The Secret Origin of Red Kryptonite!

... At least, according to this "Ask Mr Silver Age" column in the January 5, 2001 Comics Buyer's Guide!

PS you can read the REAL lowdown on Red Kryptonite in this 2006 post on this hyar Super Blog!

See you Thursday!

  

Strange TV Cameos!

Since this article was published in the June 1984 Video Review, there must have been plenty more "weird" or strange ones.

See you on Monday for something less strange ... perhaps!

  

Are You in the Hobbit?

In college I came across this article from the September 1966 issue of Esquire, about the writings of a certain writer of our acquaintance'

As a hobbitual offender, I had to share with you.  See you Thursday!

   

Secret Identity -- Who Ain't Got One?

This article is from the June 1, 1986 Amazing Heroes.

After you've finished yukking it up, you can read a REALLY TRULY good article I shared on this blog several years back.  Originally intended for the same mag, it would have fit into the same "Ten of a Kind" format as Waid's article above.

AN OPEN SECRET, part 1

AN OPEN SECRET, part 2

AN OPEN SECRET, part 3

AN OPEN SECRET, part 4

Go forth and read "An Open Secret," so you too can be hep the next time a Kryptonian tries to pull the wool over your eyes!  See you Monday.

  

Alternative Histories

These were devised at short notice for SoonerCon 30 in June 2022.  Feel free to weave your own stories or catastrophes based on these things that didn’t happen!

Alternate History Lines

 ·         2800 BC.  Mesopotamian junior lieutenant Gilgamesh dies at age sixteen from a fall, after a loose nail shakes loose from his horse’s shoe.

·         1804.  German composer L van Beethoven discovers that Napoleon Bonaparte has crowned himself Emperor of France. Beethoven tears up his recently completed Symphony 3, originally dedicated to Napoleon, and commits suicide.· 1910. British emigrant William Henry Pratt, working on a Canadian farm, dies of sepsis after piercing his own foot with the tine of a pitchfork.

·         1910.  Struggling artist Adolph Hitler meets struggling actor Robert Wiene.  Wiene convinces Hitler to submit sketches to some producer friends.  Hitler’s designs for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, released in 1920, establishes Hitler as a surrealist of the first order.  He is awarded the first Academy Award for art direction in 1929, for his work with Fritz Lang on Das Reich der Dr. Mabuse.

·         1934.  After receiving funding from JP Morgan to develop his “defensive” particle-beam weapon, Nikola Tesla sneezes as he throws the switch at its first demonstration.  Earth immediately splits in half, killing all life.

·         1942.  Small-time musician Jim McCartney, conscripted as a fireman during World War II, dies in a burning building.  His amateur-scientist son, James Paul, dies in 1962, likewise by fire, experimenting with asbestos clothing.
·         1955.  In an fistfight over script credit for the in-development film Moby Dick, director John Huston and author Ray Bradbury stumble into a Hollywood street, where both are flattened by a steamroller.
·         1963.  TV producer Gene Roddenberry is killed at a Christmas party by the jealous husbands of three actresses.
·         1963.  After a brief meeting with Pope Paul VI in 1963, President John Kennedy resigns and enters a monastery.  Soon thereafter, now-President Lyndon Johnson loses an arm-wrestling match with Nikita Khrushchev.  Due to a bet made before the event, Germany is signed over to the Eastern Bloc.
·         1965.  Martin Luther King defeats George Lincoln Rockwell in a brutal twelve-round boxing match.  Rockwell honors a pre-fight agreement and dissolves the American Nazi Party, using its assets to fund scholarships in poor neighborhoods.

·         1966.  Star Trek, a new TV sci-fi TV series starring Lloyd Bridges, Martin Landau, and Paul Fix, airs for six episodes and is quickly dropped.  Variety describes its leading character, Bridges as Captain Robert April, as “acting like he's underwater.”
·         1971.  During a secret trip to China, Henry Kissinger is caught in flagrante delicto with the daughter of Premier Zhou Enlai.  He is immediately executed, and in retaliation President Nixon sends Captain Manhattan to destroy the Chinese capital city.
·         1974.  An Ethiopian dig looking for human ancestries is cancelled. In a related story, the dog belonging to paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey dies after choking on a bone.
·         2005.  The success of the action sci-fi series Laser Cats, starring Andy Samberg and Bill Hader, prompts George Lucas to film an all-feline version of Star Wars, provoking protests when Han spits first.
·         2022.  An embarrassed Vladimir Putin goes on a worldwide TV linkup to announce withdrawal of all forces from Ukraine.  “It’s all a mistake,” he says.  Unveiling a tabletop model of a skyscraper, he explains,  “I wanted to get a NEW CRANE.”

See you Thursday, if the timeline doesn't split!

  

WATCHPANELS, Part 9

 WATCHPANELS

One compulsive reader’s observations ...

after gazing into Watchmen for the umpteenth time

 PART THE NINTH

All right, I’ve got photons in my teeth and my wrist brace on ...

           Here on page 13 and everywhere in this chapter, Jon goes on and on about how beautiful Mars is without life ... but without life, who will see the beauty?

           Again, on page 18,  Jon raves about Mars’s “breathtaking” beauty while maintaining that "no life "is better.  You can’t have “breathtaking” without breath!

          Do you join me in feeling that Manhattan’s “revelation” is pretty dopey?  It’s not a miracle that “human coupling” produced Laurie; it would have produced SOMEBODY, duh!

9:28 – The epigraph has quotation marks in the comic (above), not in the bound editions (below).

            And now, my friends, we’re down to the final three chapters.

See you with something varied and thrilling on Monday!
  

Right On, America!

This celebration of collaborative American achievement appeared in the April 27, 1981 TIME magazine.

May your Independence Day be the stuff as dreams are made on!  See you on Thursday.

  

Too Far!

This (made-up, I promise!) Star Trek story is illoed by Ric Meyers.

It's from the March-April issue of National Lampoon.

And with this, 2022's TREKKING OUT fades slowly into the waist.  See you Monday for some more what-have-hyou.

Coochie-coochie!

  

The Trekkies Have Won!

This June 18, 1977 article in the Tulsa Tribune thrilled the fans!

This may or may not have been allied to Paramount's attempt to start that "fourth network."  To know for sure, buy our book!

PS this was a draft cover.  The actual cover is ...

Buy it here and get it autographed by the author!

   

See you Thursday.

  

One-Panel Treks

These are some references to Star Trek in the comics!

Above, from 1981.

Above, from Penthouse in 1982.

... And from 1987.

When you're done getting your ribs tickled, come in person Friday-Saturday-Sunday, June 24-25-26, to SoonerCon!  It's the culmination of all your pop-culture, sci-fi dreams!

If I don't see you there, see you here on Monday!

  

Star Trek FAQ 2.0 – Book Review

STAR TREK FAQ 2.0, by Mark Clark.

This is a laudable effort to "learn all that is learnable," as someone said.  It's interesting to browse through, but as a picky kind of feller, I must point out these goofs:

·         Page 9, in discussing Star Trek: The Motion Picture, mistakenly attributes the film’s sfx woes to Howard Anderson Company.  No, it was the incompetent-for-the-job Robert Abel and Associates who bit off more starship than they could chew.  Howard Anderson did fx for the 1960s series.

·         Page 30 – in his survey of Star Trek III, Clark calls the Klingon bad guy “Kluge,” not Kruge.  It’s funny because on page 34, Clark gets the name right.

·         In talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation’s staff, Clark gets Tracy Tormé’s name correct early on.  But in talking about “The Royale,” Clark gets Tormé incorrect FOUR times, as “Tomé.”  On pages 110-111, he does it twice in his coverage of “Manhunt.”

·         On page 232, there’s a slip of the tongue when discussing Jeri Ryan’s Borg character Seven of Nine.  For some Clark gives the actress’s name as Jeri Taylor, the prolific Trek writer and producer.

·         On page 399, in comments about the 2009 film, Clark gives the last name of Captain Pike’s actor Bruce Greenwood, as “Greenwell.”

It's not a goof, but most photos have captions whose words are nearly identical to a nearby bit of text.  How hard would it have been to reword the dang captions a little?

Have fun with this brisk survey of Trekitude.  However, don't forget to check things out from multiple sources!

See you Thursday!

  

Fred Steiner Treks!

This is a 1985 article by Trek (among dozens) composer Fried Steiner. It's called "Music for Star Trek: Scoring a Television Show in the Sixties.”

I hope your eyeballs don't wear our!  This is really interesting stuff!

See you Monday.