"THIS BOLD RENEGADE CARVES A " Z " WITH HIS BLADE." by Dave Goode

This isn't going to come as a surprise. But I'm a huge fan of masked heroes. Comic book heroes. Pulp heroes. Movie serial heroes. And of course Mexiluchaheroes. My first masked hero however was el Zorro. I was introduced to the character through the Walt Disney television series that ran from 1957 to 1959 on ABC. You know. The one with the catchy theme song. It starred Guy Williams in the dual roles of the foppish Don Diego Vega and the masked avenger el Zorro... the Fox.

TV's Zorro, Guy Williams, meets Zorro creator Johnston McCulley

The character first appeared in the swashbuckling  adventure THE CURSE OF CAPISTRANO written by Johnston McCulley , as a five - part serial in the pulp magazine All - Story Weekly in 1919. The story would be adapted to the silver screen as a vehicle for America's first great action hero star Douglas Fairbanks under the title  THE MARK OF ZORRO ( 1920 ). In 1924 when McCulley's story was novelized it would be under that title. It was Fairbank's movie Zorro that served as a partial inspiration for Batman.

 

 

 

 

 

MARK OF ZORRO 1920 with Douglas Fairbanks

 

El Zorro is probably best known for his appearances in movies. The character has appeared in a number of feature films and serials. Interestingly enough Don Alejandro Vega ( Zorro's father ) on the Disney television show was played by actor George J. Lewis who appeared in two Zorro serials. ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP ( 1944 ) starring Linda Stirling as a character called The Black Whip. And THE GHOST OF ZORRO (1949 ) starring Clayton Moore who would later go on to portray the Lone Ranger. In the former he was a hero. In the latter he was a villain. Both of these films from Republic were more western than swashbuckler.

 

 

 

To most fans the best Zorro movie was THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940) starring Tyrone Power as the foppish Diego and dashing Zorro. He's equally good in both roles. Especially memorable is the climatic sword duel between Power and the movie's villain played by Basil Rathbone. As another character says to Diego after he vanquishes the villain, " You handle a sword like a devil from Hell." Fun stuff.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

 

 

Masks, Muscles, and Myth by Dave Goode

Just the other day I was marveling on the overall coolness of posters from the sinew & sandal and masked wrestler movie genres. Illustrations from either would make great comic book covers. Flicks from both genres can rightfully be considered superhero movies. And then I got to thinking once again why there was never a team - up between say el Santo and Maciste. After all if you can have a movie starring el Zorro and el Maciste you can have one between Maciste and Santo or one of the " Man in the Silver Mask's " ancestors. What I really wonder about is why Mexico never had many entries in the peplum film genre.

The most notable exception was THE RAPE OF THE SABINES ( 1962 ). The movie is a retelling of the story of the Sabine women and stars Wulf Ruvinskis as Romulos , the same character that Steve Reeves portrayed in the sinew & sandal flick DUEL OF THE TITANS ( 1961 ). Ruvinskis , the wrestler turned actor , is probably better known to some of you as the star of the Neutron movie series where he played the black - masked crime-fighter.

I was thinking about a mash - up movie featuring Mil Mascaras. Heck! Mascaras had the physique to star in a Mexican - made Hercules movie himself. But here he would have played himself. With say Alan Steel as the immortal Maciste. The plot would involve Maciste in the 20th century taking a job as a pro wrestler , like Arnold did in HERCULES IN NEW YORK ( 1970 ). In between bouts the two musclemen would have several comic book adventures. To give you some idea how that might look my buddy Vance Capley has provided a faux comic book cover featuring the Man of a Dozen Masks, Mr. Incognito and Brad King the Golden Adonis.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by...see you next week!

MASTERING TIME IN THE SILVER AGE by Dave Goode

 

Just how many pre-Fantastic Four quartets did DC Comics have? Of course there were the Challengers of the Unknown. And then there were the Sea Devils. And sandwiched between these teams was Rip Master and his team of time - traveling adventurers who made their first appearance in Showcase No.20 (May 1959). Hunter and his quartet would have the same team dynamic of the later Sea Devils and Fantastic Four. The stalwart leader, his best friend, female love interest and the love interest's kid brother. Rip Hunter, Time Master would appear in Showcase 21, 25, and 26 before graduating to his own comic book series that ran for 29 issues from 1961 to 1965. The series was cool comic book psychotronica. But I sort of lost interest after the heroes started wearing costumes/uniforms with the sixteenth issue. Obviously the editorial staff at DC thought the time travelers needed costumes to boost sales in the superhero crazy 60s. But I thought it took something away from the feature. I also thought the first story, Prisoners of 100 Million B.C, would have made a good B-Movie. And that story came pre-costumes. When Rip dressed like Doc Savage.

The characterizations of the heroes are razor-thin. They all could have come out of central casting.

I see Rip played by Troy Donahue whose blandness would not have worked against him in this case.

Mark Goddard could have been his best friend Jeff Smith.

Annette Funicello would have been Rip's girl friend Bonnie Baxter.

And for Bonnie's younger brother Corky Baxter I'd cast Billy Mumy. Hmmm. That's two actors from the cat of 60s sci-fi series Lost In Space.










As far as the story itself the quartet used their "time spheres" go back to the Mesozoic Age. A perfect time setting for a comic book about time travel. Nothing was cooler to Silver Age kids than stories featuring dinosaurs Well except for stories featuring intelligent gorillas or robots.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by...see you next week!

"I've Heard The Natives Mention Him. He's Quite A Guy According To Them." by Dave Goode

 

Back when I first discovered "men's sweat mags" as I was entering puberty my favorite stories found within were the jungle adventures. Probably because they reminded me of Jungle Jim. The Johnny Weissmuller movies based on the Alex Raymond comic strip from King Features and not the comic strip itself. They were two different animals. Of course the stories in the sweat mags featured very a little bit more violent. And had a lot more sexual content. But the stories were more or less like the ones you found in the Weissmuller flicks produced by Sam Katzman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite flicks from the series was THE LOST TRIBE (1949). It stars Weissmuller, Elena Verduga, Myrna Dell, Ralph Dunn, and Ray "Crash" Corrigan as Simba the Gorilla. The screenplay is by Arthur Hoerl and Don Martin.

 

It's a formula jungle adventure revolving around a lost city and it's hidden treasures. Plenty of stock footage and cheesy dialogue. It's a wonder that the  MSFT3K crew never got a hold of this. Former Olympic swimming champ Weissmuller fights a lion, a shark, an alligator, and a gang of modern day pirates. Weissmuller is at his two-fisted best in this one. He even gets tied up and worked over the bad guys. Not great art. But a lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funny thing is I was re-reading the Frank Frazetta - illustrated jungle romance tale "Untamed Love" when it struck me that the "great white hunter" in that story reminded me of Victor Mature in the jungle adventure SAFARI (1956). Made me think that Mature might have made a good Jungle Jim in a big budget production. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another actor I can see playing the jungle adventurer was Rory Calhoun. Calhoun had played big game hunter Jonathon Kincaid on an episode of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND that spoofed The Most Dangerous Game, Richard Connell's classic short story.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by...see you next week!

ATLANTIS,THE LOST CONTINENT by Dave Goode

When I was a young fan-boy back in the early 60s I was fascinated by the legend of lost Atlantis found originally in Plato's writings Timaeus and Critias. Atlantis was a highly advanced island-nation that was sunk beneath the waves by the gods for the hubris of it's rulers. I of course learned of Atlantis from it's image in comic books. That of an advanced metropolis protected beneath the ocean depths by a huge glass dome. As always the continuity in DC Comics left me a bit flustered as that there were two different underwater cities called Atlantis in their Silver Age comic books. The one found in Superman family comics featured mer-people. While the Atlantis Aquaman ruled over was populated by bi-pedal humanoids. Over at Marvel Comics , Prince Namor ruled over an Atlantis populated by bi-pedal humanoids. Albeit with blue skin.

However most movies about Atlantis don't deal with underwater civilizations. Instead they deal with the destruction of Atlantis. Of these my favorite was ATLANTIS,THE LOST CONTINENT (1961). This sci-fi peplum movie was produced and directed by George Pal with a script written by Daniel Mainwaring and Gerald Hargreaves. The movie starred Anthony Hall as a Greek fisherman named Demetrious and Joyce Taylor as Princess Antillia of Atlantis. Useless trivia time. Anthony Hall was songwriter Sal Ponti who wrote Fabian's first recorded song " I'm In Love ". The storyline followed the events leading to the sinking of Atlantis. This was a good Saturday matinee type film. And I enjoyed it in my youth. I still enjoy it. But I think it would have been even better as a sinew & sandal flick starring Ed Fury and Bella Cortez.

And speaking of sinews & sandals Edgar Rice Burroughs would contribute to the Atlantis mythos with the Lost City of Opar in his Tarzan stories. I've said in the past that a lot of Burroughs' Tarzan tales came across like Maciste stories. These are some of them. In these stories Opar was an outpost of lost Atlantis now populated by beautiful women and ape-like men. Opar and it's beautiful high priestess La would appear on both the movie and television screen going back as far as the silent age of movies. But I always thought a perfect casting of Tarzan and La might have been Mike Henry and Martine Beswick. Which leads to our new Golden Adonis comic.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

ITEM: DR. JUDO ISSUE NUMBER ONE!!!! CLICK THE PIC TO ORDER YOURS TODAY!!!!

-------------------------------------------

ITEM: DR. JUDO #1 ON A T-SHIRT!!! GET IT HERE:
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3416142-dr-judo-and-the-monsters

------------------------------------------

ITEM: GET YOUR JUDO ON!!! "WHO IS DR.JUDO?!" is available on shirts, cups, bags, and much much more! All on vancecapleyart1972's Teepublic page!

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3333819-who-is-dr-judo

 

ITEM: JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN!! IT'S MONSTER MAGAZINE! GRAB OUR FIRST ISSUE AND OUR 2ND ISSUE, CREATURE CREATURE FEATURE WITH BUTCH PATRICK, DR. PAUL BEARER, AND RICOU BROWNING! Remember the Creature this Halloween along with Spider Island Slim Carody, Joseph I. Cosby, Dave Goode, David Walker, Johann Schmidt, Will Keppel, and Vance Capley. With a "fang"tastic Creature cover by artist Ricky Blalock! You can read more here:

http://www.vancecapleyart.com/2018/10/04/monster-magazine-no-2/

BEWARE OF...POISON IVY! by Dave Goode

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most imagined episodes of the Batman television series was an adaptation of a story that appeared in Batman No.181 (June 1966). Beware of Poison Ivy was a 12-pager written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff (pencils) and Joe Giello (inks) "ghosting" for Bob Kane. This was the first of two Silver Age appearances of the villainess Poison Ivy. The character had no origin story back in the 60s. She was simply a comic book seductress. The embodiment of "Comic Book Cliche No.8"... the temptress that attempts to seduce the stalwart hero into a life of crime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think the reason so many Silver Age fan-boys wanted to see an adaptation of this story is because the actress we imagine playing Poison Ivy is the one and only Ann-Margaret. One of the most famous sex symbols of the 1960s , Born Ann-Margaret Olsson in Sweden she came to America with her parents at age 6. She would study at Northwestern University before heading to Las Vegas to begin a career as a singer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discovered by George Burns she would go on to a triple threat career as a singer , dancer and actress. She would become a Top 10 Box-Office star appearing in movies like BYE, BYE BIRDIE, VIVA LAS VEGAS and KITTEN WITH A WHIP. Oddly enough Poison Ivy's creator Robert Kanigher reportedly modeled the character's look after legendary pin-up and fetish model Bettie Page.

Kanigher's original story was just as campy as anything that appeared on the television series. I can see it easily adapted to the small screen with a few minor tweaks. One of the things that needed to be kept in the story was the inclusion of Poison Ivy's rivals Dragon Fly, Silken Spider, and Tiger Moth. They could have been portrayed by Edy Williams, Marilyn Hanold, and Sivi Aberg who played Liberace's henchwomen in the Batman episodes The Devil's Fingers and Dead Ringers.

I myself imagine Burt Ward's second wife Kathy Kersh playing the Tiger Moth character. Miss Kersh would appear on the series in the episodes The Impractical Joker and The Joker's Provokers. Hmmm. Batman might have had to take Robin's advice from the comic book to "take a cold shower".










Hope you enjoyed this weeks' blog! Help support us by buying cool items!!

ITEM: DR. JUDO ISSUE NUMBER ONE!!!! CLICK THE PIC TO ORDER YOURS TODAY!!!!

-------------------------------------------

ITEM: DR. JUDO #1 ON A T-SHIRT!!! GET IT HERE:
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3416142-dr-judo-and-the-monsters

------------------------------------------

ITEM: GET YOUR JUDO ON!!! "WHO IS DR.JUDO?!" is available on shirts, cups, bags, and much much more! All on vancecapleyart1972's Teepublic page!

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/3333819-who-is-dr-judo

 

ITEM: JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN!! IT'S MONSTER MAGAZINE! GRAB OUR FIRST ISSUE AND OUR 2ND ISSUE, CREATURE CREATURE FEATURE WITH BUTCH PATRICK, DR. PAUL BEARER, AND RICOU BROWNING! Remember the Creature this Halloween along with Spider Island Slim Carody, Joseph I. Cosby, Dave Goode, David Walker, Johann Schmidt, Will Keppel, and Vance Capley. With a "fang"tastic Creature cover by artist Ricky Blalock! You can read more here:

http://www.vancecapleyart.com/2018/10/04/monster-magazine-no-2/