Pop Culture Safari!

"Lost" season one coming to DVD Sept. 6

According to Home Media Retailing, the set will:

feature five hours of bonus material, including the original pilot, behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the show; audio commentaries, a blooper reel, roundtable discussions with cast and crew, and a Matthew Fox photography featurette.

Pop Artifact! Tin Space Patrol toy

Ain't nothin' like the real Thing

Much to every comic book lover's concern, there's a Fantastic Four movie coming out soon.

Concern because we've been down this road many times. We know in some way, big or small, they're gonna screw something up.

Sometimes we luck out and besides a minor tweak or two or some unnecessary Hollywood messing about with the myth, the end result is still a great movie.

Witness the two Spider-Man films. There's some goofy changes--webs shoot right out of Spidey's arms instead of artificial web shooters, girlfriend Mary Jane Watson is placed in hazardous situations faced by a gal named Gwen Stacy in the original comics--but, all-in-all, the film is faithful at least to the spirit of the original.

And Spider-Man (and Superman and, for the main part, Batman) looked right.

Distressingly, that's not the case with the big screen "Fantastic Four." Jessica Alba looks too young and not blonde enough to be the Invisible Girl (it's Invisible Woman in the comic book). The guy playing Reed Richards (a.k.a. Mister Fantastic)? Way, way, way too young. The guy playing Johnny Storm the "Human Torch"? Probably a tad too old and not nearly blonde enough.

And then there's the Thing, real identity Ben Grimm, played by Michael Chiklis. Oh man.

Perhaps Chiklis, who's a fine actor, will be able to embody the spirit of the Thing--a lovable curmudgeon whose literally rough exterior conceals a sensitive, often sad, softie. But the look is all wrong and it's really gonna mess up the movie for those of us who love the character.

This is not the Thing.

The movie Thing looks more like the Jack Kirby Thing from Marvel Comics' "What If?" #11, which imagined what might happen if the team's real-life creative team had super powers.

If the film wanted to be completely accurate, the Thing would be lumpy, cuz that's how Ben Grimm looked immediately after he was transformed from his human appearance.

Later on, the Thing took on his classic look.

When he's done right, he always looks like this. The rocky uni-brow thing? He's gotta have it.

Hell, this Thing looks better than the movie Thing, and it's just some guy at a comic book convention (pictured with Jack Kirby and FF inker Joe Sinnott)

So, one more time: Real Thing

Pop Artifact! Dick Tracy Halloween mask

Dick Tracy Halloween mask.

Third, and last, "Wonder Woman" season due on DVD

Out June 7 is "Wonder Woman - The Complete Third Season," reports TV Shows on DVD.

No word on extras, yet, but you can look forward to some groovy guest appearances, including Leif Garrett(!) , Ed Begley Jr., Roddy McDowall, Gavin MacLeod, Russell (Gilligan's Professor) Johnson, Wolfman Jack, Shields & Yarnell (God, I loved the 70s), Judge Reinhold, Rick Springfield and Dick Butkus.

The show's first two seasons are already available on disk.

Pop Artifact! Batman tin toy

Collecting collections

Via Boing Boing: Here's a person with an astounding display of...displays!

From cereal toys to "Doctor Who" and "The Thunderbirds," pretty much an obsession is fair game.

Pop Artifact! Mad pinup signed by nearly every Mad artist

Signed by nearly every artist who worked on "Mad," this gem is up for auction at Just Kids Nostalgia.

Found via Scoop.

Now here's something strange...

Currently for sale via Heritage Auctions, this original art page from Marvel Comics' "Millie the Model" series features a guest appearance by famed artist Jack Kirby!

But the Kirby depicted (in pencils by Millie artist Stan Goldberg) doesn't look much like Kirby at all. Still, scripter Stan Lee manages to get a plug in for the Kirby-drawn monster title "Journey Into Mystery."

Why can't comics be this weird anymore?!

Pop Artifact! Mattel M-16 Marauder ad

Top 10 Things I Miss About Super-hero Comics

Cartoonist Fred Hembeck started something big when he posted two old strips (1, 2) on his wonderful blog, Fred Sez. Each details 100 things Fred loves about comic books.

Inspired, a zillion other bloggers posted their own great lists. Mike Sterling linked to a bunch of 'em. And I thought about doing one too.

But then it occured to me that a lot of the things I like about comics (the super-hero variety, anyway) no longer exist in today's books, or appear very rarely.

So I've decided to list those instead:

10. The JLA satellite.