Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 1 of 124)

The PopCulteer
September 26, 2025

The AIR FRIDAY!

Friday afternoon both of our Friday music specialty are new and exciting and cool and nifty, even! Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL and Sydney Fileen’s Sydney’s Big Electric Cat return with new episodes.  The AIR is PopCult‘s sister radio station. You can hear our shows on The AIR website, or just click on the embedded player found elsewhere on this page.

Friday at 2 PM on The AIR, we have a new episode of MIRRORBALL where Mel Larch once again presents Disco songs from the club days, before Disco invaded and took over mainstream radio, back when only the cool people knew where to go and how to get in. It’s historical, and it’s got a good beat that you can dance to.

Don’t believe us? Check out the playlist.,,

MIRRORBALL 120

Alec R. Costandinos And The Syncophonic Orchestra “Romeo And Juliet”
Cosa Rica Band “Baila”
Judy Cheeks “Mellow Lovin'”
MTL Express “Dance All Night”
Orlando Riva Sound “Moon Boots”
The Richard Hewson Orchestra “Touch My Love”
Fist O-Funk Orchestra “Dance All Over The World”

You can hear MIRRORBALL every Friday at 2 PM, with replays Sunday night at 11 PM and throughout the following week Monday at 9 AM and Tuesday at 1 PM plus there’s a four-hour mini-marathon that runs through the whole series in chronological order every Friday at 8 PM.

At 3 PM, Sydney Fileen graces us with a terrific new episode of Sydney’s Big Electric Cat that presents a timely look, season-wise, at a prolific band that never quite managed to crack into mainstream success, The Fall.

From their debut in 1976 to the death of their main creative force, Mark E. Smith in 2018, The Fall carved out a niche in the UK’s post-punk landscape with their ever-changing line-up and stylistic approach. They embodied the spirt of New Wave music without ever embracing the label or breaking into the mainstream.

Still, The Fall are considered one of the most prolific and influential bands of the period, and for the next two hour we are going to demonstrate why, by bringing you a mixtape collection of the best of their music from the New Wave era. Sydney brings you a veritable boatload of the best music the band released during the New Wave era.

Check out the playlist..

BEC 132

The Fall

Bingo-Master
It’s The New Thing
Rowche Rumble
Fiery Jack
How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’
Totally Wired
Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul
Look, Know
The Man Whose Head Expanded
Kicker Conspiracy
Marquis Cha-Cha
Oh! Brother
c.r.e.e.p.
Draygo’s Guilt
Couldn’t Get Ahead
Cruiser’s Creek
Frightened
No Xmas For John Quays
Two Steps Back
Music Scene
Living Too Late
Mr. Pharmacist
Hey! Luciani
There’s A Ghost In My House
Hit The North Part 1
A Figure Walks
Repetition
A Day In The Life

Sydney’s Big Electric Cat is produced at Haversham Recording Institute in London, and can be heard every Friday at 3 PM, with replays  Monday at 7 AM, Tuesday at 8 PM, Wednesday at Noon and Thursday at 10 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Classic episodes can be heard as part of the Haversham Recording Institute marathon overnight Monday/early Tuesday.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back every day for fresh content and all our regular features.

Fall is here and soon the leaves and boilerplates will turn. Even with this, we still have a whole bunch of STUFF TO DO in and around Charleston and the state of mountains and maybe a little beyond.

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

We are also very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most weekends you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and Friady and Saturday shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend they have The Carpenter Antson Friday, and Minor Swing on Saturday. Sunday afternoon, at 1 PM, my old buddy Spencer Elliott will bring his incredible guitar wizardry to Charleston’s gem of a bookstore/art gallery/coffeehouse.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights.  On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings.

There’s also some cool stuff hapening at Slack Plaza in Downtown Charleston, as part of City Center Live. Check out the graphic at right.

You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment.  I am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon and those look to be incredible.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff. If somebody asks you to refrain, don’t be a jerk about it.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events happening over the next several days that I was able to scrounge up online…

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We fall into fall with new episodes of our music specialty shows that debut on Wednesday afternoon, as The AIR brings you new installmentsof Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, each of which present a special theme.  You can tune in at the website, or just stay right here and  listen to the convenient embedded radio player lurking elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM (EDT) Beatles Blast brings you an episode of music that is “Beatle Related.”

As to what that entails…well, we open with a song heard in Magical Mystery Tour that was not performed by The Beatles, then we have a selection of tunes released on Apple Records that feature musical contributions from the Fab Four, and from there we have covers, collaborations and more that are all…Beatle Releated.

Check out this playlist:

Beatles Blast 125

The Bonzo Dog Band “Death Cab For Cutie”
Jackie Lomax “Sour Milk Sea”
Hot Chocolate Band “Give Peace A Chance”
Billy Preston “My Sweet Lord”
Bill Elliott & The Elastic Oz Band “God Save Us”
Doris Troy “Try Some Buy Some”
Keith Moon “Solid Gold” “In My Life” “Move Over Ms. L”
Yoko Ono featuring Death Cab For Cutie “Forgive Me My Love”
Marshall Crenshaw “Love Me Do”
Eric Clapton & Paul McCartney “Something”
Elton John “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”
Dice “Penny Lane

Beatles Blast can be heard every Wednesday at 2 PM, with replays Thursday at 11 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday afternoon.

At 3 PM (EDT) on Curtain Call, in time for an upcoming Broadway Revival, Mel Larch presents a mixtape sampler of The Musical, Chess. 

With Lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Benny and Bjorn from Abba, Chess has developed a cult following after premiering in the mid 1980s. Several productions and revivals have happened since then, with major changes to the book and songs added and dropped. The new Broadway revival, in the Imperial Theater, which was home to the ill-fated 1988 initial Broadway run, will open in October, 2025, with a completely re-written book, once again.

The story involves a politically driven, Cold War-era chess tournament between two grandmasters, one American and the other Soviet, and their fight over a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other.

This week Mel has stictched together a collection of highlights from the musical, using the original concept album, the first London Cast album, the first Broadway Cast album, an acclaimed Dutch touring production and even one song in Swedish.

Check out the list of songs, in order…

One Night In Bangkok
The Story of Chess
Quartet
Where I Want To Be
Terrace Duet
Mountain Duet
Urgen ’56
You and I
Pity the Child
I Know Him So Well
The Deal (No Deal)
Epilogue

Curtain Call can be heard on The AIR Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM, Friday at 10 AM, Saturday at 8 PM and Monday at 9 AM. A six-hour marathon of classic episodes can be heard Sunday evening starting at 6 PM, and an all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight.

Tuesday is always a great day to tune into The AIR  with a new episode of Radio Free Charleston to lighten your mood and make you feel less homicidal. This week we have a new edition of The Swing Shift, too! To listen to The AIR, you simply have to point your cursor over and tune in at the website, or you could just stay here, and  listen to the cool embedded player found elsewhere on this page.  

You can hear Radio Free Charleston Tuesdays at 10 AM and 10 PM, with boatloads of replays throughout the week.

Radio Free Charleston brings you a new show that includes two slightly-recycled hours from almost exactly two years ago.  Doing this brings back parts of two great shows that aren’t due to be in the rotation for our daily show for a few months, and it also lets me finish the show on time and do The Swing Shift and maybe get some sleep.

So it’s all good.  We open the program with a rarity from the legendary Huntington band, CHUM, who are releasing items from their back catalogue and putting some gems up on Bandcamp in advance of some upcoming reunion dates. This particular gem was part of a compilation album back in 2004. Given the option of making a joke in the outro about Plankton from SpongeBob Squarepants, or the musical, Cabaret, I opted for the only slightly more cerebral one.

The rest of our first hour combines great new local tracks with great new non-local tracks and one ringer from the late 1960s.

Our second and third hours revive the opening hours from a couple of shows that premiered in August, 2023. They are loaded with terrific music and hold up remarkably well.

Check out this playlist, with links to the artist’s page, where available…

RFC V5 242

hour one
CHUM “Embracing The Eyesore”
Emmalea Deal & The Hot Mess“Does She Have You”
The Darkness “Don’t Need Sunshine”
Joy Viver “It’s Not Supposed To Be Easy”
Novelty Island “The Only Train Driver In England”
The Heavy Editors “Bleed”
The Settlement “Linger”
Golden“Gotta Let It Go”
Kerosene Stars “Kerosine”
Sophie Ellis-Bextor “Heart Sing”
Aliza Hava “Fix My Fate”
Harry Nilsson “1941”
A Tale of Two “1934”
Chuck Biel w/Scott Milam “Ripstaver”

hour two
Hello June “Interstate”
Jonny Strykes “All The Way Home”
Brian Diller “Drive”
The Anchoress “This Is Yesterday”
Jim Lange “Sky of Fire”
Novelty Island “Turn To Me”
Matt Mullins and The Bringdowns “There You Are”
Guitarmy of One “Top Secret Agent Man On A Wire Tapped Phone At Sea”
The Tentakills “Split The Sea”
Galen and Paul “A Sea Shanty”
Sierra Ferrell “The Sea”
Pete Townshend “Sea and Sand”
Bottle and Bride “A Call To The Sea”
Jerks “Ok New Wave”
Lost Decades “Essex”
Dave Strong “She’s The One”

hour three
Jerks “This Is Fine”
Alabaster Boxer “Build You An Ocean”
The Cleverlys “She’s Not There”
Matt Mullins and The Bringdowns “Appalachain Highway”
Aristotle Jones “Streets of Osage”
Frank Sinatra “Michael and Peter”
Verdeant (Chloe Florence) “Reckless (Demo)”
Foz Rotten “From The Top”
Jonny Strykes “Gimme A Sign”
Buni Muni “Kids Are Dead”
Blur “Far Away Island”
Jack Hues “Since 2017”
The Fusion Syndicate “Io”
Galen and Paul “Esmeralda”

You can hear this episode of Radio Free Charleston Tuesday at 10 AM and 10 PM on The AIR, with replays Wednesday at 9 AM,  Thursday at 2 PM, Friday at 9 AM, Saturday at Noon and Midnight, Sunday at 8 PM and  Monday at 11 AM, exclusively on The AIR. Now you can also hear a different classic 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 encores of last week’s episodes of  MIRRORBALL at 1 PM and Curtain Call at 2 PM.

At 3 PM  The Swing Shift marks 175 episodes with a red hot show. In fact, the whole hour is devoted to Red & The Red Hots. Unfortunately, I don’t have a playlist for this mixtape special because a power flicker took it out before I could hit “save.”  You can find out more about this great Swing Revival band HERE.

 You can hear The Swing Shift Tuesday at 3 PM, with replays Wednesday at 8 AM, Thursday at 9 AM,  Friday at 10 AM and 8 PM and Saturday afternoon, only on The AIR . You can also hear all-night marathons, seven hours each, starting at Midnight Thursdays and Sundays.

This week’s art is a pastel on illustration board rough color study for a painting that I eventually want to do in high-detail in acrylics on a much larger canvas. This was me basically just trying to jot down the composition and color, and the shadows…most importantly, the shadows.

I dipped into a little of my Hopper training for those.

This represents my view, looking down while sitting on my front porch, waiting for my lovely wife to come out so we could go have lunch at the Red Line Diner in Saint Albans.

I had the Greek Salad. It was great.

When I looked down I saw the patterns created by the shadows. When I do this in high-detail, I plan to go all-out on the textures of the grass, the cement steps and my jeans, but this is just a rough. I have neither the time nor the dexterity at the moment to present a finished piece. As it is, the sloppy nature sort of has a charm of its own, even though some of the texture work was accidental.

I suppose the point of this, aside from just trying to capture the cool shadows, is to show that, when people tell you not to look down on yourself, they don’t know what they’re missing.

If you want to see this image larger, click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you an encore of a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with 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 elsewhere on this page.

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. 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.

At 8 PM you can hear a classic episode of The Comedy Vault that delivers raunchy tunes from Rusty Warren.

Tonight at 9 PM we bring you our new Monday night line-up featuring two hours each of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, plus six hours overnight with an assortment of our programming from Haversham Recording Institute: Psychedelic Shack, Sydney’s Big Electric Cat and Prognosis. Tonight that overnight marathon presents three episodes of Herman Linte’s Prognosis. 

As promised earlier this week, this post is an attempt to recreate a Sunday Evening Video post from 2008, where I brought you a bunch of video clips about the cool 1960s action figure, Captain Action. The original post used flashvideo inserts that simply no longer work, so I’m going to need to do some work to restore these. Some of the videos may no longer be online, so I’m just going to leave them out of this repost. There’s a little bit of re-writing that will be necesary. I also expect to excise multiple dead links I’m writing this intro before I begin work, so let’s see how it all works out…

All right, I’ll admit it. I’m in the tank for Captain Action. I know it’s media bias, but I’m going to take any chance I can to write about one of my favorite childhood toys, especially now that he’s coming back. I’ve put in now-dead links to Captain Action Enterprises, and Moonstone Comics.  And you know I’ll send you over to Cast Away Toys,  where they’re bringing the good Captain back as  MEGO-style action figure.  I even wrote about the new poster from comics legend Murphy Anderson. So, since there are some videos floating around, let’s look at Captain Action, starting with the very first commercial from the 1960s:

Cool, huh? Well, after the jump, you can see what Captain Action is up to these days, in the midst of his big revival!

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Episode 153 of Radio Free Charleston, “Dr. Pepper Shirt,” was a special episode, comprised entirely of rehearsal footage from two great musical events happening in town back in March, 2012: The 2nd Annual Alumni All-Star Jam at WVSU, and the CYAC production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

I always felt honored to be invited to bring the RFC cameras into a rehearsal because it means that the performers trust me to document their work-in-progress, warts and all. It’s a gutsy move, and a sign of confidence on the part of the artists involved.

Of course, I had a bit of an “in” with one performer. Radio Free Charleston‘s Resident Diva and now Mrs. PopCulteer, Melanie Larch, appears in this special edition of RFC, as does Lady D, the WVSU Alumni All-Star Band and the cast of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

Our first two songs are from The 2nd Annual WVSU Alumni All-Star Jam Band. These were early run-throughs, just the first or second time that the musicians have tackled these songs together. The incredible band is comprised of Jonathan Wesley (Inspiration) on drums, Tim Courts (Bob Thompson Unit) on piano, Mike “Nemo” Pleasant on bass guitar, Dick Stockton on trumpet and Bill Hambleton on Trombone. The show was a smash success, and more than six years later, people are still talking about it.

As a bonus in this episode we had a sneak peek of The Contemporary Youth Arts Company production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” This was another case where our production deadline would not allow us to record a dress rehearsal, and we had to go in before they had their microphones working. You’ll hear the cast performing “Hosanna.”

You can find the original production notes HERE.

The PopCulteer
September 19, 2025

Back in May, I first told you about the turmoil surrounding the comic book industry in the wake of the bankruptcy of Diamond Comics Distributors, who had a monopoly on comic book distribution in this country for close to three decades.

During and after the pandemic things changed.  DC Comics left Diamond, and is now handled by a new company called Lunar. Several publishers followed suit.  Not long after that, Marvel left Diamond and is now handled by Penguin Random House, the long-established book publisher/distributor, who decided to get into comics. Having lost their monopoly, which allowed them to dictate terms to both publishers and retailers that were less than ideal, Diamond’s business model was not sustainable.They entered bankruptcy in January, and a sale was overseen by the Bankruptcy court of the District of Baltimore, Maryland.

I’d like to be able to tell you how it all shook out, but sad to say, while Diamond Comics as we knew it is dead, the corpse is still shaking.

We still don’t know exactly how far the ripple effect will resonate, but there are some key things you might want to know.

Diamond, after the bankruptcy sale, is multiple entities.  The original Diamond, now commonly referred to as “Diamond Debtors” is attempting to wrap up the final matters of business before they can cease to exist. They do not seem to be doing this in an thical manner.

The new Diamond Distributors, owned by acompany called Ad Populum, bought the US distribution business, plus Diamond Book Distributors, Diamond Select Toys & Collectibles, Diamond Previews, Collectible Grading Authority, and other assets.  Diamond Select Toys was shut down almost immediately, with the entire staff being laid off. CGA was sold off to new owners in June. Free Comic Book Day is rumored to be up for sale, with people wondering why anybody would bother buying it.

Diamond Previews limped along until last month, when the once phone-book-sized catalog went digital-only. Just days ago, The entire staff of Diamond Previews was laid off, including some who had been workinng there since 1991. Many comics fans are mourning this loss. I am not among them. With so many publishers springing up over the last couple of decades, the monthly publication had swollen to several hundred pages…of them technically ads…and it just took up way the hell too much space.

It’s not clear if they even want to be in the business of distributing comics. They may have just wanted a distribution pipeline to get product from their sister companies, NECA, Kidrobot, and WizKids into comic book shops.

Alliance Games, Diamond’s most profitable division, was sold to a Canadian company, Universal distribution.  Diamond Comics Distribution UK was sold to its management team.

Universal is expected to attempt to enter the US Comics distiribution business by expanding, putting them in direct competition with the new Diamond Comics, owned by Ad Populum. That competition may be one-sided since almost every publisher has abandoned the new Diamond.

There is also a three-way tug of war between the Diamond Debtors, 130 publishers and the new Diamond over inventory that was consigned to the original Diamond Comics following their bankruptcy filing in January. Millions of dollars of inventory is being claimed by the Diamond Debtors, who want to sell it off at liquidation prices to pay off a line of credit that was extended to them by JP Morgan Chase.  The publishers gave that inventory to Diamond to allow them to continue to operate, business as usual, during the bankruptcy process, and their contract clearly states that it was a consignment deal, and that not only would Diamond have to return that inventory to them at Diamon’d expense, when asked, and that it was the property of the publisher until sold to a retailer. Ad Populum, whose deal to buy Diamond apparently excluded the consignment inventory, had been selling it to retailers for months without remitting payment to either the publishers or the the Diamond Debtors.

Clearly, the publishers own the inventory and deserve to be paid. Ad Populum claims to be holding the money in escrow until the courts decide who owns what. The Diamond Debtors lost their first fight over this inventory and are now in the process of suing each individual publisher (all 130 of them) for their inventory, claiming that their clearly-worded contracts are void because of some dubious technicality of Maryland law over a form that wasn’t filed with the court.

What I gave you is just the Cliff’s Notes version. To quote myself from what I wrote in May, “I have not covered this in-depth because it’s a morass of legalese and financial chicanery, but you can find some great reporting about it at Comics Beat and at Bleeding Cool.”

It’s a bigger mess than you might think. JP Morgan Chase loaned Diamond over eight million dollars to cover the cost of doing business, and may not see a penny of it. AENT, a competing bidder for the company, put up almost eight million dollars themselves, before withdrawing their bid after discovering outright lies that inflated the value of the company. They have yet to have their bidding fee returned.

Many of the publishers are facing bankruptcy of their own if they don’t get paid for their product, or at least get it back so they can sell it at full price.  If Diamond Debtors is allowed to liquidate their inventory for pennies on the dollar, the affected publishers will find themselves competing with their own product being sold at Ollie’s for a fraction of what they paid to print it.

And some of those publishers have had no money coming in for several months,  which is affecting how much they can afford to publish now, and what projects they can take on in the future. Making matters worse, for several months they were simply ghosted by the Diamond Debtors and the new Diamond when they’d ask about either getting paid or getting their inventory back.

I didn’t even mention that, over the years, Diamond had extended lines of credit to hundreds of comic book shops, and now the Diamond Debtors is re-examining the books and is attempting to claw back some of that money, with added onerous interest charges.

DC Comics, Marvel, Image and the larger independents wills survive, easily.  Mid-size publishers could take major hits, some of them fatal, if they lose the rights to the inventory that they loaned to Diamond in good faith. They are already losing tens of thousands in legal fees fighting all these dubious court maneuvers. Several of them are turning to Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sources to stay in business, one project at a time.

Many people are wondering about the role of Steve Geppi, the founder and former owner of Diamond in all this.  He apparently retained several of what were considered Diamond assets, including Gemstone Publishing (who publish The Overstreet Price Guide), a massive collection of comic book art, Folks who are suspicious that Geppi had been planning Diamond’s bankruptcy for more than six years have speculated that he started moving assets around as early as 2018, but there has been no proof of that. It has been reported that he is personally on the hook for any shortfall between what Diamond Debtors can collect, and what JP Morgan Chase is still owed. Geppi’s personal financial status has been a subject of speculation for almost fifteen years. In 2018 Geppi made a multi-million dollar donation of materials from his now-closed museum to the Library of Congress, so it’s hard to say how much money has been shuffled around since then.

There are still a lot of questions, and with the latest legal complications, this matter could remain unsettled until well into next year.

Meanwhile, comic books are still making their way into stores via a network of better-managed companies, with competition bringing some better deals for retailers and few restrictions on how they do business.

Diamond Previews and Diamond Select Toys are dead. The fate of Free Comic Book Day is up in the air.

And writing about the actions of the Diamond Debtors reminds me…today is talk like a pirate day.

And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Check this blog every day for fresh content and all our regular features.

This weekend we have festivals, theater, and ArtWalks all over the state.  Charleston’s ArtWalk happens Thursday, while Huntington’s is on Friday, both of them from 5 PM to 8 PM.

There are so many things going on all around the Mountain State that I know there’s no way I can cover everything. As always, I recommend you check social media to see if there are any cool car shows, food or drink festivals, theatrical events, haunted trails or houses, petting zoos, sportsball matches, stamp collecting conventions, synchronized spitting meets, or obscure paloozas of any kind that I may have missed.

You’ll find graphics for festivals below, but note that you can get full details of the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant HERE.  Info about the Dunbar Fall Festival can be found at their Facebook Page. Details about The WV Country Roads Festival in New Martinsville can be found HERE.  There’s also some kind of Pickle event happening at Slack Plaza. I guess there was a demand for that.

There’s also theater happening in Saint Albans and Huntington. Check the graphics below for those.

As always, you should remember that THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS.  It’s just a starting point, so don’t expect anything comprehensive, and if you feel strongly about me leaving anything out, feel free to mention it in the comments. Also, if you have a show that you’d like to plug in the future, contact me via Social Media at Facebook, BlueSky , Spoutible, Instagram or possibly Elon’s beast, if it should ever choose to forgive me.  I dont charge for this, so you might as well send me something if you have an event to promote. Note that some links look like they shouldn’t work because they have lines through them, but that’s just a WordPress glitch, so click on them anyway. They should still work.

We are also very happy to remind you that Cristen Michael has created an interactive calendar that is way more comprehensive than this list of STUFF TO DO, and you can find it HERE. Just click on the day and the event and you’ll be whisked away to a page with more details about loads of area events.

City Center Live at Slack Plaza in Charleston has announced their schedule for the rest of summer and early fall.  You can find their schedule HERE.

You can find live music in and around town every night of the week. You just have to know where to look.

Most Fridays and Saturdays you can find live music at Taylor Books. There is no cover charge, and shows start at 7:30 PM. This weekend they have our old friend, Sean Richardson on Friday, and Travis Vandal on Saturday.

You can find live music every night at The World Famous Empty Glass Cafe. Mondays feature open mic night. The first Tuesday of every month sees the legendary Spurgie Hankins Band perform. There’s both Happy Hour music and local or touring bands on Thursday and Friday, and live bands Saturday nights.  On Sundays when there’s a new Mountain Stage, musicians from the legendary WV Public Radio show migrate to The Glass for the Post-Mountain Stage jam.

Live at The Shop in Dunbar hosts local and touring bands on most weekends, and is a nice break away from the downtown bar scene.

Louie’s, at Mardi Gras Casino & Resort, regularly brings in local bands on weekends.

In Huntington, local institution, The Loud (formerly The V Club), brings in great touring and local acts three or four nights a week.

The Wandering Wind Meadery holds several events each week, from live piano karaoke to bands to comedy to burlesque.

The multitude of breweries and distilleries that have popped up in Charleston of late bring in live musical acts as well. I tend to miss a lot of these because, being a non-drinker, they fly under my radar.

Roger Rablais hosts Songwriter’s stage at different venues around the area, often at 813 Penn, next door to Fret ‘n’ Fiddle in Saint Albans and also at The Empty Glass many Tuesday evenings. You might also find cool musical events at Route 60 Music in Barboursville and Folklore Music Exchange in Charleston.

To hear music in an alcohol-free enviroment, see what’s happening at Pumzi’s, on Charleston’s West Side. Pumzi’s looks to be beefing up their offerings in the coming weeks and months, so be sure to check that link in case we miss something.

You can also visit Coal River Coffee in Saint Albans for live music in an alcohol-free environment.  I am looking to expand this list, so please contact me through the social media sites above if you know about more alcohol-free performance venues. The Huntington Music Collective has recently started hosting all ages shows at Event Horizon and those look to be incredible.

For cutting-edge independent art films, downstairs from Taylor Books you’ll find the Floralee Hark Cohen Cinema by WVIFF. Each week they program several amazing movies in their intimate viewing room that you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

Please remember that viral illlnesses are still a going concern and many people who have very good reasons are still wearing masks, and many of us, understandably, are still nervous about being in crowds, masked or not. Be kind and understanding  while you’re out. And if you’re at an outdoor event, please remember that it’s awfully inconsiderate to smoke or vape around people who become ill when exposed to that stuff. If somebody asks you to refrain, don’t be a jerk about it.

Keep in mind that all shows are subject to change or be cancelled at the last minute.

Here we go, roughly in order, it’s graphics for local events happening over the next several days that I was able to scrounge up online…

FESTIVALS

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The PopCult Toybox

This post is a flashback to twenty years ago. Twenty years and three days ago, to be exact. The first part of this post is an exact repost of the first mention of Captain Action in this blog. After that, I will bring you up to date on the adventures of The Good Captain and The Bad Doctor…

When I was a kid, there was one toy that I wanted more than anything—the Dr. Evil Gift Set! It was really called the “Dr. Evil Lab Set”, but “gift set” sounds so much funnier when matched with “Dr. Evil.” Anyway, this set filled me with an early instance of what I have come to call “toy lust.” I haven’t managed to lose that affliction as an adult, either. I wouldn’t write so much about toy collecting if I weren’t so heavily under the influence of it.

This is not the lame Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. I’m talking about the REAL Dr. Evil–the blue-skinned guy with the bug eyes and exposed brain who came from Alpha Centuari to fight Captain Action. (The guy in the movie is just a bald parody of Lorne Michaels.)

The blue Dr. Evil was Captain Action’s worst enemy! Super-intelligent and capable of destroying the world, he could kick the movie Dr. Evil’s butt.

Recalling Captain Action

As a reminder, since not many people remember him, Captain Action was a GI Joe-sized action figure made by Ideal Toys. His gimmick was that you could buy costumes (with cool, head-covering rubber masks) that allowed you to dress Captain Action as an impressive variety of other superheroes. A quick change of clothes and the Captain could turn into Superman, Batman, Spider-man, The Phantom, The Green Hornet, and other larger-than-life icons. He was one of the coolest toys every made.

But I digress.

For Christmas 1968 I really wanted the Dr. Evil Gift Set. It came with Dr. Evil, two disguises, a lab coat, and the evil hypnotic eye. In 1968, I already had Captain Action and I really wanted a bad guy for him to fight. Santa (in the form of my parents) had the not-so-good Doctor on lay-away at Arlan’s Department Store (now the site of Sport Mart on the South side of the Patrick Street Bridge. But before they could pick him up, Arlan’s burned to the ground. Nobody else in town had Dr. Evil, so for Christmas, and I wound up with a Marx Chief Cherokee. Talk about a letdown.

Evil Reappears

Fifteen years ago, a mint-in-box Dr. Evil Lab Set would set you back more than two grand. I haven’t checked the price lately, but I think that if you want one now, you have to sweeten the pot with your firstborn or a kidney or something. So I went without Dr. Evil in my collection… until 30 years had passed.

In 1998, a company called “Playing Mantis” was making a name for themselves by bringing back some of the beloved toys from the ’60s and ’70s. They’d already revived Johnny Lightning cars and the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle, when word leaked out they were thinking about bringing back Captain Action.

I was jazzed. After tracking down and pestering their PR person, Suzi Klimek, I got the story in TOY TRADER Magazine and scooped the toy press in trumpeting the return of one of the most collectible toys from the ’60s superhero boom.

And because I was writing a monthly column about action figures, I was sent complimentary copies of Captain Action and Dr. Evil to review.

I waited 30 years to get my hands on Dr. Evil, and of course I gave it a glowing review. You don’t want to cross Dr. Evil!

Even without the goodies from the Lab Set (just to get the Hypnotic Eye on eBay will cost you more than a Kia), this was a very satisfying moment. As I type this, Dr. Evil is watching over me from his spot of honor in my office.

And that’s why I collect toys. It’s either the warm, fuzzy feeling of recapturing my childhood, or the trauma caused by not getting Dr. Evil when I wanted him. One of these days I’ll tell you about how it took me 25 years to get a DEVO “Duty Now For The Future” T-shirt.

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So, since this post went live, during the first month of PopCult, many, many things have happened with Captain Action and Doctor Evil. Also, Sport Mart has long since gone under and I think the building now hosts some kind of indoor bouncy house or trampoline park. 

On the first annivesary of this blog, I posted this brief update, which linked back and also took you to another blog, which sadly, is no long with us. Still, we have this cool graphic. 

In observance of our anniversary week here at PopCult, our pick for Cool Toy Of The Week is one of my favorites from my childhood. In fact, I wrote about Captain Action and his nemesis, Dr. Evil, last year right here and here. The reason I’m picking Captain Action again is because Robby Reed, over at Dial “B” For Blog, is in the midst of a six-part series of articles on the good Captain, and I can just link to it, and let him do all the work. Read the first installment here, the second here, and then check back to his blog every day for the next four parts!

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Back to Dr. Evil, at the 2024 WonderFest in Lousiville, I met Daniel Roebuck, an actor of no small career, and a fellow fan of Captain Action. When I told him how we knew each other online, he immediately sent me to the dealer room to gaze at something…it was the first time in my life that I actually laid my eyes on a real, mint-in-box, Dr. Evil Lab Set…

So, the cool thing Danny sent me to gaze upon, hiding amid Ricky Puckett’s booth (I know Ricky from The Kentuckiana GI Joe Expo) was an absolute dead-mint condition Dr. Evil Lab Set.

I got to see Ricky’s Lab Set a few more times before he sold it earlier this year, shortly after the Kentuckiana WinterFest show. Had I been insanely rich, I would’ve snapped it up, even at more than five grand.

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Catching up more over the past two decades, in 2007 I reviewed a reissue of the Aurora Captain Action model kit. The links in that article need to be updated. In fact, you can expect more than a few dead links to show up in the posts I link to in this post. I featured Captain Action commercials in a Sunday Evening Video in 2008, but that post has so much dead code in it that I’ll probably just refurbish it for a new SEV post this weekend instead of linking it here.

In 2011 I reviewed a Captain Action comic book with a local connection, and broke the news of a revival of the beloved action figure at retail.  The following year I wrote in depth about that revival, HERE, HERE and HERE and the following year I reviewed a pulp novel about Captain Action HERE.

The 2012 revival, at Toys R Us and hobby shops, came and went with some moderate success, but then there were a series of other attempts to revive Captain Action in other formats, as a four-inch figure, and as a stylized Pop-type figure. We even had a Captain Action Cat comic book. I’m not going to hunt down all the links, but if you’re curious, you can use the search function of this blog.  I’ve written about the collection of his comic book adventures, the big 2012 revival at Toys R Us, the reproduction of his card game, his life as a 4-inch action figure, and some of the teases and hints at previous editions of SDCC (that’s the San Diego Comic Con, by the way).

In 2015 I proclaimed Captain Action to be one of the holy trinity of action figures, alongside GI Joe and Johnny West. I stand by this.

In 2016 I caught up with Ed Catto and Joe Ahearn, the stewards of Captain Action Enterprises at Toy Fair in New York, and posted a quick video interview.

An ongoing high-end collectible revival of Captain Action has been in the works for much of the past decade. We told you about it in 2018, and last year, with Captain Action Enterprises now working with LBO, it seems like it’s just about to happen.

I think Captain Action is one of, in not THE coolest action figure of all time.

And I’ve been writing about him and Dr. Evil for twenty years to prove it.

Full disclosure here: If you count when I wrote about him for Toy Trader Magazine, I’ve been writing about Captain Action since 1998. Now I feel old.