Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Lombard, Illinois; Nampa, Idaho; Somewhere in the UK (from John Kilby's site) and Matar in Northern Spain.
REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, at: Theater X-Net
Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley
Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics!
Thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's first illustrator of the 21st, for his recommendations -- HERE!
Charity Alert: Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.
In The Community: I got the touring show up on the walls of the Hockaday Museum of Art at last. We didn't have as many hands helping this week, so there were some challenges to overcome. One of which was a huge crate I call "the coffin," which only held two cardboard tubes. It was about ten feet long and weighed around two hundred pounds (125 Kg). The two tubes were taller than me, but weighed a total of maybe thirty pounds (20 Kg) together.
Media Watch: I rented the DVD of Daredevil. I'm an old comic book fan, and am happy that the entertainment industry is mining my old hobby. THIS Daredevil was based on Frank Miller's re-invention of the character when he first made his mark at Marvel Comics. He successfully revisualized Batman, as The Dark Knight, but it took another decade before his talent was recognized by Hollywood, and the public at large, as something special. There is a lot more to say about Miller, and the Superhero Genre, but I'm going to stick with this minor character from mid-60's Marvel today.
Daredevil's alter ego is a blind lawyer named Matt Murdock. His super-persona doesn't rely on sight at all, or super-strength, but hyper-developed senses, surprise, and intelligence -- however he'd be dead without his versatile billy-club, which sports a guyline that allows him to dive and swing around the canyons of New York City. "The secret is simplicity itself, but nobody's guessed it!" said Murdock one day as he was getting his kit ready to go.
Daredevil was one of Marvel's later and lesser creations, despite the fact that real-life super-model Twiggy (Leslie Hornby) wore his promotional T-shirt in a photo. The story that intrests me is the story of his artists, who were responsible for most of the plotting at Marvel, not to mention the gimmicks and design of their characters. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked up most of the basic concepts in the glory days of the early 60's and turned them over to members of the "Bullpen." In Daredevil's case, Bill Everett drew and inked the first issue. He had worked for the company when it first published comic books in 1939. He created the Sub-Mariner, and drew various features and fill-ins until their bankruptcy in the mid-50's. He had been absent from Marvel's superhero revival until Daredevil #1. What was funny was that he disappeared again immediately. (I recently learned that he inherited some money and went on an extended vacation.)
What happened next in Daredevil was a plundering of talent from the competition at Mad Magazine and DC Comics with major effects on the future Marvel Comics Group. At first, Mad's Joe Orlando pencilled the next few stories, with Vince Colletta's scratchy inks. (Well-used on Jack Kirby's Thor.) Next was Orlando's friend Wallace Wood, one of comicdom's greatest achievers and greatest tragedies, who created Daredevil's sleek, red look (and his billy club) before moving on to lead Tower Comics' Thunder Agents. Free agent Bob Powell, another veteran from the Golden Age of Comics, filled-in between Wood and John Romita. Kirby initially laid out some issues for Romita, who had been drawing Romance Comics at DC, but it wasn't long before he drew Daredevil and Spider Man duking it out. It was a very successful matchup among the fans, and within months Romita took over the later feature when Steve Ditko quit, with inker Mike Esposito, who moonlighted between both companies. Daredevil finally got a regular atist when Gene Colan followed Romita over from DC's Romance Comics, along with prolific inker Frank Giacoia. Together and separately they worked at Marvel for most of another generation. Joe Orlando became an artist/editor at DC. Bill Everett came back to Marvel in the late 60's, drawing Sub-Mariner again, and brought his old creation to artistic respectability before his death. Colan's first tenure at Daredevil ended when brilliant young Englishman Barry Windsor Smith eaked out a few issues under "the worst of circumstances" before he legally immigrated to the U.S. and did MUCH better work. Frank Miller came in after Marvel's bankruptcy in the 70's. He made more out of Matt Murdock's character, re-adapted the Kingpin, a Romita villain from Spider Man, and created the fatal femme Elektra in a memorable and original saga. The movie taps into this fertile creative period. It was too bad Hollywood also followed Miller off a cliff with his Elektra sequel.
Once more for my OWN media --
Cellulose to Celluloid -- My NEW Flash Gordon Web project, co-starring the original Princess Aura and Azura, Witch Queen of Mongo.
Click for a larger image
(L to R) Villainess Elektra, as drawn by creator Frank Miller; Elektra Natchios, as played by Jennifer (Alias) Garner in the movies; Daredevil #1 by Jack Kirby and Bill Everett; (inset) Red DD, as redesigned by Wallace Wood. My very FIRST "number one" back-issue as a serious collector was Daredevil #1 -- purchased in 1968 at an antique store in Salt Lake City. I got the first ten Avengers from Ken Sanders around the same time.
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