Thirty grand? That's still a lot of quarters!

If there were any doubt that the videogame generation (and that's my generation -- the one that played videogames standing up, with a pocketful of quarters) has become a desirable demographic, just check out this new Pontiac commercial based (with surprising attention to detail) on the classic game Spy Hunter...


I like how closely it sticks to its inspiration, with the constantly changing score, the just-fake-enough backgrounds, the "Peter Gunn" theme (of course) and the same vehicles from the game. And that opening -- oh man, that opening. When the camera swoops down to the truck and the image switches from videogame to "reality," it's like Dorothy stepping into Technicolor for the game-geek generation.

Buy my comics, make me rich: CATWOMAN #77

Run, don't walk, to your local sequential art emporium today to pick up a copy of the latest CATWOMAN, which is wrapped in this bee-yo-ti-ful Adam Hughes cover...

And if that somehow doesn't convince you to part with your hard-earned two-ninety-nine, check out the first few pages (gratis!) at Newsarama. Here's the link, and here's the splash page:

Nice, eh? I'd say it's the wildest issue of CATWOMAN we've ever done, and I'm eager to hear what you kids think of it. Bring those comments, criticisms and questions here.

Don't touch that dial!

If, that is, you happen to have it tuned to your local National Public Radio station. On Sunday's edition of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, yours truly will be part of a profile of Catwoman, part of NPR's "In Character" series.

The big names involved include cartoonist Jerry Robinson and TV Catwomen Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt, but I'm in there somewhere, offering a little perspective on the current version.

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED airs Sunday afternoons/evenings, depending on where you live. The segment, according to Allison Keyes, the reporter who did the story, will air at the end of the program. And, this being the age of the Internet, if you miss the radio version, you can hear it at this link.

Alan Moore spoofs Frank Miller

I was going through some old magazines and found an issue of the Marvel British comic anthology DAREDEVILS dating from way back in 1983. As the title might suggest, there is in fact a DAREDEVIL story in it, a reprint of the American issue 167, cover dated Nov. 1980. That's from early in Frank Miller's original run (so early, in fact, that he wasn't even writing it yet -- David Michelinie was). Besides that bit of Marvel nostalgia, we've also got an early chapter of the CAPTAIN BRITIAN revival with beautiful (black and white) art by Alan Davis and a smart, spooky script by an up-and-coming writer named Alan Moore.

Those two features would be enough to make the issue an interesting read, but what's really fascinating is a four-page story that combines elements of the two: a detailed, joke-stuffed satire of Miller's early DAREDEVIL written by none other than ... Alan Moore.

And here it is (click to see them in a readable size):

If you're only familiar with Miller's work from ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, DARK KNIGHT or even his later run on DAREDEVIL (with David Mazzucchelli), it's hard to convey just how accurately Moore captures the feeling of those early '80s issues. Everything from the overblown narration to the armies of bag ladies and guys with boomboxes on their shoulders is right out of Miller's initial run on the book. Even the background jokes (Josie's Bar, "Vote for Cherryh") refer to long-forgotten bits of business. Some of the art by Moore's partner in satire Mike Collins (especially the "Pigseye" panels on page 3 and the "Eretkra" close-up on page 4) are dead-on images from the original, and the use of Zip-a-tone, silhouetted skylines and abundance of water towers are straight out of the Miller/Janson ambience.

But is it funny? Well, sort of. The jokes are juvenille, but not too bad, and Moore is clearly paying tribute to the throw-in-every-joke-that-fits style of Kurtzman's MAD. But it's not exactly a perceptive, startling satire that questions the use of comic book violence and forecasts the dark trends to come in both comics in general and Miller's work in particular.

There is, however, this caption...

Good thing Miller never really wrote anything that silly, isn't it?

It sure is, true believers. It sure is.

At least this is good news...

According to The Beat, that "Art of Dave Stevens Book" is 90 percent done and will be on the shelves next year. Here's the cover:

Looks good, and you can't go wrong with a collection of Stevens' art. Can't wait to put that volume on my shelf, right next to the art books devoted to Craig Russell, Steve Rude, Brian Bolland and Jack Kirby that've come out recently. (Good time for "art of" books, I'd say -- and there's a Steve Ditko one waiting in the wings.)

If you want to read a comic book story where Stevens is an actual character, check out the third volume of Paul Chadwick's CONCRETE series from Dark Horse. In the story "The Artistic Muse," artist "Steven Davies" helps Concrete pull off a scam that turns to be part of a bigger scam (not involving "Davies.") Here's a scene of Concrete and "Davies" debating a bit of artistic vision ... Nice. Wonder what Stevens thought of it?

And while we're on the topic of unsung guys who helped revitalize comic books in the 1980s, I highly recommend all those CONCRETE collections Dark Horse put out a couple of years back. I'm pretty sure they collect every concrete story there is, and the books feature a nice mix of short stories and longer tales. There's also a volume devoted to Chadwick's non-CONCRETE series THE WORLD BELOW that will look nice on the shelf next to your seven CONCRETE books.

Dave Stevens, RIP

It figures the same day I post some goofball post about Elijah Wood just to get some content on this blog, something newsworthy -- and tragic -- happens in the world of comics: Artist Dave Stevens died Monday at the age of 52, after a long and painful battle with leukemia.

Though he's most widely known for the movie inspired by his ROCKETEER comic book (and, to give it its due, it's one of the best comic book movies), Stevens should be remembered as one of the men who brought some real excitement and fun to comics back in the early days of the direct market. I remember seeing the ads for THE ROCKETEER before the comic even appeared in PACIFIC PRESENTS and getting jazzed by its obvious combination of heartfelt nostalgia and beautiful artwork.

The resulting comic -- which was only a few pages long -- did not disappoint. THE ROCKETEER was lots of fun, without any postmodern irony or plain-old-modern cynicism to run things. Bettie Page, the Bulldog Cafe, air shows, a luger -- all those great bits of the past, with a smart story and well-drawn (in every sense of the word) to boot. The movie captured included many of those elements, but it didn't have the same pulp-inspired twist ending as the comic itself. That's probably because few moviegoers would spot a reference to Doc Savage and his associates, but the comic finished with a nodding reference to the good Doc, subtly included but never spelled out. And, it was so beautifully visualized you wished Stevens would adapt an entire Doc Savage story -- or write his own. His grasp of the '30s -- at least a thrilling, warmhearted version of the era -- was that good.

I met Stevens once, long ago at a Chicago Con, back before the Wizard days when the show was held in the Rosemont Ramada. (I think it was 1987.) I was there with my old pal Jay Geldhof, and for some reason, Stevens needed a quiet place to finish a comissioned sketch. I can't remember why, but he wound up in our room, and I had the pleasure of watching him draw a gorgeous pencil sketch (that's in name only -- it was a finished piece) for some lucky client. I think he was charging $100, which sounded like a lot to me (I was a dirt-poor college student at the time), but now I realize that was an incredible bargain.

Stevens was notoriously slow (looking at his work, it's easy to see why) and didn't leave behind a huge stack of comic books. He did do a lot of pinups, covers and illustrations, and was apparently doing as much work as he could up until his death. According to Mark Evanier's nice write-up, he was also working on an "Art of Dave Stevens" book. I hope it gets completely somehow -- that would truly be something to see.

Too bad he won't be around to sign it.

Even in the future he was still pretty short

This may be the weakest post in the history of blogging,* but I haven't written anything here in a week or so, so I thought I'd mention this: While my daughter nodded off on the couch today, I flipped off ALADDIN (figuratively speaking) and channel surfed a bit, landing on BACK TO THE FUTURE II, one of my sorta-favorite movies.

I mean, it's not going to make it to my top 10, but I've always liked it and thought it did something really unusual with a time-travel premise -- namely, time travel back to its own predecessor. If only someone Zemeckis and Co. could've planned it out enough so the original BACK TO THE FUTURE would actually have another Marty running around in the background, but you wouldn't notice him until you'd seen part 2. And don't kid yourself -- those movies are planned out to the nth degree -- the plots are so tight there's virtually nothing random anywhere. I remember watching the scene in Part 2 where evil Biff is watching the scene where Clint Eastwood uses a makeshift bullet-proof vest and suddenly knew the twist ending of the Part 3. We already knew it was going to be a Western (from all Doc's musings about the Old West) and I knew Zemeckis and Co. wouldn't include that clip for no reason.

Anyway, I only watched a couple of minutes of Part 2 today, but I spotted something interesting. When Marty stops by the '80s Cafe (how much did those clearance rights for "Beat It" cost, anyway?), he tries to wow a few future kids by playing a vintage shoot 'em up video game. They remain unimpressed, saying "You have to use your hands? That's like a baby toy!" And who are those kids? Well, one of them managed to save Middle Earth a few years ago...

Yes, it's lil' Elijah wood in his first film role. Never can tell what you might see while channel surfing.

Here, as a bonus for reading through all that, is a BACK TO THE FUTURE FAQ that includes a photo of Eric Stoltz in the Marty McFly role. As all movie geeks know, he was eventually replaced by Michael J. Fox, though he did star in THE FLY II a few years later.

* OK, obviously I'm exagerrating.

Someone start casting a resurrection spell, stat!

As has been reported all over the Internet, Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax died Tuesday at the age of 69 at his home in nearby (to me, anyway) Lake Geneva, Wis.

Though it might be a surprise coming from a guy like me -- comic book fan (and writer), movie geek and all-around pop culture nerd -- I only played Dungeons & Dragons very briefly back in the early 1980s. I have fond memories of the game, though -- marathon sessions in a friend's basement, coming up with character names and histories, rolling all those damn dice and tracing copies of the character sheets so my mom could run off duplicates on the mimeo machine at work. Good times. Good times.

I also have slightly less fond memories of one of the kids we played with telling his born-again mom that my buddy and I (both seventh graders at the time) were devil worshippers and that we sat in the basement wearing black robes casting spells. Our parents, to their credit, thought this was pretty ridiculous, but it gave me my first taste of how broad-minded and accepting hardcore Christians can be, bless their little hearts.

Though I didn't play Dungeons & Dragons for very long, I can see the appeal. It's a great use of imagination, problem-solving skills and cooperation, and if it tends to be a little geeky, who cares? It's no more geeky than putting on a jersey and rooting for a team or crunching numbers in your local fantasy league.

Dungeons & Dragons was just about the only time I dipped my toe into the world of classic fantasy. I never read any Tolkien, never got into Conan and never played any computer fantasy games (except for WIZARD OF WOR, of course -- that ruled!). I also never read many fantasy comic books, except for the issues of ELRIC by my ol' pal Craig Russell. No ELFQUEST, no WARLORD, no CONAN.

I did, however, draw this issue of my own youthful comic, FROG. It's from late November 1981, which would've been around the peak of my Dungeons & Dragons days ... obviously. I'll let it stand as my own 14-year-old self's tribute to the work and art of Gary Gygax.

Rest in peace, Gary.