Going Under, a Little

I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails to the one-week buffer I had remaining on Hero Go Home. I should be able to hang on for another two weeks or so, but any disruption of my schedule will put me on hiatus. So I'm debating whether to go ahead and schedule a small break when my guys finally get to the hotel and start the next phase of the story.

Back when I first decided to launch the strip, Sandra Tayler, wife of Schlock Mercenary's Howard Tayler, advised me that consistency was the number one thing I could do to make the strip a success. "Don't miss updates" was the gist.

But I need to get some strips worked out ahead again. SO I have a few choices: struggle along as is and hope nothing unexpected ever happens, change the update frequency, change the artwork, or take a break and work ahead again. I'm already pushing the low-output limit with only three strips (not pages) a week. I could switch to black-and-white and save a ton of the time I spend on coloring, but that might be too drastic a change (plus my pen rendering isn't great--at least with color, I get a chance to cover some of my weaknesses).

So in a couple of weeks, I may be announcing a hiatus on the strip of at least one week, maybe more. The only upside to this is that, given the disruption in my schedule and my anticipating that this might happen, I haven't really made any efforts to publicize the strip, so there aren't a lot of readers to lose. If I take the break now, I'll have a stronger product when I do decide to advertise.

At least, that's where I'm leaning right now.

Out of the Vault - Revenge of the Prowler

Not much to say this week. I promised Revenge of the Prowler last week without reading it, and upon reading it, found that there wasn't much to say. But since I promised and put in the time to read the comics, I'll go ahead and write a quick entry. Or maybe not so quick, I dunno; it's the last weekend in March, and we're in the middle of a heavier snowstorm than I think we saw all winter, so my head's kind of in a mess right now trying to process that. I figure Al Gore must be holding some big global warming conference in Tulsa this weekend, since the blizzards seem to follow him wherever he goes.

Revenge of the Prowler picks up where the previous miniseries left off, with art student Scott Kida dealing with the emotional aftermath of the vampire slaughter in Prowler #4. He's obsessively painting gruesome images of slaughter while letting his personal life and relationships go to hell. He finally decides to tell Leo Kragg that he's done with the entire Prowler misadventure, but while he's talking to Leo, two of Leo's old acquaintances turn up, former U.S. Marines nicknamed the Devil Dogs (crossover characters from Strike!, another Eclipse series).

One of the Devil Dogs' granddaughters has run away, only to turn up in an underground kiddie porn magazine. So Leo and Scott go off with the two old Marines to rescue her from a heavily armed compound in northern Mexico, where heavy gunplay ensues. Kragg rides in on a vintage WWII bomber, dons a helicopter backpack to catch a speeding truck, then rides to the rescue on a motorcycle with guns blazing in each hand, just like John Wayne in True Grit, only with handlebars instead of reins in his teeth.


Meanwhile, in the back-up feature, we see an example of the Prowler newspaper strip, ostensibly from the 40's, as well as Kragg's continuing run-ins with vampires and zombies, with the trail leading once again to Murder Legendre.

As I was reading, I discovered that I had only three of four issues. As far as I know, there were only eight issues published of the Prowler's adventures. I quit before the final one came out. Unlike Dynamo Joe, though, I don't regret quitting. Revenge of the Prowler gets continuously seedier and more depressing, and we don't get to know the characters well enough to share any of their deep angst. And John K. Snyder's blobby artwork just adds to the seediness and emotional distance. I quit buying the book because it was obvious that it would never live up to the promise I saw in the premise.

And just to show you how little I cared about this book, issue 2 of Revenge of the Prowler came with a Flexidisc included. For those too young to remember, occasionally magazines or comics would include a little record of flexible plastic that you could play on your record player.

The first one I ever saw was a recording of whale songs in an issue of National Geographic. I had a couple of comics that included them, too. The original, magazine-sized Nexus included one in issue #3, and Tim Truman included a flexidisc of the blues songs (which he composed and recorded) played within the storyline of Scout #19.

I have both of those issues, and have pulled out and listened to both flexidiscs. It probably killed the collector's value of those issues, but I've never really cared about collector's value. I buy comics to read and enjoy, and liked both Scout and Nexus enough to be curious about the expanded experience the flexidiscs offered.

The flexidisc in Revenge of the Prowler #2 is still intact and unlistened to.

Don't Get Me Wrong

I like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And I love Lost. And I'm still hanging in there with Heroes.

But it just sort of came home to me that three of the series I watch on a weekly basis are dealing with time travel this season. And it's getting a little exhausting.

Still, just finished watching last night's Lost and I've got to say, "Holy crap, what a twist at the end." I love this show.

Big Audio Wednesday - Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar

A mystery this week, one of my favorite storylines from my favorite radio mystery series. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar features the adventures of "the man with the action-packed expense account."

Yeah, as a catch phrase, it sucks, but as a hook to draw you into the mysteries, it isn't bad. Basically, every episode is narrated by insurance investigator Dollar as he accounts the expenses he rang up while investigating that week's mystery. The show started out as a series of self-contained episodes, with the title role played by various actors.

In 1955, the show became serialized--each week's story was split into five fifteen-minute chapters that would run Monday through Friday-- and Bob Bailey took over the title role, giving Dollar a heart and a personality that the previous actors couldn't match. The mysteries, written by Jack Johnstone, were engrossing, and the production values, including the lush score, were top-notch.

Here are the five chapters from the week of June 4, 1956, "The Indestructible Mike Matter." Although there are none of the usual hooks for this blog--no superheroes, no sci-fi, no fantasy--Mike does seem to have at least one superpower. And there are a couple of other tie-ins, as well. Guest-starring in this week's shows is Howard McNear (I believe he's playing Mike) who was the star of last week's "Speed Gibson" shows. Another player is Herb Vigran, a longtime character actor who made six appearances on the George Reeves Adventures of Superman TV series.

So click the widget, sit back and enjoy the adventures of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar as he tries to save the life of a lovable lush (drunk people are funny) in "The Indestructible Mike Matter."

Deterioration

My five-week buffer on Hero Go Home has shrunk to one. I have produced one finished page of artwork in five weeks, and have another inked and ready to scan. If I can get it lettered and colored this week, my head stays barely above water. The next page I need to draw should provide a small jolt of excitement to the strip, and in a couple more weeks, we get into the story proper.

Finally.

Out of the Vault - Prowler

Timothy Truman first made a splash as the artist on First's Grimjack, with writer John Ostrander. His next hit was Scout, from Eclipse, which he wrote as well as drew. And then, in 1987, he debuted a new character, this time as a writer only.

Prowler was a four-issue miniseries reminiscent of Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, with a retired man of mystery coming out of retirement to take on a new protege. In Truman's story, old man Leo Kragg takes an intense interest in young college student Scott Kida, whom he first sees practicing martial arts in the park, learning from a book.

Kragg apparently sees a kindred spirit in the boy's isolation and intensity, so he fakes a mugging to see if the kid has got the stuff. Scott proves worthy, and Kragg takes him under his wing, to train him in the skills necessary to fight for good.

Prowler was an odd series that never quite gelled. I loved the pulpy, Saturday-afternoon-serial feel of that first cover (a sensation heightened in the series itself by the idea that Kragg had produced a serial in the 30's based on his own adventures). The concept of the old mentor taking on a new apprentice was good; look how far Batman Beyond was able to take that idea. But Kragg was a really creepy character, and his relationship with Scott was sometimes painfully icky.


Plus, there was a haphazard, kitchen-sink feel to the whole thing. Kragg was once rich, but now has trouble paying his bills; however, that doesn't really come into play in the miniseries. Likewise with Scott's supporting cast of college friends; they appear and then disappear and play absolutely no meaningful role in the story. In issue two, we learn of the return of the Blood Cult, a vampire street gang, so Kragg recruits his old friend Van Helsing. In issue three, we learn that the leader of the cult is another public domain character, Murder Legendre (the zombie maker played by Bela Lugosi in the cult classic, "White Zombie").

The art was by John K. Snyder III. Unlike Truman's detailed, finicky renderings, Snyder's art was loose and sketchy. A little too sketchy for my tastes.

Prowler also carried a back-up feature, a recounting of the Prowler's origin, written by Michael H. Price (a film critic who has collaborated with my friend John Wooley on a few books).

The art for the back-up was by Graham Nolan, whose clean lines really helped sell the 30's timeframe. The story itself was goofy, with Leo Kragg as a young stockbroker who loses his parents' life savings in the crash of '29. Ashamed that his greed has hurt his family, Kragg decides to become a secret agent for his best friend, a union organizer. Adopting a mask to protect his identity, Kragg stumbles across a company importing zombie scabs from Haiti to break a strike, thus beginning the Prowler's feud with Murder Legendre.

The feud ended in the main feature with Prowler shooting Legendre and knocking him off the end of a dock. Kragg walks away, realizing that he never heard Legendre's body hit the water below.

It's not over.

Next week: Revenge of the Prowler.

Big Audio Thursday - Speed Gibson

This one's pitched at younger audiences, but it's a darned addictive show.

Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police debuted in January 1937, and concerned the adventures of Clint Barlow, top "operator" for the International Secret Police, and his 15-year-old nephew, Speed Gibson. Barlow and Gibson, along with Barlow's partner, Barney Dunlap, go on global adventures in pursuit of the crime lord, The Octopus. Clint Barlow was played by Howard McNear (Doc on radio's Gunsmoke, and later Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show).

Speed's adventures are fast-moving cliffhangers, full of travel and international intrigue. In the first long storyline, Speed is inducted into the Secret Police, then the trio go on a trip to China to battle the Octopus's trade in slaves and drugs. Part action story, part travelogue, Speed Gibson took listeners to the far corners of the world and plunged them into exciting adventures.

These shows are fascinating to listen to. The early episodes involve a trip on the China Clipper across the Pacific, to places like Guam and Midway and Wake Island, before they were indelibly associated with the major battles of WWII. It's impossible to listen to later episodes without feeling a twinge at the outrageous Chinese accents the actors use, and much later episodes set in Africa have all kinds of problems, but Speed Gibson tried hard to avoid stereotypes and devoted a lot of time to conveying the wonders of other cultures.

I'm including the first five episodes here. They're only fifteen minutes apiece, so they move pretty quickly. So travel back to a time when one could refer to heroes as being members of the International Secret Police without irony and enjoy the adventures of Speed Gibson (click the widget to listen).

A Brief Note

Big Audio Wednesday will be Big Audio Thursday this week. Driving my daughter to OKC for a little spring break getaway.

Into the Vault

"Out of the Vault" is going on a one-week hiatus due to an intensely busy personal life. I have the comic picked out. I just haven't got the time to scan it and write the entry today.

Sorry.

Big Audio Wednesday - Quiet, Please

Today's program is an episode of Quiet, Please from January, 1949.

I mentioned Quiet, Please in the Feb. 18th entry of Big Audio Wednesday. It was a series of horror and fantasy tales from writer Wyllis Cooper, who was also the originator of Lights Out.

Quiet, Please was a generally good, occasionally excellent series written by Cooper and presented by Ernest Chappell. Chappell served as star, narrator and announcer. Other actors occasionally provided voices, but the tales mostly hinged on Chappell and his deadpan narration building a slow sense of dread until the final twist, followed by the mournful sounds of a piano picking out the show's theme.

Quiet, Please had its weaknesses, of course. Chappell was a very versatile performer, but the simple fact of having a male main character in every episode limited the number of stories that could be told. Also, Cooper tended to rely on the same tricks week after week. Characters that break the fourth wall were common, as were characters who spent the entire episode telling you their story, only to reveal at the end that they were actually dead the entire time, or doomed to die at the moment of the story's conclusion. There were also occasional science-fiction episodes, usually preachy anti-nuke sermons.

This episode, "Northern Lights," is not the best of the series--that would have to be "The Thing on the Fourbleboard"--but it's pretty good. So turn out your lights and listen in the dark to this cold tale of a creepy caterpillar. CLick on hte widget to listen.

Out of the Vault - Phantom Stranger #26

The Phantom Stranger was always one of the cooler cats in the DC Universe. With his dark suit and long dark cape, with the white gloves and the hat that always left his eyes in shadow, he cut an imposing figure. And he seemed to have supernatural powers: he always turned up at exactly the right place and time, with exactly the right information, to put the physical heroes like Superman on the right path to defeat supernatural menaces.

He was like DC's Gandalf, basically, smart and mysterious with hints of vast, yet undefined, power. You never knew if he was coming to the Justice League because he needed their help or because he just didn't want to be bothered with the small stuff. He might stain his suit, after all.

In his own book, though, he was more human, more vulnerable, which may be why the book never turned into a top-seller. The Stranger worked better as a stranger; the awe wore off the more you got to know him.

In 1971, a story appearing in House of Secrets #92 introduced the character of Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing proved so popular that he was brought back the next year in his own title, but updated and acting more as a hero than a monster, in the tradition of Godzilla in his 70's films.

DC, never reluctant to jump onto a popular bandwagon, decided to try out another monster hero in 1973, The Spawn of Frankenstein, as a back-up feature in Phantom Stranger #23. Three issues later, #26, the back-up and lead features combined into one full-issue crossover story.

Written by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman and drawn by Jim Aparo, with a gorgeous Mike Kaluta cover, "From Dust Thou Art..." told of the battle between the Frankenstein Monster and two demonic entities named Flagermot and Pornipus (you have my permission to snicker). The Phantom Stranger gets involved in the battle after the monster kidnaps Marie Thirteen, wife of Phantom Stranger ally/enemy Doctor Thirteen.

The story is decent enough DC mystery hero fare, elevated by Aparo's art. Aparo was at the height of his powers here, crafting art that was by turns detailed and dynamic, yet also moody and mysterious.

Still, the parallels between Swamp Thing (also written by Wein in his original incarnation) and the Spawn of Frankenstein couldn't be more obvious. Both are dead men resurrected by science, wandering alone and hated as monsters while they seek justice for those who did them wrong.

And then there's this:




Compare the faces: the green skin tone, the prominent brow, the shadow under the nose extending into wrinkles down to the mouth. The Spawn was basically Swamp Thing with hair.

And pants.

The best panel in the issue, at least for those who find the Phantom Stranger's whole "I am a Stranger; you know not whence I came" schtick annoying (which I don't entirely, but I understand the sentiment), was this moment from page 4. I'll bet every hero in the DC Universe has wanted to do this at least once, while saying something just like this.

Big Audio Wednesday - The Blue Beetle

I previously presented probably the wackiest episode of The Blue Beetle in my salute to Frank Lovejoy. Here's the first episode of the series, also starring Lovejoy.

The Blue Beetle is a weird character in these early episodes. In his secret identity as "rookie patrolman Dan Garrett," he seems pretty well known to everybody. How many famous rookies are there on the police force?

And of course, his powers are constantly fluctuating. He has a "magic ray" that he uses as a signal to alert crooks to his presence, but is also able to burn through solid objects. He has taken a secret formula developed by Dr. Franz that heightens his strength and vitality, but the criminals are still able to take him by surprise and knock him out pretty easily at least once an episode. And in several episodes, Dr. Franz just happens to come up with a new invention that turns out to be exactly what the Beetle needs for that particular case.

Anyway, enjoy this first episode of The Blue Beetle as patrolman Dan Garrett, "loved by everyone but suspected by none of being the Blue Beetle," receives his first dose of secret formula 2X from Dr. Franz and goes on to smash a dope ring and save the police commissioner's beautiful daughter (click the widget to listen).

Diminishing Returns

A turbulent and busy personal life has taken its toll on the webcomic experiment. In the last two and a half weeks, I've barely managed to pencil and ink one page and have yet to letter or color. That means my almost six-week bumper has fallen to less than three. When I was completely unemployed, I was able to spend hours noodling with the colors, but it looks as if that's going to have to change now. In a few weeks, expect the coloring to simplify a little bit.

You may not even notice the change, given the way the strip's look has evolved continuously since launch.Anyway, I'm hoping to finish up the page I'm currently working on this week and get back on proper schedule next week.

Out of the Vault - Donna Matrix #1

Built for Pleasure! Programmed for Destruction!

In 1984, First Comics published a comic called Shatter! It was a futuristic noir mystery with a gimmick: all the art had been done on a Macintosh computer (back in the days when Macs were all-in-one-box jobbers with a tiny black-and-white screen and no hard drive) by a guy named Mike Saenz. Saenz became an evangelist for CG art from then on, producting a computer-generated Iron Man graphic novel titled Crash and creating the sexy Macintosh game Virtual Valerie.

And then in 1993, he started up a comic book label and published Donna Matrix #1, written by Saenz with "art" by Norm Dwyer.

Donna Matrix was the forerunner of all the comics produced today by teenagers with Poser and Photoshop. It was generated in crude 3-D with special effects added in Photoshop and then composited in Illustrator.

The story takes place in the near-future. Horny guy buys a sex robot, a busty blonde model called an XTC 69. He wants it to perform S/M on him, but there's a law, called the "Deviate Robot Sex Act," which inhibits her from actually doling out corporal punishment.

So the guy seeks out a hacker who sells him stolen and highly illegal military software used to program robot commandos. Dude hacks up the progam so that the robot will talk dirty while it spanks him. He loads it into his sex android, which promptly kills him then goes on a murderous rampage across the city. While talking dirty.

Donna Matrix never made it to issue two. The book was printed in expensive full-process color, but the story was mindless, and the computer-generated models were crude and the rendering was often murky. Backgrounds were scarce, poses were stiff, textures were shiny and toy-like--whatever novelty value the 3-D had to offer didn't offset the book's many shortcomings.

Big Audio Wednesday - Evening Primrose

It might seem a little soon to do another Escape, but I'm going ahead and doing it for two reasons.

Number one, Escape was one of the best radio dramas. From the ominous opening brass and full orchestra (no simple organ here), to the scripts adapting some of the most popular stories of its day, to the generally high level of voice acting (including William Conrad and Paul Frees on announcing duties), Escape was a class production from beginning to end.

I chose to present this episode, "Evening Primrose," an adaptation of the John Collier short story which has also been adapted into a Stephen Sondheim musical, because it's not only suspenseful, but also a clever satire with some laugh-out-loud lines buried in the script. It's not a comedy, but a suspense story with its tongue planted firmly in cheek.

So enjoy "Evening Primrose," the November 5, 1947 episode of Escape.

TV Round-up

I still haven't watched last night's shows, so the Chuck and Heroes impressions aren't completely up-to-date, but oh well...

I don't watch Bones, but I have enjoyed some of the episodes I've watched. However, the other day, I decided to watch the recent episode involving the death of a woman in a Renfaire-looking outfit. Turns out, it was a booth babe from a science-fiction convention. I can't believe how awful it was.

The main character, Brennan, is supposed to be this brainiac who's a little out of touch with the everyday world, but they were having her miss even the most obvious of "Star Wars" references, like some alien in a 50's B-picture. I mean, I halfway expected her to say, "Is this one of your Earth jokes?" Plus, the vibe around the convention and the characterization of the fans bore only the slightest resemblance to any kind of fan activity I've ever seen. Chuck would have gotten at least a little of it right.

For instance, Chuck's big episode after the break, "Chuck vs. the Third Dimension," had Chuck protecting a rock star. Now the rock star just happens to be played by the most famous hobbit rock star ever, Dominic Monaghan of "The Lord of the Rings" and Lost. But the rock star's name is Tyler Martin, which was just incredibly weird, because the day before I watched this episode, I listened to an interview with Tyler Martin, web-cartoonist and developer of the Comicpress plug-in for Wordpress, which I use on the Hero Go Home site (Boom! Review of TV show turns into reference to obscure geek hero turns into plug for my own site! Trifecta!). Maybe they weren't giving a nod to that Tyler Martin, but Chuck is just geek-aware enough that they could have been.

Interesting nod toward plausibility in the newest episode of Chuck. One of the problems with Chuck's premise is that he was infected with this huge intelligence database that was then destroyed. Now Chuck's got all the intel in his head. But intel goes stale after a while. What you knew about someone three weeks or months or years ago might not be relevant to what they're doing now. So Chuck has to get updated every now and then or else all he's got is a head full of old secrets that are currently useless.

So in the latest Chuck, he gets reinfected with an evil version of the Intersect database. However, this one comes from a computer with the latest high-speed datalines running into the building, not from an email attachment sent from a cell phone. Better.

Fox has a new show called Lie to Me. It's a mystery series starring Tim Roth as a guy who has spent his life studying lies and the way people act when they're telling them. So the camera is always focusing on twitches the actors make as they deliver their dialogue. It's a pretty good show, but the dialogue between the main characters gets awfully tiresome. (note: this is not actual dialogue from the show)

Character 1: What's wrong?

Character 2: Nothing.

Character 1 (pointing at 2's face): No! See? Right there. Mouth shrug indicating deception. You're lying. And I know what you're lying about!

Character 2 (pointing back): Ha! One-sided shrug! You don't know and you're just fishing.

Character 1: Maybe I don't. But something's wrong and you want to tell me.

Character 2: No, I don't. I'm fine.

Character 1 (pointing): Ha! Smiled with your mouth and not your eyes. Liar!

God, give it a rest.

Heroes continues to be Heroes, half-awesome, half-annoying-as-all-get-out. The characters are now fugitives from a government pogrom, which is led by the The Flying Senator who has turned Judas Goat. They've managed to make Suresh less ridiculous than in the "Villains" arc, but they've stolen Hiro's powers and turned him into a petulant whiny brat. I don't want petulant whiny Hiro. I want a Hiro who's on his way to being the ass-kicker we saw back in Season One, with the silly soul-patch and the katana slung across his back.

Other than that, Terminator is back and Dollhouse has premiered. I like what I've so far of Dollhouse, but I'll wait until after the third episode before I give my impressions.

Out of the Vault - Fightin' Army #60

I was never a big fan of the war titles, but my stepbrother couldn't get enough of 'em, especially DC's, so I became very familiar with the big names on the DC side--Sgt. Rock, the Losers, Enemy Ace, the Haunted Tank, the Unknown Soldier--mostly written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by either Russ Heath or Joe Kubert. I read exactly one issue of Sgt. Fury and his Howlin' Commandos, but the rough-and-tumble style of the Marvel soldiers seemed like kid's stuff next to the general excellence of the DC war line.

And then there's the Charlton title, Fightin' Army. I actually have three issues of this. Two were either purchases by my step-brother or else they were part of a random vacation stack my step-mother bought before a road trip. This one, Fightin' Army #60, carries the cover date November 1964, so it would have been published a couple of months before, when I was still one year old.

I think I salvaged it from a dumpster. There was a big dumpster set up in our neighborhood for people to drop off newspapers for recycling, and we discovered that sometimes people dumped old comics in there. One time, I found a bundle of old stuff, including an issue of Classic Comics adapting the tale of Marco Polo. That's where I think I discovered this.

It's not very good. Fightin' Army was an anthology title full of self-contained stories ranging from three pages long all the way to eight. The art is dull. The lettering looks mechanical and contains some odd typos like "LT? SHORTELL."

The stories aren't very well written, either. The first seems like a true-life account of a forward observer during the Korean War, Lt. Guy Shortell. Over four pages, Shortell demonstrates how awesome he is at calling in artillery on the enemy, until the final two panels of the story, in which Shortell is shot by enemy soldiers then calls in fire on his own position as it is overrun. In a DC comic, this would be a dramatic moment, with an emotional ending and the bittersweet "Make War No More" medallion at the end. The Charlton version is more like "I'm shot. I'm dead. The End." Sorry. Just "End."


The next story is written in first person, about a Special Forces soldier in Vietnam who's dealing with a Viet Cong infiltrator in a village he's trying to protect. I think it might have been sent in by a reader. In three pages, he tracks down the enemy agent and catches him. Then...


The ending is so low-key and anti-climactic, it feels as if it were written by Harvey Pekar.

Other stories are more typical war comic fare: a soldier who's assigned a screw-up buddy who ends up saving his life, a World War I pilot challenged to an aerial duel by one of Von Richtofen's aces, and an odd little story about an American soldier sent to fetch a bottle of champagne for a general in northern France during WWII. He takes a wrong turn and ends up behind enemy lines. Luckily, his family was German, so he speaks the language. He steals a uniform and, posing as an enemy soldier, loses the champagne but manages to kill an enemy commander.

Really, the most interesting thing about the comic is the cover. If you've ever seen comics that were published during WWII, you'd remember covers bulging with action--hordes of soldiers shooting each other, or shooting at Captain America or the Human Torch, skies full or warplanes dropping bombs, shells flying everywhere.

This comic was published after the Comics Code Authority had been established, so it has to give the appearance of mayhem without actually depicting it. Two soldiers in the background tear down a Nazi flag, while a third soldier fires his sumachine gun. At first glance, it looks like it might be taking place during a raging battle.

But if that's so, why are the two soldiers in background wasting time tearing down a flag instead of mopping up the enemy? Why is the third soldier shooting at an empty Nazi helmet floating in the air? Is there a dead soldier flopping on the ground just out of frame? Or did somebody toss the helmet in the air for target practice? Or is the soldier simply invisible?

Seriously, what's the deal?

Big Audio Wednesday - Lights Out in Studio B

Lights Out will forever be associated with the inventive work of Arch Oboler, but Oboler was not the original writer on the show. Wyllis Cooper originated the show and established the basic format which Oboler then tuned to great effect.

One trick that Cooper loved to use was to break the fourth wall and have his characters acknowledge their existence or the existence of the audience, a trick that he continued to use in his follow-up series, Quiet Please. A closely-related trick used several times on Lights Out was to present a "behind the scenes" story: the episode "Murder in the Script Department" was about two secretaries locked in the offices at night while typing up one of Oboler's scripts, and "The Author and the Thing" featured Oboler dreaming up a monster for his final episode, that of course comes to life on him.

But before those episodes came this Cooper classic, "The Coffin in Studio 'B'," about tragic happenings during rehearsals for an episode of Lights Out. The show has the feel of a real rehearsal. The ending is telegraphed pretty early, but on Lights Out especially, the twist wasn't the point. The point was to listen to extended scenes of people dying in frantic, painful ways. Lights Out was the forerunner of today's torture porn movies like "Saw" and "Hostel," but with occasional humor and wit (ETA: although not so much in this episode--the death scene is relatively brief--still, my point remains: the endings were usually clearly telegraphed, and half the fun was getting to the ending you knew was coming).

So turn your lights out and enjoy this look behind the scenes of horror radio in the 30's as Lights Out presents "The Coffin in Studio 'B' " (this is a 1946 rebroadcast of a show originally done in the 30's). Click the widget to listen.

Falling Behind But Hanging On

I've fallen a bit off my schedule on Hero Go Home. Not enough to put me in danger of missing updates, unless I were to do this for a month or more, but still enough to cause concern. I'm spending my energy being concerned at falling off schedule on the webcomic to avoid the bigger concern of being unemployed for my third week. Signs are promising that I'll have something next week, but it may not pay as much as I was making, at least initially, so things will still be tight for quite some time. I've got just enough money to squeak through the rest of this month. March will be super-tight, and then things will loosen up in April, I hope. If things don't go well, I'll probably be selling off some or all of my animation art on eBay.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

Out of the Vault - Dracula #6

I'm not entirely sure where I got this superhero take on Dracula. I have a vague memory of buying it at some sort of rummage sale they had at my school, along with the comic adaptation of "The Valley of Gwangi," which I had missed in the theater when it was first released. I was probably nine years old at the time, although I may have been ten.

Although the front cover (and as always, you can click on the images for larger, more legible versions) says "COLLECTORS ISSUE," it's actually a reprint of Dell's Dracula #2, which appeared in 1966. The first issue adapted the Bela Lugosi film, and then Dell, hoping to jump on the superhero bandwagon, transformed Dracula into a costumed adventurer (along with the Frankenstein monster and the werewolf in their own series). The experiment didn't succeed; the series only lasted three issues, ending with #4.

However, in 1972, Dell decided to reprint the books, so Dracula returned with issue #6 (no one seems to know what happened to #5). In this retelling of Dracula's origin, the modern-day Dracula is a medical researcher living in isolation, ashamed of his family's horrible legacy. He is working on a serum to heal brain damage, which he has isolated from the brains of bats in an effort to further rescue his family's reputation.

He finishes the serum and sets the beaker on a shelf, intending to send it to a friend of his for experimental use on asylum patients. Then (before the serum has actually been tested), he sets the bats free in his lab because he has no further use for them. He then pours himself a toast to his success, a "refreshing glass of mineral water," and apparently doesn't notice that one of the bats set loose in his lab has knocked over the beaker with his precious serum, dumping it into the glass he's about to drink from. What kind of crappy housekeeper is Dracula that he doesn't notice or care about the pink residue in the bottom of the glass he's about to drink out of?

Anyway, he drinks the potion and blacks out. When he comes to, he's flying over the country side, because he has turned into a bat. Wow, good thing he didn't send it to Doctor Schwartz in Vienna for use on all those brain-damaged patients, huh? Imagine fifty mental patients tripping on bat serum flying all over the European countryside.

Anyway, Dracula decides he must shut himself away from the world forever, lest it learn his terrible secret, that secret being that he is a total freaking moron. Alas, it is not to be, for Eastern European strongman Boris Eval trucks up to the castle with a few truckloads of nuclear missiles and sets up shop on Dracula's front lawn.

Eval, who looks like Josef Stalin in a Harpo wig, has an eval plan (get it?) to take over the world by starting a nuclear war between the superpowers.

Step one: disguised as a common workman with an outrageous mustache and a Harpo wig, Eval plants bombs in an international peace conference. He plans to kill all the officials at the conference, then while the world is in chaos, launch his missiles into space, fooling the superpowers into thinking that each has launched a first strike on the other, triggering a nuclear holocaust. Then, Eval, who is tucked away safely in remote Transylvania, will emerge to claim the reins of power over what's left of the world.

Luckily, the conference is being held within easy bat-flight range of Castle Dracula, so Dracula is able to warn the conferees of the danger. Eval's plot fails.

He still has his nuclear missiles, however, so Dracula next leads a horde of bats in an attack on the missiles. Panicked at the thought of the missiles toppling from the weight of the bats and exploding, Eval flees and wrecks his car. Luckily, his disarming device falls out of the wrecked vehicle, and with one flick of a conveniently labeled switch, Dracula saves the world.

Dracula then decides to use his powers for the good of humanity. He orders a ton of gym equipment delivered to his castle in ominous-looking wooden crates. There follows a quick training montage, in which we learn that T-shirts bulk you up.

Dracula in civilian garb:



Dracula in gym clothes, but still before training of any kind (check out those guns):



Dracula then goes to a nearby village, where he leaves an order with a tailor for a costume, then captures a couple of robbers with his newfound muscles, where this happens:



Did the bullet bounce off? Did the robber miss? Was Dracula wounded, but healed quickly? Or was he wounded and merely fighting through the pain? Who knows? Who cares?

So Dracula picks up his costume and returns home to find his castle in flames. The superstitious townspeople, terrified by all the suspicious deliveries and activity around the castle, have decided to put an end to the evil in their midst. Dracula is appalled at the fear and ignorance of his fellow men, and pledges to fight against evil, corruption and greed in an effort to make people really, really like him.

So ends Dracula's "collectors edition" origin story, at which point nine-year-old you says, "Wait a second! This is a Dracula story without a vampire! What a rip. I might as well sell this thing to some other idiot at the school rummage sale."

That idiot, of course, was me.