More Bash Brother: THE ANCHOR by Phil Hester and Brian Churilla

Saying what I say about how you can never have enough robots fighting monsters, or monster fighting robots, or gorillas fighting zombies, I think it's safe to say there's nothing wrong with Big Bruisers fighting any and all of the above.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22177





Of course I'm Johnny on the Spot for this as well. Phil Hester is a pretty solid talent, writing or drawing, so I'm there.

Friday Night Fights! G-7! First Time...I Hurt Your Face!

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/The_First_Time_Ever_I_Saw_Your_Face/1113864





A little Roberta Flack to accompany this twin fist to face action, from BLUE BEETLE and the 1980s, by Len Wein and the sadly missing Paris Cullens.






http://www.spacebooger.com/ remembers the first time, and every time...

Friday Night Fights! G-7! Richard Dragon: Cruel to be Kind!

Cruisin around and found these on the CBR Forums...and because there's no way I shouldn't have known that Jack Kirby drew a Richard Dragon comic, specifically issue 3 RICHARD DRAGON: KUNG FU FIGHTER with a Denny O'Neil script no less.

I think I'll go off the beaten track, and put down a little Nick Lowe action,

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Cruel_To_Be_Kind/1859667




I mean, after all, cruel/kind is pretty much yin/yang, ain't it?





http://www.spacebooger.com/ has a need to strike strange karate poses at the press of the Swiss' button!

STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES 200: "Deathride!"

Well, couldn't have planned this better if I'd planned it better, but the 200th issue of STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES falls on Independence Day.

Parts One and Two here:

http://pulphero.blogspot.com/2009/06/star-spangled-war-stories-198-traitor.html


http://pulphero.blogspot.com/2009/06/star-spangled-war-stories-199-crime-of.html





The Unknown Soldier, still disguised as Nazi Lt. Holbach, is about to be ventilated by a super-pissed Mlle. Marie, French rebel, flanked by her Maquis fighters. At the Soldier's feet is the recent suicide, guard Sgt. Schepke, whom he'd come to find. As Marie draws down on the Soldier, Nazis guards slam into the room and begin a firefight with the Maquis. Mlle. Marie is trying to escape via a window, but the Soldier knows she will sign his death warrant with the Allies by confirming his guilt as a double agent. "Holbach" quickly captures Marie, demanding the Maquis stand down before he kills her.






Holbach knocks out Marie before she can reveal him to be a spy. The Nazis are unaware that Holbach is the Soldier, and so he continues the pretense. Ordered to tie Marie in the Colonel's office for questioning and, no doubt, torture, Holbach is on the spot when Marie regains consciousness and explodes with anger. Holbach convinces her to play along, with the possibility of striking a "blow for France."






Marie pretends to still be unconscious while the Nazi Colonel returns, gloating over the Fatherland's victory. The "Sonic Shell" has been loaded on a train headed to the French Front, where it will be used against the Allied Forces there. Holbach gets the Colonel to reveal how the Nazis fooled the Unknown Soldier into delivering a deadly bomb to the Allied Foreign Forces leader Lethin. Once Marie has overheard this information, Holbach breaks a wine bottle over the Colonel's skull and frees her. Together, Holbach and Marie gather the design plans for the Sonic Shell and prepare to stop the train. However, they find that Marie's Maquis have been tied to the exterior of the train engine to discourage attacks. Marie is distrought, convinced there is a way to save her men. The Soldier knows there's no time, and locks Marie in a utility shed to keep her out of the way while he goes to destroy the train.






Marie breaks out of the shed, but the Soldier reaches the train engine and gets it rolling. The Maquis tied nearest explains he understands the situation, that they will all die destroying the train. The Maquis knows how to run the train. The Soldier frees him, and the Frenchman gets the train up to speed while the Soldier lays down cover fire. Once out of range of the Nazis soldiers, the Maquis tells the Soldier to jump free. The Soldier refuses, taking full responsibility for the suicide mission, but the Maquis pushes him off: "...you are the most valuable weapon ze Allies have. And I'm afraid zat our mistake in not believing that makes the responsibility ours!"






The barreling train smashes into the munitions factory, erupting in a massive conflagration, killing the Nazi Colonel and all of Marie's fighters strapped to it. The Soldier slips away, but is stopped by Mlle. Marie, her weapon trained on him. She agrees that the train had to be destroyed, but the Soldier is responsible for murdering her friends. Walking away, Marie relates that she will report the Soldier's innocence to the Allies, but "I warn you, monsieur: should you ever return to France when ze War is over, watch carefully ze shadows, because I will be among them...and I will be waiting..."




Another solid gem from Michelinie and Talaoc. Their timing and execution is impeccable by this time. Again, this particularly three-parter isn't as strong as some of the individual stories, but the depth gained by adding Mlle. Marie makes up for it. There's a strange and unique interaction beneath the surface of the War-bound warriors, something in the art I think. And I find it a shame Marie isn't in more stories of this run, because Talaoc has a fascinating touch on her, finding a nice balance between courage and vulnerability, allowing Marie to be a woman while still formidable as a rebel leader.





Out of Five 3D Men

Pulp Hero Guide to Good Comics: Top Ten Covers

As with anything in life, we'll start with the covers.

#10: STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES 126, by Joe Kubert

You can pretty much thank the great Pulp artists of the magazines, the subsequent Pulp-inspired covers to the lurid paperbacks of the 1950s/1960s, and the poster art for some of the greatest films of all time, leading to the elevation of the comic book cover to another level as well.

# 9: NEW TEEN TITANS 13, by George Perez and Romeo Tanghal

Us kids didn't know how good we had it, meaning kids growing up in the 1970s. We thought great covers and posters grew on trees. These bits of incredible art lured us to the outer reaches of imagination, providing clear sign-posts to find our way. Great times for everybody.

# 8: TALES OF THE ZOMBIE 5, by Earl Norem

You only have to look around now to realize the expert salesmanship of our beloved culture has fallen on terrible times. We don't get anything cool any more. It's a punishment from the gods of commerce, or something. More likely, though, consumers are satisfied with buying crap that looks like crap, signifying crap. Because the culture has gotten more stupid, more pre-packaged, it is therefore unnecessary to convince people to see tripe like TRANSFORMERS 2: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. People just assume that they are going to get exactly what they are paying for.

#7: BRAVE AND THE BOLD 38, by Ross Andru and Mike Eposito

That wasn't the case in the 1970s, or farther back. See, the folks making movies and comics and television wanted to do everything in their power to convince you to see their product. They made clever trailers that didn't reveal anything, yet just enough to give any Horror/SF/Crime lover a massive rod-like projection in their pants to see the movie. Book covers of slender, tough novels about displaced private eyes and snake-eyed C.I.A. assassins, read by the extinct male reader, encapsulated their awesomeness by having a cover with a barely-dressed broad in stockings with a .45 in her hand getting ready to blow the head off a handsome tough with a cigarette dangling off his lower lip. Even porn movies and novels had experts working to convince the consumer they had to experience what they were selling.

#6: STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES 130, by Russ Heath

Illustration and art worked hand-in-hand with our imaginations...who can forget the poster for the original JAWS, or the iconic Frank Miller cover for THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS collection the first time that thing hit the stands? Maybe one of the last of the recognizable icons of what is fast becoming another generation, The Batman is shown in outline leaping over a cityscape with a huge bolt of lightning slicing the night behind him. That lightning is a savage life, flowing through The Batman, drawing him toward the city, where his justice will strike.

#5: DETECTIVE COMICS 565, by Gene Colan

I hate talking about how much current culture sucks. I can't even generate enough interest to come up with a clever way of saying how much culture eats the pig offal straight out of the pig's ass. It's almost worth pointing out that my generation sh*t the bed where this is concerned, because it's my 1970s born/bred generation that allowed men like Bill Gates and his funky computers to overthrow the physical incarnations of art. Computer Generated Images have subverted everything we've ever believed. In fact, you can no longer trust anything you see or read anymore, can you? How do you know Bill Gates has not manipulated that image? How do you know that scanned book or novel or comic is the original version? How do you know anything, Neo?

#4: SUPERMAN 317, by Neal Adams

So, my generation allowed the generation before mine, my father's hippie-infested generation of fake-tits and blondes with moronic ambition and plastic man-women ruling an airscape of relentless salesmanship, to fester in their own version of rebellion: to do nothing, they ruined everything. Now Oprah Winfrey continues to shill, our wars are fallacious, and where's the next original idea going to come from? Don't you hate existence enough by now not to ask the questions?

#3: OUR FIGHTING FORCES 155, by Jack Kirby and D. Bruce Berry

At any rate, while I'm waiting to die, I'm here to show you the Top Ten Covers according to me. The ones I think are fantastic, though not the only ones. Far from it. Everything is subject to change, and this is comic books. There's always an unseen, unknown cover lurking to surprise you.

#2: TOMB OF DRACULA 57, by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer

But for our discussion, these I've been showing are tops for me and Pulp Hero.

#1: MACHINE MAN 1, by Jack Kirby and Frank Giacoia