Author: Rudy Panucci (Page 75 of 581)

Our first pick in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide today is actually a double-shot of Shazam!. I’m talking about the 1970s adventures of The Original Captain Marvel, not that goofball version they made the movie about. These two books are perfect gifts for any young, or young-at-heart, fan of superhero comics, and are also a treat for fans who are already of the best-selling superhero of the 1940s, Captain Marvel.

Shazam: The World’s Mightiest Mortal Vol. 1
by Denny O’Neil, Elliot Maggin, C.C. Beck, Kurt Schaffenberger and more
DC Comics
ISBN-13 : 978-1401288396
$49.99 (discounted at Amazon)

Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Mortal Vol. 2
by E. Nelson Bridwell, Kurt Schaffenberger, Elliot S. Maggin and others
DC Comics
ISBN-13: 978-1779501172
$49.99 (discounted at many booksellers)

I have mentioned many times in PopCult that The Original Captain Marvel is my all-time favorite superhero. I got hooked on the comics in the 1970s when I lucked into a giant tabloid-sized reprint of classic Captain Marvel stories from the 1940s and 50s.

I started buying the “Shazam” comic book (they couldn’t use “Captain Marvel” in the title because Marvel comics had claimed the name, and I’ve probably written about the situation a dozen or so times in this blog), and it was a mix of classic reprints and new stories that attempted to capture the magic of the original stories, which had mostly been written by Otto Binder.

Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Mortal Vol. 1 collects the newly-created material from first 18 issues of DC’s Shazam! comic of the 1970s.  Shazam! The World’s Mightiest Mortal Vol. 2 collects the newly-created material from issues 19 to 35 (completing the original run) and also the tabloid sized Superman vs. Shazam comic book.

All of these were published from 1973 to 1978. Some of these books were reprinted in black and white in a Showcase Edition a few years ago, but we get to see them in full color in these collection. This is just a terrific collection of fun superhero stories that show what comics were like back before they got all grim and gritty.

The second volume picks up at a curious point in the run of the Shazam comic. By 1975, the Shazam Saturday morning live-action show had debuted and DC Comics (then National Periodical Publications) found themselves in a quandry. Captain Marvel had become one of their top merchandise sellers, but the comic books were lagging far behind.

It’s often said that DC did not understand the characters, and during the run of comics collected in the first volume Captain Marvel’s co-creator, C.C. Beck, who had come out of retirement to launch the new book, had left it in a dispute over the quality of the writing. Even with the character being a merchandising powerhouse under the “Shazam” brand, the comic book was selling so poorly that it briefly went to an all-reprint format and was dropped to quarterly publication status while the Shazam TV show was at the top of the Saturday morning ratings.

These collections sort of put the lie to the idea that DC didn’t understand the characters. Volume one has many fun stories (along with a few minor misfires) and Volume two includes one of my all-time favorite Marvel Family stories. After a year of reprints in 1975/76, the title came back with new material featuring E. Nelson Bridwell, a DC editor with a deep love of the characters, as the writer. Volume two also includes the first comic book story of The Mighty Isis, the companion TV show to Shazam, which is unlikely to be revived by that name any time soon.

These are, for the most part, family-friendly superhero stories aimed at a younger audience, but they are highly entertaining and address more complicated and adult topics than you might expect. Much of the art is handled by Beck or Kurt Schaffenberger, both veterans of the original Captain Marvel and Marvel Family comics, and there are some interesting interludes with other artists as well.

DC has pencilled in a third volume, which would cover all the stories written by Bridwell and drawn by Don Newton, which ran in World’s Finest and Adventure Comics, and which have never been reprinted before. COVID-19 and a major reorganization at DC Comics will likely delay that volume, but these two books will give the superhero fan in your life a great head start. Available from booksellers, comic book shops, or at a discount from Amazon.

During the month of November, PopCult’s Monday Morning Art will present pieces of art created using MAX Build More bricks. You can read all about them HERE.

Today’s piece is an abstract tower with a prominent Sawtooth motif. The Sawtooth feature was the first part of this I built, then I tinkered with presenting a contrasting background, with accents and the employment of some of the more specialized parts in the MAX Build More toolbox.

This being an abstract, assembled with no small amount of chance and trial and error, I hesitate to graft a post-partum theme on it. Essentially, I hope it looks cool. I’m still a bit of a novice as using building bricks for art, and I know that there are absolute wizards who do amazing work in this medium. I offer up my humble efforts to give you an idea of what you can create on a budget.

If you want to see it bigger, just click on the image. Below you see three alternate views. You can also see this montage bigger by clicking on it, but not as big.

Remember to check back with PopCult starting Monday around 10:15 AM EST for the start of today’s installments of The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide. Today we’ll bring you three picks, with about an hour between each.

Meanwhile, Monday at 9 AM on The AIR, the Monday Marathon brings you six hours of The Swing Shift, collecting the most recent episodes.  The marathon follows the regularly-scheduled repeat of last weeks Big Electric Cat at 7 AM.

At 3 PM on Prognosis, Herman Linte brings us a show devoted to the solo works, side projects and other bands featuring members of YES, and it opens with new music from Rick Wakeman, which will figure into one of today’s picks for The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide.  That’s followed by a classic Prognosis and an evening with one more NOISE BRIGADE plus Radio Free Charleston. You can hear replays of Prognosis Tuesdays at 7 AM, Wednesdays at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 9 AM. 

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets Live At The Roundhouse
Blu-ray

Our final pick for today in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide is a must-have item for any true Pink Floyd fan. I’m talking about the folks who have an appreciation of the band’s early days, when Syd Barrett was the major creative force.

“Live at the Roundhouse” is unlike any other concert film connected with Pink Floyd. It s the nearest thing you can get to a time machine, transporting you back to the very earliest days of the band. Nick Mason, the only band member to have played on all of Pink Floyd’s studio albums, returns to the group’s earliest records, joined in the line-up by Gary Kemp, Guy Pratt, Lee Harris and Dom Beken.

Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets took the drummer back to clubs for the first time in 1967, then to theatres, across the UK, North America and Europe, playing only music his old band had recorded before The Dark Side of the Moon.

Captured from the band’s celebrated shows at London’s Roundhouse, where Pink Floyd played some of their most revered early shows in the 1960s, the film features a uniquely thrilling setlist including songs hailing from Syd Barrett’s time with the band. Only four songs from this eclectic roster have ever previously appeared on official live releases by Pink Floyd or its members. Everything else is being experienced for the first time since their original live performances.

This is also available as a CD or vinyl record, but there’s something about seeing the band perform these tunes live that completes the experience. You can find Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets Live At The Roundhouse at Amazon for under twenty bucks.

Here’s a sample…

All In The Family: The Complete Series

Next up in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide we have a complete collection of the entire run of one of the sitcoms that changed the face of television in the early 1970s. All In The Family: The Complete Series includes all 208 Original Episodes as well as the Three-Part Retrospective From 1979.

This is the perfect gift for the die-hard fan of the series (which is not being show unedited anywhere at the moment) and is also great for folks who like intelligent and well-acted comedy that addresses the issues of the day fifty years ago, which haven’t really changed much since.

Few television shows have left as substantial and enduring a footprint on American popular culture as Norman Lear’s masterpiece All In The Family. This groundbreaking comedy series looked at the state of the world through the eyes of an argumentative but loving family and gave us some of the most fully dimensional characters in television history. The jokes had a million targets, aiming at race, politics, sex and human foibles, but the humor was firmly rooted in the characters of Archie, Edith, Mike and Gloria.

Bonus Features include a new Interview With Norman Lear; Those Were The Days: The Birth Of “All In The Family” – Documentary; The Television Revolution Begins: “All In The Family” Is On The Air – Documentary; “Justice For All,” the original All In The Family Pilot; “Those Were The Days,” the second All In The Family Pilot; Gloria Spin-Off Pilot Episode; Archie Bunker’s Place Pilot Episode; 704 Hauser Pilot Episode (1994 Spin-Off); 40-Page Collectible Book With Essays By Television Critic Tom Shales And Media Professor Marty Kaplan.

All In The Family: The Complete Series is a great gift for any hardcore TV historian, or fan of the show. You can find it at Amazon for just over eighty bucks.

Our first pick today in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide is a cool new space toy/building set toy that I told you about in September. Playmonster has released a new series of building toy space ships called Snap Ships, and they’re pretty darned cool. They come in a variety of sizes and price points. There are tons of them to collect. Each set allows kids to reconfigure the ships in several different ways. And there is a YouTube series that tells the story behind these cool ships that do battle in the stars. I have a feeling that a lot of adult collectors are going to want to get there hands on these.

This is the perfect gift for your intrepid young fan of outer space, science fiction and building toys. It’s also good for intrepid old fans.

Snap Ships is a collectible, durable and versatile modular building system that stands up to action play. Snap Ships invite kids to build, battle and display an exciting array of cool spacecrafts, merging two of the biggest play patterns for boys—action-play and construction.

Designed for kids ages 8 and up, the exciting new Snap Ships fleet launches with eleven ships at a suggested retail price of $9.99–$39.99, each coming with a mysterious UJU tech piece that holds special value hidden inside the box. Snap Ships come with multiple build options and are available at Amazon, Target and other retailers.

To tell the epic story of the Snap Ships universe, PlayMonster joined forces with award-winning content studio Wind Sun Sky to produce a fast-paced and edgy animated series. Season one of the series, Snap Ships Dawn of Battle launched in August on YouTube, with new episodes releasing each week. Check out the first episode here…

The epic storyline introduces viewers to The Forge, an elite team assembled to pilot a fleet of versatile and specialized Snap Ships defense attack craft, and The Komplex, an alien species determined to annihilate all life, that has invaded with no warning. Along the way, The Forge discovers mysterious UJU tech, left behind by an ancient civilization, that can be added to their Snap Ships to give them unheard-of abilities.

Each Snap Ship set comes with at least one buildable figure, plus a tool to help assemble and disassemble the ships. All ships can fire projectiles. The top of the box converts into a cool base so that the ships can be displayed in flight. These are also great for collectors who don’t have a lot of room. A full collection might take up one decent-sized shelf.

With a huge ad campaign behind, plus inherently cool toys and a nifty animated series, Snap Ships has the potential to be a breakout hit this holiday season, and could rank up there with the evergreen space toys of the past.

These are available from most online toy retailers, and we’ve seen them locally at Target, Walmart and Menards.

Our final entry in today’s 2020 PopCult Gift Guide revisits our review in May of The Svengoolie Studio Set, a combo action figure/playset that is the perfect gift for fans of the legendary monster movie maven from Berwyn Illlinois, for just under fifty bucks (plus extra for shipping) you can wrap and shove under the tree the deluxe Svengoolie Studio Set, from ME TV and Figures Toy Company.

This limited edition set is the third action figure version of Svengoolie from FTC, and this time they pulled out all the stops, including a ReMEGO 8″ figure fully-dressed in Svengoolie’s trademark outfit-Red shirt, Black suit complete with detail on the lapel and a removeable top hat and shoes– and his casket, plus a backdrop of his set, and even a miniature Archie McPhee rubber chicken.

The casket is impressive. It is not hinged, nor is the lid in two pieces, but it is velvet-lined– even the lid, and it captures the look of Svengoolie’s newly-refurbished casket (which is probably eight years old by now). This piece looks great and the figure fits into it perfectly. It also looks terrific displayed in front of the backdrop from the package.

The figure itself has a great headsculpt with paint detail of Rich Koz in his Svengoolie warpaint, with rooted hair. The body is a typical Figures Toy Company MEGO copy (this time of the heftier style used for figures like The Penguin, back in the day). It’s got the pitfalls of most of FTC’s imitation MEGO bodies, but is still poseable and can hold his chicken. It’s vitally important that one can hold his chicken.

The set comes packaged in a deluxe clamshell–something FTC is very good about–and looks great in the package, or set up on your desktop.

All in all, The Svengoolie Studio Set is a great collectible for fans of the show. It’s a limited edition,but they do still have them in stock at the link above. And it’s not exactly cheap. It’s a reasonably-priced $49.95 (plus about thirteen bucks shipping), but considering the limited number of these sets being made, the deluxe packaging and all the extras, it’s pretty much a bargain. The sold-out earlier editions of the Svengoolie action figure, which didn’t come with the cool accessories are now selling for upwards of a billion dollars and your firstborn on eBay (disclaimer: slight exaggeration there).

You can order this directly from the Svengoolie Store at ME TV. If you order now, you’ll get it in plenty of time for holiday giftery.

Eureka – The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

Next up in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide is a new Blu-ray collection of the entire run of a series that I really enjoyed. Eureka-The Complete Series is a great gift for any fan of enjoyable science fiction with a heaping dose of time-travel paradoxes included.

Eureka was an American science fiction television series that premiered on Sci-Fi Channel on July 18, 2006. The fifth and final season ended on July 16, 2012. The show was set in the fictional town of Eureka, Oregon. Most residents of Eureka are scientific geniuses who work for Global Dynamics – an advanced research facility responsible for the development of nearly all major technological breakthroughs since its inception. Each episode featured a mysterious accidental or intentional misuse of technology, which the town sheriff, Jack Carter, solved with the help of town scientists. Each season also featured a larger story arc that concerned a particular major event or item.

The wild part of this series was that, oftentimes the season-ending cliffhanger would be resolved with a semi-reboot due to somebody messing with the rules of time-travel. It kept the show fresh and unpredictable.

A great caste included Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield and Joe Morton and the clever writing and direction made this show stand out among the low-budget also-rans that you usually found on The Sci-Fi Channel/SyFy. In fact, it was the higher production costs that caused SyFy to cancel this show, even though it was the highest-rated show they had.

Buyers should be aware that while this is a decent set with all 77 episodes, and costs less than fifty bucks at Amazon, there have been reports of technical problems and a couple of extended episodes from earlier sets are absent here.

This set is not perfect, but it will scratch the itch for fans of the show who don’t have access to the streaming services Peacock or Amazon Prime.

We begin our first weekend of The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide with a collection of offbeat comics by Jack Kirby that makes a great gift for any fan of the true architect of Marvel Comics, and any fan of non-superhero comics. We first recommended this back in January.

Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love
by Jack Kirby and others
compiled by John Morrow
TwoMorrows Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1605490915
$43.95 (discounted at Amazon)

This strangely, yet aptly, named book is a must-have for the Jack Kirby completist. It collects over 100 pages of stories written and drawn by Kirby that have never been compiled, or in most cases even published, before. Kirby’s DC-era work has been reprinted in multiple editions over the years, and almost everything he did for the company is in print. This book collects all the remaining work Kirby did for DC Comics in the 1970s, save for three missing pages from one story.

These are examples of Kirby stretching beyond the superhero genre in the early 1970s, when he was under contract with DC Comics. The text features in this collection (by John Morrow, Jerry Boyd, Steve Sherman and Mark Evanier) provide the context and set the stage for these comic book stories.

We get stories from two aborted romance titles, True Life Divorce and Soul Love, and two issues of Kirby’s Dingbats of Danger Street, which remained unpublished after the first issue ran in DC’s tryout title, First Issue Special. A special treat is a short story newly-inked by longtime Kirby collaborater, Mike Royer, over Kirby’s Xeroxed pencils.The two Dingbats of Danger Street stories included here were part of the legendary Cancelled Comics Cavalcade Xeroxed publication that DC issued in 1978 to protect the copyright of dozens of unpublished works, but they appear here newly-colored and look great.Kirby, with his 1940s partner Joe Simon, had created the romance and kid gang comics genres in the Golden Age, and it’s wild to see him returning to those forms twenty-five years later. Even though True Life Divorce never got beyond the pencil stage, the stories show a maturity that was not typical of comics of the day. These were definitely aimed at an adult audience.

With Soul Love we get to see a full-color, slick paper insert facsimile of what the first issue of Soul Love would have looked like, had it been published in the format that Kirby intended–complete with articles and mock-period advertisements. It even sports an Alex Ross painted cover, based on Kirby’s rough layout.

Dingbat Love is a very well-done presentation of this work. Some of the pages are presented in both pencilled and inked form (allowing us to see how badly inker Vince Colleta butchered Kirby’s work), and the new coloring, courtesy of Tom Zuiko and Glenn Whitmore, works perfectly with Kirby’s art. Aside from the slick magazine-style insert, the paper is thick, archival white, non-glossy stock, and looks terrific.

There are some stylistic choics in presentation that might confuse a newer comics reader. With the Dingbats material, some of the pages are presented in pencil form alternating with the same page fully-inked and in color. While this is great for comparing Kirby’s pencils to the finished art, it can keep the stories from flowing perfectly. That’s a minor quibble, and it’s worth noting that the reason for alternating the pages may have been to allow fold-out pages for the two-page spreads, which often don’t look right when the pages are bound into a hardcover book. They look fantastic here.

The essays build a pretty good “what if” scenario of what might have happened had DC had enough faith in Kirby’s ideas to fully finance the publication of True Life Divorce, along with Kirby’s other magazine titles Spirit World and In The Days of the Mob (both of which had their sole published issues previously reprinted by DC Comics along with previously unpublished material intended for their second issues) the way Kirby originally pitched them, as full-color slick magazines.

It’s another example of how Kirby was years ahead of his time. When he created the Marvel Universe (with some help from Stan Lee), Kirby knew that, someday, those concepts would be turned into major motion pictures. He knew that comics, as an artform, deserved a better presentation than being spit out on cheap newsprint, intended as disposable entertainment for kids.

Jack Kirby’s Dingbat Love showcases Kirby’s reach, and shows how he had to battle to try to realize his dreams.

This is not a great book for the Jack Kirby novice. It’s not his most mainstream comic book work, but it might just hook non-comics fans into exploring more of his work. Most of all, it’s important from an historical standpoint.

Plus the comics are by Jack Kirby. What more do you need to know? If you know a fan of Kirby, widely considered the most important comics creator that every wasy, they need this.

The Goonies Giftset (Amazon/4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)

We wrap up The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide today with a deluxe, remastered gift box containing one of the most beloved kid’s movies of the 1980s.

The Goonies Giftset is the perfect gift for any child of the “Me Decade.” It’s got the best-ever transfer of the movie, and it comes in a cool treasure-chest shaped box that includes extras like a Replica of the One Eyed Willy’s treasure map featured in the film​, 5 collectible pin-on buttons​ and an iron-on embroidered patch​.

Richard Donner’s best movie, The Goonies made stars of Sean Astin, Josh Brolin and Corey Feldman, and it told a timeless story.

Following a mysterious treasure map into a spectacular underground realm of twisting passages, outrageous booby-traps and a long-lost pirate ship full of golden dubloons, the kids race to stay one step ahead of a family of bumbling bad guys… and a mild-mannered monster with a face only a mother could love.

And who can forget the theme song by Cyndi Lauper? Does it get more 1980s than that?

Join the hunt for more treasure with THE GOONIES 4K Ultra HD Collector’s Set! Decode One Eyed Willie’s treasure map and find the “rich stuff” with Mikey and the Goonies! Wear your Goonies patch and buttons with pride and relive this epic adventure. GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE! ​

The Goonies Giftset is available from Amazon for just under fifty bucks, and it’ll put smiles on a lot of faces if they find it under the tree this year.

Next up in The 2020 PopCult Gift Guide we have a cool dart blaster, exclusive to Target, that is the perfect gift for the kid (or adult) on your list who likes to run around the house firing darts at things. I first told you about this a couple of months ago here in the blog. Kids and adults alike have been cooped up in their homes for months now (if they’re smart), and the stress of the quarantine is building. Families are confined together. Conflicts can arise. Nerves are stretched to the breaking point. People are walking on eggshells, and any second can push people over the edge and make them snap.

People need a release. Something…anything…to break the tension.

If it comes down to open warfare, why not do it as safely as possible, with foam dart blasters?

The X-SHOT Crusher is a new player on the scene, a foam dart blaster with a 35-dart belt, described by the manufacturer as “the ultimate beast.” Wearing proper eye protection, kids and adults can empty their weapons at each other and then laugh about it afterward.

This epic dart blaster, with brightly-colored sci-fi styling and a very reasonable price features a 35-dart rotating barrel that can shoot up to 90 feet. Powered by load handle pump-action, the X-SHOT Crusher offers two styles of blasting: Single shot or “Slam-Fire Modus” which enables you to fire up to four darts per second.

Over a foot high and almost 28 inches long, the X-SHOT Crusher is an intimidating foam dart weapon of mass distraction. The foam darts are much safer for kids than a conventional firearm, and can even be used indoors without causing injury or large holes in the walls. There are no batteries to buy because The X-SHOT Crusher is powered by air. Best of all, it’s only a toy.

The X SHOT Crusher is available at Target for under thirty bucks, and it’s a great stress reliever. It can encourage physical activity, which a lot of kids haven’t gotten much of lately, and even bored adults might want one so they can sit across the room and try to knock over action figures on a display shelf.

The X-Shot Crusher is the only blaster a kid really needs.