Month: November 2021 (Page 5 of 5)

Today we’re looking at graphic novels and comic book collections. These books should be available from any bookseller, using the ISBN number, or you can probably find them at comic book stores and certain omnipressant online retailers (often at a discount).

Nexus Newspaper Strips Volume 1: The Coming of Gourmando
by Mike Baron and Steve Rude
Dark Horse Books
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1506714363
$29.99

I’ve been a fan of Baron and Rude’s Nexus for nearly forty years, and this new entry into the canon is an absolute treat for longtime fans. It’s also a great jumping-on point for new readers.

Originally intended to be published a series of very, very large pre-1940 Sunday Newspaper-sized comics pages for a project that got scuttled, this book collets a new 90-page story, told in one-page chapters. My only complaint is that these beautiful pages have been shrunk down to standard comic book size for this edition, and the deluxe, oversized hardcover has been indefinitely postponed.

We still get a terrific new Nexus story, along with a great re-telling of his origin and lots of bonus material. From the blurb:

Something long dormant beneath the surface of Ylum comes alive, triggering a visit from the planet-devouring Gourmando and his mysterious ally.

With powers far beyond those of even Nexus himself, this unstoppable being banishes Nexus to an unknown realm–and the only way out is to face one’s worst fears! Mike Baron and Steve Rude deliver a new Nexus adventure in this special collection that also includes the newly-remastered “Nexus: The Origin” comic and the classic Rude hand-painted Sundra story, “When She was Young.”

Nexus Newspaper Strips Volume 1: The Coming of Gourmando is the perfect gift for fans of intelligent science fiction or superhero adventures, or just for folks who love great comic book art. Steve Rude is an under-appreciated master, and he really gets to show off here.

BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams
by Mike Allred, Steve Horton, Laura Allred
Insight Comics
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1683834489
$39.99 (frequently discounted online)

I’m a big fan of Mike Allred (Madman Comics, X-Statix, Silver Surfer), and have been since I read his first graphic novel, Dead Air, during an overnight shift in my broadcast deejay years.

BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams is his dream project, and while this was released last year, it somehow managed to escape being included in the PopCult Gift Guide.

Let me rectify that with this amazing gift for any fan of Allred’s, and any fan of Bowie. This is a great piece of comics art, and a true labor of love. We go to the publisher’s blurb:

Inspired by the legendary David Bowie, BOWIE: Stardust, Rayguns, & Moonage Daydreams is the original graphic memoir of the great Ziggy Stardust!

This graphic novel chronicles the rise of Bowie’s career from obscurity to fame; and paralleled by the rise and fall of his alter ego as well as the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. As the Spiders from Mars slowly implode, Bowie wrestles with his Ziggy persona. The outcome of this internal conflict will change not only David Bowie, but also, the world.

You can’t go wrong with this as a gift for any music or comics lover with taste.

DC Through the 80s: The End of Eras
(DC Through the Decades)
Edited by Paul Levitz
DC Comics
ISBN-13 : 978-1779500878
$49.99

A perfect gift for any die-hard DC Comics fan on your list, DC Through the 80s: The End of Eras is a pretty wild collection of comics, accompanied by some terrific essays. This expansive and eclectic collection of stories published by DC, mainly in the first half of the 1980s, reveals a level of quality and variety that was not fully appreciated at the time.

Most of this collection pre-dates the publication of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, which most folks point to as the turning point where DC Comics pulled far ahead of Marvel in terms of quality and innovation. The stories here prove that DC, under the direction of Jeanette Khan and Paul Levitz, was already nurturing a creative environment where seasoned veteran comics creators found creative a resurgence while collaborating with then-newcomers. long before those breakthrough comics.

With appropriate space given to the supeheroes, DC Through the 80s: The End of Eras also offers up a section devoted to “Mystery” stories (the word “horror” was still forbidden by the Comics Code Authority at this point). This section is a blast, as we are treated to artwork by some true legends of comics like Irwin Hasen, Lee Elias, Infantino, Tom Sutton, Nester Redondo, Gil Kane and Johnny Craig, illustrating stories from a mix of veteran writers and newcomers,

The next section of the book covers their war titles, and we are treated to Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert on a Sgt. Rock story, plus Sam Glanzman drawing an adventure of The Haunted Tank.

The “Other Worlds” section includes a story from Mike Grell’s Warlord, plus a couple of short sci-fi tales and a two-part Jonah Hex epic. This again demonstrates the variety of different comics that DC published in the 80s.

After that, we get a section of the book titled “Endings and Beginnings,” and it includes a seemingly random assortment of really great comic book stories. Rounding out that section of the book, and making things even more delightfully random, we are presented with some of the glorious artwork of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, from DC’s consumer products style guide. .

These are all great stories, but the real attraction is the text bonus that immediately follows them. DC has finally officially published Alan Moore’s 1987 20-plus page proposal for a company-wide DC Comics crossover story that was to be called “Twilight of the Superheroes.”For many fans, the publication of Twilight of the Superheroes is worth the price of the book. I have to wonder if its inclusion here influenced some of Levitz’s story choices.

An added bonus in this collection, and something that has been sorely lacking in many recent DC Comics collections, are new essays recounting these remarkable times from participants Elliot S! Maggin, J.M. DeMatteis, Andy Kubert, Jack C. Harris, and Paul Kupperberg.

Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles
by Jack Kirby
Marvel
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1302930714
$29.99

Say you have a Marvel Comics fan on your holiday shopping list…or maybe somebody who just loves Jack Kirby or Captain America…this is the perfect gift for them.

Marvel has reprinted Jack Kirby’s 1976 all-original Treasury Edition, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, in its original tabloid, treasury edition, size and it is a joy to behold.

This new edition is a hardcover, printed on pristine white paper that shows off the art in a whole new light, and there’s also the bonus inclusion of a few of the uncolored original art pages and Marvel’s 1976 calendar.

Captain America was not only always politically-oriented, most of that time he’s been a champion for hardcore progressive and liberal causes. The cover of his first comic book shows him punching Hitler…and that was a year before we entered World War 2.

This particular comic was created to tie-in with America’s Bicentennial, which was a marketing bonanza, and since Jack Kirby had recently returned to Marvel and was writing and drawing the regular Captain America comic (some 36 years after co-creating him), Kirby was assigned the task of telling a story about how Captain America relates to The American Dream.

With elements of A Christmas Carol, This Is Your Life, and A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, we see Captain America transported through time for episodic adventures that demonstrate American ideals. He is reunited with his long-dead sidekick, Bucky, during World War 2. We seen him in pre-Revolutionary War Philadelphia, where his appearance inspires the design of the first American Flag.

We also see Captain America in the middle of the Indian Wars of the old West, flying an airplane during World War I, inspiring John Brown to become an abolitionist, witnessing the first atomic bomb blast and even inspiring a young newsboy in Mahattan’s Lower East Side to become a comic book writer and artist. That would be a young Jacob Kurtzberg (Jack Kirby) by the way.

If you haven’t read this story before, it’s well worth experiencing. The story is great fun, and the appeal is timeless.

Slow Death Zero: The Comix Anthology of Ecological Horror
edited by Jon B. Cooke and Ron Turner
Last Gasp
ISBN-13 : 978-0867198836
$24.95

Slow Death was one of the most notable of the underground comix published back the 1970s. The first issue was commissioned to be released on the very first Earth Day in 1970, and the title ran for ten more, roughly annual, issues, with one revival issue in 1992.

With a mission to mix ecological and political themes with cautionary horror and science fiction tales in the style of EC Comics and the best of underground comix creators, the book left quite an impression.

It was a real treat to see this new one-shot revival of Slow Death (designed to come out on the 50th anniversary of the first issue, but delayed a year by a certain pandemic, among other reasons) and I’m happy to say that this new anthology is as wildly entertaining and informative as the original series.

Edited by Jon Cooke (the editor of Comic Book Creator, and before that, Comic Book Artist) with Ron Turner, the original editor and publisher of the underground comix version of Slow Death, Slow Death Zero is a beautifully-produced, slick, thick collection of new stories created by a mix of original contributors and newcomers (with two pages by Robert Crumb being a reprint). There’s over 120 pages of new comics here, a mix of full-color and black-and-white, along with a great article by Cooke that tells the full story of Slow Death and the title’s publisher, Last Gasp.

Slow Death Zero is a nostalgic treat for fans of the original series, but also works as collection of ecological horror stories for folks who were born too late to be long-time fans. These are scary, thought-provoking, often hilarious comix stories with a definite agenda.

Slow Death Zero would be a great gift for fans of classic underground comix, connoisseurs of good comics and people who don’t mind (or badly need) a good dose of harsh reality mixed in with their horror comics.

Once again we have come to Tuesday on The AIR  but our script is a bit different this week. Today we deliver unto you a brand-new episode of Radio Free Charleston, while The Swing Shift is in rerun mode this week while I work on The 2021 The PopCult Gift Guide.  However, we have a special treat as Dexter Checkers, the host of Ska Madness, who stepped down a few years back for health reasons, returns for one week to bring you tracks from a brand-new album of protest songs by THE Two-Tone group, The Specials.

So that’s still two new programs totalling four new (ish) hours of particularly nifty internet radio!  You simply have to twonk 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 (If you’re reading PopCult on a desktop, that is. Phone readers have to go to the website).

We have a  killer new Radio Free Charleston at 10 AM and 10 PM Tuesday.  This week we open with new music from a great Charleston Metal band, Disarm The Fallen,  and we continue with a pretty darned epic line up of music that includes great new and vintage local stuff, particularly swell releases from major artists, a few classic tracks and a whole hour of live tracks recorded for the RFC video show (and recycled from RFC Volume 4).

In our second hour, we go back over fifty years to bring you the legendary Morgantown band, Mind Garage, and their “Electric Liturgy,” which is often credited as the first example of Christian Rock. It’s a 17-minute epic.

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 068

Disarm The Fallen “Cold Dead Night”
Mediogres “Mon Cherie”
Skafish “Executive Exhibitionist”
Red Audio “Holograms”
The Gods “Garage Man”
Billy Bragg “Ten Mysterious Photos That Can’t Be Explained”
Static Fur “Temporary”
Cassius At Best “Alabaster”
CHVRCHES “Violent Delights”
The Inmates “Dirty Water”
Joseph Hale “Soap Opera Camera Eyes”
Safetybelt “All In Stride”
Tori Amos “Speaking With Trees”
David Essex “Monlight Dancing”
Hello June “Momma”

hour two
The Specials “The Lunatics (Live)”
Lost Decades “My Poison”
The Stranglers “If Something’s Going to Kill Me (It Might As Well Be Love)”
Guitarmy of One “Emma Belle Cintronella”
The Renfields “Transylvania High”
The Lickerish Quartet “Snollygoster Goon”
Feast of Stephen “Mystery Hole”
Mind Garage “The Electric Liturgy”
“Processional-Kyrie-Gloria”
“Offeratory (Sunday Christian)”
“The Lord’s Prayer”
“Communion (Water)”
“Recessional”
PFM “We’re Not An Island”
Gary Myrick “Guitar, Talk, Love & Drums”
Kid Creole & The Coconuts “Endicott”

hour three
John Radcliff “Body”
Punk Jazz “Little Star”
Raymond Wallace “Variations”
Lady D “Go Higher”
Spurgy Hankins Band “Blue Parrot Set”
The Paris Project “Sugar”
The Clementines “Soundscapes”
Jeff Ellis “Fade”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Thursday at 3 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 episode of RFC every weekday at 5 PM, and we bring you a marathon 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 an encore of MIRRORBALL at 1 PM, and a special new Ska Madness at 2 PM.

Dexter Checkers returns with the first new episode of Ska Madness, I think, since 2017 at 2 PM. He has recovered nicely from his serious health issues and has returned to work at The Haversham Recording Institute. He’s been threatening to give us a new Ska Madness, and the release of a brand-new album by The Specials prompted him to put together something for The AIR.

The Specials released an acclaimed new album, Encore, in 2019, and were preparing work on a follow-up. When the pandemic hit, the band couldn’t assemble for their usual songwriting meetings, so they decided to do a covers project in the interim.

The band decied to look at “the protest song,”  compiling a list of protest songs from the last hundred years or so.. They found around 50 songs and then picked 12, and in  April of this year they went into the studio and recorded Protest Songs 1924-2012. You will hear tracks from that newly-released album during the hour of Ska Madness. Included in the show, The Specials give their takes on songs by Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa, Pops Staples, Rod McKuen, The Talking Heads, Bob Marly and others. Dexter even let me preview his show with one of the bonus tracks on Radio Free Charleston.

Ska Madness will be repeated this week Thursday at 9 AM, Friday at 11 AM and late Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM we have a couple of encores of recent episodes of The Swing Shift, covering everything from Tuba Skinny to Benny Goodman.

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.

Here we are already at day one of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide. It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of the year again already.

We’re trying a new format this year. There will be one post every weekday in November. Each post will have five gift suggestions. Most days there will be some sort of theme. Today that would be toys.

I’m not putting a price limit on the gift ideas, but I will try to keep them somewhat reasonable, and most should be under fifty bucks. I’m also going to take the available supply into account, and recommend stuff that I know you can actually find in stores or online.

And with that, let’s jump in.

Hess 2021 Cargo Plane and Jet

Traditionally we kick off the PopCult Gift Guide with the HESS Truck for the year, but this year it’s not a truck.  It’s a cargo plane, with a jet tucked inside. You can only get this from the HESS Truck website, and it’s $39.99 (plus tax). That includes shipping and batteries.

The 2021 Hess Cargo Plane and Jet has landed in the fleet, all geared up for high flying adventure with 6 remarkably lifelike, button and motion activated flying sounds, and enough LED bulbs to light up the night sky!

The Cargo Plane is an impressive, six turbine engine, heavy-load transport aircraft. Colored in white with a green undercarriage, bold green striping, sparkling chrome nose cone and accents, the plane includes free-rolling, foldable landing gear, and 32 high-visibility lights that provide an impressive glow. A quick press of the taillight will release the rear cargo bay doors to provide access to the Jet. A hidden slide out ramp makes loading and unloading the expansive, internally illuminated cargo bay a breeze. With a nearly 14-inch-long fuselage and 15-inch wingspan, the Cargo Plane is the largest Hess vehicle ever!

The accompanying Jet completes this formidable flying duo. Designed for speed and aerodynamic maneuverability, the sleek Jet roars to action with a combination of button and motion activated sounds! 3 top-mounted buttons will flash the engine lights and activate realistic takeoff, flyby, and landing sounds. Tilting the Jet activates the Climb/Dive, Bank, and Cruise motion sounds. The strikingly bold white and green colors are enhanced with finely detailed inlays and chrome nose cone and accents. The Jet also has free-rolling, folding landing gear and 2 sets of spring-loaded retractable wings which allow it to travel covertly inside its Cargo Plane partner or fly solo missions.

The 2021 Hess Cargo Plane and Jet is sold exclusively, at HessToyTruck.com, for $39.99 plus tax. 6 Energizer® batteries and free standard shipping are included. Only available while supplies last.

This is perfect for kids of all ages, including the ones nearing retirement age.

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With Inktober behind us, I decided to do a small, colorful painting. This is inspired by one of the shots I took last week on our leaf-peeping trip. I did this painting of a colorful tree that we saw in the shopping center just South of Bridgeport. Since I was using acrylics on a cheap flat canvas panel, I was able to ramp up the colors to be more autumnal, and more in line with what the fall leaves look like…well, right about now. Get out and look at the real world leaves if you can. They’re more impressive than this.

I actually speed-dried this with a hair-dryer and then scanned it, and it’s cropped a bit to cut out my sloppy edges.

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

Remember to check PopCult for the first installment of The 2021 PopCult Gift Guide, going live sometime before noon.  Monday’s entry will include five toy-related gift ideas.

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.

At 2 PM Nigel Pye has a trippy party with the latest episode of  Psychedelic Shack! It’s an entire hour filled with lesser-known music from the golden age of Psychedelic Rock including an opening track by West Virginia’s own legendary Mind Garage (supplied to Nigel by yours truly).

Check out this playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 052

Mind Garage “Ruby Rose”
Friends “Mythological Sunday”
Rupert’s People “Dream On My Mind”
Dr. West’s Medicine Show “Jigsaw”
Chocolate Frog “Butchers & Bakers”
I Luv Wight “Let The World Wash”
New Formula “Stay Indoors”
Jigsaw “Tumblin'”
Gentle Power of Song “Constant Penelope”
The Glass Menagerie “Have You Forgotten”
The Attack “Neville Thumbcatch”
The Berkley Kites “Alice In Wonderland”
Fruit Machine “I Am Alone Today”
Crocheted Doughnut Ring “Two Little Ladies”
Rokes “Works of Bartholemew”
State of Mickey & Tommy “I Know What I Would Do”

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.

At 3 PM, Herman Linte offers up a new Prognosis, loaded with two hours of  brand-new prog-rock, all released over the last couple of months. The show opens with a Dream Theater track that was just released less than two weeks ago.

Check out the playlist…

Prognosis 080

Dream Theater “The Alien”
YES “Damaged World”
CYAN “The Sorcerer”
Kyros “Where’s My Thing”
Rachel Flowers “Take Me Away”
Britt Hooten “Celestial Rain”
Steve Hackett “Relaxation Music For Sharks”
Joe Bonamassa “Time Clocks”
Viriditas “State of the Art”
Panoply “Manifesto”
J Crist “Count To Three”
Gerard Smith “Breathe”
The Quiet Life Project “Black and White”
Puppeteer “Ripples”

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, stick around for an 11-hour final dip into this year’s special Halloween programming, beginning with the Oingo Boingo Halloween Farewell concert from 1995.