"Not the Beatles, but an incredible simulation"

The Beatles and Marvel Comics are sort of linked inextricably. Beatlemania and the Marvel Age of Comics coincide so neatly that it's almost hard to believe. The Fab Four made an appearance in a Thing/Human Torch story in Strange Tales, and there were later some Marvel Beatles books after the success of the KISS comic.

However, I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw when I looked up the trailer for the film version of BEATLEMANIA (the stage show based on the Beatles):



Did you catch all the Marvel characters beginning at about the 43 second mark? What makes it so odd is that the film version didn't come until 1981, and yet the art used is clearly of 1970s vintage. I can definitely identify The Human Fly #1, What If? #4, Ms. Marvel #9, and Marvel Two-in-One #31 in the lineup.

Uh, what's the story here? I have the vaguest of recollections of BEATLEMANIA getting mentioned in a 1970s Bullpen Bulletins, but there were no Bullpen Bulletins pages for the majority of 1981. If anyone has any information on this online, it's well-hidden. I couldn't find a darn thing besides the IMDB noting the appearance of the Sub-Mariner in the film.

Anyone got any ideas? Or even better, some facts?

15 Minutes of Tumblr Fame

Well, this is interesting. It started on Thursday night when Tom Brevoort published this request on his "Marvel Age of Comics" Tumblr. Based on his response, Tom had never heard of Kaliman. I had, but just barely. Kaliman is a Mexican superhero. But what was this Kaliman/Galactus business?

Well, a little web searching yielded the surprising answer. It seems a few Kaliman comic book covers depict him fighting Marvel characters. There's not only Galactus, but also Doctor Doom and a trio of Things! I have no idea what's going on inside those books, but the covers are pretty wild.

As you can see, I decided to upload those covers to Tumblr myself after dropping Tom a line about them. Well, Tom reblogged them, and my Tumblr dashboard subsequently EXPLODED with activity. I've been reblogged by that account many times, but never on a post I'd uploaded myself - much less THREE. What makes it even funnier is this all happened over the weekend. I'm curious to see what happens now that the work week has begun.

In other Tumblr news, I have resurrected Pictures of Naomi Morinaga from the grave. Same URL, different blog. This one is labeled a "secondary" blog, so it cannot follow people or like posts. However, you Naomi fans may bookmark it to keep up. Considering all the hits the post about it here still gets, I figured I should include SOMETHING there. Whether it does anything more than reblog, well...we'll see.

Speaking of secondary blogs, this feature so fascinated me that I launched another Tumblr - Continued Next Week! Since there are apparently ZERO movie serial-specific Tumblrs (despite things like The Same Picture of Dave Coulier Every Day existing there), I decided to fill that void myself. The same rules apply as with the Naomi Tumblr - it cannot follow people or like posts itself. I really love serial imagery, and this will allow me to consolidate my posts about them in one spot.

I know this sounds like a lot, but it's all as easy as a dropdown menu after a single login. I don't expect either of these to have as big a volume as I've been maintaining on my regular Tumblr. In fact, I'm leaning toward easing off a little there. I mean, it's not as if I post as much as some people I know there, but some of the luster has been wearing off. I'm sure I just need to concentrate on what is inspiring me at the moment.

Finally, this will not be important in any way, but this exists now. There used to be a spam account at that URL many moons ago, and I believe it was Kabuki Katze who suggested registering it for myself just to claim the name. That sounded like a good idea to me, and since this was apparently my weekend for starting new sub-blogs, I just did it. There are no plans for any posting there, but then again, I didn't plan to post on THIS blog when I first created it.

OWARI #9 (December 2000)

My secret in getting this issue out as quickly as I did was that I was working on OWARI issues #8 and #9 more or less simultaneously during the interim between #7 and #8. Ergo, by the time #8 was ready to roll, a lot of the heavy lifting had been done for this issue, too. It's only "December" because I wanted to give the previous issue some time to get out there (as if!) before coming out with a new one.

All this, and I still went with the most egregiously bad headline I ever used. No accounting for taste, I guess.

After all the jibber-jabber I did in OWARI #8 about writing longer, better articles, even 2000 me realized OWARI #9 was "potentially problematic." My dissatisfaction over the actor/actress gallery in THE KAIJU DETECTIVE proved to be so great that I put together a new one from scratch! This one tried to apply the lessons I had learned from my first attempt's failures, and even expanded the gallery's purview to include all Toho SF films from 1954-1977.

Unfortunately, I don't have much to add to what is essentially a bunch of pictures, albeit still reproduced via photocopier. My introduction does admit that THE KAIJU DETECTIVE didn't catch on, and says the publication will go out of print when all copies are gone. I say there are "only 3 copies currently remaining" as of that writing, so apparently 2 of them found new homes after the fact. That means my little booklet's circulation in its first year was whopping eleven copies. Whee!

Changing pace about as much as possible, I mentioned Charlie Benoit in our last installment. Charlie was a coworker of mine who lost his life in a wreck in 2000. This was a pretty shocking thing for a lot of people to deal with at the time. One way I coped was to write a little thing about him that I gave to my friends. This wound up being read at his funeral, which was...very strange and touching.

Since it meant so much to me, I chose to include this piece in OWARI #9. Due to its highly personal nature, I wonder if this was the best decision. It makes it feel almost like a filler, and I never meant for it to be. However, due to the fact that so few people were reading OWARI, I was starting to do stuff that was more directly aimed at those local folks.

The last page of the issue was the return of Tara DeVeau's column, and this one was actually created by the lady herself (other than my stripping in my intro at the top). This was the first time I had included someone else's layouts in an OWARI since #1. Of course, a typo managed to sneak past everyone, and that made all of us sad.

I almost forgot that there really WAS a filler in OWARI #9, and it was this Godzilla collage I posted a couple of years ago. Everything I remember about it is in that entry.

There's not a lot to say about OWARI #9, as you may have noticed. I don't recall there being much reaction to it in any quarter. It was...another issue of OWARI. I went back to work on my next issue almost immediately, and that one would have a little more content we can discuss.

Do The Batusi! With Kennasaur and Doppelgirl

You might recall I featured artwork by the lovely "Kennasaur" not very long ago. Well, as it happens, Kenna has just started taking commissions. Among her first is the awesome rendition of Doppelgirl you see here! My major contribution was asking that she be doing the Batusi.

If you like what you see, why not stop by Kennasaur's page? Her commission prices are very affordable, she's quite talented, and super sweet. Try it; you might like it!

OWARI #8 (September 2000)

Haha, oh man, reaching five years of OWARI was such a big deal to me in 2000. Little did I know that I'd be writing a review of that fifth anniversary celebration on my blog (a what?) on the Internet some twelve years later. Still, I had undergone a lot of turmoil and personal growth from 1995-2000, so it all seemed appropriate. You can sort of see that I went through a litany of names to thank up top. Alas, I wish I could tell you I am still in touch with all of them, but such is not the case.

In addition to giving a history of OWARI up to that point and a chronicle of the guy who created it, I also fell on my proverbial sword in this introduction. As I've outlined in prior installments, I was unhappy with the direction of OWARI's contents, and that all comes to a head in this issue. I really think I was perhaps too hard on myself, but that was just me trying to put out something that personally satisfied me and failing. I pledged to "write longer articles and present exclusive material." So I guess recycling that XENORAMA column in the prior issue was a sore spot for me.

However, I did live up to the promise to write longer articles in a BIG way in OWARI #8. This was the issue which included "The Big Bang Explosion," a lengthy piece on BIG BANG COMICS that I spent a good portion of the summer putting together. Yes, this was the long-promised coverage of BBC that I had originally envisioned as a standalone fanzine. I really don't think I would have done a better job than what wound up seeing print in this issue.

Y'see, "The Big Bang Explosion" was the longest article I ever created. What's more, I laid the silly thing out, and while no design masterpiece, I had clearly learned some lessons in five years of fanzines. The article has a few errors, and is a little bit all over the map, but by God, I was PROUD of it. Twelve years hence, I'm still pleased with it. I'm also happy it met with the approval of writer/editor Gary Carlson and other folks in the Big Bang firmament. That article was really my love letter to the book that helped me retain my sense of wonder.

I also included a cartoon of my own.

2 Watchmen by ~celamowari on deviantART

While "The Big Bang Explosion" was perhaps my greatest triumph in the pages of OWARI, that came with the price that there was scarcely any room to include anything else. However, I did inaugurate "The View from Godzilla Tower" on the last page. This was my effort to create a column for OWARI devoted strictly to kaiju/tokusatsu stuff, and was envisioned as being one of several rotating features that would appear when I had the material. This particular installment focused on a dubbing mystery that I am not sure now I answered correctly and the fake "nude scene" from TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA.

And that, as they say, was that. Between my anniversary introduction and my article on Ultiman, Knight Watchman, Thunder Girl, and the rest of the Big Bang Gang, there wasn't space for anything else in 8 pages. Still, I felt like I had turned a corner and was on my way to making OWARI something memorable. I even held out the hope that I might be able to pick up some new readers.

That did happen, but not as much as I would have hoped. Gary promoting the 'zine in the BBC lettercol garnered some new eyes, but alas, not many. The bitter taste of THE KAIJU DETECTIVE being mostly ignored was still fresh in my mouth, so while I was encouraged, I wasn't exactly doing cartwheels. Finding readers was an uphill battle.

Oh, one more thing. Stripped into the layout of Page 2 at the last minute was this simple statement: "This issue dedicated to the memory of CHARLIE BENOIT, a good guy who was taken too soon." I'll tell you more about Charlie when we get to OWARI #9.

Zen Pencils

This one's going to be short, because you're going to have some reading to do after I'm done. Sunday night, I saw this comic on Tumblr. It's at once hilarious and poignant. Every time I look at it, I can't decide if I should laugh or cry. Often, I find I'm doing both.

Zen Pencils is a webcomic of a sorts. It's described as "Cartoon quotes from inspirational folks," and that's a good shorthand. The quotes are all meaningful (even if you don't always agree with them), but it's cartoonist Gavin Aung Than's ability to tell a story around them that makes Zen Pencils worth your time.

As it turns out, I'd seen an earlier example of Zen Pencils and been struck by it: this one. I suppose I chalked it up as just a one-shot thing. I was very wrong, and I urge you to discover just how wrong I was. Zen Pencils is worth the time it will take to peruse the archives. Don't be surprised if you find something that speaks to you.

Bo, Don't Be A Heywood

Things I learned about Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods on Sunday, thanks to Casey Kasem circa 1974.

1)"Billy, Don't Be A Hero" was not their only chart entry. In fact, "Who Do You Think You Are" made it as high as #15 on the Hot 100. Upon further reading, they even charted a THIRD song titled "The Heartbreak Kid."

2)One of the band members married the president of the Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods Fan Club, who just so happened to be Donaldson's sister Vicki. Furthermore, an invitation was printed in the Fan Club newsletter for all the members, and something like 200 showed up at the wedding.

3)Most amazing of all, there really was a Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods Fan Club.