five videos, you ought to find something to prompt the Christmas and Holiday spirit in even the Scroogiest of people.

It occurs to me that in the 16-plus years that I’ve been posting my art here in PopCult, I’ve never done a still life of fruit. With my Myasthenia Gravis subsiding over the last few days, I decided to pull out a cheap canvas board and my acrylics, and take a shot at painting one. Using a few photos I took in a grocery store in Chicago a while back for reference, this is a collection of Jackfruit, Mangoes and Pineapples.

In case you’re wondering, those big scrotal-looking things are jackfruit. I have no idea what the hell you’re supposed to do with them.

Once scanned, I cropped the panting because my margins are still sloppy.

So, I’ve done one of those now.  Maybe next week I can go through a blue period.

If you want to see it a bit bigger, just click on it.

Later today we will be back with Day Eleven of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, and today we’re telling you about Christmas DVDs (and one Blu Ray).

Meanwhile, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a new episode of  Psychedelic Shack, followed at 3 PM by a new edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player at the top of the right-hand column of this blog.

Nigel Pye didn’t give me a full playlist for this week’s new show, but he tells me the first cut is by  late 60’s proto-proggers, The Syn.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. Classic episodes can be heard Sunday at 9 AM as part of our Sunday Haversham Recording Institute collection.

Following that hour of Psychedelic wonderments, Herman Linte will bring us two hours of Focus, recorded live on their 50th anniversary tour.

You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM.

At 8 PM, we bring you eleven hours of Mel Larch with Curtain Call.

Above you see a brand-new video for Douglas John Imbrogno’s 2004 composition, “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg.” This remarkable song has a terrific backstory which you can read all about over at Doug’s excellent WESTVIRGINIAVILLE website (which you should be reading already anyway).

In short, the song is a fond rememberance of his time spent hanging out with the famed Beat Poet around a campfire at Cedar Lakes, in Ripley, West Virginia. Doug tells that story much better than I could, so follow that link up there and read the whole thing. It’s really good.

But there is a footnote to the story of this song. Back in 2006, when Doug was my editor at The Charleston Gazette, and had just greenlit the Radio Free Charleston video show, Doug was performing as half of a duo called “The Heydays,” with Paul Calicoat (of Route 60 Music and solo fame). Late in the year we had The Heydays come into LiveMix Studio to record a couple of songs for the show.  We used the first song, “Shady Grove” in November of that year. The second song got a more elaborate video treatment (though I was still learning to edit at the time) and showed up on episode 15 of RFC in February, 2007.

That song was a different version of “I Never Slept With Allen Ginsberg.” And yes, I know I spelled his name wrong in the titles.

While the version we had on RFC was great, it did not have Ammed Soloman’s amazing percussion, which lifts the song to new heights.

For the sake of completedness and comparison, below you see episode 15 of Radio Free Charleston, featuring music from The Appalachian Celtic Consort and The Heydays, plus our usual animation and mind-hurting weirdness.  At around the nine-and-a-half minute mark, you can see and hear a different take on Doug’s song.

From November, 2015 we have an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW, recorded the previous month at The Mountain State Pop Expo, starring three-fourths of the then-current line-up of HARRAH, performing an acoustic set on the main floor of a very active and loud pop culture convention.

Despite the very loud environment, we decided to bring you this special show as an artifact of the inagural Mountain State Pop Expo, which was a fundraiser for Children’s Home Society of West Virginia, a group that aids in the placement and adoption of foster children here in West Virginia. For the second year in a row, the Pop Expo did not happen due to the pandemic, so if you can spare a few bucks, hit up the CHS website. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more worthy charity.

Day Ten of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide is devoted to games of the not-video variety. I’ll be including one or two links so you can order these online, but if you can find them locally, try to do that. We’ve got gift ideas for game-players for a wide range of ages and interests so let’s roll the dice…

El The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game
$45 from Transit Tees
Also available from other retailers
Suitable for ages 13 and up. 2 – 8 players.

Welcome to Chicago! There’s lots to do in The Windy City, and you have a full itinerary. Make your way around the city using the famous elevated “El” trains to visit places of interest and return to the State/Lake station before anyone else.

Strategize your optimal route by utilizing trains and buses, but be prepared for detour. Keep an eye out for stations undergoing renovation, and be sure to carry enough Transit Tokens to pay for your fare! And of course, you’re not the only person riding the trains. Other travelers might just throw your plans for a Loop! Pack your bag, gather your friends, and set out on your Chicago Transit Adventure!

Contents:

1 20″ x 30″ Game Board Map of Chicago’s famous Elevated Train System
8 Painted and Screen Printed Wooden Train Pawns to match the 8 train lines
32 Screen Printed Wooden Transit Tokens
12 Fluorescent Acrylic Station Renovation Markers
67 Destination Cards with places to visit around Chicago
28 Condition Cards that will help or hinder your trip
2 Six-Sided Dice

Designed by Transit Tees in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood. El The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game would make a great gift for the person on your shopping list who loves The Windy City, or just likes the idea of having access to cool public transit.

The Blockbuster Game: The Movie Board Game for Adults and Teenagers…
Under $20 from many retailers
12 Years and Up for 4 or more players

The golden age of video rentals is back! Introducing a brand new fun family game for anyone that has ever seen a movie – and just like all great blockbusters, this one’s a double bill! This is a game for adults and teenagers alike, but for best results, you’ll want to split up into two mixed teams.

In round one, each team will choose one of their members to go head-to-head in a quick-fire buzzer battle. From ‘Famous trilogies to ‘Movies with a zombie in it’, these two players must think quick, shout out a movie and slap the buzzer to put pressure on their opponent. The first player to run out of ideas loses the round (and gives their opponents a serious advantage in round two). We like to call round two ‘Movie charades with a twist’.

The player that won the buzzer battle picks up six movie cards, gives the hardest three to their opponent and keeps the rest for themselves. When ready, they’ll get 30 seconds to get their team to shout out the movies by using three tricky techniques – acting out the film, making up a quote and describing them with just one word.

Get them right quick enough and you’ll have a chance to steal from your opponents. Take it too slow and they might get a chance to steal from you. It’s an all-out race to collect a film from every genre and be crowned the new Blockbuster big-shots.

With 200 classic movies, 60 category cards and a replica of a Blockbuster parking lot, you’ll want to clear a space on your top 10 family party games – this is one that’s sure to bring the entertainment home again and again. Requires two AA batteries (not included).

With The Blockbuster Game, you get…

260 cards, 1 electronic timer, 1 game board, 1 Blockbuster sign, instructions

A great gift for the movie-loving trivia game buff on your shopping list.

Top Trumps Match Game – DC Comics Originals
Under $20 from many online retailers
For ages 6 and up

This game is great fun for fans of DC Comics of all ages (it’s illustrated with beautiful JL Garcia-Lopez artwork), despite the unfortunate company name.

Join the DC heroes and villains as they battle to see who can get 5 in a row. With iconic characters like Superman, Batman and The Joker, there’s loads of cubes and lots of characters. Take it in turns to push through the cubes. The aim is to get 5 of the same DC character lined up horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

The game’s not over yet, can your opponent super Top Trump you in the final moment? If they match their Top Trumps card with the winning DC character, they WIN the game! This game is great for memory development and comes in a handy all in one unit that you can take anywhere – from Gotham City to Metropolis!

Be the first to match five of your favorite characters in a row – horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Can you match Superman or Batman before your opponent?

Can your opponent steal the game? Turn over the Top Trumps card to reveal if they can take the match and win the game.

Play with 15 of your favorite characters from Superman, Batman, Darksied and the Joker. Game is for 2 players.

Easy to set up and pack away, Top Trumps Match comes in a handy self-contained plastic case – play anytime, anywhere.

Ravensburger Horrified: Universal Monsters Strategy Board Game
Available online for under $25
For ages 10 and up.

This is the perfect gift for the Universal Monsters fan who also likes board games on your shopping list.

What’s your game plan when your village is attacked by The Mummy, Frankenstein, Dracula and other monsters? This Horrified Board Game is exactly that. You along with your team of heroes have to join forces to defeat them. But the victory doesn’t come easy. Every monster has its own set of strengths and you need to come up with a strategy. You can adjust the level of difficulty by going against a new team of monsters.

Horrifed comes with 1 game board, 7 sculpted miniatures, 75 cards, 3 dice, fabric bag, 17 paper movers and Bases, 6 placards and instructions.

Horrified is a cooperative board game for ages 10 and up where you defend the town against Frankenstein, Dracula, the bride of Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. How cool is that?

Easy to understand instructions – high quality, easy-to-understand instructions make it simple to start playing right away.

With an estimated 60 minute play time, for 1-5 players, Horrified’s innovative style is easy-to-learn w/ varying levels of difficulty Facing the unique monsters requires different strategies, which creates a different experience every time.

And if Horrified is a hit with your giftee, early next year you can seek out the second edition, which replaces the Universal Monsters with America’s most famous Cryptids, including West Virginia’s own Mothman!

Rogue Art History: The Trivia Game
Around $25 from online retailers (This is a pre-order, due to be released November 23)
For ages 14-up.

Rogue Art History is a fun and easy-to-set-up game for ages 14 and up, where players answer trivia questions about art history and collect artwork along the way.

Be the first to collect five artworks and prove, officially, that you know your stuff. Players who answer trivia correctly exchange their Trivia Cards for Artwork Cards. Get enough Artwork Cards and you win the game!

Players can also use “Rogue Scholar” Cards to help them answer questions, protect their artwork from getting stolen, and sabotage other players. Trivia questions are multiple choice, and the difficulty level varies (ranging, for example, from “What body part did Van Gogh cut off?” to “How many pet chow chows did Georgia O’Keeffe own during her lifetime?”).

Funny, and at times playfully irreverent and a little absurd, this game dispels the myth that art and art history are only for stuffy intellectuals. It’s welcoming for all players, from those PhD holders to curious high schoolers just starting to learn about the classics. For four to six players.

Play Rogue Art History on its own or combined with the National Portrait Gallery set for more art and 96 more trivia questions. It’s due out the same day, and has the same rules.

The PopCulteer
November 12, 2021

We take another brief break from The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide to tell you about what to expect on our sister internet station Friday afternoon, plus we are taking baby steps toward bringing back Stuff To Do.

Friday afternoon we offer up a new episode of MIRRORBALL and encore a recent Sydney’s Big Electric Cat. The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear these shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player at the top right column of this blog.

At 2 PM, Mel Larch uncorks a new MIRRORBALL! The AIR’s showcase of classic Disco music presents a solid hour of some of the best club hits of the classic disco era. It’s a great show, and I’m just going to drop the playlist right here…

MIRRORBALL 037
Musique “Keep On Jumpin'”
Sylvester “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”
The Real Thing “Can You Feel The Force”
The Three Degrees “Givin’ Up, Givin’ In”
Patsy Gallant “From New York To L.A.”
Odyssey “Native New Yorker”
Trammps “Disco Party”
Ritchie Family “The Best Disco In Town”
Jimmy Horne “Spank”
Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 “Blame It On The Boogie”
Liquid Gold “Dance Yourself Dizzy”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Saturday at  8 PM, Sunday at 11 PM, Tuesday at 1 PM and Wednesday at 7 PM, exclusively on The AIR.  This week’s new MIRRORBALL will kick off a Disco Marathon Saturday night until Midnight.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with an encore of an episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat devoted to 12″ dance remixes of classic New Wave hits.

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays Saturday afternoon, Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR.

You can also hear select episodes of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat as part of the Sunday morning and afternoon Haversham showcases, which begin at 9 AM with Psychedelic Shack, and include double shots of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat and Prognosis.

Stuff To Do

Aside from what I’m posting below, there are tons of things in and around Charleston to keep you busy this lovely autumn weekend.  I have not been confident in suggesting anything that happens indoors because I’m still freaked out over the pandemic, but we are seeing a slight improvement, so here are the first indoor ideas for Stuff To Do in several weeks.

You should know the drill by now. The pandemic is still not over.  Even though it’s getting slightly better, but it’s still really bad. If you are fully vaccinated and ready to do your best to stay safe, you should go check this stuff out.

So use your common sense and stay safe…and support the local scene.

That’s what’s on The AIR Friday, and that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back because we have a fresh post every day and Friday afternoon will see our latest five-item entry in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide. Today we’re doing Board Games!

Books are terrific gifts for kids, and in today’s 2021 PopCult Gift Guide we’re going to suggest five children’s books, lushly-illustrated, for the 2 to 10 year-old reader on your holiday shopping list.
As always, I implore you to buy your books from a local independent bookstore, but in case that isn’t possible, there are links to buy these books online in the titles.

The Haunted Mansion Little Golden Book
by Lauren Clauss (Author), Glen Brogan (Illustrator)
Golden/Disney
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0736441773
$5.99

Recommended for ages 2 – 5, but perfect for Disney fans of all ages, and as a bonus, illustrated by Charleston’s own Glen Brogan (who also turned up in Monday’s Gift Guide post), we have The Little Golden Book of The Haunted Masion, so kids can experience Disney Parks’ famous Haunted Mansion ride like never before.

It’s easy to get into the Haunted Mansion… but can you find your way out? Join the Ghost Host and search your way through all the creep-tastic rooms of Disney Parks’ Haunted Mansion-from the ominous Séance Room, to the ghoulish party in Grand Hall, to the attic that holds many scary secrets.

Perfect for Disney and Little Golden Book fans of all ages, this spooky story is also great for members of the Future Goths of America. The book was released in time for Disney World’s 50th anniversary last summer, and is a great stocking stuffer.

Grandude’s Green Submarine
by Paul McCartney (Author), Kathryn Durst (Illustrator)
Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593372432
$18.99

I know that yesterday was our second Beatles Day in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, but Sir Paul has been working overtime, and just published his second Grandude storybook, illustrated by Kathryn Durst, which is not only a great gift for young readers aged 4 to 6, but is also nice for Beatlemaniacs of all ages, since it is Paul McCartney, and he is writing about an adventure in a brightly-colored submarine.

Celebrate the fun that grandparents and grandkids can get up to in this action-packed undersea adventure—a companion picture book to Paul McCartney’s #1 New York Times bestseller Hey Grandude.

Grandude’s inventions are the stuff of legend, and his new green submarine doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it flies as well as submerges! Grandude whisks the grandkids off on another adventure, but he and the Chillers soon find themselves in a pickle. Suddenly, it’s Nandude to the rescue! Nandude is an explorer as courageous as Grandude, with an amazing accordion-ship to boot!

Between Grandude’s magic compass and Nandude’s magical music, everyone arrives home safely. But not before enjoying a parade, dancing rainforest animals, and a narrow escape from a grabby octopus. This tale is perfect for little explorers and Paul McCartney fans alike! Artist Kathryn Durst returns with glorious, humor-filled illustrations that are as beautiful as ever.

Change Sings
by Amanda Gorman, illustrated by Loren Long
Viking Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780593203224
$18.99

In this stirring, much-anticipated picture book by presidential inaugural poet and activist Amanda Gorman, anything is possible when our voices join together. As a young girl leads a cast of characters on a musical journey, they learn that they have the power to make changes—big or small—in the world, in their communities, and in most importantly, in themselves.

As a young girl totes her guitar past a mural of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and sings her anthem of change. She meets another child, and together, they clean up a litter-ridden playground.

Throughout the book, the girl uses her strength and smarts to make a difference. She gives a bone to a dog, builds a ramp for a wheelchair user, shares a meal with a homeless child, and gathers a band of music lovers.

The poem’s rhythm is beautifully depicted through rich illustrations and is an ode to the ripple effect of good one person can create. This is a lyrical picture book debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman and #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator Loren Long

Change Sings is a triumphant call to action for everyone to use their abilities to make a difference. Recommended for children ages 4 to 8.

I Am Odd, I Am New
Benjamin Giroux, illustrated by Roz MacLean
Schiffer Publishing
ISBN13: 9780764362415
$16.99

Through the eyes of 10-year-old Benjamin Giroux, being odd is different, and different is a good thing. This is what the then fifth-grader hoped to convey in his poem, beginning every few sentences with “I am,” about what it is like to live with autism.

Inspired by a school assignment, Benjamin’s raw and emotional words poured out onto the page, but when he feared they were not any good, his parents shared the poem with friends and family. Little did they know that it would go viral and end up inspiring thousands of strangers who identified with him to share their support.

Now for the first time, Benjamin’s iconic poem “I Am Odd, I Am New,” comes to life in this lovingly illustrated picture book with a foreword written by the National Autism Association. So whether you know the poem, or it is new to you, discover how Benjamin’s honesty will reassure children of all ages that it’s okay to be different.

Recommended for readers aged 5 to 9.

Hi Weirdo! – The New Children’s Book by Aiden and Mitch O’Connell
$15.00   Available at Mitch’s Etsy Store, Shipping next week.

I have to confess, this is a last-minute entry. It just went live while I was proof-reading today’s PopCult Gift Guide, and I just had to include it here. It bumped a Dinosaur Encylopedia that will probably show up next week.

Mitch is an old friend from my comic book days, and he was also in Monday’s Gift Guide Post. Now, along with his many accomplishments, which include providing illustrations for everything from major magazines and newspapers to comic books to record albums, tattoo designs and Tiajuana Bibles, he can add, “Children’s Book Illustrator.”

Mitch explains…

I finally got around to drawing a children’s book!
Luckily, my 7 year old son Aiden had a great idea, so we went to town!
It’s a 28 page, Little Golden Book sized, heavy stock, full color trip through a town full of weird, wild and wacky characters!
What will happen?
What do they look like?
What life lessons will be learned?
Get the book and find out!

As for age-appropriateness, it’s written by 7-year-old. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s the perfect gift for Weirdos of all ages!

Today is the second Beatle-centric day in The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide. We have another batch of gift ideas for the Beatle-obsessed person on your holiday gift list. Last week four out of five of our Beatle-y selections were for the actual music of the Lads from Liverpool. This week we reverse that, with one music gift idea, two books and two collectibles.

The Beatles: Get Back
by The Beatles (Author), John Harris (Editor), Ethan Russell & Linda McCartney (Photographers), Hanif Kureishi (Introduction), Peter Jackson (Foreword)
Callaway Arts & Entertainment
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0935112962
$60.00 (heavilydiscounted at most retailers)

Any Beatles fan will want this companion coffee-table book to Peter Jackson’s six-hour re-edit of the Beatles’ Let It Be footage. Get Back will debut on Disney+ later this month, and thus far, no Blu Ray or DVD release has been officially announced, but this book is the next best thing.

The most anticipated book in more than a decade by the legendary band, The Beatles: Get Back is the official account of the creation of their final album, Let It Be, told in The Beatles’ own words, illustrated with hundreds of previously unpublished images, including photos by Ethan A. Russell and Linda McCartney. Half a century after the 1970 Let It Be album and film, this milestone book coincides with the global release of Peter Jackson’s documentary feature film, The Beatles: Get Back.

The book opens in January 1969, the beginning of The Beatles’ last year as a band. The BEATLES (The White Album) is at number one in the charts and the foursome gather in London for a new project. Over 21 days, first at Twickenham Film Studios and then at their own brand-new Apple Studios, with cameras and tape recorders documenting every day’s work and conversations, the band rehearse a huge number of songs, culminating in their final concert, which famously takes place on the rooftop of their own office building, bringing central London to a halt.

The Beatles: Get Back tells the story of those sessions through transcripts of the band’s candid conversations. Drawing on over 120 hours of sound recordings, leading music writer John Harris edits the richly captivating text to give us a fly-on-the-wall experience of being there in the studios. These sessions come vividly to life through hundreds of unpublished, extraordinary images by two photographers who had special access to their sessions―Ethan A. Russell and Linda Eastman (who married Paul McCartney two months later). Also included are many unseen high-resolution film-frames, selected from the 55 hours of restored footage from which Peter Jackson’s documentary is also drawn.

Legend has it that these sessions were a grim time for a band falling apart. However, as acclaimed novelist Hanif Kureishi writes in his introduction, “In fact this was a productive time for them, when they created some of their best work. And it is here that we have the privilege of witnessing their early drafts, the mistakes, the drift and digressions, the boredom, the excitement, joyous jamming and sudden breakthroughs that led to the work we now know and admire.” Half a century after their final performance, this book completes the story of the creative genius, timeless music, and inspiring legacy of The Beatles.

The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine (Beatles Album Series)
by Bruce Spizer
498 Productions, LLC
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0983295785
$29.99, available from most booksellers

The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine is the latest installment in the Beatles Album Series by Beatles historian Bruce Spizer. The book covers the songs and projects undertaken by the Beatles shortly after completion of their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in April 1967.

In the following ten months, the group wrote and recorded the song “All You Need Is Love” for the Our World TV program that was broadcast by satellite throughout the world, wrote the songs for and filmed the TV spectacular Magical Mystery Tour, wrote the songs for their feature length cartoon film Yellow Submarine, and recorded the songs “Lady Madonna” and “Across The Universe” before heading to India to study transcendental meditation in mid-February 1968.

The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine covers these remarkable achievements from the British, American, and Canadian perspectives, and includes chapters on the packaging of the albums and the writing and recording of the songs. It also has chapters on how the Beatles influenced our world, the friendly rivalry between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Beatles Saturday morning cartoons, dozens of fan recollections, and more. The book has over 150 images.

John Lennon Vinyl Stamp Collecting Book
USPS
$32.95 plus tax

This is a very cool collectible item produced by The United States Postal Service. Designed to look like a classic vinyl album, this package includes four new John Lennon Forever Stamps with accompanying mounts; a round book (shaped like a record) with images and text; all housed in an old-school vinyl sleeve, with interactive flaps featuring the photo used on the stamps.

The interactive flaps recall Lennon’s original pressing of the Walls and Bridges album, and in what I’m sure is not a coincidence, the photo used on these stamps was taken at the same photo session as those used on that album.

This is a fun and unexpected crossover collectible, just perfect for the Beatles or Lennon fan on your shopping list who also dabbles in stamp collecting.

You can order this directly from the Post Office.

Hornby Magical Mystery Tour Bus
$35, available from The Beatles Official Store

The Beatles released the Magical Mystery Tour album in 1967 to accompany the film of the same name which was first shown in the UK on Boxing Day that year.

The record proved a huge success, it had multiple weeks at number one in the charts in multiple countries and was nominated for “Album of the Year” at the 1968 Grammy Awards.

The re-release of this replica of the Bedford VAL used in the film is meticulously detailed and will appeal to both die-cast and Beatles collectors alike. It took a long time for somebody to finally make a toy version of this bus, and it’s really cool that Hornby/Corgi finally got around to re-releasing it at an affordable price.

A great gift idea for the Fab Four loving die-cast collector on your list.

McCartney III Imagined
Available in a variety of formats (and prices) from any music retalier
Colored vinyl special editions available from PaulMcCartney.com

Hailed upon its release last year as “vital and comfortable taking new chances” (Rolling Stone) and “cheery, resilient, forever looking forward” (The New Yorker), Paul McCartney’s McCartney III, which topped album charts across the world, has been radically remixed and covered, and has blossomed into a whole new work of art.

Personally curated by Paul, McCartney III Imagined features an A-List assortment of friends, fans, and brand new acquaintances, each covering and/or reimagining their favorite McCartney III moments in their own signature styles.

The result is a kaleidoscopic reinterpretation of an album Rolling Stone accurately tagged “an inspiration to us all”—one was a no-brainer for inclusion in last year’s PopCult Gift Guide.

Note that the only way to get the Idris Elba remix is to buy a physical copy.

Tracklist:
1. Find My Way (feat. Beck) – 4:53
2. The Kiss of Venus (Dominic Fike) – 2:23
3. Pretty Boys (feat. Khruangbin) – 5:48
4. Women And Wives (St. Vincent Remix) – 3:00
5. Deep Down (Blood Orange Remix) – 4:24
6. Seize The Day (feat. Phoebe Bridgers) – 3:29
7. Slidin’ (EOB Remix) – 2:39
8. Long Tailed Winter Bird (Damon Albarn Remix) – 4:10
9. Lavatory Lil (Josh Homme) – 2:53
10. When Winter Comes (Anderson .Paak Remix) – 2:21
11. Deep Deep Feeling (3D RDN Remix) – 11:23
12. Long Tailed Winter Bird (Idris Elba Remix)* – 2:44
*Physical exclusive

It’s a great gift idea fr the McCartney fan on your list who also appreciates new artists.