SyFy Channel Sits Down With Stan Lee To Show Him Long-Forgotten Art

Wow, this is pretty cool. Usually we get the typical huckster, jokey-joke personality from Stan (The Man) Lee. But this time is different. This time Stan becomes almost emotional while looking at comic book page art from long, long ago. Check it out:

Custom Famous Covers Thing

There's a guy in the UK named Nick who, back in the day, took Toy Biz Famous Covers action figures and customized the shit out of them. And man, he customized a lot of them. Even more impressive was the fact that the guy did such great work. Check out his custom Thing, above. Here's a link to his website which is still running.

I did custom figures like these back in 1999-2000 with the help of my wife. I designed the characters, sourced the materials and sculpted the heads, and she sewed the costumes. She did an amazing job on the sewing, just amazing. The figures weren't too shabby, actually. We sold them for an average of $100 each. Characters I remember doing included Black Panther, Luke Cage, Blizzard, Firebrand, Doctor Octopus, Tarantula, The Shocker, The Jackal, Morbius, Punisher, Carrion and Molten Man. One day I got an email from a doctor who wanted us to make him a custom Nova... and he was willing to pay something like $225 for it! I spent hours and hours fine-tuning this thing to perfection and sent it off for his approval. When he received it he was absolutely thrilled.

In any case, at one point I'll try to dig up some pics of the FCs we did, and post them here on the blog.

Chris Evans is Captain America

Yeeup, Chris Evans — the Human Torch from those ridiculous Fantastic Four movies — has landed the role of Captain America. The film is set to release next year.


What do you think? Can Evans pull it off?

Flame On! Kirby Estate Officially Files Lawsuit Against Marvel

Well, the Kirby estate made good on its threat.

Seriously, people — whether he helped create these characters as a work for hire or not — the guy should have been receiving a percentage long before his death. Sure, okay, maybe a smaller percentage than Stan The Man, but a percentage nonetheless. That's my take anyway.

Read this and then tell me what you think... I'd be interested to read your opinions on this...

The Spider-Man 4 Rumors Continue... The Winged Thing?

Yes, The Winged Thing. The Vulture.

At least that is what Movieline is reporting. And there's more. Word is that the Vulture may be played by none other than John Malkovich. Not a bad match up there in my opinion. That is, if you are down with having Vulture as your main villain for Spider-Man 4.

Here's The Vulture:

Here's Malkovich:

Works for me. That being said, I would much rather see Dylan Baker's Lizard finally play out. Quite honestly I would shit myself were I to witness the film version of Amazing Spider-Man issues 100 through 102. But that's a rant for a whole different post. I just might.

In any case, other Spidey 4-related tidbits (as reported by Movieline) include Anne Hathaway being considered for the role of Felicia Hardy. And no, not Felicia Hardy a.k.a. The Black Cat as we heard about a couple of weeks ago... no, that would make too much sense because you know... well, Felicia Hardy is The Black Cat. See?

No, the report is that Hathaway was testing for the role of Felicia Hardy a.k.a. the villain called (get ready to groan and possibly choke the person next to you) "The Vulturess." WTF? If this is true... if there really is a character called Felicia Hardy and she turns into The Vulturess... well Raimi, you are out of your freaking f#*king mind.

Extremely hot pic of Anne Hathaway

crawling around on her hands and knees

(click for a better view)

Keep in mind, like I said, these are rumors only. There is no confirmation from Sony or any other source close to the project. The Movieline report can be found here.

What do you think? Is the Vulture lame? Is Hathaway hot? Should she be The Black Cat or this f#*king idiotic character called The Vulturess? God help us all.

J. Jonah Jameson Was Right: Spider-Man IS A Menace!

This just kills me. Hilarious!

From the L.A. Times:
A Spider-Man impersonator was arrested on outstanding criminal warrants Wednesday after an incident in which he allegedly slugged a man.

The incident began when Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers received a radio call reporting battery by a man in a Spider-Man costume. When they arrived, they encountered four people dressed as the web-slinging crusader.

The funny part is, it was actually Mysterio projecting multiple images of Spidey throughout the city. haha

The full story here.

Did Jack Kirby Have A Hand In Creating Spider-Man?

Contrary to popular belief it appears he may have. I thought this was interesting. From Heatvision:

Comics fans know Kirby's work as intimately as their Spidey Underoos. Even though the Webslinger's origins are generally credited to Stan Lee and reclusive artist Steve Ditko, Kirby was key in the character's early development in Marvel¹s pages. Lee first approached Kirby, with whom he had already created Fantastic Four, X-Men and the Hulk, among others, to help flesh out the concept and initially draw the comic.

The reasons Kirby didn't end up drawing the book are lost in the mists of comic history, with some claiming Lee didn't like Kirby's more muscular depiction and others believing Lee was just too busy. (Kirby did end up drawing the cover to Spider-Man's first appearance, "Amazing Fantasy" #15.)

According to several accounts, Kirby, with his Captain America co-creator Joe Simon, did create a character called the Silver Spider, whose alter ego was an orphaned boy living with two elderly people, and that character was morphed into Spider-Man. 

Fascinating. Click here for the full story!

Disney Just Bought Marvel

For $4 billion. Read it here.

What do you make of this? Will Marvel characters start dancing around singing pop songs?

More Rob Liefeld, The (Con) Artist

Ron Garney, 1995XXXXXXRob Liefeld, 1997

I received some great emails this morning regarding the Rob Liefeld Wizard World PWNage. Here's one from my friend G:

... you just made my year. How Rob Liefeld became popular is a greater mystery than the Kennedy assassination and the Bermuda Triangle. I wish I could've been at [the show].

Years later, and I'm still so angry. You're absolutely right — that Captain America picture puts on display, front and center, so many of the things Rob Liefeld not only has no idea about, but cannot seem to grasp even once it has been taught to him (c'mon; I just assume at some point Jim Lee or Marc Silvestri or Erik Larsen came up to him and said, "Uh, dude, let me show you... people don't often stand on their tip toes all the time..."): perspective, anatomy, proportion...

Not only was the move funny, but insightful. I almost guarantee in his own arrogance and embarrassment Rob Liefeld has never read a drawing manual. But maybe he has, and it's just physically impossible for him to draw correctly. In all these years, I've think I've come to realize why he was popular: it was just that period in comics. Comics were becoming somewhat mainstream and 80s-fied (Jerry Bruckheimer action movie-fied): lots of flash, big colors, etc. The casual new comic book fan had no idea they were looking at art that — and I can't overstate this enough — is in the realm of laughable for even a fifth grader. And a retarded fifth grader at that.

More evidence

And let's not even discuss his supreme lack of unoriginality (exemplified by his Lobo ripoff, "Lone Wolf" or "Blood Wolf" or — see, in my anger I can't even remember it). Every new stylistic nuance that came along, he would rip it off. Stephen Platt became known for drawing huge and complicated veins on muscles. Suddenly, Rob Liefeld did the same. Of course, in a much worse manner.

G goes on to say:

I was reading some of the discussion of the comments section in this site you linked to in your article: The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings. There's a guy, Michael Davis, who seems pretty intelligent and himself some type of insider in the comic book industry, who takes on the herculean and thankless task of trying to defend Rob Liefeld. And his tact is fairly sound: he says Rob Liefeld, despite his obvious drawbacks as an artist, did much for the industry. He says Liefeld's work is "not for everybody." In these points, I actually have to agree with him. He makes a solid and well evidenced argument. However, he also writes that Rob Liefeld is "not the greatest artist." He grossly understates this assessment.

Anybody who has ever looked at another comic book (one not pencilled by Rob Liefeld) or any type of competent figure drawing will know that Liefeld easily is the absolute f#*king worst artist in the history of mainstream comic books. That's not an understatement. You can say that. He not only lacks, but he actively destroys what I mentioned before: basic — BASIC — drawing tenets like perspective, anatomy, and proportion. Lets put aside all talk of big guns and huge muscles — everyone was doing that. He couldn't correctly draw in 2 dimensions the arm holding that gun. I hate chick lit. Its stories are vapid, and it lacks strong character development and themes. But the authors and/or editors can f#*king spell and use correct grammar. If Rob Liefeld wrote a book, his lack of basic drawing technique would translate to him using a period to begin sentences and then throwing a question mark in the middle of a clause because it looks cool. To quote comics: AAARGH!

John Byrne, 1982XXXXXRob Liefeld, 1990

Regarding the blatant rip-off of John Byrne's art, G adds:

Just awful. I took a look at the drawings and I said to myself, "which one is Rob Liefeld? Neither of [the drawings] are nearly close enough to his shitty technique. Then I realized it was the because he ripped it off so exactly. I would almost bet he traced it. Like they said in Chasing Amy: "f#*king tracer." Seriously, someone in the comments section tried to argue that many artists look to their heroes and mentors and giants of the industry for inspiration and often try to imitate their work. Imitation as flattery and exact duplication are two different things. Not only are the poses the exact same, but the style, the proportions, the angles... hell, he even has the secondary character of the robot doing the exact same thing. It's easily the best Rob Liefeld art I've ever seen, and it's because he traced a f#*king John Byrne picture. John Byrne shouldn't be flattered; he should be pissed and preparing a boxing glove with broken glass glued to it to punch Rob Liefeld in the face (obviously I've been burying this stuff deep down.)

Hilarious! G is extremely insightful (not to mention a very gifted writer, but more on that another day.) He's the guy who brought to my attention something so epic (at least in the category of Comics) by showing me — one fateful day, a couple of years ago — just what travesties were taking place at the hands of Ron Liefeld. I never knew until he pointed me toward the mile-high stack of evidence!

Marvel Fan PWNS Rob Liefeld At 2009 Wizard World Chicago

This has been circulating for several days but I didn't find out about it until literally five minutes ago. Needless to say the fact that I am posting about it at such blazing speed should convince you that you need to make one of two choices:

A) IF YOU ARE A MARVEL COMICS FAN, YOU SHOULD READ THIS

B) IF YOU HATE THE ARTWORK OF ROB LIEFELD, YOU MUST READ THIS

First, a quick primer. If you aren't familiar with the artwork of Rob Liefeld, let me give you a crash course:

The pictures don't lie. If you want to check out The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings, you can do that too, but I suggest you continue reading on for now (you can always check out the multiple train-wrecks later.)

Now granted, Liefeld has made big, big money doing what he loves to do -- namely, drawing superhero comics. So no one can take that away from him. But the truth is, Rob Liefeld does not know how to draw. He has also ripped-off drawings from past artists. He doesn't know anatomy either. Just look at that f#@king Captain America for god's sake. Liefeld has become somewhat of a legend in that thousands of comics fans have rallied against his horrible art for many years.

Alright, here's where we're going with this. A few weeks ago during the Wizard World show in Chicago, some dude mustered up the ca hones to approach Liefeld at a signing table -- to hand him a copy of this book:

I had this book as a kid and it is awesome. It's even more awesome now that someone handed a copy of it to Rob Liefeld! Here are some pics taken at Liefeld's table:

The result? Liefeld was PISSED! For the entire story, head over to SuperFunAdventureTime...

Note: Special thanks to my friend G, the first person to point out to me just how terrible Rob Liefeld's art is!

Tomorrow...

Happy Birthday, Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics turned 70 years old yesterday. I was always a Marvel fan. Even as a kid I thought Marvel's characters more vibrant and bold than "The Other Guys." Marvel's art direction was just so ahead of its time. Pure excitement on paper. On the other hand, like I said, I found DC's characters much less interesting and a lot more two-dimensional. I remember thinking to myself "DC must stand for Dumb Comics."

I started reading comics at an early age. I read shit-loads of them. God bless my mother. She never blocked me from my addiction. To her, at least I was reading and staying out of trouble. I am convinced that my overall sense of creativity, and even my willingness to stay open-minded, was directly molded by the comics I read. Marvel Comics, more than any other medium, made me say, "When I grow up, I'm going to be an artist."

I remember vividly — the very first comic book I was ever given was a Marvel Team-Up that featured Spider-Man and Black Panther kicking ass against Stegron The Dinosaur Man. God, thinking back to reading that as a kid is such a sweet memory.

One day my older sister Kathy told me that her boyfriend, a garbage collector at the time, found two large boxes of comic books someone had left with their trash, and that he snatched them up for me. omfg I remember that day like it was yesterday. There were probably a hundred comics, mostly Marvels. I remember there were a bunch of Iron Man issues in those boxes... I was digging those a lot.

Anyway, io9 has a nice little write-up about Marvel's 70th birthday, so head on over.

First Pic Of Mickey Rourke As Whiplash In Iron Man 2

Check it out, a USA Today exclusive news piece right here.

I'm kinda hopin' that shot is from a sequence showing off Rourke in a prototype suit, and that the full-on Whiplash armor ends up more like the newer comics' version:

Okay so it's a little S&M. But you have to admit it looks better than this gay swashbuckling butt pirate version of Whiplash:

I can do without the feather and cape, thank you very much. I have faith in Jon Favreau; the man did more than kick ass with the first installment.

First Official Still Shot From Iron Man 2

The movie doesn't hit until 2010 but damn if Favreau isn't messin' with us already!

Thoughts?

Where's My Friggin' Micronauts Movie?!

I'm serious. The Micronauts, one of my favorite action figure/toy lines as a kid, needs to be a movie. No, not the cheap animated one they released straight-to-DVD; I'm talking big-budget, Michael Bay lovin' Transformers stuff here. I am telling you, if they did it right, it would blow minds.

Micronauts Issue #1 by Marvel Comics, 1979

And what's to stop Hollywood from doing it? They've been making movies based on crummy properties for years. We're getting The Land of the Lost and GI Joe this summer, and rumor has it that Stretch Armstrong ain't far behind. There you go.

They made a legitimate film with a serious tone out of toy cars and trucks that turn into robots, for god's sake. If they can do that, imagine what they could do with Micronauts. It is true that back in the day when Micronauts toys and comics were hot (late seventies), they got out of control with some questionable characters (i.e; Baron Karza was pretty much a dollar store rip-off of Darth Vader), but for the most part, Micronauts kicked ass!

Micronauts by Mego

The 3 and 1/2 inch action figures were based on a Japanese toy line called Microman. American toy company Mego imported them from Takara Japan and repackaged them as Micronauts. The figures and play sets really caught on in the U.S. -- for the first time ever, you didn't have to live in Japan to have cool, bizarre action figures!

Many of the toy parts had little holes in various places where you could insert little plastic pegs which connected to attachments and whatnot. This gave a kid all sorts of creative freedom. Kind of like Lego meets action figures, I suppose. I remember having a blast building backpack rocket launchers and crazy armed assault vehicles for my little Micronauts.

So if you're by some chance a studio suit looking for an untapped, kick-ass license to rape... er, turn into a motion picture and you are reading this, go after Micronauts, I say. You could do worse (cough, He-Man, cough...)