Superhero Memories

I've never really considered myself much of a Superhero fan. When I was little my cartoon and comic book tastes gravitated always towards the funny animals. I'd take Yogi Bear over Superman any day of the week. With the recent explosion of Superhero movies coming out of Hollywood, I had still kept some distance from most of the fare offered. I had seen some of the older Batman movies, and Superman Returns and even the first Spider-Man film, but I still didn't really pay much attention to the genre. Then came the 1-2 punch of Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012). I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Thor only a year later to be completely blown out of the water by how awesome The Avengers was. With Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel this Summer, I found myself way more into the comic book movies than I ever was before. It got me thinking about the handful of Superhero stuff that I did like as a child...the few things that made an impression on me. And with the release of the new Thor movie this past weekend (It was awesome!) I thought it would be a good time to unveil this list of my Top 10 Childhood Superhero Memories...


Spider-Man (1967-1970)

 This was the first Spider-Man cartoon which I wasn't alive for the first time it came around but I remember catching it early in the morning and, for the first time, being drawn in by the storytelling instead of the slapstick and laughter. This is the show that gave us the classic "Spider-Man" theme song too! Growing up, the only time I saw this show was if I was able to wake up early enough on a Saturday morning. In Baltimore, Channel 2 ran reruns of Spidey at 6:30am, an hour and a half before the network cartoons started. It was always a treat if I could sneak out into the living room and watch Spider-Man sling his webs through New York with the TV sound turned down real low so I didn't wake my parents up.

 



Spidey Super Stories (1974-1977)

Spider-Man would also pop up on segments in The Electric Company, a show designed for graduates of Sesame Street. This show was awesome because it was presented like a comic book with the different scenes taking place inside panels of a comic book. The real-life comic book motif was played out more by having Spider-Man only speaking in word bubbles above his head. This Spidey was a web-slinger of very few words but the other people in the stories could read the bubbles above Spider-Man's head. In these stories, Spidey didn't fight Doc Oc or the Green Goblin, but instead dastardly villains like the Spider who sat down beside Ms. Muffet. There was also a print version of these stories in The Electric Company Magazine which I'm sure I read every issue at least 100 times!

 

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981-1983)
 

I LOVED this show and never missed it on Saturday Mornings. Spider-Man joins forces with Firestar and Iceman to stop various Marvel Super Villains. Spider-Man would do his thing while cracking jokes and tossing off one-lines, while Firestar shot fire everywhere and Iceman would surf around on a path of ice he shot out of his hands. Apparently, Iceman is also a member of the X-Men, which I didn't even know the X-Men was a thing until those movies started coming out in 2000. I don't know if Iceman makes an appearance in any of the X-Men movies past or future...but if he does I would watch the crap out of that movie! I loves me some Iceman!

 

Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman II (1980)
 

Back before HBO or VHS, if a Superman movie was on TV - you dropped what you were doing and watched it. You just did because it was Superman and we showed respect to our elders that way back then. I think these are still really the gold standard in Super Hero movies, funny and exciting and easily accessible to children. Later, when we had HBO, I easily caught these two movies a million times each. They are still great films and fun to watch. (I've still never seen Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, and I hear I'm not missing much.)

 

Fantastic Four (1967/1978)
 

I don't remember much about this show except that I loved it and thought the drawings were really cool. There were actually two versions of this show; a 1967 series from Hanna-Barbera and a 1978 version from DePatie-Freleng. I'm not sure which ones I saw, possibly both, but whenever I could catch it I was on board! This show is so ingrained into my memory that I was excited when the recent movies came out.

 

Batman (1966-1968)
 

 As with most people my age, this version of Batman was THE version of Batman and so much so that when the Michael Keaton movie came out in 1989 I was just like, "What is this crap? That wasn't funny at all!" Besides the cool costumes, crazy villains and bright colors...I loved how they put the action words on the screen during a fight scene. That was the best!

 

SuperFriends (1973-1986)
 

My #1 TV nerd memory of this show was that it was the first time a cartoon that I knew from Saturday mornings came to strip syndication after school. So, it was a nice change of pace from all the old Popeye and Casper cartoons we had for our viewing pleasure in the afternoons. Not pictured above, but the Wonder Twins would make the best Super Hero movie out of them all!

 

Wonder Woman (1975-1979)

Simply put: Wonder Woman's invisible jet remains the single most coolest prop ever built in the history of television.

 

Hostess Comic Book Ads (1977-1982)
 

My only exposure to (then) second-string Superheroes like Captain America, Flash, Green Lantern and Iron Man were in one page ads that ran in all the comic books...including the talking animal comics that I read. In each of these comics, a noted Superhero would use tasty Hostess Apple Pies, Twinkies or Cupcakes to overpower a super villain. Who needs all the gold in the world when you can have a bit of golden & delicious Hostess Cupcake? Even an 8 year old me knew this was a ridiculous concept...and I ate up every page of it!

 

Spider-Man for Atari 2600 (1982)

As with any Atari game that I owned, I played it one hundred million times in my youth. As it turns out, this one was the very first video game based on a Marvel Comics property. In it, you would sling webs and try to get your three pixels that represented Spider-Man up to the top of a skyscraper to defeat Green Goblin.  Did I say I played it a hundred million times, now that I'm looking at the picture I'm sure it was closer to 30 zillion billion times. What a great game!

 

 

Now's the part where I ask you to share some of your Super Hero memories in the comments section......

Chuck & Fred

I typed "Peanuts Flintstones" into Google and look what I found...

The Argyle Sweater 11/28

by Scott Hilburn

B.C.- 10/17

Rip-Off Rehash

Today we're sharing a published comic strip that I had a hand in producing way back in my college days of the mid-90's. I ran this comic years ago when I started this blog, but I like to dig out old holiday stuff and reuse it so here it is again. Cleverly titled, Mr. Ed's Far Side Rip-Off this one shot comic deal ran in the late October 1994 issue of my school's bi-weekly newspaper. Basically, I wrote the joke and a buddy of mine created the artwork. At the time, there were so many professionally produced comic strips obviously ripping off the style and pacing of Gary Larson's masterpiece The Far Side I just wanted to do a comic that was completely obvious. Those other comics always had names like The Other View or Flip Side or something lame like that, so we just called it Far Side Rip-Off. I added Mr. Ed to the title thinking it would somehow be an extension of my wacky radio morning show that I did on the college radio station at the time. I'm sure nobody got the connection between Mr. Ed & The Wacky Wake Up Show and Mr. Ed's Far Side Rip-Off, but I liked to think of myself as somewhat of a media mini-mogul back in the day. Sadly, this was the only strip that ever ran in the Rip-Off series. We were just 11 strips shy of getting our own calendar.

Super Fun Superhero CD

I'm not really big into superheroes but I do appreciate their place in pop culture. After all, superheroes are essentially cartoon characters that fight instead of throw pies and run into walls. One thing I am a fan of though are TV theme songs! So I gotta tell ya, I enjoyed the heck out of the new CD The Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Collection.

This is an awesome collection of music from various television shows and motion picture outings for several of DC Comic's top stars. It's not just the amount of superheroes that are represented here that makes this CD impressive. It's the span of time the tracks cover. The first track on the CD is the theme music to the old Max Fleisher Superman cartoon shorts of the 1940's. The music takes us all the way up to the jazzy retro theme song for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a newer series currently in it's second season on Cartoon Network.

DC's two biggest stars have always been Supes and the Bat, and they are represented here the most. The Superman tracks include the John Williams theme to the 70's/80's film franchise, themes to the Filmation cartoons of Superman and Superboy, and the music to the prime time entries Lois & Clark and Smallville. The Caped Crusader tunes include the opening to the 1943 serial The Batman, various cartoon shows along the years and the themes to both Tim Burton and Chris Nolan's incarnations of Batman. One of the inclusions that sold me on picking up this CD is the groovy theme to the 1960's Adam West Batman show - which is really where I got my first taste of superheroes.

Another great show from my childhood was The SuperFriends. There have been several reboots of the concept over the years. Six different series are represented on this disc but none greater than Hoyt Curtan's theme to The All-New Super Friends Hour from 1977. That show was the bomb!

There's still 10 more tracks after that! How great is a CD with the theme to The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show and Swamp Thing!? And where's Wonder Woman you ask...this compilation ends with not only the theme to the recent Wonder Woman animated film but also the classic Linda Carter television series from the 70's. Well played, DC...well played!

An eclectic mix of all sorts of shows and films that the DC Universe has populated over the last 75 years. A great and unique listen!

Off The Mark 9/14

Off The Mark 6/23

La Cucaracha - 3/30

hat tip: Cartoon Brew

Baltimore Comic-Con

I've always wanted to go to a comic book or science fiction convention just for the experience of it. We've all seen them mocked in movies and television for years, but I wanted to check one out in person. Since my 6 year-old son is all about everything superhero related I thought it would be a great way for him and I to spend the afternoon together. This past weekend we headed into the big city for the 2009 Baltimore Comic-Con held at the Baltimore Convention Center.

The show took up three convention halls. The space was mostly divided between comic book vendors and comic book creators. There were numerous comic book dealers set up selling millions of books both new and old. You could really stock up on your library with the tons of 50 cents and one dollar books. I've always tended to enjoy cartoon comic books more, especially Disney and Hanna-Barbera (big shock there!). It seems all the Flintstones comics now sell for at least $20.00 an issue. I'm not that avid of a fan that I need to drop twenty bucks on one comic book.

It was also neat to see all the artists and small publishers who put out their own material. There was lots of neat artwork to look at and there were even a few artists who have been inspired by the recent Disney/Marvel buy out. Legendary Disney comic artist Don Rossa was there singing his art. I was tempted to buy a piece but never actually did. One of the "underground" comics that was represented at the show was a guy named "Dominator". He was even there, himself, to meet and greet the fans. Even though we've never heard of this guy, Elias was excited to meet a real live superhero. (You can read more about Dominator in this Baltimore Sun article.)

There was some video dealers at the show who were selling DVDs, not of the legit/legal variety. But they had complete series sets of any show you could possibly ever imagine. I was tempted to pick up The Wuzzles or Electra Woman and Dyna Girl but they were kinda pricey. After we left, It dawned on me that I should have looked for the #1 Convention Item of All Time: The Star Wars Holiday Special. But again, I didn't!

My favorite freebie at the convention was a Saw VI lollipop! Why not!?

Elias and I were both most looking forward to seeing people dressed in costume. We saw quite a few Star Wars guys and there was a really good Blade walking around. We saw more than one Joker. There was a Willy Wonka - Tim Burton style, a couple of slutty Wonder Women, and pretty cool looking Ghostbuster. Elias' favorite was...
...this guy from the new G.I. Joe movie. All these guys were so super-friendly too! My favorite fan costume was easily...

...Jane Jetson! It was nice to know that someone else also has a homemade Hanna-Barbera inspired costume. Pretty sweet, eh!?

Hey Kids, It's Wolverine!

The new Wolverine movie comes out today. I'm gonna be honest with ya, my knowledge of Wolverine is very limited, I didn't even know X-Men was a thing until the movies started coming out. What I do know about Wolverine is that he has giant razor sharp claws sticking out of his hands and he's not too happy about it. The new movie looks kind of dark and very violent, which is a shame since they also market Wolverine and his comic book cohorts to preschoolers. There's a whole bunch of different products featuring Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Iron Man rendered in a kid-friendly style. What youngster doesn't love playing with his angry mutant or billionaire suit of armor?! Here's some of the toys and other stuff that we've got laying around our house...

A company called Learning Curve, who also makes the Thomas the Tank Engine toys, came out with a line of wooden play figures a few years ago that are similar to Fisher Price's Little People figures. The Play Town collection features sturdy wooden figures of all the different people in your neighborhood like the fire man, and the postman...and there's a grocery store and a fix-it garage - all the standards. They also went ahead and added Marvel comic book characters to the Play Town collection. You can pick up friendly little Wolverine with his good buddy Captain America. There's another set that comes with Spider-Man and the always lovable Incredible Hulk. Now you can have Hulk destroy the Play Town bank while Wolverine does some gardening!?


There's lots of kiddie books featuring Spidey and friends. In these books, the gang hang out at the playground and have fun with other kids. I don't know if I'd want to be pushed on the swings by Wolverine!

We got these a while ago. We bought a pack of Spider-Man forks and spoons for the kids. When we got home and opened the package we discovered that the forks all had Wolverine on them. Pretty clever, actually. I would assume Wolverine doesn't need a fork...or at least a knife.

And then my favorite of the whole collection...this Spidey and Friends CD. The thing is, this is an actual licenced product from Marvel comics. It has almost nothing at all to do with superheroes. The CD is filled with a dozen songs that are appropriate to play in a Sunday school classroom. Click on the play button on the picture below to hear the CD's tribute to deadly blade wielding Wolverine...

Free Comic Book Day 2009

This Saturday, May 2, marks the return of Free Comic Book Day! As the name would suggest, it's a day when everyone can get free comic books. It's also a time for the comic book industry to turn the spotlight on themselves and promote new products and bring new readers to the world of comics.

All you have to do is go to just about any comic book store on Saturday and there will be tons of free books waiting for you. And these aren't old books they can't get rid of - all the freebies on Free Comic Book Day are brand new publications created especially for the day. Some of them are introductions to new series and some are just bonus issues of old favorites.

They try to make the promotion appeal to readers of all ages. Last year, my little ones not only picked up a few colorful comics but they also got Free Comic Book Day balloons, lollipops and even figures and posters. I also enjoy the day because, who doesn't like free stuff...and also there's always some good cartoon related books to be found.

Here's some of what is to be found this year...

• The launch of the new Cars comic book
• A Bongo Comics Sampler featuring The Simpsons and other humor titles
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• Archie
• Transformers Animated/G.I. Joe
• DC Kids featuring little kid friendly versions of Batman & Co.
• Nancy & Melvin Monster - yes, the Nancy from the funny pages
• Sonic The Hedgehog
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

That's quite a collection of goodies! In the years past, there has always been a classic Disney book...the company that owns the rights to print the old Disney comics is having some restructuring issues right now, so who knows if we'll see Mickey or Donald at this years event! For more information, and to find a comic shop near you visit the Free Comic Book Day website.

The Return of a Classic

I just got done reading issue #1 of the brand new Muppet Show comic book. It would have been cool enough to just bring back the Muppet characters in comic book form, but this new series from BOOM! Studios is based on the original Muppet Show format. As you can tell from the cover here, the whole gang is back and at home in their Muppet Theatre from the original television variety show. Inside, the comic book features a storyline of backstage hi-jinks as well as numerous skits and "acts" and even a "musical number." Even Statler and Waldorf are among the pages heckling the comic book! It's all done in great fun and with a real respect for the 70's TV show that started it all.

Issue #1 just hit comic book stores last week, I had no trouble at all finding it. BOOM! Studios is also starting a second Muppets comic book line, "Muppet Robin Hood" which will tell the tale of Sherwood Forest casting the Kermit and Co. in the various roles. BOOM! also plans on releasing new comic book series based on several Disney/Pixar films. In the near future you'll be able to find new books featuring friends from Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Wall-E. A preview copy of Cars will be available Saturday, May 2 at Free Comic Book Day, an event held at comic book stores nationwide.

I always enjoy seeing the Muppets in action, I'm also a big fan of non-fighting comic books, so it looks like there's lots of good stuff on the horizon from the folks at BOOM! Studios.

Boom! Studios
Free Comic Book Day

Bizarro - 12/20/07

Bizarro - 7/23/07

Huckleberry Hound Fan Club

Being a kid used to be a lot more fun that it is for today's kids. Back in the day nothing was more exciting that having your own membership card into some Fan Club. I can't imagine many kids nowadays putting down their Gameboy to give a credit card sized piece of paper much attention. I would have been all over this Huckleberry Hound Fan Club if I were born about 20 years earlier! Well, I'd still like to send away for it but I have a feeling my check or money order would come back marked "return to sender."

One time when I was a kid I lost my play wallet at a Roy Rogers. Inside was my Roy Rogers Double R-Bar Club membership card and an ID card that I filled out in crayon. Where it asked for blood type I put: "red". Luckily, the bored buckaroo at Roy's took a few minutes from the roast beef shaver and called my house so I could come in and get my important documents.

Happy 4th - Alf for Prez

Slide the high quality paper stock into your printer and rev up the color ink cartridge! You can print out these Alf for President campaign materials and wear them to the fireworks tonight. Drum up some interest in getting the ol' Alfer into office. Actually, this is an insert from an early issue of Marvel's Alf Comic Book. The comic book told stories of Alf's life on Earth with the Tanner family and also of his life on his home planet Melmac (before it blew up.) Not surprisingly, I still have the first 50 issues or so.

Story Session at Hanna-Barbera

This is the kind of stuff that I used to eat up as a kid. Today we have featured a one page write up from a 1970's comic book on a story session at Hanna-Barbera. First of all, I love the old "The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera" logo. To me, this logo just about sums up everything that was right with the 70's. The story itself is about how writers at the Hanna-Barbera studios came up with ideas for a Scooby-Doo show. Even though I've never been a real big Scooby-Doo fan, I've always loved behind the scenes at H-B. This is also an example of some of the odd one page, non-comic features they would run in comic books in the old days. Of course nowadays they wouldn't waste their time on charming features like this. They'd use the pages to cram in a few more ads for Mountain Dew, Starbursts and the latest Jamie Kennedy movie.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Dog and Bunny - 10/23/96

It's been several months since we've had a visit from our good friends Dog and Bunny. For those of you late to the game, Dog and Bunny is a lame/bizarre comic strip I co-created in college that was purposely intended NOT to withstand the test of time! If you want to check out other editions of the strip, just type 'Dog and Bunny' into the blog search engine at the top of this page!
As as always, you can click on the comic below to enlarge it!