Upcoming DVDs of interest

Here are some items of interest to pop culture fans with as much info as I could scrape up.


Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection


Out Feb. 12
3 DVDs

The Best of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Award Winning and Nominated theatrical animated shorts.

Franchises include Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, MGM, Max Fleischer etc. 41 of the most celebrated cartoons of their time, including 15 award winners...plus over 60 minutes of special features! This collection has something for everyone with characters such as the Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Droopy, Superman, Popeye, Dot, Line & Squiggle, Tex Avery's Little Johnny Jet, Chuck Jones' High Note, and Nelly's Folly (the singing Giraffe) and Hubie Bertie & Cat Claude.

Disc 1:

Academy Award® winning shorts featured on the DVDs:

1) The Milky Way (MGM),
2) Yankee Doodle Mouse (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
3) Mouse Trouble (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
4) Quiet Please (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
5) The Cat Concerto (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
6) Tweetie Pie (WB),
7) The Little Orphan (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
8) For Scent-Imental Reasons (WB, Pepe Le Pew),
9) So Much for so Little (a special educational Warner Brothers short),
10) Two Mouseketeers (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
11) Johann Mouse (MGM, Tom & Jerry),
12) Speedy Gonzales (WB),
13) Birds Anonymous (WB, Tweety & Sylvester),
14) Knighty-Knight Bugs (WB, Bugs Bunny)
15) The Dot and the Line (Chuck Jones classic MGM cartoon, first time on DVD).

Discs 2 & 3:

Academy Award nominated shorts featured on the DVDs include
1) Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor (Paramount/Fleischer)
2) Superman (Paramount/Fleischer)
3) Walky Talky Hawky (WB, Foghorn Leghorn)
4) One Droopy Knight (MGM, Droopy)
plus 12 more un-announced titles.


Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection 15 winners


Out Feb. 12
Same as disk 1 above.


The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show - The Complete Series


Out March 18
2 DVDs


Invisible Man: The Complete Series


Out Feb. 26
4 DVDs

H.G. Wells' classic tale of suspense and intrigue from the 1950s. A highly secret laboratory experiment that goes awry turns Dr. Peter Brady into the Invisible Man! Unable to return to a visible state, Brady is enlisted as the ultimate British secret agent.

For years, the identity of the Invisible Man was a well-kept secret. More than one actor portrayed the physical character, while another supplied the voice. The special effects (advanced for their time) ran the gamut from making objects float gracefully through the air to creating a riderless motorcycle.

Invisible Man Ultimate Collection includes 26 remastered episodes.


Steve Canyon (Special Edition)


Out March 18
1 DVD

4 full half-hour television episodes featuring the famed comic strip hero created by Milton Caniff, complete with original commercials, network promos and more! Not seen in the U.S. in more than 45 years -- episodes of STEVE CANYON are so rare they have been highly sought after and prized by film collectors the world over! In glorious black and white, remastered from the original 35mm broadcast materials!

Unhinged! Wild Captain America comic book covers!

The first issue of Captain America famously shows the superhero giving Adolf Hitler a much-deserved sock on the chin.


Art by Jack Kirby

It's a classic, iconic image. But, when the comic first hit the stands back in December 1940, the cover caused a stir. After all, Pearl Harbor was still a year away and the United States was keeping very intentionally to the sidelines as the Nazis rolled through Europe. Cap's creators Joe Simon and Jack Kirby even got some threatening mail from isolationists and Nazi sympathizers who said the cover was over the top.

Ha!

If anything, Kirby and his fellow artists upped the ante with all the covers that followed. The earliest issues of the series feature some of the wildest, most manic imagery ever to grace a comic book cover. Each cover was crowded from corner to corner with hyper-exaggerated action and the most devilish Nazis imaginable. On nearly every cover, there's a woman in bondage or peril or both. Oftentimes, Cap's young sidekick, Bucky, is in trouble too.

This is pure propaganda, and Simon and Kirby--both proud Jewish Americans--made no bones about it. Unfortunate stereotypes, particularly of Japanese people, on the covers became more and more extreme as the war progressed. But this was a much different, more fearful time.

I'm taking a less serious take on the covers here, which are presented for their sheer over-the-topness. Enjoy--if that's the right word for it.


Art by Jack Kirby


Art by Jack Kirby


Art by Jack Kirby


Art by Jack Kirby

Art by Al Avison


Art by Al Avison


Art by Syd Shores


Art by Alex Schomburg

Lost season 4: The teasing has begun

ABC is pretty good with the viral marketing campaigns, particularly re: "Lost," which begins its fourth season Jan. 31.

To help get everyone back interested, and mystified by, the show there's a new press release and Web site touting the relaunch of Oceanic Air--the fictional airline that operated flight 815, the plane that crashed on that freaky island we're all wondering and theorizing about.

The Web site starts off as a mock ad for Oceanic featuring pretty flight attendants with Aussie accents, but this is soon interrupted by a bearded guy in a tie. His name is Sam and he says his partner, Sonja, was a flight attendant on flight 815, which--as we know--went missing. Now, he says Oceanic is calling off the search for the plane and will declare all the passengers dead. He says he wants answers.

During this message the address for another Web site flashes across the screen. Here, you can click around until you see "Sam's desk." This is the guy from the video on the previous site and if you click at his computer, phone, etc., you'll get little tidbits of info such as e-mails and videos that tease the show.

Being an old guy, I don't have much patience for such things, so I checked out a few bulletin boards for posts detailing what all sorts of things are revealed on the site. Here's a pretty good overview.

There's a game you can play that's supposed to yield more clues and the site will be updated while we wait for the new season to begin. I'll be scouring the fan boards for anything interesting and will pass it along.

Here's the content of the Oceanic press release:

Flights Begin December 31 To Nine Markets
Oceanic Airlines announced today their return to the airways. Beginning December 31, operations and flights to nine markets will resume, “Taking You Places You Never Imagined.” Destinations include:

Los Angeles, CA
Tustin, CA
Ames, IA
Miami, FL
New York, NY
Portland, OR
Knoxville, TN
Seoul, South Korea
Sydney, Australia

“We are very eager to resume flying and apologize for any inconvenience our temporary closure may have caused our loyal customers,” said Michael Orteig, President, Oceanic Airlines. “Oceanic Airlines is proud to be a top tier flight provider and looks forward to providing travelers with many more years of unparalleled service.”

About Oceanic Airlines
In business for over 25 years, Oceanic Airlines is a major airline carrier and offers the highest caliber of service for international and domestic flights. Destinations include Los Angeles, London, Sydney and South Korea.

Oceanic Airlines Contact:
Georgia Cavanagh (818) 460-5520

Take a look! The ugliest DC Direct action figures of all time--choose your favorites!

I've got lots of records, loads of CDs and far too many comic books. But when it comes to geeked-out collections, I'm pretty light on action figures.

I have a few in the home office and a batch in the rec room. As far as my wife is concerned, that's embarassingly too many. But they're not one of my obsessions.

The figures I have, I picked up because I think they look cool--they're nice represenations of comic book characters I like. I have a batch of Marvel Legends figures, including the big honkin' build-yer-own Galactus. And they're nice. But they're a little too muscley for my tastes.

The figures I admire most are made by DC Direct. I have the Silver Age Batman and Superman series and I really like how faithfully they capture the 1960s incarnations of some of my favorite comics characters. They look good standing atop a couple book cases crammed with DC Archives, Showcase Presents, Marvel Masterworks and Essentials volumes.

When it comes to figures, DC Direct is usually top-notch. But when they manufacture the odd ugly action figure, they go to town.

Here are some examples:

Check out the freaky muscle ripples on "Hush" Superman's forearms. And that face!



And here is, perhaps, the most hideous rendition of the Dynamic Duo ever: The "Dark Victory" Batman and (the particularly nightmarish bighead) Robin.





And here are a couple of really bad Catwomen. The first "Long Halloween" Catwoman is just an ugly sculpt in terms of mask, costume and body while the preposterousness of the "Knightfall" Catwoman is right there jutting in your face.

Catwoman looked silly enough when Jim Balent drew her this way in the comics. But when you translate those images into three absurd dimensions, it gets even more ridiculous.





There are a number of hideous figures in the "Identity Crisis" line but Batman and Black Canary are especially bad.





What is wrong with her face?!!

I'm not a fan of his art, but Ed McGuiness' super-muscley, cartoony depictions of Batman and Superman never really bugged me on paper. They're over-the-top, but at least they have a style of their own.

But when you translate McGuiness' art into plastic, you get entire display racks of ugly. Hideous faces, ridiculous anatomy (look at those thighs!). It's hard to believe that DC Direct has made at least three series of McGuiness figures. And that people buy them. It was hard narrowing things down to just a few examples:









This "Return of Supergirl" figure, based on the art of Michael Turner, stands out as one of the sickliest, disturbing figures DC Direct has released (absurd waistline, creepy expression and eyes).



But, sometimes, you can take great art as a model and still turn out an incredibly--almost absurdly--ugly figure. Witness Superman and, especially, Wonder Woman based on Darwyn Cooke's "New Frontier" mini-series.

Most of the figures in this series look pretty decent (I especially like Green Arrow and Dr. Fate), but the faces on these two are horrendous. What was DC Direct thinking? Cooke's faces are stylized and cartoony in a fun retro way. But the too-squinty Superman and "I don't know what's wrong with her face" Wonder Woman just don't work in plastic:





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What are your picks for ugliest action figure? Let us know in the comments section. Or send me pics and I'll post them here.

DVD collects Tom Snyder Beatles interviews

Shout! Factory has announced the April 1 release (this better not be a friggin' April Fool's joke) release of "The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo."

According to a press release, the 2-DVD collection will include Snyder's extensive 1975 interview with John Lennon, a 1979 interview with Paul and Linda McCartney and Wings members Denny Laine and Laurence Juber and a 1981 chat with Ringo Starr.

Here's the cover art.

Pop links

I hope you all didn't eat too many fudge Daleks over the holidays.



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The great Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog posted this cool, Hannes Bok-illustrated membership club for the Weird Tales Club. Surely not even Groucho Marx could've resisted joining that?



The same blog also has several posts featuring wonderful newspaper editorial illustrations by Winsor McCay.

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Paul McCartney reportedly underwent a hush-hush angioplasty recently. Hope he's doing well.

Vanity Fair posts big feature, pics on new Indiana Jones film

Take a gander at Cate Blanchett as a sexy Soviet secret agent and more over at Vanity Fair's site, which has a five-screen write-up on "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" here.

Lost season 4 episode 1 pictures

Here are promo shots from the fourth season opener of "Lost," airing Jan. 31 on ABC.













Lost season 4 character photos

The new season of "Lost" begins Jan. 31, but these new pics of the series regulars were released this week.