Joe R. Lansdale's By Bizarre Hands #3 - "The Pit"

[history79]

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Survivors’ Club #9

[cyberghostface]

"The idea was that each character would represent a genre of horror. We both grew up on a blood-soaked diet of ‘80s horror films. Almost everyone knows the story of The Exorcist, Nightmare On Elm Street, Friday The 13th, Fright Night and so on. In their own way they have become our generation's fairy tales or mythology. We draw a lot on that mythology in Survivors’ Club – but subvert it in interesting and unexpected ways." -- Dale Haverson

( Final issue )

X-Men: Gold #36

[lordultimus]

( The final issue )

Mod Post! Off-Topic Tuesday

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In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

10th October is World Mental Health Day with the focus on "Young People and Mental Health in a Changing World"

In extraordinary scenes... actually, no I'm getting tired of using the word "extraordinary" in this context, so I'm going to go with my gut and use "abnormal".

In abnormal scenes at the White House, POTUS 45, and Legion of Doom farm team candidate, celebrated in frankly grotesque and completely partisan terms, the appointment of Brett Kavanagh to the US Supreme Court, stating that he had endured "a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception", adding that "under historic scrutiny", he had been "proven innocent". The former is dubious at best, the latter is categorically not the case.

It is perhaps worth noting that the woman who presented evidence, Professor Christine Blasey Ford, has, as yet, been unable to return to her home due to multiple death threats.

A minor, but completely surreal moment, as Kim Jong-Un invites the Pope to North Korea. It is seen as... unlikely, that the Pontiff will accept the invitation.

Brazil's General Election gave the extreme Right candidate nearly half the vote, but not enough for an outright win so there will be a run off election in a few weeks time.

The second Russian suspect in the Salisbury poisoning case, has likely been identified as a doctor working for the Russian intelligence service.

A major IPCC report on the effects of climate change have set the cat amongst the environmental pigeons.

Star Wars: Resistance launched at the weekend, not entirley sold on the main characters, and not that impressed by the animation style chose, but I have faith in Dave Filoni to make something interesting.

Ladybug's long awaited "Queen's Battle", a two part story which introduced Chloe as Queen Bee, aired and gosh, so much going on HERE. We meet Chloe's mother, a personality so toxic it should require a hazmat suit, find out some really messed-up Agreste family stuff, watch Chloe break every rule of the Miraculous in about four seconds, and learn Plagg's frankly terrifying history of destruction and... well, a whole heap more.

Jode Whittaker IS the Doctor, and did a sterling job selling that point on Sunday evening. A low key episode (with a memorably looking if perhaps not A-list, monster), with a different feel to it, what new music, new showrunner, new cast and so on but it did it's job well I think, introducing us to the new team, and giving the new Doctor a chance to sort her head out. Looking forward to the rest as there are a couple of major reveals which DIDN'T happen in this episode which everyone was expecting.

The Good Place launched Season 3, and though my first reaction is "But Season 2 had such a perfect ending, why continue?" I'm cautiously optimistic.

Oh, and NYCC debuted a number of trailers, including Good Omens, based on the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman novel about Armageddon, the new Harley Quinn animated series (with Kaley Cuoco as Harley), Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 and Aquaman.

'The Demon of Sleep'

[cyberghostface]

'The Demon of Sleep' is in my opinion a strong idea that falls short of its potential. It's an interesting premise for a Freddy Krueger story that the films never utilized but fails to go all the way with it. An additional issue would have made a big difference in my opinion. Nonetheless, here it is.

( Scans under the cut... )

Action Comics #861

[lordultimus]

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Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid #3

[history79]

( Read more... )

NS - "Superman: 2000": The Superman Project That Never Was

[lordultimus]

"We were asked to submit a Superman proposal, which we did. It was rejected, and the quote I was given was, 'Do you honestly believe DC will ever give you the keys to the family car?' I can say here and now that the Superman proposal by Waid, Peyer, Morrison, and Millar was the best, most thoroughly worked-out take on a major character you are ever likely to see. It was Superman Plus. I wrote most of it after meeting the Man of Steel at 2am opposite the Sheraton in San Diego -- a true shamanic moment.

"He was wearing the best Superman suit I've seen and looked fantastic as Superman—a cross between Chris Reeve and Billy Zane—so we asked him if he'd answer some questions which he did—in the character of Superman! It was like a possession—I'd say to the guy, 'So how do you feel about Batman?' and he'd come back with 'Well, Batman and I don't really see eye to eye on a lot of things. He's so hung up on the darkness in everyone's soul and I just don't see it that way...' and so on. He spoke to us for about an hour and a half.

"The thing that really hit me, wasn't so much what Superman was saying as how he was sitting. He was perched on a bollard with one knee drawn up, chin resting on his arms. He looked totally relaxed...and I suddenly realized this was how Superman would sit. He wouldn't puff out his chest or posture heroically, he would be totally chilled. If nothing can hurt you, you can afford to be cool. A man like Superman would never have to tense against the cold; never have to flinch in the face of a blow. He would be completely laid back, un-tense. With this image of Superman relaxing on a cloud looking out for us all in my head, I rushed back to my hotel room and filled dozens of pages of my notebook with notes and drawings.

"We had the 21st-century Superman, we had four guys who'd been waiting all their lives to do this, we wanted to launch in January 2000, and we'd have sold a million copies. It would have been the coolest, biggest thing to happen to Kal-El since the Byrne revamp, and DC blew it. I have nothing but respect for Joe Kelly and Jeph Loeb and the other guys currently on the books, but they haven't been allowed to go far enough, and as a result, the current revamp seems a little muted. Not being able to do Superman and not being offered anything else at DC was the main reason I decided to do Marvel Boy for Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada." - Grant Morrison







In 1998, four DC Comics writers (Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Mark Millar, and Tom Peyer) were approached by then new editor for the Superman books Eddie Berganza to bring Superman into the new millennium. By October, they gave him an in-depth 21 page proposal, intending on building on what the Post-Crisis established to reintroduce classic concepts in a new and different light. The plan was to establish the entire Post-Crisis period, with it's relatively limited in scope Superman who thought himself as nothing more than another Earthman, as the prelude to something truly legendary in every meaning of the word.

Berganza gave it the green light, liking it so much that he fired longstanding Superman writers/artists Dan Jurgens and Jerry Ordway in preparation for the coming of the four collaborative writers, whose tenure was scheduled with Berganza's first issue.

However, DC editor Mike Carlin (or possibly publisher Paul Levitz) then returned from vacation and was shocked to discover that big changes were being implemented to Superman without his knowledge. He vetoed the project, partially because such a huge change was being made effectively behind his back and partially because, at this time, DC also adopted a policy of prohibiting "big name creators" from working on their core Superman and Batman books. Ordway was offered his old job back, but declined due to having already lined up work at Marvel. Jurgens was let go in favor of 'new blood'. Berganza recruited then-second tier talent like Joe Kelly and Jeph Loeb, and industry veteran J.M. Dematteis, to script a soft relaunch of the books with little fanfare, though they attempted their own take on reincorporating older concepts into the current Superman mythos.

While most of this is behind closed quarters and we'll likely never truly know everything, there appear to be two different versions of this proposal created. There's some debate as to whether one (specifically, the one more Morrison-centric) was created as an attempt to sway Carlin after his rejection of the first, but both seem to be intertwined. One is Superman NOW, helmed mostly by Grant Morrison, which has never been released to the public and is largely unknown, and the other is Superman: 2000, probably largley curated by Mark Waid, was leaked in spurts through the internet, eventually cobbled together by enterprising fans who wondered what might have been.

( Read more... )

Wonder Woman: Earth One, Vol. 2

[laughing_tree]

( Read more... )

He worked in an auto shop.

[thanekos]

He didn't have much in life outside of that.

He had a show that he set his alarm for.

When it rang, he'd come running to his TV.

( He'd turn it on, anticipating. )