Big VIDEO Wednesday - Tales of Tomorrow

Decided to change things up a little and show one of the earliest TV science fiction programs, Tales of Tomorrow, now available on Hulu.

I know it's not radio, but Tales of Tomorrow aired from 1951 to 1953, so it's contemporary with several of the radio shows I have presented here before. The first season of the series has just gone up on Hulu, and this episode in particular jumped out at me, for several reasons.

Number one, it plays the same sort of meta-games with reality and fiction and the fourth wall as Wyllis Cooper did on Lights Out (such as "The Coffin in Studio B") and Quiet, Please.

Number two, it features a young Rod Steiger in one of the roles.

Number three, it was written by a guy named Frank De Felitta. De Felitta isn't very well known, but he's had a couple of novels turned into movies, including The Entity, supposedly based on a true case. I saw De Felitta in person when I attended a screening of "The Entity" (starring Barbara Hershey) at USC. I remember it because not only did he talk about the allaeged true haunting the story was based on, but he also went on at some length about how he had sued Spielberg over "Poltergeist," which lifted some concepts and one minor scene from De Felitta's novel.

But it's interesting that a guy who would later cause controversy with a novel "based on a true story" would early in his career script a TV episode where the episode in question keeps getting interrupted by events that are "really happening" somewhere.

Number four, it's a fascinating look at early television, filmed live, flubs and all, especially this episode, which lets you see behind the sets. I love the imagery of the opening titles, with that gloved mad scientist hand throwing that huge switch on the wall, and yet I can't help but notice how even that is cheap and spare.

Number five, the show is sponsored by Kreisler. I used to work with my dad selling watches and watch bands. At that time (and maybe still), the number one watch band company was Speidel, but Dad still had some old Kreislers floating around (Kreisler seems to have morphed into Voguestrap at some time). So those Kreisler commercials hold a little extra interest for me. I especially love how the commercial at the top of the show starts out with a woman offering cigarettes, then morphs into a commercial for the box the cigarettes are in, and then segues into "Oh yeah, there's jewelry, too."

So enjoy this look at the "Golden Age" of live television in the Golden Age of science fiction, and then count your blessings that you live today.

Next week, I'm planning to start another long Superman marathon, unless someone requests something different.

Post Conestoga 13

Another Conestoga's over, and I'm not revved up the way I usually am. I'm so distracted from all the other stuff happening in my life generally that I wasn't able to participate fully in the con this year. Did a couple of fun panels on Saturday (on comic books and sci-fi movies of the 70's), and an OSFW recruiting panel today. I'm losing my voice, though, so I wasn't much use today. Still, I am excited to start writing a little again, and it was good to see people I haven't seen in a while. So even though I'm not gushing with excitement like last year, I'm glad I went.

Double Post

Didn't mean to double post. I posted right before my shower, then got distracted and posted again right after my shower.

I Know, I Know

This has become a too-familiar song recently, but there will be no "Out of the Vault" today due to Conestoga. Be here next week to reminisce about one of the most notorious books of the 80's.

You Knew This Was Coming

No Vault today due to Conestoga. But next Saturday, I'll be talking about one of the most notorious books of the late 80's. See you then.

Conestoga 2009

I'll be at Conestoga this weekend, April 24-26, talking about old comics and old movies and other old stuff. Hope to see you there.

Big Audio Wednesday - Gunsmoke

Figured I'd have to get around to Gunsmoke eventually. It was a radio phenomenon that became a television phenomenon, the longest-running primetime show ever (at least until The Simpsons).

But if you've never been exposed to Gunsmoke, or if your only exposure (like mine) was the later seasons of the TV show, then you're in for a surprise. Gunsmoke was a relatively dark and edgy show on radio, with a surprisingly bitter main character in William Conrad's Matt Dillon.

I had a long hard time trying to pick an episode to post here, though. There's lots of good stuff in several of them, but few episodes seem to resolve well. And of course, there's no sci-fi or fantasy in any of them, except for one comic episode where a con man fools a few townspeople into thinking he's invented a "silver extender," a machine that can clone money.

I ultimately chose this episode, "Bum's Rush," just because it has so many of the elements of a classic Gunsmoke. Matt as the U.S. Marshall doing his job to the letter even as he seems to hate every moment of it, Doc rubbing his hands with glee over the prospect of violence in town because it means work for him, Matt facing off against his own neighbors as he also has to try to stop the bad guys, a conclusion that brings justice but not happiness.

Oh, and because it guest-stars John Dehner, a frequent player who also became a fixture of television. Always a guest-star, never a star, Dehner appeared in three episodes of the original Twilight Zone, as well as lesser science-fiction "classics" like Land of the Giants and "Day of the Dolphin."

So enjoy this episode of Gunsmoke from April 18, 1953.

Out of the Vault - The Punisher

People have been recommending the movie "Punisher: War Zone." I've never been a huge fan of the Punisher, but I knew I had some copies of his title, so I thought I'd look at the book and see how it held up.

Frank Castle, The Punisher, first got his own title in July 1987, written by Mike Baron (of Nexus, Badger and DC's post-Crisis reboot of Flash) and drawn by Klaus Janson (maybe best known as Frank Miller's inker on Daredevil and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns). He had started out as a Spider-Man villain, a vigilante-murderer modeled on The Executioner.

But though his murderous ways had made him a villain during the 70's, he was recast as a hero during the rise of the grim'n'gritty anti-heroes of the 80's. In the first issue, he blows away a crack house, leaving one man alive enough to tell him the name of his distributor. He then moves up the food chain, killing the distributor and his henchmen, but not before learning that the head of the syndicate is someone called "The General," in Bolivia.

In issue 2, Castle goes to Bolivia and learns that the General is a former RVN general whom Castle had known in Vietnam. The General and some of Castle's former squadmates are running a huge cocaine plantation/distribution network. They don't survive the issue.

The series was capable enough, taking more inspiration from action movies like "Lethal Weapon" and "Commando" than from Marvel's comics line. But as a fan of Baron's quirky/crazy work on Nexus and Badger, I was disappointed in the series. It featured solid action, but little of the wit or spontaneity that was Baron's usual hallmark. And since it was such a straightahead action story, the costume started to seem a little silly.

I ended up getting bored with the series and quitting after 6 issues.

Laurel and Hardy Get Funky

A tiny bit of fun to make up for Saturday's missed Vault. Laurel and Hardy dance to the GAP Band's "Party Train."



There's apparently a whole mini-genre of these--Laurel and Hardy dancing to Soft Cell, the Archies, Iggy Pop... But of the ones I watched, "Party Train" was the best. I especially like the way Ollie throws his head back at about 1:06 in the clip.

I didn't like "Party Train" much when it first came out. It had a nice groove, but it seemed even more insubstantial than most pop songs. There were no lyrics, no structure, just one verse, one chorus (or maybe just a two-part chorus) repeated ad infinitum.

But when I first heard it, I was just sitting at home watching the music video. Later on, I heard the song in a club--in the proper context, if you will--and my opinion changed. Now it holds a very special place in my heart (which may be entirely due to the woman involved).

Time Crush

I have been crushed for time, so the Vault stayed locked this week. Sorry. Hero Go Home has also had to go on a short break. I hope to have it back up in a week.

Big Audio Wednesday - Dragnet

Not much of an entry today. The program is the radio version of Dragnet, starring Jack Webb. Like Gunsmoke, the radio version feels grittier than the TV version did, but at heart, they're the same show, from the opening theme, to Webb's opening narration, to the clipped dialogue and Webb's unfunny final punch line, to the announcer telling us that the story is true and what sentence the perps received.

Included here not because I have a special love of Dragnet, although I watched a lot of it when I was a kid. But in this episode, :Big Genius," not one, but two characters have the same names as Heroes villains. Having one character with the same name is not so big a deal, but when two characters are named in the same sentence, it gives you a weird twinge of recognition.

So here's Dragnet from July 12, 1955. Enjoy. Click the widget to listen.

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.