Michael Aushenker's CARTOON FLOPHOUSE

Bronze Age Bonanza: Aushenker's El Gato, Crime Mangler and Monster Heroes by Gerry Talaoc, George Tuska, Rich Buckler

2012-01-02T18:59:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I was delighted to have some working legends of the comics field draw versions of my characters. The late great GEORGE TUSKA interpreted my monster hero characters the Urban Golem (and the Orthodox Jewish dwarf sidekick who summons him back to life), Capital Punishment (a DMX-style hardcore rapper-turned-crocodile creature, center), the Gobble (were-turkey creature, bottom left), and Ghost Pirate in this MONSTERS-4-JUSTICE pinup.

The great, underrated GERRY TALAOC drew the above pinup for my planned story EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER VS. SATAN'S ARMY. Gerry is one of the great artists of the Filipino Invasion. I love Gerry's work, particularly his UNKNOWN SOLDIER comics.

George Tuska also did this El Gato vs. El Gato piece for my planned EL GATO VS. THE TIME KILLERS story.

Another George Tuska interpretation for my planned time-travel story EL GATO VS. THE TIME KILLERS, this time it's a final showdown in a futuristic city.

Rich Buckler also took a crack at the Ghost Pirate in this nice loose sketch. Shades of Deathlok the Demolisher for sure!

Don Perlin's superhero take on El Gato, Crime Mangler (with Zabu the sabretooth tiger from Ka-Zar comics) was originally published in THE NINE LOVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER (2003).

The Golden Age (1940s-50s) invented and lay the foundation for great American superhero comics....the Silver Age (1960s) reinvented them and made them more sophisticated and "grounded in reality"...but I'll always have a sweet tooth for the Bronze Age (1970s), the pulpier era when the comic book companies let their hair down and the ethnic heroes, monster heroes, and trashy-fun "non-essential" B-books flooded the stands. Fun stuff!

Joe Kubert....

2011-11-29T15:57:00.000-08:00

A memento from Wonder Con 2010 at the Moroscone Center in San Francisco. Running into the great cartoonist...creator of the UNKNOWN SOLDIER.....founder (obviously) of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art.

Classic THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES!

2011-11-22T18:49:00.000-08:00

Chestnut from 2007 CAPS banquet: Thank-you note from Stan Lee

2011-10-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

Above is the note I received from Marvel Comics writer/creator/legend Stan Lee after the 2007 CAPS (Comic Art Professional Society) Banquet. In the note, he's referring to "Ironic Man," the short spoof below that I did long ago that was included in the program for the Lee tribute. This is why he has always been comics' greatest ambassador...The fact that he took the time to personally thank each attendee with a handwritten note shows what a class act ol' Smilin' Stan is. 'Nuff said!

2 New CARTOON FLOPHOUSE comic books at Alternative Press Expo, table#109

2011-09-16T10:36:00.001-07:00

Behold! TWO new GREENBLATT THE GREAT! books will be available at APE in San Francisco, Oct. 2 and 3rd. Stop by booth #109, just for laughs!

For more information on the APE convention, go here!

Ten Years Ago Today...

2011-09-11T09:20:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share a story...

Ten years ago, I was working at the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles as a staff writer. I woke up early and saw what was happening in NYC on TV ("The Today Show," I believe...) and so I called and woke up both of my editors at the Journal, Rob Eshman and Amy Klein, to notify them what was playing out.

The events of 9/11 happened on a Tuesday, which was the day before our paper went to press, so we had to overhaul the entire paper and cover art that day. My editors joked, "Why couldn't this have happened on a Monday?" (Gallows humor, of course...no one was happy that day).

Now it's 10 years later, and they're running the same cover of the bombed-out World Trade Centers on this week's Jewish Journal. Full circle.

Happy 30th Birthday to my sister Melody!

2011-09-05T23:14:00.001-07:00

Today is her very big day during a very special time in her life (pictured here with her husband Tom). I love and miss my little sis!

GREENBLATT THE GREAT! "HISTORY WILL BE SERVED!" TRADE PAPERBACK headed for APE 2011

2011-09-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's almost here...GREENBLATT THE GREAT! "HISTORY WILL BE SERVED!"

This book is officially at the printers and will be available at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) 2011 in San Francisco on Oct. 1 and 2......so be sure to swing by and get it.

What's in it? Oh, only 92 pages of Greenblatt the Great! goodness -- wacky absurdism at its most absurd! It's the complete Greenblatt the Great! book, folks, with several new features including gag strips about death, dating, Dillinger, and a haunted ghost tour of Pacific Palisades.

You can also order the book by forwarding $10 plus $3 shipping to the mailing address at CARTOONFLOPHOUSE.COM: Michael Aushenker, P.O. Box 25, Santa Monica, CA 90406

... or, soon, via Amazon.com (link to come in a future post).

Happy 94th to the late "King" Kirby!

2011-08-28T21:46:00.001-07:00

Coming to APE on OCT. 1 & 2 - HARRY LUMMEL, SILLY GOOSE, NEW GREENBLATT THE GREAT!

2011-08-27T23:08:00.001-07:00

CARTOON FLOPHOUSE FEATURING GREENBLATT THE GREAT! #4 debuts Oct. 1 & 2

2011-08-19T01:01:00.001-07:00

Book will make its debut at Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco on Oct. 1 & 2. Introducing Li'l Tamanegi (that's Japanese for Li'l Onionface), everyone's favorite little devilish Korean moppet. You won't wanna miss this wild book. It's like spaghetti.

AW, CUTE! Those lovable Flophousers! Thanks, Pinguino Kolb!

2011-08-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Ace convention photographer PINGUINO KOLB captured those cute CARTOON FLOPHOUSE boys down at San Diego Comic-Con 2011 for ComicBookResources.com

Check out Pinguino's work at PinguinoKolb.com

Here's the entire page in context, c-c-c-c-c-check us out!

...CAPTAIN AMERICA...Major Disappointment!

2011-08-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

Forget coming out and siding openly with Republicans or Democrats, this is the post where I lose a bunch of Facebook friends...

Finally saw CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER last night and I was really, really, extra, super, mega disappointed.

Unlike with the THOR trailer, which I didn't like but the movie turned out to be entertaining, I should have trusted my instincts on the lousy CAPTAIN AMERICA trailer. (Although I love the CAP comics and the characters, so it's inevitable that I had to see this one for myself on the big screen.)

My criticisms:

Overall, this movie was long, tedious, and boring...and it took forever to get this train on track. It needs a good edit, especially with the first half. I can't imagine sitting through this one a second time, it was paced so badly.

Once the story gets going, that whole Red Skull/cosmic cube storyline is not that great...and by the end of the movie, the storyline seems to be basically a direct Rainbow Bridge to the inevitable Avengers movie.

A lot of people criticized the choice of Chris Evans online just because he played the cocky Human Torch. Chris Evans was a good choice...and, yes, since he's an actor, he can play the opposite with Steve Rogers: humble and heroic. So that casting never bothered me. That is the least of this movie's problem.

The Red Skull was good enough, although, I think in light of more emotionally complex villains in Marvel movies, such as Loki and Magneto this summer, the Red Skull comes off as a simplistic, old-school cartoon evil villain. Which is about right for the Red Skull if you've ever read CAPTAIN AMERICA comics. So I guess that was good enough but a tad dissatisfying.

What I thought was clever was that they explained the whole Captain America identity initially as an Uncle Sam character to rouse soldiers and Americans during the war. That was a good move and a logical explanation for an otherwise corny alter ego.

A little too much character development and origin stuff before we get to the primo Cap stuff. We also get an entire movie's worth of prototype Captain America costumes...I know it makes sense to save the good costume for the (contemporary) Avengers movie and ground the costumes in reality, but I still don't like these costumes...

That first mission was ridiculous...Did he need to take the phony shield with him on the mission (after all, it wasn't vibranium or whatever) and with a giant American flag on his back, he sneaks around inconspicuously through the Hydra facility. Other than liberating the Howling Commandos, which could've been elsewhere in the movie, this whole part of the movie was unnecessary filler, delaying us from seeing him with the "real" costume/shield.

Way too many contrivances, such as the Nazi escaping in the submarine waiting for him off the dock...Tommy Lee Jones and Sgt. Carter arriving with the car as Red Skull's plane is about to launch...Rogers guessing a phony baseball game on the radio because he happened to be at that game, etc....a million little silly moments like that. Not to mention Red Skull's silly bombs with the names of American cities on 'em. Seriously? They're painting exposition on the side of the bomb props!

They made the Red Skull and Hydra beyond Nazis, so we don't actually get to see Cap do some Nazi-smashing...which defeats the original point of this character.

The zipline to the roof of the train move was cool but ultimately absurd and unnecessary. That whole train battle was kind of dubious.

The romantic tension between Cap and Carter never ignites in a real way. Ultimately, Captain America is turned into a kamikaze pilot (remember, he doesn't know he's going to survive the ages trapped in ice as he crashes Red Skull's plane). I'm not sure how I feel about that part, I think I would've preferred to see him wind up in ice during battle (maybe while fighting the Red Skull on the crashing plane and this way they both get iced and we get the extra threat of Red Skull surviving into modern times...instead Red Skull gets the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" Nazi leader special at the end.)

Another nitpick: What was the point, truly, of that mindfuck 1941 apartment environment that Rogers wakes up in other than to try and trick the audience? Isn't he going to look out the window and see that the cityscape is just a big screen? That was funny.

Finally, it's a contest to see who is phoning in their performance the hardest: Tommy Lee Jones or Sam Jackson. Jones wins since has more screen time. I've never seen Jones look so out of it on screen. He took the money and ran...

*******

After a summer that gave us two terrific Marvel movies in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and THOR, I have to regulate CAPTAIN AMERICA: FIRST AVENGER to the bottom of the Marvel barrel, where gross stuff like WOLVERINE, IRON MAN 2, GHOST RIDER, Ang Lee's HULK, and ELEKTRA sticks to the ground. It's not nearly as bad as those movies, but given that the source material is Jack Kirby's Captain America (the first comic book I ever read was a Lee/Kirby Cap), the stakes are greater and it's failings make this movie much more disappointing for me.

(OK, to everyone de-friending me right now, it's been nice knowing ya!)

50 Years Ago Today: The Marvel Revolution Officially Began...

2011-08-08T16:48:00.000-07:00

Aug. 8, 1961.

Even though I was not yet born when this issue came out 50 years ago today, this book was destined to change and shape my life. Can you dig it?

Growing up, there was nothing like Marvel Comics, and I'll never forget the joy they showered unto my childhood. The first comic book I ever bought was this one, MARVEL DOUBLE FEATURE #10, with a Lee/Kirby Cap feature and a Lee/Colan Iron Man back-up story:

If you've read enough Marvel Comics, there's nothing special about this issue...Just another book for Lee and the gang...Yet another comic that pitted Cap against the Red Skull, Iron Man vs. Growing Man, etc.

Oh, except that this issue was VERY special when you're only six years old, G, and it's the very first comic book that you've ever read! (Purchased by my grandparents for me, when I was age 6, off the spinner rack at Irving's Pizza in Canarsie, Brooklyn.)

Fifty years ago today, the great Jack Kirby, via Mr. Fantastic's flare gun, fired the first shot of a revolution heard around the world: the true beginning of modern Marvel Comics.

FF#1 and all of the other Stan Lee-written comics of the 1960s, with imaginative art by Kirby, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, Don Heck, Wally Wood, Bill Everett, and Johns Romita and Buscema, collectively since dubbed the Silver Age of Comics, were game-changing. The most influential American comics short of, perhaps, those original Superman and Batman comics...but I loved Marvel Comics more!

As a result of this titantic issue above, I continued to squander my allowance on Marvel Comics throughout the '70s and '80s, and I kept drawing, and I yearned to make a career based around creating, writing, drawing, comics, etc.

Then, somewhere in 1993, as American comics plunged face-first into the Digital Age, Marvel Comics put a rocket pack on its back and dove into a giant toilet while DC Comics sunk like a damn anchor. See, Stan Lee and all those original cats who drew the hell out of those books were long gone...and with it, they took the creativity and innovation. The House of Ideas became a House of Recycled Ideas.

Who knew that the landmark year of 1986 -- when "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns" were released, they not only signified a watershed of mature and sophisticated superhero comics that this was more or less the last time we would see such superhero comics.

Thanks to the future Image artists, Photoshop, sycophantic Watchmen/DKR "grim 'n' gritty" copycats, and the corrosive influence on superhero comics by the popularization of manga (no offense to manga, a fine comics form in its own right that is superb when the Japanese cartoonists do it...), Marvel and DC Comics were bled dry of their charm, style, and new ideas.

Thank goodness for Hollywood, or else there'd be nothing exciting about Marvel anymore (and even that can be hit or miss...)

(Note: This is not a rant against comics in general. The comic book form has never been more ambitious and glorious. The world of comics is alive with amazing art comics, autobio comics, humor comics, kiddie comics, historical comics, slice-of-life comics, European and Asian comics, webcomics...In other words, every sector of comics EXCEPT the superhero stuff.)

Instead of scratching their heads and trying to figure out why superhero comics don't sell anymore, perhaps the executives working at these glorified toilet machines they have the nerve to still call Marvel and DC should start by looking at issue #1 --- no, not issue #1 of their crappy re-numbered comics (which are no better than the crappy comics they've published for the past 20 years) but FANTASTIC FOUR #1--- and try to honestly figure out how and why Stan Lee and company made superhero comics so magical and exciting.

Recent flicks I enjoyed: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, HARRY POTTER, THOR, 9, BROOKLYN'S FINEST

2011-08-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

In most cases, remakes, sequels and prequels make me cringe...but sometimes a good reboot is a good opportunity to start over and try something fresh without insulting the source material.

Tim Burton's PLANET OF THE APES (2001) was NOT such a film, but RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is.

I'm an old-school POTA fan. I grew up digging the original and its increasingly less-satisfying sequels. I recently re-watched episodes of the POTA TV show and they hold up pretty damn dirty well for a one-hour show based on APES. So what I don't want to see is another cheesy, creatively vacant POTA blockbuster like Burton's movie (the ape makeup aside).

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES managed to offer an alternate take on the POTA mythology that felt fresh and fun. The CG, for once, is pretty amazing, as they've made a sympathetic character out of Ceasar. You wind up rooting for the apes to win, but that means betting against us humans. I don't want to overhype RISE/APES, it's not a classic and it will no way ever upstage the chilling effect of the clever original APES movies on me and my childhood. But if you go in with an open mind, it's a very entertaining movie with charms all its own.

I also caught the HARRY POTTER finale this weekend. I'm not a big fan of the series, I've only seen three of these movies, and I enjoyed Part I of Deathly Hallows more than this one, but Part II was decent and an okay wrap-up to a series that I'm not that emotionally invested in (only read the first book). I was hoping Harry would use the Elder Wand to resurrect Dobby the House Elf, who bit it in the last movie...but that selfish bastard only thinks about himself. Oh, well....Entertaining...but I personally enjoyed RISE/APES way more.

I've moaned all summer how bad THOR looked based on its trailer and print ads, but THOR, as it turned out, was not the THORture I expected. Some of my first impressions held true: Asgard looks chinsy-phony at times (although the Rainbow Bridge was cool), the multi-racial Asgard is a stretch, Anthony Hopkins kind of phones in this role for the 1,000th time, and they gave Destroyer nothing to destroy in that one-horse New Mexico town (Kirby would've placed the battle in Manhattan with millions of lives hanging in the balance). That said, like X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, the two stars of THOR carried this movie on their shoulders. That is, the actors playing Thor and Loki. Natalie Portman is easy on the eyes but I always found her to be an unconvincing actress and an irritant - here, unlike in so many other movies, her unimpressive, flat acting does not get in the way of the fun. The Hawkeye cameo will take some work to pick out. The Samuel L. Jackson Nick Fury needs to drive himself off of a cliff. He's such a load.

So far, in this summer's superhero derby, I rank X-MEN: FIRST CLASS first, followed by THOR and GREEN LANTERN (unfortunately) at the bottom. I'm going to see CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER this week so we'll see where that falls among these movies.

If only those Marvel execs had not pissed off Ed Norton, we might've had our HULK sequel by now, co-starring The Leader. Instead we got GREEN LANTERN's creepy Hector Hammond. Yuck.

Two movies that stood out for me this summer that I caught up with on DVD/Netflix were both from 2009: "9" (which came out on Sept-9-09--get it?), and "Brooklyn's Finest."

The animated Tim Burton-produced "9," which took a familiar kind of concept but executed it very well. It might be, indirectly, reminiscent of another futureshock animated feature "Wall-E." For homogenous creatures with numerical names, "9" and its animators breathed a lot of life and personality into these characters. I enjoyed "Coraline" at the time but I don't remember it anymore, I think "9" will stick with me. Do not confuse this movie with "Nine," that dumb musical.

Highly-recommended: "Brooklyn's Finest" is by the same director who gave us "Training Day," but this one is way better. (I enjoyed "Training Day" but found Denzel Washington's performance too showy and scenery-chewing by the movie's end.) This corrupt cops movie 'Brooklyn's Finest" kind of came and went, but it's more grounded in reality and the acting in this movie is tremendous: Don Cheadle is especially in fine form (as if anticipating his crappy role the following year in "Iron Man 2")...Wesley Snipes, Richard Gere, and even Ethan Hawke all pull their weight and give powerhouse performances. Ellen Barkin has a good scene. You've probably never heard of this film, which is too bad...It really warrants some word of mouth. Kind of like a good '70s Hollywood movie with an excellent climactic finale. A really nice surprise and one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Those RISE guys in P & A

2011-08-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

I'm glad RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is getting great reviews, I'm looking forward to seeing this film...as long as it veers away from the 2001 Tim Burton film.

The marketeers of this one did a great job on the poster. I enjoy the simplicity of this image and the incorporation of the original (or near original) POTA font. A stark image...and Ceasar's scheming eyes.

It sure beats the CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER poster campaign where they don't even show Cap's mask in favor of Chris Evans' face. You'd think the movie's about the WWII adventures of a blond guy!

LI'L TAMANEGI to make her big debut in CARTOON FLOPHOUSE FEATURING GREENBLATT THE GREAT! #4 at A.P.E. Oct. 1 & 2

2011-08-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

At long last, the final ish of my four GREENBLATT THE GREAT! comic book magazines will debut at APE (Alternative Press Expo '11) on Oct. 1 and 2 in San Francisco. It's CARTOON FLOPHOUSE FEATURING GREENBLATT THE GREAT! #4, folks.

Special thanks to my pal JOSE CABRERA of CRYING MACHO MAN fame who helped me with the technical execution of this cover design. Jose also applied his talents to the first issue of CARTOON FLOPHOUSE FEATURING GREENBLATT THE GREAT!

I'm also vying to have the complete GREENBLATT THE GREAT! collection in trade paperback form by the show.

And while some of the #4 strips will be in that collection, not all of them will. Namely, the main event of CF magazine #4: the saga of LI'L TAMANEGI, a devilish little Korean moppet who is something akin to Hello Kitty with dark edges. By the way, "Tamanegi" is the Japanese word for "onion face."

Expect other surprises in the mag as well, including our first ever Greenblatt the Great! letters page...(Oops! There goes one surprise...)

Here's all the skinny on APE. My table will be listed under CartoonFlophouse.com and I'll be elbow to elbow with my buddy Javier Hernandez of EL MUERTO AZTEC ZOMBIE notoriety, who will have HIS new book, an intriguing superhero/fantasy hybrid called THE COMA. (So don't sleep on our table, OK?).

I can't recommend the A.P.E. show enough. While Comic-Con is a great experience, as a convention itself, it's my favorite: about 6,000 people across two days at the Concourse who are interested in independent/alternative/art comics. No Hollywood hype, no dreary mainstream superhero shlock and video game noise, no lines and high costs and near impossible, year-in-advance scoring of badges....just talented cartoonists with terrific comics and graphic novels that push the medium's envelope. This year, old favorites Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine and my acquaintance Shannon Wheeler are among the talents being special-guested at the show.

So drive on over unless you live in Andover.

See ya in San Francisco, Nabisco!

Current Reading: Humor comics galore! My SDCC Stash - Mark Arnold's CRACKED Vol. 1, Lonnie Milsap's I HATE MY JOB, etc.

2011-08-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Came back from San Diego Comic-Con 2011 with a stack of books to read...

Not included in that pile is my new friend Lonnie Milsap's just-released second compilation I HATE MY JOB, another collection of his fun, sick, single-panel gag cartoons that harken back to Gary Larson's THE FAR SIDE crossed with some politically incorrect twists on NEW YORKER cartoons. The most delicious element is that he inserts a stock caricature of himself into most of the proceedings for an extra tickle. Yeah, he sold them at SDCC, sharing a table with alt comics legend Keith Knight, but I waited till I was back on the mainland to pick it up at his signing last weekend at the Talking Stick coffee lounge in Venice. If you haven't caught Milsap's terrific work, he'll be signing and doodling up both of his collections on August 10 at Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica. Highly recommended!

Another winner is Mark Arnold's fun and informative new book "If You're CRACKED, You're Happy!" Vol. 1 the Early Years ---- A history of CRACKED that comes in two volumes. I'm early in this read but it's really terrific so far and Mark's writing is clear, direct, and at once historical yet informal and the opposite of didactic, dull and verbose (like some academic books can be...even the ones on cartoonists....). CRACKED magazine, of course, was MAD's greatest competitor (of which there were many) and, as I've found along the way, tons of my cartoonist friends and myself were almost as influenced by and into CRACKED in our early years as MAD itself.

Speaking of MAD, looking forward to reading the first issue of SERGIO ARAGONES' FUNNIES from Bongo by my old CAPS amigo Mr. A, THE POSSUM series by my new buddy Blair Kitchen and SPY GUY by his brother Mike Kitchen (an animator on the terrific Tim Burton-produced animated feature "9"), and FOREVER FRESHMAN by my new pals Neil and Ray, who will have a signing party on Aug. 13 at Geeks Comics in Uptown Whittier.

Right now, humor comics are where it's at, you dig, Doug?

Partying Hard in San Diego with PopCultureGeek.com

2011-08-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

One of the cooler people I met at this year's San Diego Comic-Con was NOT Chris Evans or Kristen Stewart but LUIS CALDERON of PopCultureGeek.com -----who I'm proud to call an instant super-fan* (*definition: Cartoon Flophousers, or satisfied readers who return to buy the latest Cartoon Flophouse book.)

Luis not only informed me that he's a big fan of SILLY GOOSE (which he stumbled upon at th Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach, one of the best comic book shops in California)....but he purchased copies of every comic on the table and also included me in a film vignette on the indy creators at Comic-Con on PopCultureGeek.com that you can find right here. Check it out!

In the background of Calderon's interview with my table neighbor at the show, Jason Brubaker, another super-fan, Mr. Alex Acosta, who has made the CartoonFlophouse.com booth a regular Comic-Con destination, is seen receiving a signed and doodled copy of GREENBLATT THE GREAT! #3.

My longtime pal Javier Hernandez, the "El Muerto, Aztec Zombie" creator making his grand return to tabling this year, and new pal Blair Kitchen are also included in this Small Press round up. (Personally, I dig the '70s "Battlestar Galactica"-style font on some of the name titles. There's nothing like schlocky '70s sci-fi cheese...)

A big-up super-thanks to Luis Calderon, a reader of impeccable taste and class, for hyping us independent/alternative cartoonists. Man, we each need, like, 500,000 readers as enthusiastic and engaged in the humor comics stuff as Luis Calderon.

Since that's too much to ask for, right now, we've locked Blair up down in the lab dungeon until he finds a way of cloning Mr. Calderon. Stay tuned...

Wave Smurfin' Good-bye to SD Comic-Con 2011!

2011-07-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

Even though I'm sure I'll be posting more Comic-Con pix, let's pay tribute to the convention, which began a week ago, in a single, powerful and poignant image...

....Great times, great memories, and shamelessly sentimental symbolism in blueface. I'm glad someone snapped this image because I left my camera at home...This is as obscene a Comic-Con image as I could possibly find this year!

P.S. -- If they grow Smurfs this big, imagine the mushrooms!

Behind the Flophouse: San Diego Comic-Con 2011

2011-07-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

NON-EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: JIM LUJAN THE ANIMATOR.

In what was surely a sad, tragic, apocalyptic week between the events in Norway, the passing of Amy Winehouse, and the default on debt discussion STILL unsettled (jeez, people!), it's with great shame and embarrassment that I present to you the first of what may be several waves of photos coming in from San Diego, where the too-busy-for-wi-fi Cartoon Flophouse crew essentially operated in a ridiculous bubble that looked (and smelled) like this:

Yes, news of the world was put on hold at the San Diego Convention Center, where we all didn't have much of a clue and the biggest drama of the week was the guy who played the Lizard getting arrested at the Spider-Man movie panel for attacking a security woman (sounds like a publicity stunt to us...)
There's our humble photo supplier, animator Jim Lujan, doing his morning meditations before pushing DVDs of his Ghettomation cartoon comedy shorts such as "Shady Guys" and "Bench Warrant" (not to be confused with "Bench Warmers" starring David Spade, which is a live-action cartoon short on comedy). Jim tabled with the great Jose Cabrera of Crying Macho Man fame. (More on him in a moment...)
Here I am at the Cartoon Flophouse booth, which I shared with the Agimat crew, who successfully debuted their new video game "Flip Riders," which comes out in August on all platforms. Look for this dense, 21-level game here!

In this photo, I'm talking to one of my Super-Fans, Alex Acosta, who showed me some cool drawings of a pug character that coincidentally resembled Pugly Pug from "Chipmunks & Squirrels" and some other super upcoming concepts he's working on for his strips. Also: Alex drew me a very cool doodle of Greenblatt the Great! as Popeye. It's loyal Flophousers like Alex that keep the cartoon comedy coming....
My host once again this year was the amazing Alex Vallejo...and once again, his gracious goddaughter Geneva (wrong spelling) joined us for a week of hilarity and hijinks. She's a smart, grounded teen...so what the hell was she doing hanging around with us?
The new wrinkle on Comic-Con (other than the crows feet on these guys----ha ha!) was the Trickster "convention" across the street from the Convention Center. Amazingly, this "convention" went on until 1 AM every night, when we hung out on the patio. Meanwhile inside, they auctioned off original art and had guys like Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine play some acoustic tunes and models pose for a roomful of drooling men for a drawing class. Inevitably, every night, we wound up here after dinner in the Gaslamp, as it was an automatic after hours. It was a great mix of friends old and new, many of us from California. Above: Me (Michael Aushenker), Jose Cabrera, Jim Lujan, Dan C. from Denver, our newest L.A. crony gag extraordinaire Lonnie Millsap and Denver staple Stan Yan of the Squidworks network.
Here, "K Chronicles" cartoonist Keith Knight wonders why Lujan smells like Michael Aushenker. That's because too-cool-for-the-AC-amped-room Jim borrowed my sweater to stave off the goosebumps. He looks pretty sharp in that form-fitting blue number (designer: Old Navy...)
Around the bend from Jose and Jim, Toronto titan Blair Kitchen of "The Possum" series shared his table with one of my greatest pals, Javier Hernandez, creator of "El Muerto, Aztec Zombie." Together, El Muerto and The Possum tag-teamed the populace with a one-two cartoon punch.

On Friday night, we all blew our voices out at Dick's Last Resort (the restaurant where the staff insults you).

With a full bland blaring '80s hits like "Jesse's Girl" and "Summer of 69" and the waiter yelling epithets at us, Stan Yan and I valiantly ordered something called The Big Woody (not as dirty as it sounds...).

Cabrera ordered the catfish and, understandably, he didn't want to hear anything about The Big Woody...

...until our order arrived....holy Toledo! Beef ribs-o-rama! I felt the weight of jealous eyes all over me coming from every direction as it took me 45 chewy minutes to tackle just one of those delicious antlers. Random strangers took photos of me enjoying dinner. It looked that good!

Jose's one of my favorite people in the world so I can "rib" him on this blog. (Also not as dirty as it sounds.)

We had a great gang of friends with us. I love these people and it's always a gas hanging out with them (even outside of the convention center's wall-to-wall flatulence....maybe selling nachos and pizza to 100,000 out-of-shape couch potatoes is not such a hot idea...)

A grateful Grasiella Rodriguez (you know, the "Lunatic Fringe" comic) bought me a drink called the Hurricane because I helped her secure some hard-to-find lodging in Little Italy. Oh, what a night. Then it was back to Trickster for some more after-hours partying....

Evidently, Galactus not only banished his herald Norrin Radd to Earth but also condemned him to the worst job in San Diego - dealing with guests at this noisy, screaming zoo! I hope the Silver Surfer has as much fun as we did! Also spotted: Storm, a Stormtrooper (no relation).

Hey, Surfer....Tell Galactus that you're our little bitch now, you shiny little trailer hitch!

Back to the convention, where I often threw crazy fits in-between selling Cartoon Flophouse comics. Nobody noticed. It didn't help that people would pass by me and say, "Nice costume!" I don't even want to know what I was supposedly dressed like.
Dean LeCrone is a talented cartoonist who I had not seen in years. With his son Paul, he came by with a copy of "Tacklebear and Barko," one of my old favorites. The best riff on the absurdity of Comic-Con is his film "Dean LeCrone vs. the Mutants of Comic-Con," which I bough on DVD back in 2007. If you want to see the ultimate goof on Comic-Con, buy this DVD. It's hilarious!
"Suave" Jav Hernandez went into ladies' man mode when the sultry Mayra came to town.
Mayra was a ball of energy and we forgot all about the convention and the comics.

Gratuitous Broadway moves followed, and Jav quickly taped a Bob Hope variety special in which he did some George Burns dance moves. Special guest star: Brooke Shields

Then Jav told her to hit the road, he had some books to sell. You can take Jav out of the business...

A window into the relationship of Bernyce Talley and her beau Ricardo, who is enjoying his complimentary Tintin and Snowy bag more than she is. Jealous, Bernyce?
Ironically, cartoonist and children's book Rhode Montijo, author of great books such as "Cloud Boy" and "The Halloween Kid," is the least shadiest guy I know. But Jim Lujan found a way of corrupting him with this copy of his dirty, filthy cartoons. What a scumbag, that Jim!
Here, I'm doing my "Airport Security Dance" as we rally to take the trolley to the lolley in Old Town. Ta-looley-looley!
Here, Jim is saying something to the effect that his balls are cold and he needs to borrow my boxers. I happily obliged. Luckily, I always wear a spare thong.
The underworld has its cold, cutthroat characters----capable of unspeakable acts and heinous heists. Clearly, Aushenker and Lujan here are sending chills throughout the underworld...by buying them Slurpees and forcing them to drink them really fast. Brain freeeeeeeeze! Ooogh!
On Saturday night, our annual Old Town dinner went down, for the second year in a row at the El Fandango. Great food, great company, mango and strawberry margaritas....and only one person in costume.
Back to the criminal world. Remember that scene in "The Town" with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner? Well, this was worse.
Taking our cues from "The Electric Company," Stan and I did the word game routine. "Shh!" "Utup!" "Shut up!" Do-to-doo-doo!
Here's the official album cover. Note the creepy ex-band member lurking in the back above Stan Yan's neck. Stalker alert!
In order to scare away thugs and ex-band members, I took to the air like a vulture. GAWK! GAWK! It pretty much worked, until I started to molt.
Jim Lujan and Alex Vallejo.
Jamie Baker shared a booth with Rhode Montijo as always. This year's costume theme: "The Great Grunge Revival."
I'd be lying if I didn't say that we are two handsome son of a bitches. More likely, I'd be lying if I said that.

Here we are at Fillipe's Pizza Grotto, enjoying a glass of red wine before making that long drive back to Los Angeles. Is there no end to this romance story?
You can write the caption for this shot.
Michael Aushenker, Jim Lujan, cousin Ted Lujan (mustache) and Crying Macho Man's Jose Cabrera. If you're wondering why Jose is the only one smiling, it's because he ate the entire pizza and did not leave any slices for the rest of us. Don't worry, we got our revenge by burying his car in Goldfish crackers (price tag on prank: $50,020). Ha-ha! Take that!

Off to San Diego Comic-Con July 20-24..Booth # O-08

2011-07-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

Attending San Diego Comic-Con 7/20-24...Comic-Conners, look for me at the CartoonFlophouse.com booth #O-08 where I'll be signing/doodling my new "Those Unstoppable Rogues" collection and my other comics. Enjoy the week, Facebookers, Tweeters and emailers! I'll be back in L.A. on Monday, July 25.

SDCC'11> Booth # O-08 -Look for the CARTOON FLOPHOUSE.COM banner

2011-07-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, now I'm officially prepared for Comic-Con 2011. That's my friend, the glorious Adonna of AGIMAT Comics and Video Games, posing with my spiffy new, freshly pressed

CARTOON FLOPHOUSE.COM banner.

Agimat and Cartoon Flophouse comics will share booth # O-08 in the Small Press section. That's OO8 - Think James Bond, licensed to kill....plus 1! (Yes, we're actually one-upping James Bond!!)

And here's the FLIP RIDERS banner, along with the banner for my CRYING MACHO MAN and part-time Cartoon Flophouse partner Jose Cabrera, who you should also track down in Small Press. He's got two new TPBs, including the full-color MACHO AND THE GANG.

Come down to the CARTOON FLOPHOUSE/AGIMAT booth #O-08 and hang out. Play the new FLIP RIDERS video game, check out the brand new THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES trade paperback, get all kinds of free comics, t-shirts, candy.

See you in Sandy Eggo, my shizzo! Gumby: Hi-five!

PHOTOS: July 3 Laguna Beach signing HI DE HO COMICS

2011-07-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

Well, if you're sitting at home this weekend avoiding the epic car jam, you might as well thumb through this album from our Fantastic Fourth Weekend Laguna Beach Blast-Off comic book signing. For many more photos, follow this link to Facebook.

Visit CARTOONFLOPHOUSE.COM at booth # O-08

2011-07-08T12:57:00.001-07:00

Working up to the minute on some top secret EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER projects that, if all goes well, will be available at San Diego Comic-Con 2011 (JULY 20-24).

Either way, there will be plenty in store at the CartoonFlophouse.com booth, located in Small Press at # O-08. (That's the letter O, number zero, number eight in case you've lost your decoder ring.)

I'll be partnering with the Agimat crew, who will debut FLIP RIDERS, a brand new motocross video game. Agimat is best known for their SHADOW CANDY webcomic. Arvie and Adonna of Agimat will have all kinds of snazzy limited edition T-shirts and other promotional freebies to give out so stop by the booth.

Definitely for sale at SDCC '11: signed and doodled copies of THE NINE LIVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER (the classic original book), THE NINE LOVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER (extra sexy issue for the mature reader), the first of three planned THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES trade paperback collections called THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD!

Magazines for sale will include copies of HARRY LUMMEL, SILLY GOOSE and various GREENBLATT THE GREAT! books.

And don't forget, you can still pick up copies of GUMBY'S GANG STARRING POKEY, the book I wrote with artist Rafael Navarro, at the Gumby Comics table. Raf and I will both be at SDCC and happy to sign 'em up! Our book just got a terrific review over at Comics Journal critic Rob Clough's website. (Scroll down to post #2)

See y'all in sunny Sandy Eggo!

Comics Journal Critic Rob Clough Reviews GUMBY'S GANG STARRING POKEY

2011-07-03T22:53:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of hangin' out with my buddy Rafael Navarro at today's Fantastic Fourth Laguna Beach Blast-Off signing (my head's still spinnin' from the fun times there), here's a rave review by Comics Journal reviewer Rob Clough for our love child, the epic kiddie comic GUMBY'S GANG STARRING POKEY. Here's the link to Clough's full-scale kiddie comic wrap-up, which includes several other comics aimed at the youngins, and below is a re-posting of his review, which is very positive. In addition to the talents he notes, I have to thank our publisher, Mel Smith, and our editor, Paul Birch, for their input in shaping our book.

JULY 3, 2011 post at HIGHLOWCOMICS.BLOGSPOT.COM

Gumby's Gang Starring Pokey #1, by Michael Aushenker & Rafael Navarro. (Gumby Comics. Aimed roughly at ages 7-10.) This is an agreeably dopey comic jammed with funny visuals, dumb puns and just plain nonsense. In other words, this time travel story is a snug fit in the continuum of strangeness that is the world of Gumby & Pokey. Navarro's loopy line and Lance Borde's garish colors give the reader something interesting to look at in every panel. Gumby and Pokey are funny-looking characters to begin with, but Navarro's drawings of Gumby & Pokey as Run-DMC, cube-headed people of the future and Gumby climbing the Trojan Horse are simply funny apart from their larger context. Aushenker's references to 80s rap, the Minutemen, and Suicidal Tendencies are meant to fly over the heads of any kids who happen to be reading the comic (sort of the way The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle did). Aushenker's frantic, silly and absurd style of humor is a contrast to the gentler, slower pace of the original cartoons, but creator Art Clokey designed these clay characters to be flexible in every sense of the word. Aushenker clearly respects the source material but exploits that flexibility to expand the world and references of its star characters. I don't think every kid who reads this would like it, but a certain kind of kid to whom absurdism is appealing would no doubt re-read it endlessly.

See ya Sunday at Hi De Ho Comics, Laguna Beach, for the Blast-Off!

2011-07-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Catch Cartoon Flophouse comics and friends at the Ho in Laguna all day Sunday for the Fantastic Fourth Laguna Beach Blast-Off event. By the way, on the bonus tip, free bookmarks of the above design will be handed out at the event while supplies last...Here's lots more info and here's a run down of cool artists in attendance... And/or Have a terrific Fourth of July weekend! Merry Christmas!

EL GATO VS. BRITISH PHONE ADVERT LUCHADOR!

2011-07-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

Funny stuff... A British phone company whipped up a character for an ad that looks suspiciously (or coincidentally) but definitely anatomically close to a certain Crime Mangler (the mug looks more Charles Burns' El Borbah). This is an ad from a few years ago and I've been aware of it for a long time, I just never got around to posting about it until now.

Diamond Dist. has carried all of my El Gato books, and some copies sold to comic book stores in London. So who knows if the inspiration is direct, but it's funny either way. My character aside, I'm not sure that's the best way to sell a new SIM card or whatever it is that's going on with this phone company.

Of course, phone ads be damned, there is only one EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER!!!!

Baby, if you ever wondered....

2011-06-29T09:48:00.001-07:00

...wondered, whatever became of Loni. She's livin' on the air in Santa Monica, makin' the art scene at Bergamot Station.

Here's the article to go with it...

We'll miss GENE COLAN and his fantastic art...

2011-06-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

The first comic I ever read had a Stan Lee/Gene Colan Iron Man as a back up feature (behind a Lee/Kirby Captain America story). It was a tale in which Iron Man battled the Growing Man.

I'll never forget how alien and otherworldly his tall, elegant, looming Iron Man was. He drew Iron Man to perfection. That iconic cover for the Invincible Iron Man #1 underscores how he owned that character (among many others).

Years later, I got to know his work on Tomb of Dracula, Son of Satan, Howard the Duck...and I got to interview him by phone for an article on Captain America and Falcon in Back Issue #22. I'm glad I had the chance to hear some of his stories working for Marvel.

I loved his run on Brother Voodoo in Strange Tales. His art was always beautifully atmospheric.

We just lost a giant in the field and the game will never be the same again knowing Gene the Dean is no longer among us.

With Super Friends Like These...

2011-06-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

...Who needs Barbie dolls?

Here's the entire gang...

Machine Man and Triton (left) are two of Jack Kirby's greatest throwaway characters (while Batroc the Leaper [right] is his best hop-away character).

I call these two Perlin's pearls...Son of Satan and Moon Knight, key characters memorably drawn by my fellow Canarsie crony Don Perlin.

I'm sure some of you lovely mademoiselles out there are looking for a tall, dark, bouncy Frenchman with a Salvador Dali mustache, non?

Yes, the greatest Marvel superheroes this summer....may be on my shelf. Just kidding, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was a first rate movie. We'll see how CAP turns out. (Haven't seen THOR yet...)

Meanwhile, see you at San Diego Comic-Con at the CARTOON FLOPHOUSE table in Small Press, booth # O-08. That's the letter O, zero, eight. Ciao for now......

Going GREEN this week...From LANTERN to HORNET...

2011-06-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Seth Rogen (left) and Jay Chou (right)

Hot on the heels of seeing GREEN LANTERN in the theaters, I'm reminded about how relative disappointing superhero flicks are....watching GREEN HORNET on DVD. Wow, is HORNET a stinker... I'll take GREEN LANTERN any day over this shit sandwich!

Disappointment is the wrong word in HORNET's case as I had zero to sub-zero expectations for this enterprise (but now that it's on DVD, I thought, what the heck, I'd take a gander): Rogen is physically miscast in this role as is the film's arthouse director. Rogen doesn't appear superheroic but more buffoonish, like he crashed the set from the sequel to PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (an overall fun film, by the way). This hero-with-father-issues business is old hat (so old that the 1930s Green Hornet wouldn't wear it). Century City hasn't been this exploited in a film since CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Storylines that feature plot twists that hinge on typing up a storm on a computer are cheesy. (Green Lantern had a scene like that with jet plane missiles, and that was the most bogus scene since any from SUPERMAN IV: QUEST FOR PEACE.)

With GREEN HORNET, I can see that they're going for a comedic superhero film but the dialogue here is not good silly, like absurd, but just cloying. The film constantly pokes fun of the very things that make GREEN HORNET, disrespecting the Shadow-esque source material that I'm guessing only older people would care about to begin with. Also, shoehorning this 1930s property into a contemporary storyline is awkward. It's obviously set in modern times but there's a patina of some kind of period film on it.

The screenplay is all over the map. The tone goes from humor to action to sentimentality so abruptly like it wants to be three different films. Also, the soundtrack pathetically shorthands what it wishes you would feel in any given scene (although these songs come on the soundtrack so quickly, it feels forced and MTV-cheesy). For example, when Brett's father dies in the film, cut to a quick snippet of Johnny Cash's "I Hung My Head," then abruptly cut to some upbeat song as the scene changes, then something else. It's so artificial, it adds another pathetic layer to this enterprise. It's a desperate attempt to evoke emotions that are not coming from the acting or writing (IMO).

Yeah, and the self-parody shtick is annoying. If they really hate GREEN HORNET that much and think the whole thing is goofy, why make this film to begin with? For a thousand reasons, this movie is a mess.

Seriously, if they're going to update the Green Hornet already, just cast an Asian-AMERICAN in the Kato role so we can understand what the fuck he's saying. If I were a studio head and I got the footage back and was forced to listen to this junk coming out of Jay Chou's mouth, I'd be pissing in my pants over the wasted millions. Same with those horrible RUSH HOUR movies where you have to sit through Jackie Chan's garbled pigeon English. Who can sit through that shit? It's 2011, they can get rid of the ching-chong Asian crap. For the sake of clarity, that's one GREEN HORNET rule they should update and goddamn fix so that we don't have to wince every time Kato speaks. It's totally annoying and it takes you out of the story.

The worst part of this film is that I can't understand a damn word Jay Chou says and, unfortunately, I can understand every word Rogen says. Hipping him up by having him croaking some hip hop lingo and rapping along to "Gangsta's Paradise" is kind of sad. The Matrix bullet-motion and Batman score steals don't help.

Christoph Waltz as the insecure crime boss basically strives to undo the brilliance he shone unto INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS as Landa with the clutch stuck on 3 in reverse. He's amazingly bad in this movie. Cameron Diaz, not Christoph Waltz, is the true villain of this film with her shrill screaming and lack of any good lines.

There's even a scene where Britt Reid and Kato fight each other, like in those PINK PANTHER comedies where Inspector Clouseau fights his Kato sidekick (maybe the filmmaker got the two enterprises mixed up).

This film is lighter and easier on the eyes than THE SPIRIT, an even lower form of domino-mask wearing superhero-film lifeform that this one superficially resembles. But this mix of superhero action and comedy and schmaltzy sincerity and Cameron Diaz just doesn't gel. Even the animated end titles are pretty lame.

Amazingly, (and unlike THE SPIRIT), this crazy project made its money back (not counting marketing) with a worldwide gross of more nearly $230 million. That's a true WTF! I just hope that doesn't mean there's a sequel coming!

At least they didn't spend $300 million making and marketing this green garbage. Poor Warner Bros., what were they thinking wasting so much money on GREEN LANTERN or ANY superhero movie for that matter. That's way overbudget, even for a Superman flick...they should've been a tad more fiscally responsible (like a frugal $200 million) on what is obviously a B-level DC character. Only Nolan's Batman films might warrant such an exorbitant money (if that's really necessary).

In related news, this Box Office Mojo analysis of how the superhero flicks have jumped the shark this summer, drawing good but not great box office, is interesting... (I guess they're expecting DARK KNIGHT and IRON MAN-size hits every summer now...)

CARTOONISTS TO APPEAR AT HI DE HO COMICS, LAGUNA BEACH, ON SUNDAY, JULY 3

2011-06-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

JOSE CABRERA, creator of CRYING MACHO MAN!
MICHAEL AUSHENKER & RAFAEL NAVARRO, conspirators on GUMBY'S GANG STARRING POKEY!
Video game developers AGIMAT, creators of SUGAR RUSH, FLIP RIDERS, and the SHADOW CANDY webcomic.

RICHARD CARRADINE & LISA STROUSS, founders of GHOULA (Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles).

BURRITO creator Carlos Saldana.
Animator extraordinaire JIM LUJAN, creator of John Henry Unicorn and Rod Rosse the One Man Posse!
Graisela Rodriguez, the gal on the LUNATIC FRINGE.
Would you believe WILL CAULFIELD and BAT BAT will be there, too?
RAFAEL NAVARRO is the man behind SONAMBULO!
Michael Aushenker's latest book stars THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES!

SIGNING! HI DE HO comics shop LAGUNA BEACH, Sunday, July 3rd, 10 AM-6 PM

2011-06-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

Meet the creators of Bat Bat, Burrito,Crying Macho Man (featuring El Macho and Goya the Fighting Cock!), Sonambulo, El Gato the Crime Mangler, Ghettomation Cartoons, Ghoula Comix, Agimat video games such as Sugar Rush and Flip Riders. All this and more, July 3rd, 10 AM - 6 PM!

See the details on Facebook! Look up FANTASTIC FOURTH LAGUNA BEACH BLAST-OFF at Facebook for the page.

GREEN LANTERN and X-MEN movies teach me a lesson...

2011-06-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

I caught the GREEN LANTERN movie yesterday, and I found it a very mixed bag.

On the up side, Ryan Reynolds was terrific as the Hal Jordan/GL character, and the suit/mask didn't bother me as much as it did some people. I also enjoyed the parts on Oa, Sinestro, Kiliwog and all the cosmic stuff.

On the down side, the actress who played Carol Ferris was pretty awful, and all the stuff with her character, her father the senator (Tim Robbins) and the Hector Hammond stuff was very cornball, B-movie stuff. A helicopter scene and a balcony scene were almost parodies of similar moments in the original SUPERMAN, as were a few notes on the soundtrack, and the derivative SUPERMAN stuff bothered more more than anything about this movie. Also, the single worse scene for me was where Carol Ferris saves Hal by whipping out a laptop and firing some missiles from a jet - that was the single most ridiculous thing I've seen in a long time.

All that said, I enjoyed GREEN LANTERN enough to want to see a sequel and the return of Sinestro (now evil!), as I think the potential is there to keep this going into a franchise. Of course, if the box office take continues to dip, that sequel will never happen, but I hope it does well enough to invite a sequel, as I think this franchise could get better, as did X-MEN (the first X-MEN in 2000, after all, was only good in the movie's first half before going to crap).

Oh, the lesson I've learned this summer: don't judge a movie by its trailer: I thought the GREEN LANTERN trailer was by far the best of the superhero lot. I hated the THOR trailer, I dislike the CAPTAIN AMERICA trailer and I was completely indifferent to X-MEN: FIRST CLASS.

Well, as it turns out, I thought X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was not only the best X-Men movie but one of the all-time best Marvel movies, all of my friends who have seen THOR have loved it, and GREEN LANTERN, for all of my anticipation of a rip-roaring movie, did not live up to its potential. Shows you what the hell I know. Guess I should go against my instincts and see THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA and see if these two are any good.

SDCC 2011: CARTOON FLOHPOUSE and AGIMAT at SMALL PRESS Table 0-08

2011-06-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

CartoonFlophouse.com and video game makers AGIMAT will join forces at SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON this year for a rousing table of fun. Look for us in SMALL PRESS at Table O-08

Here's the entire SMALL PRESS section layout...per the official San Diego Comic-Con International site.

See you in Sandy Eggo, July 20 - 24! We'll be the ones partying hard!

X-MEN is definitely a FIRST CLASS Marvel superhero film...

2011-06-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first one to admit that I had sub-zero expectations for X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, which turned out to be my favorite of all X-Men films by a long shot.

In a summer in which I feel that I dodged a $14 bullet seeing the lousy-looking THOR and I'm still on the fence about whether CAPTAIN AMERICA: FIRST AVENGER can live up to some monumental expectations based on decades of great comics going back to WWII, I was in no mood to see X-MEN: FIRST CLASS....especially after the bad quality of the last few Marvel movies, such as GHOST RIDER, IRON MAN 2, and, the worse of the worse, that last X-MEN flick, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE.

All that said, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was a terrific surprise and an odd Marvel movie at that: a period superhero film that was not so slavish to the original X-Men comics but captured the spirit of it and went beyond, giving some great back story to the characters of Magneto and Professor X. You really find out what turned Erik into Magneto and why Charles Xavier winds up wheelchair-bound in clever fashion that I don't think was explored in the comics (at least not the original books).

The casting is inspired: Michael Fassbender as Magneto is terrific, this will definitely be a breakout role for him, and all of the Magneto scenes are solid gold (In the process of telling his story, this movie turns out to be the best revenge-on-Nazis film since INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS!)

James MacAvoy as Prof. X seems like an odd choice at first but it totally works. Kevin Bacon also steals much of the movie. The other characters are well-cast, including Beast, Banshee, and some (I think) a couple of made-up (or recent) characters.

(I think this movie really benefits from not being directly connected to either the original X-MEN films or that whole Avengers Initiative crap dragging down the movies leading up to AVENGERS.)

Yeah, this movie is not slavish to the original Lee/Kirby cast of X-MEN (no Cyclops --although brother Havok appears---and no Iceman and Angel in this movie is not the same Angel from the book)....and yeah, I'd probably like it a degree more if it wasn't such a mish-mash of random characters and they had included all of the original X-Men...

But this really fun and smart X-Men movie more than makes up for a few fanboy disappointments. What can I say? I wasn't looking forward to this movie very much, but the glorious reviews of my friends who saw it, coupled with my girlfriend Laura's desire to see it, got me into the theater...and I was not at all let down. Go see it if you're up for a good time and want to see the first truly inspired Marvel movie since 2008 or so.

Popeye's Wandering Eye....

2011-06-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Tearing a page from the Archie Comics playbook, Popeye can't decide whether he wants to go blonde or brunette. (On second thought, he seems less decisive than Archie...)

HIGH-LOW reviews THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD!

2011-06-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is a Rogue's world....But it wouldn't be nothin', nothin'...without readers and reviews!

THE COMICS JOURNAL critic Rob Clough just posted a gag cartoon book round-up at High-Low, which includes a pretty nifty review of my latest compilation, THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD! Check out the review, in which he digs the Rogues even more than Greenblatt the Great!

Hats off to Rob, who regularly posts precision reviews on comics and graphic novels on his High-Low blog. My thanks to Rob for reviewing THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD! and for continuing to obsess over humor comics in these days of cynical rehashes, reboots and renumberings. (Thankfully, Clucky and Brett make for lousy superheroes so they don't fall into all that soup...)

By coincidence, I happen to be planning to begin work on two ROGUES follow-up books (not part of a trilogy, just three books total featuring Clucky and Brett) later this year. So good news for ROGUES fans!

And all you Greenie heads, I'm not done yet with Greenblatt the Great! just yet. The GTG! ultimate trade paperback collection, HISTORY WILL BE SERVED!, debuts at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) 2011 in October. Look for all the old Greenblatt strips plus some new strips––all in one hefty, handy trade paperback edition.

THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD! will be available at the Cartoon Flophouse table at San Diego Comic-Con, July 20-24. Drop by, drop in, drop out, tune up!

Wally Wood Battle Covers!

2011-06-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've really come to appreciate Wally Wood's dynamic work, particularly on "Daredevil" and "T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents." No artist can rock a battle cover like Wood. This "Daredevil" #7 underwater smackdown is out of control. Lately, I've been on assignment, writing about aquatic superhero characters....so I'm especially sweet on this one at the moment.
However, my favorites remain those classic combat covers with Dynamo. This was the first issue of "T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents" I ever read and it's still my favorite. "Alice!....Alice!" Ha ha! Good ol' Len Brown! This surely is the greatest fight of all time: better than "Rumble in the Junlge!"
What perfection, these crazy covers. We should all be this talented, there wouldn't be any strife in the world.
"No man" can draw compositions such as this one like Wally Wood. Can you dig it?

Wally Wood....you were okay, man! You were one cool dude. Rock ON!

COMICS SIGNING! SAVE THAT DATE: SUN., JULY 3rd, LAGUNA BEACH....

2011-06-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

GHOULA and CARTOONISTAS! fans alike....Save that date: Sunday, July 3rd, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., lotsa L.A.-area cartoonists will descend on HI DE HO COMICS in LAGUNA BEACH for the FANTASTIC FOURTH WEEKEND LAGUNA BEACH BLAST-OFF!

Fun for the whole family as Gumby and Captain America will appear in person to meet and greet the kiddies while local humor cartoonists sign their family-friendly comics. Cartoonists will include Michael Aushenker ("Cartoon Flophouse") and Rafael Navarro ("Sonambulo"), the co-creators of "Gumby's Gang Starring Pokey", Carlos Saldana ("Burrito"), Will Caulfield ("Bat-Bat"), Jose Cabrera ("Crying Macho Man"), "Ghettomation" animator Jim Lujan, Grasiella Rodriguez ("Lunatic Fringe"), and the Agimat team (the comic strip "Shadow Candy," the video game "Sugar Rush").

For the more mature and twisted crowd, Richard Carradine and Lisa Strouss, co-founders of GHOULA (Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles), will sign copies of GHOULA Comix #1, which features work by many of the cartoonists in attendance.

Come down and see new comics and animated shorts and play video games! Bring your entire family and your sketchbooks! Them cartoonists love to doodle!

More info to come soon....

Love this song! Wu-Tang Clan: WOLVES

2011-06-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

This song is the highlight for me from the last official Wu-Tang album, 8 DIAGRAMS. It's called WOLVES and all the elements are in there to make this rap a success: cowboy riffs and matador brass, a Morricone-style whistle, haunting ghost choruses, U-God kicks off the track, followed by a Meth assist, all over a bangin' beat. A Wu-Tang recipe for success!

Movie reviews: BURN AFTER READING (2008), GREENBERG (2010), THE SPIRIT (2008)

2011-06-04T00:34:00.000-07:00

BURN AFTER READING (2008) ---- My buddy Rich suggests a better title woulda been "Burn After Viewing." I don't think this Coen Bros. movie is that bad. It's not one of their classics, like THE BIG LEBOWSKI or a great one, like HUDSUCKER PROXY, but it's not rock bottom like A SERIOUS MAN. I put this somewhere in the middle of their comedy-success scale, alongside INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. I enjoyed this movie from beginning to end, for the most part, the funniest performance being John Malkovich's (he also stole the show in ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL a while back...). It's a cartoony movie, and Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand and George Clooney try their best to be ridiculous, with various degrees of success. Richard Jenkins, like the put-upon, alcoholic, memoir-losing Malkovich, also gives a winning performance as the manager of Hardbodies gym. A likable if imperfect gem.

GREENBERG (2010) ----- This one's a hard pill to swallow. A purposely aimless, rudderless "comedy" starring Ben Stiller. It smacks of a naturalistic indy flick like "Anniversary Party" (also co-written by Jennifer Jason Leigh). Anybody like "Squid and the Whale" that much to see a follow-up by Noah Baumbach? He co-wrote "The Life Aquatic" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox," both Wes Anderson films that I enjoyed. I just don't know about this one. The female characters are all insecure, neurotic and annoying. The British character doesn't belong in this movie. The folksy, nostalgic soundtrack makes my stomach queasy. The title is dangerously close to "Greenblatt the Great!" Which would've been a funnier film, right? RIGHT???!!!!

THE SPIRIT (2008) ---- The biggest problem with this film is that A) it's written and directed by Frank Miller and B) it bears no tribute or relation to Will Eisner's humorous noir superhero hybrid. Quite the opposite, this is Miller's tribute to himself. The movie aesthetically resembles Miller's SIN CITY movie, down to the closing credits, where there is not an Eisner drawing of The Spirit but instead, The Spirit drawn in Miller's style. I forgot C) This movie has some of the worst dialogue I've heard in a movie in many years. (Well, one good thing came out of this movie: it was such a failure, they took back the BUCK ROGERS project from him.)

Somewhere lost in the mix is Will Eisner and his quirks. Too bad. Another lost opportunity: the opening of the movie could have opened with the title of the movie in Eisner-style giant stone letters and the Spirit running around it. That would seem to be a no-brainer. Given there were no brains behind this movie, it's a surprise they didn't think of such an obvious reference to the comics. Guess that was never Miller's intention.

MAN (FROM ATLANTIS), A Great BACK ISSUE MAG Article in the Works.....

2011-06-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

More from the Aquatic Superhero files: Normally, I don't like to crow about a BACK ISSUE MAGAZINE article that's in the works, but my article about the behind-the-scenes on Marvel Comics' MAN FROM ATLANTIS is going to be one of those epic stories.

MAN FROM ATLANTIS, written by Bill Mantlo and drawn and inked by Frank Robbins and Frank Springer, ran all of seven issues in 1978. The TV show was canceled somewhere in the middle of the comic's short run.

I've been able to get in touch with a plethora of crucial people from every angle of this adaptation of the MAN FROM ATLANTIS TV movies and the short-lived show on NBC, and it should be eye-opening, in the way that my pieces on two other licensed character books written by Mantlo -- THE HUMAN FLY (BACK ISSUE #20) and TEAM AMERICA (BACK ISSUE #41)---were.

The MAN FROM ATLANTIS article will appear in BACK ISSUE #55 around late 2011/early 2012.

Jimmy JAMS! (Who in the World is Jimmy Thompson?)

2011-06-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Firing out of a cannon like some unholy amalgam of Plastic Man creator Jack Cole, The Spirit creator Will Eisner, and Rocketeer's Dave Stevens, with a generous sprinkle of Basil Wolverton, Jimmy Thompson attacked his Sub-Mariner and Human Torch assignments at Timely Comics (the pre-Marvel incarnation) in the 1940s.

I never heard of this guy until I read this blog post, which has generous heapings of Thompson's art, but I'm already hooked and waiting for the bio book if someone out there is writing it. I'd love to learn and see more work by this amazing stylist.

The blog implies that Jimmy Thompson never caught any heat because he did not create any character of note. Too bad, he's obviously very talented and sophisticated for the time. I dig the quasi-cartoony spin on his work....and this super-cartoony, mega-exaggerated take on Bill Everett's second greatest creation (or first, depending on how you feel about Daredevil, Man Without Fear) may out-Everett Everett!

BREAKING NEWS: "Bust a Move" Girl was "Ritual de la Habitual" Girl!

2011-06-01T20:55:00.001-07:00

The great thing about being a writer is that you. never. ever. stop. learning.

I was covering an audition for an up-and-going reality show called "Malibu Wives" and the VERY GOD DAMN LAST woman who showed up for the audition (half an hour past the official end time) was the woman who outshined all of the preceding plastic surgery queens.

Even better (here's the learning part...), this woman, CindyAnn Sant Angelo, revealed that, back in the day, not only was she chick in Young MC's "Bust a Move" video (the sexpot bombshell miming the song's hook) but she's also the seductive Spanish girl introducing "Juanos Addicione" --- the very first thing you hear on the album "Ritual de la Habitual" (Jane's Addiction follow-up to their masterpiece "Nothing's Shocking"), preceding the song "Stop," which is followed by the album's single, "Been Caught Stealing."

Yes, the "Bust a Move" chick and the "Ritual" chica are one and the same! CindyAnn Sant Angelo. And I didn't know this until last Friday afternoon. The magic of life...

Hulk Wish Trimpe Good Birthday!

2011-05-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Hulk master artist Herb Trimpe....

My reviews of MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, BLACK SWAN, BLUE VALENTINE, GHOST WRITER, GIRL/DRAGON TATTOO movies

2011-05-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Saw a bunch of movies recently...None of them classics this time around.....My quick takes....

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

- Tis an Aushenker tradition that I go and see the latest Woody Allen movie with Mom. We were particularly excited because A) the movie is set in Paris (my Mom's side of the family is French and we have a personal connection with the city and with our relatives who live there) and B) MIDNIGHT got some over-the-top wildly enthusiastic box office and critical acclaim. Two reviews I came across said it was a "return to form" for Woody Allen after a string of weak, nihilistic comedies.

Well, I was a tad disappointed. I'm not sure why this movie got such a better critical reception than some of the others but it's not a return to form if you compare it to Allen's '70s output of comedy classics. It's a solid late Woody entry but not my favorite among his recent stuff.

If I had to list the stand out comedies since the late '80s (when Allen began cranking them out and producing some less than classic movies), I would say the best comedies have been ALICE, DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, SWEET AND LOWDOWN, CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION and WHATEVER WORKS. (Note I'm not including a pair of dramas - MATCH POINT and VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA - which were really good.) Every other comedy has been either weak or not particularly memorable in my opinion...although every Woody Allen movie has at least a few good scenes/jokes.

MIDNIGHT is definitely up there among recent Woody Allen comedies---and the cast, Owen Wilson and Michael Sheen and Marion Cotillard in particular, are great in this movie... but for a comedy that relies on a time-travel gimmick, I found the story line lazy and not as ambitious a comedy as it could of been, as Allen missed many opportunities to exploit and milk the comic situations from the time-travel set-up.

Allen only hints at having some of the characters follow Owen Wilson back in time....and he does not have the characters follow Owen back to the present. Likewise, when the characters of yesteryear read text from Owen's book, which is from their future, Allen could've dropped some anachronistic references into Owen's book (alluding to, I dunno, Facebook? Twitter? Steve Guttenberg? Lil Wayne? Chemical Ali? Pringles potato chips?) that would've thrown those characters through a loop. I personally don't care about the technical aspects of time-travel, such as characters' actions in the past disrupting events in the future, but it woulda been nice to see more of the comedic value of the the time-travel premise by creating some chaos with characters coming and going. After all, for the longest time, you're not sure whether or not Owen is actually time traveling or if he's just drunk or dreaming it, but once it's established that he actually IS going through time, upping the ante, comedically, would've been more fun for me. As is, the time-travel humor...and the story's resolution and subtext, is kind of slight.

SOMEWHERE

Sofia Coppola had me at "konnichiha" in LOST IN TRANSLATION....but SOMEWHERE went NOWHERE! Largely because this is basically a riff on the same story: a numb lost soul (Bill Murray in LOST, Stephen Dorff here) stuck in an upscale hotel who comes alive once a much younger girl (Scarlett Johanson in LOST, Elle Dakota here) enters his world. Stylistically, instead of Wong Kar Wai drag, we get Antonioni drag here. If you feel like seeing LOST IN TRANSLATION - Euro-style, then perhaps you might like this film. I found it kind of redundant and a lesser version of LOST.

THE GHOST WRITER

Not the movie about the motorcycle-riding, flaming skull superhero but the Roman Polanski movie involving a memoir writer for a thinly veiled version of Tony Blair. I didn't dig this film as much as I wanted to, largely because the political analogy felt bogus, the quasi-Hitchockian intrigue didn't add up to much, and, in a movie where the central character requires depth, Pierce Brosnan can't act.

BLACK SWAN - I didn't see what the big deal was about this film. I'm not a big Darren Aronofsky fan to begin with...didn't think much of THE WRESTLER or any of his previous movies...and, in my opinion, Natalie Portman can't act.

BLUE VALENTINE - Michele Williams and Ryan Gosling CAN act, but the storyline really goes nowhere interesting or that we haven't seen before in a million films. It's a big so-what. Which is too bad because they're good in this movie. When it comes to character-study movies with slight storylines, I preferred the Michelle Williams movie WENDY & LUCY.

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

A really good thriller/mystery with interesting characters. Kind of disturbing in places, but very absorbing. Great to see a movie with a cast of actors that you don't recognize from other movies. Actors deliver great performances. And I'm partial to movies that feature journalist protagonists!

GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

This sequel kind of went over-the-top silly, with a heroine who can not die, much more of the same from the first movie, and KGB villains instead of Nazi villains. Coincidences become too convenient. It's kinda the TEMPLE OF DOOM of this series - cartoony, still kind of fun, and not nearly as good as the original.

GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

While this movie, essentially a sequel to FIRE, is better than FIRE and brings things back to earth a bit, it also pales to the original movie.

That said, all three GIRL movies are entertaining and I think star Daniel Craig and director David Fincher is good casting to do the American version of this trilogy. I'm not usually interested in remakes, but a Fincher version of GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, based on his previous thrillers such as SEVEN and ZODIAC, had a shot of being really good.

Action-Packed Photos from Latino Comics Expo Numero Uno

2011-05-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, here's all the kaleidoscopic comedy, the color, and the chaos from the First Annual Latino Comics Expo at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.

HIGHLIGHTS: 1st Annual Latino Comics Expo 2011 (S.F.) was EL BOMBO!

2011-05-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

The first annual LATINO COMICS EXPO took place at the CARTOON ART MUSEUM in San Francisco on May 7-8, 2011. My cartoonin' colleague and crony (and the event's co-founder/organizer with Ricardo Padilla JAVIER HERNANDEZ ("El Muerto, Aztec Zombie") did a terrific blog capturing the event right here but I thought I'd add a few notes and photos.....It was a successful new comics-industry event and an amazing weekend, to say the least....

The City of San Francisco had declared the first day Latino Comics Expo Day..I look back on it fondly...

Let's start at end of our weekend. Monday, May 9. Here we are heading out of San Francisco's Twin Peaks area, where we stayed the weekend, courtesy of our hosts, the Padilla family. We're actually heading out to Ahn's Burgers in Oakland for breakfast...a now-familiar end-of-convention ritual for us when we go way up north (from L.A., where most of us vivre). They make our favorite breakfast: a huge spread with eggs and the greatest hash browns, plus bottomless coffee, all for $7. And, as this is a family-run restaurant, it's homemade!

Twin Peaks is a very pretty neighborhood. (San Francisco, you lucky bastard...)

Javier Hernandez and I drove up together from L.A. and we stayed at this house across the weekend. There's Jav now. He's got his comics and he's ready to make the long drive back to Los Angeles after a triumphant weekend at the CAM.

As I was about to climb into the car and, once again, relunctantly leave my heart in San Francisco, I thought to myself, "Wow, what a weekend." What a weekend it was, too....The weather was sunny and brisk but not cold...Bin Laden had been killed the weekend before, so terrorism was no longer a threat to humanity....Now the weekend was gone in a flash...How did we get to this place? I paused to reflect on the weekend that was....

It all began on the night of Friday, May 6. While most Americans sat in a multiplex, watching THOR, we brought the hammer down on a couple of extra large tomato pies. We scooped up AMIGO-MAN creator Anthony Oropeza's shipment of comics from the Fed Ex place and headed over to....

...Toto's Pizza in San Bruno, the favorite pizza spot of our Grand Hostess, Rosa Padilla.

That's Anthony, left, and Rosa on the right. Boy, she was right, the pizza was terrific, especially the extra cheese pie (more on that later...)
The next morning, our ol' pal Jarrod (with skateboard) surprised us as we came up to the entrance of the Cartoon Art Museum to set up shop. We also met fellow amigo cartoonist Jaime Crespo (bowler), a new friend we made this time around in S.F.

It's always great to see Rhode Montijo, the cartoonist behind PABLO'S INFERNO and the children's books CLOUD BOY and THE HALLOWEEN KID. Rhode, in the '90s, was our original Bay Area connection. Everything we learned about SF and his old stomping grounds, Oakland, we learned from him....and he NEVER lets us forget that! JUST KIDDING, he's the most modest art genius we know and he's a gentleman. Rhode's a mensch!
Armed with my discount designer McCoffee, I was ready for this new comics festival they call LCX!

It's always a treat to run into Rhode Montijo. Rhode's now a New York-based children's book creator, but back in his cartoonist days, we'd often stay at his place in Oakland, off beautiful Lake Merritt, when doing an SF area conventions. In fact, Rhode introduced us to breakfast at Ahn's Burgers (more on that later...)
There's Jarrod, flashing the peace sign. He's actually mocking S.F.'s hippies. Jarrod's always looking for a good fight...
..And he found one, as my buddy, the CRYING MACHO MAN cartoonist Jose Cabrera and Carlos Saldana ("Burrito") joined me in discussing the art of creating humor comics on our Sunday panel. That's my panelist-eye view of the panel...

Here's a view of our panel from the hecklers' row...back over by the crates of rotten tomatoes.

This struck me as funny and I snapped a shot of it. It appears as if somebody had David Copperfielded Rhode's chair...while he was still sitting on it!! That and the Statue of Liberty went missing that day for about an hour. When they returned, they exchanged places, so Rhode was now sitting on the top of the Statue of Liberty's torch. (Unfortunately, my phone ran out of battery by that point.)
Here's the Cartoon Flophouse table at the LCX event....Lots of titles, lots of ways to tickle your funny bone.
During the panel, I tried to self-excorcize any lingering demons I might have accidentally brought up from L.A. OK, I just look ridiculous....Hey, it was a humor comics panel!!
The CAM people wisely placed Whittier boy Jav Hernandez in front of a Herblock drawing of another Whittier guy...(Well, at least JAV is not a crook!)
Rockin' our house is Roxy Ratterman, our friend from back in the day Oaktown and such! She, Rhode, we all go waaaaaayback further than Mr. Peabody and Sherman.
This was funny, in one day, I signed two firsts: a Converse sneaker...and a black guitar (no, I've signed up Grasiella's forehead many a time...)
Gras added her John Hancock to the mighty Guitar in Black. We all signed exhibit posters, too. The fantastic poster art was done by Mr. Cabrera.

Let's take a break and jump ahead in time to the evening of Sunday, May 8...back to some pizza action in San Bruno. Yes, on the last night (on Mother's Day, to top it off), we returned to Toto's once again. Ah, that great extra cheese pie. Ricardo Padilla, the lead founder and organizer of the Latino Comics Expo and our host, can not seem to get over the fact that we became more enchanted with the extra cheese pie than the ones with the meat toppings. Somehow it happened. Life is crazy that way.

With slices like these, oozing with cheese, who could resist?

Here, Jav makes a big fuss. "OK, you don't want toppings, I'm sending this back to the chef." No, actually, look closer, the true story here is that we got a pie that was half meat, half cheese, to please every cartoonist in the joint.

Anyone who finished off a pie at Toto's was welcome to take home an official Toto's spatula. I took home two. BUT I DiDN'T WANNA GO HOME! By this point, the Lakers had lost the playoffs (in disgrace) and I felt too ashamed to return. I pondered the idea of making a spontaneous purchase, buying a house, and staying in San Francisco for good, rather than go back to L.A. Then I remembered that I didnt' have a spare $25 million to drop on real estate and nixed that idea...but not before indulging myself in more Toto's pizza!

Grasiella wanted a beer, and by gosh darn it, she got one! I loved sharing a table all weekend with Grasiella Rodriguez, whose LUNATIC FRINGE was a glorious comic book debut. She's an amazing animator, too, and a fun painter.

All weekend long, Gras kept saying how she missed animator Jim Lujan and how he would've loved it and how she wished he went was there with us at the show (He had a prior commitment). Well, after Gras had brought it up a few times, I began to miss Jim, too, and I began to wish he was there with us....so we could shut her up! Sincerely, Gras was the Judy Garland of Toto's...if Dorothy was a man-eating, drunken-sailor-swearin' barracuda, of course! JUST TEASING, GRAS! WE LOVE YOU AND YOU KNOW IT!

A funny thing about the place we were staying at...

...Last year when we stayed there, Jav admitted that he was a bit spooked by the empty house we were staying at....Don't forget that Javy sees a LOT of movies, some of them with zombies and supernatural creepy-crawlies....Well, it then became even more disconcerting when we found the following parked nearby....

That's AN AXE on the right. And a shovel to bury the body with. HEY, IF YOU'RE GONNA BE A SERIAL KILLER, FLAUNT IT, BABY! Boy, did that make Jav feel less welcome than SCREAM 4 at the box office....OOOF!
It was a banner weekend to be sure...in fact, there's our banner now!

OK, back to the festival highlights.....Yes, the First Annual Latino Comics Expo co-founder and cartoonist Javier Hernandez ("El Muerto, Aztec Zombie") really captured our terrific weekend in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum in text and photos right here on his blog. He and Ricardo Padilla put on a great event, and Jav really gave us a nice look back at it. Yet I'll add a few more notes...I've got a lot of energy, I'll keep going...
Sophie Padilla gave us the Siskel and Ebert routine. She was terrific, with her bright, sunny smile, assisting everyone at the event and making those Comics t-shirts look good! Sophie's a ham, just like her dad Rico! We always laugh it up!

Mario Hernandez of Los Lobos Hernandez was the show's guest of honor, and he let his hair down at the gallery party after the Saturday show (Free Comic Book Day, by the way, where I handed out stacks of THE NINE LIVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER as my tip o' the hat to the geek holiday).

And these two let their hair down at the gallery, too. HEY, GET A ROOM, YOU GUYS!

It was nice to hang out with everyone, including some old friends, like King Cabrera--Jose--and his queen Naomi, and new ones, like Jaime Crespo. I haven't seen in a few years such as artist Isis Rodriguez (far right). She's a talented artist, a dear friend and another ex-San Franscisan who now spends most of her time living in Mexico.
After some tomfoolery with my ol' Cornell buddy, Geoff....

....faster than Steven Tyler could cash the check on the advance for his memoirs, we hit the streets of San Francisco...

Here we are ---RESERVOIR DOGS-style, men on a Mission...
LITERALLY! Mission Street...home of....you know it...You want the best, you got the best...

Ah, what a place, what a place! It was great to be back...

...in line...for some great Mexican grub....

I sat with Raf and Rhode while Naomi and Jose Cabrera took the lovebirds route the next booth over...

This was the reason we came all the way to El Farolito. Wouldn't you? (By the way, YES, we hit Mitchell's Ice Cream, too!) By the way again, I still have leftovers from this meal...AND IT'S ALMOST JUNE!

Raf got tired of our company and made a beeline for the pretty Cabrera woman for a quick sketch. People all over the restaurant huddled around Raffles as he drew and drew and drew...The result?

Another Navarro masterpiece! (Note how Raf takes his sweet time on the sketch of Naomi while the caricature of Jose was done in 1.5 seconds flat. No offense, Jose, but if an artist gotta choose....)

THE WIND-DOWN: After dinner, Rhode, Jav and myself hung out and chit-chatted for a while, coming down from a weekend well done. We also hit the liquor store at one point for some bottled water...an adventure that turned comical when I bought a box of candy called Lemonheads & Friends that featured every fruit flavor of candy....except not one Lemonhead in the entire box! Talk about false advertising! This 25 cent box of candy provided a million dollars worth of laughs....

"Mike! MIKE! Will you get in the car already? You've been standing in a daze for 30 minutes!" That's Jav calling, snapping me out of my trance faster than the movie adaption of PRIEST went from development to the DVD bargain bins. Yes, it was time to get back....get back to the place where we came from....L.A. City of Angles. Like the 180 degree angle the Lakers took in the playoffs. (Hey, isn't punching part of the boxing sport?)

And here I am at Ahn's Burgers, enjoying the best damn American breakfast money can buy. In the background, you can see the nice Vietnamese lady who runs the place and always greets us with lots of coffee refills.

Another thank you to our hosts, Ricardo and Rosa Padilla, and their daughter, Sophie, who gave us the keys to the city the entire weekend through. In this photo, we're saying thank you back the best way we knew how: taking them to Ahn's for a victory breakfast. (By the way, they don't wait for us to come to town anymore to go to Ahn's...they go there all year long, from what we hear!)

As organizers and showrunners of the event, the Padillas made the first annual Latino Comics Expo a success, and if there's a second one, I'd like to be there! So I better not run out of El Gato, Crime Mangler comics and keep my honorary Latino cartoonist status intact!

Weekend laugh: DumBunnies!

2011-05-20T14:14:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the early 2000s (I think), I remember coming across some kind of animated cartoon called Dumb Bunnies on TV somewhere. I think it lasted a season or two.

By coincidence, years earlier, I had come up with my own DumBunnies cartoon - it was just a one time gag comic strip.

I could have easily kept going on it and turned it into a regular series, but unlike my other stuff, like Those Unstoppable Rogues or Greenblatt the Great!, I found it to be too limited - a one-joke idea at best. It became one of many one-shot gag strips I drew in the '90s, some of which I sold to HEAVY METAL magazine.

Nevertheless, here is that DUMBUNNIES comic strip for your weekend pleasure: straight outta 1996! Enjoy please!

DITKOMANIA #84 is out now!

2011-05-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

This issue, edited by Rob Imes, celebrates Steve Ditko's Marvel Comics work. Spirits are high over in Ditkoland as June will see Marvel release a previously promised but unpublished Hulk and Human Torch one-off issue drawn by Mr. D.

Here's how to get a hold of DITKOMANIA #84. My DITKOTOMY column this issue is part one of a two part look at Mort Todd's years as an editor at Marvel, working with Ditko and reviving Ditko's work - both assigning him new art and classic horror reprints - within the pages of several titles he was overseeing. This was in the early 1990s.

Also promised at the original time of the Human Torch/Hulk book in an editorial was a Moon Knight feature by Ditko but that one has not been located yet. That would be more exciting to me, personally. It leaves me wondering if that Moon Knight piece was originally meant for a Marvel Preview that featured a Sienkiewicz Moon Knight front and center and Ditko's take on The Shroud as a back up feature.

SDCC 2011: SUMMER OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER

2011-05-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

El Gato, Crime Mangler will be back in summer 2011...and he'll be bigger than ever.

Only CARTOONFLOPHOUSE.COM, the house of humor comics, could pull this off....Big stuff is in the works for San Diego Comic-Con 2011: a trade paperback collection and a (for now...) top-secret merchandise tie-in that promises to blow your mind!

For starters, a trade paperback edition will collect the complete EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER comics oeuvre, including the original THE NINE LIVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER comic book, the supernatural sequel ¡HOLY GHOST EL GATO! (featuring Ape Gato), the cheap sci-fi prequel FUTURESHOCK 2002 (which introduces Roboto El Gato) and the much more mature NINE LOVES OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER.

The El Gato TPB will also feature bonus stories and new El Gato material previously unpublished, including El Gato art by some of the most beloved artists of the 1970s and '80s.

It's gonna be a real party on paper, folks...chock full of laughs, surprises and visual treats!

As for the secret El Gato tie in? Not tellin' (yet)...but look here next month and hopefully I'll be able to show you as well as tell you what it is.

Look for the CARTOON FLOPHOUSE.COM table at Comicon International's Small Press Pavilion beginning PREVIEW NIGHT, WEDS. JULY 20 and straight through SUNDAY, JULY 24. Look for the giant EL GATO CRIME MANGLER banner!

San Diego Comic-Con 2011: Don't miss it...or else you risk missing THE SUMMER OF EL GATO, CRIME MANGLERRRRRR!

Art Opening Friday, May 6 in Burbank-CAPS Gallery Exhibit

2011-05-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

Concurrent to my appearance in San Francisco at the Cartoon Art Museum this weekend, I've got art in a show that my cartoonist club, CAPS, is putting on at the Animation Union's gallery space in Burbank near Magnolia and Hollywood Way. Here's the address. The reception is early evening Friday, May 6, @6-10 p.m. but I won't be able to appear in person because I'll be in SF for the Latino Comics Expo.

The art, which includes some nifty stuff by Sergio Aragones, including a bench that he sculpted, includes the work of 16 cartoonists/CAPS members, including Dean Yeagle, Catwoman artist Brad Rader, Flash writer Pat McGreal, and Bongo ed-in-chief Bill Morrison and it'll be up till the end of May. The idea is to show off art that includes comics work as well as non-comics related art.

It's the latter that makes the show interesting, as we get to see what kind of art cartoonists make when they're not drawing comics. Sergio sculpts stuff out of wood...Who knew?

Bay Area Peeps: LATINO COMICS EXPO at the CAM, May 7 & 8, 2011 THIS WEEKEND!

2011-05-04T09:13:00.000-07:00

San Francisco, here we come! Right back where we parted from!

Like the boys in WAY OUT WEST, a gaggle of us L.A.-based cartoonists and more will be launching the first annual LATINO COMICS EXPO at the prestigious CARTOON ART MUSEUM in SAN FRANCISCO.

Looking for a great way to spend Free Comics Day on Saturday and Mother's Day (before the restaurant part...) on Sunday? Come on over!

All of the info is at this blog, where each post highlights one of the unique artists in attendance, from Hernandez Bros. MARIO HERNANDEZ, to your favorite locals: JAVIER HERNANDEZ ("El Muerto, Aztec Zombie"), JOSE CABRERA ("Crying Macho Man"), RAFAEL NAVARRO ("Sonambulo") and more. Even former West Coast resident RHODE MONTIJO, the great cartoonist ("Pablo's Inferno") and children's book author ("The Halloween Kid") is arriving from the East Coast.

The great part, too: most of the cartoonists in attendance will have brand new books to sell, including me. Looky here, the new trade paperback collection:

Yes, I'll have my El Gato, Crime Mangler books on hand, too (or else they wouldn't let me in the joint!)

Here's the blog entry about my work but check out the entire Latino Comics Expo blog for information on the show and beautiful imagery from all of the participating cartoonists.

Latino Comics Expo, CAPS gallery show, Lots of Wu Tang Clan and the new Beastie Boys...

2011-04-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

Trying to drown out the noise in our collective head that is this weekend's Royal Wedding by preparing for a CAPS art gallery show, which opens Friday, May 6, in Burbank, and lasts all month of May (i've got a page of El Gato, Crime Mangler art plus three oil paintings in the show) at the Animation Union building's gallery, and the Latino Comics Expo at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, all to the soundtrack of recently acquired Wu Tang Clan albums (just got THE W, which so far I'm not enjoying as much as 8 DIAGRAMS ("Wolves!" Great song, man!) and Mathetmatics' WU TANG & FRIENDS). One thing's for certain: Method Man always delivers, U-God is the secret weapon...

(I'll post the deets on the two shows by early next week...)

I'm also getting used to the new BEASTIE BOYS album HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE that just hit the Internet. Early favorites are OK, which is gloriously effed up and NONSTOP DISCO POWERPACK. This album is like a hybrid of CHECK YOUR HEAD, HELLO NASTY and TO THE 5 BOROUGHS (guess the LICENSED TO ILL and PAUL'S BOUTIQUE days are not gonna happen again?). MAKE SOME NOISE is like a mid-tempo CH-CH-CHECK IT OUT. Sorely missed is POP YOUR BALLOON, which leaked online but didn't make the cut.

Do I like this album? Hmmm...it's always good to hear what the Beasties are up to. It's kind of mid-tempo overall, which is not my favorite tempo, but it has a lot of nice grooves. I need to give it some more listening. Right now, it's kind of in the middle for me. There's always be LICENSED TO ILL and PAUL'S BOUTIQUE for me...two masterpieces of unbridled horseplay....and then everything else. That's just the way it is.

If I had to rate my favorite Beasties albums (not counting the instrumental stuff), the list would be something like this right now:

LICENSED TO ILL

PAUL'S BOUTIQUE

TO THE 5 BOROUGHS

ILL COMMUNICATION

HELLO NASTY

HOT SAUCE COMMITTEE

CHECK YOUR HEAD

Digging the new Beastie Boys album early....

2011-04-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the link....S H H HHHHH HHHHH!

Aushenker Talks INVADERS in Big Fat Centennial ALTER EGO #100

2011-04-21T10:30:00.001-07:00

Fanzines are fun when they're done right...and no one does them righter than TwoMorrows.com, in my opinionitis!

Just got through reading the big, fat commemorative ALTER EGO #100. The ultimate fanzine, Roy Thomas's famed ALTER EGO (vol. 3, I believe...), an offshoot of one of the original fanzines, just reached its 100th issue.

I was invited to write a piece up for it. I spent my space waxing about THE INVADERS, written by Thomas and drawn masterfully by quasi-cartoony artist extraordinaire Frank Robbins (not to slight inker Frank Springer and artist Lee Elias, who also brought a lot of game to INVADERS).

Robbins went against the grain of the Marvel House style, bringing his quirky, Milton Caniff-inspired art-style to superhero comics such as INVADERS and HUMAN FLY (which I wrote about in my first BACK ISSUE! magazine piece for BI #20 in Jan. 2007). It worked...for half the readers..the other half despised him because he was not Jack Kirby. Robbins was a polarizing figure, and he's finally getting a well-deserved cult going on online from a lot of the kids who hated him at the time but can not seem to shake the impression his art had on them. It took him a few decades but Robbins won 'em over at last!!

I'll be writing up a piece on another Robbins thrill ride, Marvel's short-lived MAN FROM ATLANTIS, in an upcoming BACK ISSUE! ish next year.

Back to ALTER EGO#100. The cover is above and you can get this issue directly from TwoMorrows at a discount price right here!

New UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD! available at Amazon

2011-04-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

My new comic book is now available at Amazon.

If you liked "Pineapple Express," "Observe and Report," and the "Bill & Ted" and "Harold & Kumar" flicks, don't miss these slackers!

You can also find the entire line of CARTOON FLOPHOUSE books here.

El Gato, Crime Mangler comics at First Annual Latino Comics Expo, Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco

2011-04-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my Sephardic heritage (Mom's side), my El Gato, Crime Mangler comics, and my great L.A. amigos, I'll be one of the featured cartoonists at the First Annual Latino Comics Expo at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco on May 7 and 8th, 2011. I'll be selling my comics side by side with my good hermanos Javier Hernandez, Jose Cabrera and many more L.A. area friends, not to mention an honest to goodness Hernandez Brother (as in Los Lobos Hernandez, as in "Love & Rockets..."), Mario Hernandez. (No relation to Jav, who is MY Hernandez brother!)

If you're in the Bay Area, swing by and say "Hola!"

It's Herr Seele's birthday! HENK it up!

2011-04-13T10:58:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday to the artist of COWBOY HENK/MAURICE/JEAN!

My article in ALTER EGO #100 on Frank Robbins/THE INVADERS

2011-04-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

OUT NOW! In ALTER EGO #100, the big, fat anniversary issue, I was invited to write about one of my favorite topics--the artist Frank Robbins--and his run on that glorious WWII superhero group book THE INVADERS. The issue is chock full of interviews and remembrances of various comics from the 1970s and '80s. Visit TwoMorrows.com if you have trouble finding it at your local shop.

Dave, will you Murray me? (Happy b-day, Letterman!)

2011-04-12T10:10:00.001-07:00

Here is Bill Murray with honoree David Letterman in front of Johnny Carson's curtains. This was the scene over the weekend on the Comedy Central Awards, where they honored Letterman with the first ever Comedy Central Icon Award for Comedy. It was fun to see Murray joke around with Letterman, two old friends. Recall that whenever Letterman has a first episode, Murray is there like a lucky rabbit's foot.

Bill Murray's latter-day career to me is more interesting than the early days on SNL, "Stripes," and "Ghostbusters." Those things were fun but disposable. I'm a very big fan of his work with Wes Anderson, including "Rushmore" and "The Life Aquatic," I enjoyed "Lost in Translation" when I saw it, and even more so, I've seen Jim Jarmusch's "Broken Flowers" twice (yes, twice!!!). He's the best things about the uneven "Coffee & Cigarettes" and a highlight of "Zombieland." Remember "Ed Wood"? I think his renaissance officially began with "Groundhog Day," a wry comedy Harold Ramis has never been able to top since. (Poor bastard!)

Today happens to be David Letterman's birthday. Letterman, in my opinion, deserves the icon award. He is a true master, perhaps one of the sharpest comic minds ever, even though I admit I haven't seen much of his show in recent years because the talk show formula grates on me these days (plus, I'm distracted by reruns of "Curb"). But Letterman, in my estimation, is the true heir apparent of Johnny Carson, despite ratings, hype, and multiple re-launchings of Leno and Conan.

Let's be honest, folks! Joan, can we talk?! Conan jumped the shark after the first time Andy Richter left the show...which was in the last century....and the funniest thing on his show was a puppet of a dog with a cigar. Triumph is a true genius. Conan alone, without Andy, was too much Conan. And now that Andy is back on the show, it's too much Conan and Andy. Something went awry....

Leno....man, I've seen less irritating pelican faces at Pismo Beach....He is grating beyond belief and his writers supply him with an endless supply of comfort food jokes that only your great-grandparents would chuckle over (if only their hearing aids were turned on). Leno is the Jeff Zucker of comedians...and he should follow Zucker into obscurity.

Nobody really talks about Fallon or the other guy much. I don't even know if Jimmy Kimmel is still on the air (his ex-girlfriend is 12 times funnier than he is...unless you belong to a frat!).

Meanwhile, the funniest punchline in all of late night is that Carson Daly is quietly becoming a billionaire in the dead hour zone. Bow down to your master, General Daly, Emperor of NBC!

Code cracked: CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is the bizarro FLINTSTONES...

2011-04-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

After millions of years of evolution, "The Flintstones" evolves into "Curb Your Enthusiasm"....basically, a contemporary version of Fred and Barney getting in trouble while hiding stuff from their wives.

The big difference superficially is that "Curb" is a world where Barney is the star and Fred is the sidekick. Also, Barney is married to Wilma while Fred is married to Betty. It's the bizarro "Flinstones!"

(I guess I should acknowledge in passing the fact that "The Flintstones" was inspired by "The Honeymooners" but I refuse to acknowledge it in passing...)

Remembering John Fante...(1909-1983)

2011-04-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

Well, 102 years ago today, the writer John Fante, the man behind some brilliant novels, including "Ask the Dust," "Wait Until Spring, Bandini," and "Brotherhood of the Grape," was born...

Last year, I paid tribute to one of my favorite authors in a short story called "The Languager" in GHOULA COMIX #1, an anthology of comics by L.A.-based cartoonists given the assignment of developing a story that incorporates Los Angeles and ghosts. Here is an excerpt from my story.

This Cover Still Moves Me to Tears...

2011-04-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

**Sniff, sniff !**

Greenblatt the Great! and John Dillinger go to the movies...

2011-04-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

One of the new Greenblatt the Great! strips from the upcoming trade paperback collection, due in October.

Greenblatt the Great!'s Tour of Hollywood

2011-04-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

One of the new strips from the upcoming GREENBLATT THE GREAT! trade paperback collection, due in October.

Nothing beats Frank Robbins!

2011-04-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

This should make you smile: Stan Laurel's Santa Monica years...

2011-04-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the Lookout News at SURFSANTAMONICA.COM

Postcards From Ocean Avenue: Stan Laurel’s Final Years

By Michael Aushenker
Special to the Lookout

April 1, 2011 -- Long before Facebook…long before cell phones and even answering machines, there was a time when you could pick up the West Los Angeles phone book, find the number of comedy legend Stan Laurel, and reach him at his Santa Monica residence.

The caption should be: Stan Laurel at his desk in his Santa Monica apartment. Photograph courtesy of LettersFromStan.com

Yes, that Stan Laurel, as in Laurel & Hardy, two of the greatest comic actors in recorded history.

During their boom period in the 1920s and 30's, Laurel and Oliver “Babe” Hardy, starred in such classic shorts as “Big Business,” “Sons of the Desert,” “County Hospital,” “Busy Body,” and the Oscar-winning “The Music Box,” arguably their most famous achievement, in which “The Laurel and Hardy Transfer Company” had to transport a piano up a monumentally lengthy flight of stairs and into a house’s second-floor window, complicating the simple task along the way.

However, Laurel and Hardy’s boom went bust as moviegoers’ tastes changed, television upstaged the movies, and Hardy, the heavy-set half of the bumbling, bowler-wearing duo, died at age 65 in 1957. It was soon after that Laurel moved into a Santa Monica apartment building with a sea view.

“Stan and his wife Ida lived at the Oceana from 1958 to his death in 1965 – Ida stayed there a couple more years – and their apartment number was 203,” said Jimmy Wiley, Jr., Grand Sheik of the Way Out West Tent, the Los Angeles chapter of Sons of the Desert, a Laurel and Hardy appreciation society.

Now a boutique luxury hotel, the Oceana on 849 Ocean Avenue still gets calls regarding its famous former tenant of Suite 203 and the first sentence on the hotel’s history at the Oceana website acknowledges that it was the screen legend’s former residence.

Wiley, president of his club for five years and a member since 1974, convenes the Sons monthly at the Mayflower Club in North Hollywood. Back in 1997, on the 30th anniversary of Way Out West, the group toured Laurel and Hardy locations around L.A. One stop was the Oceana.

“The guys at the hotel knew what room it was,” Wiley told Lookout News. “Four of us [split the room cost and] spent the whole night in 203,” inviting other members over to check out the room.

Grand Sheik Wiley on the balcony of Laurel's apartment at the Ocean.
Photograph courtesy of James Wiley, Jr.

According to Wiley, Laurel’s daughter Lois, who is 84 today, “told us that from the kitchen, they could look out to the pool. When we got there, there were no windows in the kitchen.”

Of the Laurel and Hardy team, Stan Laurel was the British national (the American Hardy hailed from Georgia). He was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, the son of a manager of a group of theaters, in Lancashire, England, on June 16, 1890.

Exhibiting an early inclination for entertainment, Laurel, at 16, joined Fred Karno's comedy company. Charlie Chaplin headlined the troupe, and Laurel served as his understudy.

While the comedy group didn't last, it did succeed in introducing Laurel to America, where he soon segued onto the silver screen with his first two-reel film, “Nuts in May,” in 1917.

Laurel’s professional partner and common law wife, Mae Dahlberg, suggested he assume the professional surname “Laurel.” The re-branding worked: Hal Roach Studios signed Laurel in 1926.

Due to an accident on the set of “A Lucky Dog” Laurel joined an overweight contract player before the camera. That actor was Hardy, and the chemistry they shared would cement them in the annals of cinema history.

The duo starred in 106 shorts and features together, two of which have been lost. Laurel and Hardy scholars have traveled as far as Russia to search for the missing pair of shorts, “The Rogue Song” and “Hats Off.” “Joe Stalin was a Laurel and Hardy fan,” explained Wiley, who added, “It could be in a can at the studio that’s mislabeled.”

Laurel split with Dahlberg and went through three failed marriages before finding Ida Kitaeva and marrying her in 1946.

Their popularity waning, Laurel and Hardy retired their act in 1950.

More setbacks followed: Hardy suffered a heart attack in 1954, and Laurel experienced a small stroke in 1955; Hardy also suffered a stroke, but this one was much more serious: he became paralyzed and bed-ridden for many months before his death on August 7, 1957.

In 1961, while living in Santa Monica, Laurel was honored with a special Academy Award for his comedy breakthroughs.

What many people remember about Laurel’s days on Ocean Avenue was how accessible he was to fans.

He responded to fan mail personally and by hand, and he hosted a steady stream of visitors at his humble apartment by the sea that included Jerry Lewis and Dick Cavett, and less-famous strangers who had reached him by phone.

“He was very gracious, he would sit and talk as long as they had questions,” said Wiley, who, just as hardcore fan Mark Evanier had recounted on his blog, as a youth could not muster up the nerve to dial that number.

As documented on the website LettersFromStan.com, Laurel reached out to fans via hundreds of postcards and letters. Over his six years in Santa Monica, Laurel, in his correspondence, commented on everything from “The Steve Allen Show” to Jackie Gleason and Chuck McCann.

Photos exist of Laurel in Malibu. Previous to Ocean Avenue, he lived at 25406 Malibu Road.

“He liked to watch TV at night,” Wiley said. “The reception in Malibu wasn’t as good as in Santa Monica.”

Despite a diversity of L.A. locales used in the shorts, hardly any were shot in Santa Monica. The exception may be 1928’s “Two Tars.”

“[In the short], they play sailors taking girls around and they rented a car and ended up in a traffic jam,” Wiley said. “We’ve kind of figured out that it’s near the Santa Monica Airport on Centinela.”

After Laurel died on Feb. 23, 1965, shortly after suffering a heart attack, it was longtime Malibu resident and Laurel’s frequent visitor (and impersonator) Dick Van Dyke who delivered the eulogy at Laurel’s funeral.

“Stan’s influence inspired me to go into show business in the first place, and his influence molded my point of view, my attitude about comedy,” Van Dyke said.

“I had never met the man, but four years ago when I came to California I meant to meet Stan Laurel by hook or crook, and I wangled for a year, any way I could, to get his phone number, his address—anything that could put me in touch with him.

“Do you know where I finally found it? In the phone book, in a West Los Angeles phone book: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica. I picked up the phone and received an invitation to come up there and visit.”

“Stan once remarked that Chaplin and Lloyd made all the big pictures, and he and Babe made all the little cheap ones. 'But they tell me our little cheap ones have been seen by more people through the years than all the big ones. They must have seen how much love we put into them.’”

Going 'Green' This Summer!

2011-04-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

I was already way more excited about the GREEN LANTERN movie than the middling-looking Marvel movies and this trailer just pushed it over the edge. This is the superhero movie to beat, in my book. Right now, it's looking to be substantial, up there with the original SUPERMAN movies ----a great, visually dazzling crowd-pleaser. Let's hope the movie fulfills on the promise of this trailer!

P.S. Check out Sinestro!

Today, Humor Comics takes a day off as Mr. Aushenker celebrates his birthday....

2011-04-03T12:52:00.001-07:00

Catch your breath today...watch CNN and cry over world events...light candles and mope ponderously...find something serious to do, like perform open-heart surgery or gather stones on the beach for some occultish group's altar...But don't fret! More CARTOON FLOPHOUSE humor comics are on the way this year, including new trade paperback editions of THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES, EL GATO, CRIME MANGLER, and GREENBLATT THE GREAT!

Cheerio and God bless!

Lots of drama: CARLOS (2010), HARRY BROWN (2009), ANIMAL KINGDOM (2010)

2011-03-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not a stickler for intense dramatic features, but I love them when they're good (like FROZEN RIVER from a few years back...) and I really enjoy biopics and historical/period movies when they're well done...stuff like TALK TO ME and MILK come to mind.

One of the best I've seen in a long time (and admittedly, I'm only almost done watching it -- it's 5 1/2 hours long and I've been splitting it up over a few nights) is CARLOS, about the assassin Carlos the Jackal who terrorized Europe in the 1970s. This movie, originally a French miniseries, is very well-made, well-directed, well-paced and well-cast, with Edgar Ramirez in a breakout performance. He's perfect in this role and he's a strong actor...(By coincidence, he's profiled in this month's freebie Malibu magazine).

If you saw Steven Spielberg's MUNICH as I did and wondered why that well-cast movie looked great but was such a dud, the answer is in CARLOS. The director of this film should have been the guy behind MUNICH, it would've been a fast-paced thriller (as it should've been) instead of a politically correct polemic.

CARLOS is fearlessly done. It's one of those movies that puts you in an awkward place, making you accept an immoral character as your protagonist, but it's a fascinating thriller based loosely on the escapades of the infamous assassin I didn't know too much about before watching this movie. Anyway, a tour de force by all involved that I'm enjoying very much. I hope they keep giving Edgar Ramirez good roles, he's a terrific, charismatic actor.

I also recently saw HARRY BROWN, which is kind of like Michael Caine's TAKEN movie. It's harsh and the representations of the young English thugs here are repugnant and make the CLOCKWORK ORANGE fellas look like kiddie party clowns. Caine is usually a solid, likable actor and this is a fun twist on the vigilante genre. "DIRTY" HARRY BROWN is more like it...

As for the Australian independent film ANIMAL KINGDOM, I had heard a recommendation for this one. One guy said it was the best film to come out in 2010 and it should've won the Oscar. While I'm not sure it's on that level, I do think it's a very good and interesting film (which is rare these days), especially given the lack of compelling features last year. It's definitely a movie that's not jockeying for an Academy Award, it's just a good movie with something to say. I'd definitely vote for this one over TOY STORY 3! (Apples and oranges, of course).

In an age of remakes, reboots, requels, rehashes and redundancies, it's nice to discover some good, original movies every once in a while.

Blow up some balloons! THOSE UNSTOPPABLE ROGUES PARTY HARD is here!

2011-03-27T09:51:00.001-07:00

Order here today: CartoonFlophouse.com

The Unwitting Alex Gibney Completist: "Eliot Spitzer," "Casino Jack," "Hunter S. Thompson"

2011-03-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Maybe because he's bald like Greenblatt the Great!....maybe because Netflix's documentary section is awash in his DVDs.....last week I unwittingly became an Alex Gibney completist, seeing three of his most recent films in a row.

All three docs were solid and interesting documentaries produced by his Jigsaw Productions (could he be a fan of the SAW villain? Or does he side with The Punisher's arch-nemesis?) although the one common thread (which tipped me off to investigate if these were all directed by the same person) was there's something a bit slick, cocky and formulaic about his directing style...a bit too smirky in places....just call him "Glib" Gibney! Luckily, it doesn't get in the way of some interesting detective work....

First, I saw Gibney's Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (2010), his most recent work. Despite his lapses in ethics, I overall enjoy Spitzer and his CNN political commentary show. Spitzer's a smart guy, if a bit too overzealous and self-righteous in his opinions. He was an effective state attorney general before becoming the New York governor taken down by a hooker scandal after he had been so dogmatic about cleaning up Wall Street pre-economic meltdown. What makes this documentary interesting and somewhat of a mea culpa opportunity is the fact that (maybe out of narcissism?) Spitzer cooperates with the filmmaker, telling his story in detail on camera and admitting to his foibles. It's an ultimately sad portrait, as the brilliant Spitzer could've run for higher office but is now disgraced. Guess he's lucky to have the CNN gig!

Casino Jack and the United States of Money (2010) was the next one, another rise and fall story, this time about the failed lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Equally compelling and as incriminating of a multitude of politicians and the Washington culture as it is of Abramoff himself.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008) was the last of the three I watched, about the bat shit crazy guy who liberated journalism and then inadvertently enslaved it by inspiring thousands of journalists to insert themselves into their stories. Thompson was a journalist who somehow lived like a rock star. He's kind of like the Gary Busey of writers. At one point, he comically ran for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado, and created an uproar that led the town's conservatives to drag the sick and the near-dead into the poling centers to vote against him (it worked). He has lucked out, winning over Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, who bankrolled his crazy escapades. More recently, after a fallow period of years, Thompson killed himself after giving those around him plenty of caveats. He supposedly wanted to leave the planet while he was still on top (debatable). Ultimately, living in isolated, rural Colorado + depression + gun fetish + lots of hard drugs - emotional stability = an elixir for disaster. Hunter's son and exes are interviewed, along with political allies and enemies alike (even Pat Buchanan). Even Johnny Depp appears in this film. Much like Hunter Thompson in his articles, Depp has inserted himself into this documentary on Thompson...if he had not played him in a movie, his appearance here would be pretty dubious. My favorite revelation from this doc: Thompson effin' hated "Doonsebury" and despised his Uncle Duke doppelganger in the strip! Brilliant! That's all I wanted to know!

Enter U-God: The Wu-Tang Clan's Secret Weapon

2011-03-25T22:21:00.001-07:00

I'm a longtime fan of IRON FLAG, a Wu-Tang album from 2001, originally released just after the events of 9/11 (and a blistering threat to the bastards who perpetrated it!). That IRON FLAG album is superb (if you cut off the last track, which is a hokey retread of a Christmas song).

In a group where all nine members are super-talented geniuses, my go-to favorite has always been Method Man....He cracks me up...

But as IRON FLAG proves, U-God is the Wu's secret weapon. He's got soul power galore. He opens the song "Uzi (Pinky Ring)" in high-octane fashion and owns it: he does not let up with the great lyrics and machine-gun delivery. Listen to these lyrics:

Yo.. yeah
Don't erase none of that good shit in the beginnin
Yo.. spill drinks on ya, get stank on ya
Yo.. yo.. pinky ring shit, yo
That pinky ring shit yo

It's that pinky ring shit, the legend of masked kid
Shoot out the speakers when my guns get jurassic
Superbad, who am I? Dolemite classic
The vandal's back, hands on Angela Bassett
I handle my plastic, gunplay I mastered
No coke, dope mixed down with acid on record
Broken down and crafted in seconds
Lady's choice, the golden voice still peppered
Better, respect it, bitch believe
I pull rabbits out the hat, tricks up my sleeves
I air out the showroom, the shit can breathe
Fix your weave, behold my expertise

Ditto his verse in the song right before it, "Soul Power," a nostalgic-yet-cool song highlighted by, among other moments, a conversation between Mef and special guest star Flavor Flav (the album's ersatz ODB) discussing their old neighborhoods.

U-God goes at rapid-fire speed:

Yo, yo...
Line Cadillacs to blocks, Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx
Jukebox records, flatfooted cops
Get automatic systematic jumpin in your socks
Mama's apple pie in the park hopscotch
Reunited on the radio, Wu-Tang superb
In the sprinklers girls double-dutchin on the curb
Sinatra, the pop the Jackson 5 recordings
Uptown Saturday, "Cotton Came to Harlem"
Ringmaster circus was, Bailey and Barnum
Crack a Coca-Cola, summer heat was my boredom
Dr. J before Jordan, Al Green on the organ
When Rerun did the dance, the whole world saw him
The blackout fears, Foxxy Brown, Pam Grier
Ford motor gear, your life and times queer
"Smokey the Bear", Burt Reynolds gray hair

Throw 'em some gems, throw up your fists and say yeah, it's Soul Power!

Man, IRON FLAG is out of control. I can't say enough superlatives about songs such as the intro track, "The Rules," "Radioactive."

I'm currently listening to the Wu-Tang's most recent LP, 8 DIAGRAMS, from 2007, and while it may not be as top-tier to me as IRON FLAG, it's up there, man. 8 DIAGRAMS has got moxie galore, with beautifully asymmetrical tunes like "Unpredictable" and "Running With Elephants," and my favorite track, "Wolves," which hits fast and hard, is a showcase for....guess who? U-God!

Once again on 8 DIAGRAMS, Method Man and U-God run things. The RZA has infused this album with jazzy flourishes and, despite its cheesiness, how can you not embrace a song built around George Harrison's contagious psychedelic lullaby "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"?

The Wu are masters of performance and the art of storytelling. Giants who walk among us....

New Beastie Boys album covers: compare and contrast!

2011-03-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that the new Beasties album art coulda used a few more hues...

Nah. That's enough colors....

Above is the cover of their new album, which comes out May 3. I like this jazz album approach, better than the insipidly lazy and cheesy cover art they threatened to put out with the unreleased Part I (which is actually Part II with a slightly different title....it's Beastie humor, folks...):

I've reluctantly come to accept that they're a long journey away from the band that recorded the classic LICENSED TO ILL and the masterpiece PAUL'S BOUTIQUE. In fact, in subsequent interviews, they've become apologists for those albums, which I not only feel are a career peak they will never achieve again but two of the greatest albums I've ever heard. I put them up there with the best work by the Beatles, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Run-DMC and Public Enemy.

If you've heard the leaked tracks from HOT SAUCE, they're kind of automatic-pilot Beasties and most of them sound like tracks left off of TO THE 5 BOROUGHS from 2004. Of the four tracks, I guess I like POP YOUR BALLOON best. I understand that artists can't stay in the same place and must evolve, explore and change. But we can debate whether they've become a better or worse group as a result of the experimentation. My opinion? Like I said, nothing beats LICENSED TO ILL and PAUL'S BOUTIQUE...

It's been kind of annoying. Ever since CHECK YOUR HEAD, they've become this weird hybrid group that's hit or miss and often preachy. Of the hit and miss albums, I probably dig ILL COMMUNICATION and TO THE 5 BOROUGHS as overall albums over CHECK YOUR HEAD and HELLO NASTY....Even though HELLO NASTY has two of their most ass-kicking tracks ever, INTERGALACTIC and BODY MOVIN'...Look, it's complicated....

That said, I always get the new Beasties album because they're still better than most of the stuff out there on any given year. So May 3rd, I plan to buy the jazz album.

Happy Birthday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer!

2011-03-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hey, Wolf "Situation Room" Blitzer....Happy birthday! Good luck with your big summer film, too!

The Big Score: COWBOY MAURICE by Kamagurka and Herr Seele

2011-03-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

Not since Parker broke into the bank and the racetrack in NOBODY RUNS FOREVER and ASK THE PARROT has a bigger score been acquired on short order.

Thanks to a Facebook buddy, I was tipped off to a rare COWBOY HENK book on sale in France. I used my European hook-up to snag a copy of the book, which is a Henk collection from 1986 (inexplicably, the COWBOY HENK comics have been alternately called COWBOY JEAN in France and, I guess, COWBOY MAURICE).

Last night, I hung out with my Cartoon Flophouse/Crying Macho Man compadre Jose Cabrera at, seriously, the only Italian restaurant in the Pacific Palisades/Malibu area worth eating at, the sublime Casa Nostra on Palisades Drive, enjoying some cappuccinos and dessert, and we took these victory shots.

(Casa Nostra, by the way, was wall-to-wall packed last night with more robust business than I've ever seen...not an empty seat in the house...It was quiet a lively scene...large groups of people, red wine and delicious Tuscan cuisine everywhere....Casa Nostra is recommended to all! Tell Giovanni Michael sentcha!)

I've just started reading the COWBOY MAURICE book, and it's interesting in that it's not a series of one-pagers (the usual Cowboy Henk gag cartoons) but a long-form send-up of a pair of Tintin albums: TINTIN IN AMERICA and, if memory serves me, CIGARS OF THE PHARAOH (the one with the cult dressed like purple Klansmen). (Behind this main story are two short ones.)

Thanks to all involved for helping me get this treasured copy of COWBOY MAURICE. The Cowboy Henk/Maurice/Jean strips are among my biggest inspirations.

For the Love of Velvel....He's on Facebook!

2011-03-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

A decade ago, at the old job, I was knee-deep in Velvel fever. Rickie Layne and Velvel were relics from another era of entertainment, and I had a lot of fun covering what turned out to be the end of the comedy duo's career (Layne passed away in 2006 and Velvel died a few years later).

Now it's 2011, and Velvel has his own Facebook page. The crazy has come full circle...kind of like a bialy!

Here's Layne and Velvel backstage at one of their many appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

World's Strangest Ape Concept: Grape Ape

2011-03-18T00:13:00.000-07:00

Apes have long been a favorite trope of comic book companies (DC Comics would throw a gorilla on a cover often because it boosted circulation) and movie studios (witness everything from "Planet of the Apes" to "Going Ape" and "Every Which Way But Loose") and TV networks (the CBS Sat. morning show "Ghostbusters" and "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp").

The strangest concept though, when you think about it, was GRAPE APE, this weird Hanna-Barbara cartoon that ran from '75-78 on ABC about a Kong-sized ape that rode around on top of a van driven by a beagle with a hat. Who the hell pitched this one and how did they get the green light on it? What drove the network to run this cartoon? How does something this slack come to be and then go as far as to undergo months of hard work by animators to completion without anyone second guessing whether it was all worth it?

It ran for three years, which is not the shortest run for a cartoon, so maybe I'm wrong thinking the whole thing was crazy. And yet....it's definitely odd...

So many questions...not enough answers...

The LAist Discusses My Article on BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

2011-03-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

There's probably no movie as superfluous right now as BATTLE: LOS ANGELES, which, in reality, should've been titled BATTLE: SANTA MONICA.

Picture STARSHIP TROOPERS without the sarcasm or a hyperlocal INDEPENDENCE DAY and that kind of sums up this movie, which is enjoying the dubious distinction of coming out the day of the Japan tsunami/earthquake. (Not helping much is that the very first line in the movie talks about Tokyo being destroyed...) That said, excluding a few token Santa Monica locales, BATTLE: LA doesn't show much actual Santa Monica because it was reportedly filmed in the wrong LA (as in, Louisiana).

I wrote an article about BATTLE:LA earlier this week and I was delighted to learn that The LAist picked up on it and is discussing it, too.

If anyone else out there has seen the film, I welcome your thoughts on the movie, pro or con.

Coming Very Soon from CARTOON FLOPHOUSE: "Those Unstoppable Rogues Party Hard!"

2011-03-16T23:53:00.000-07:00

This is the manual you'll need to buy to survive current world events! Only from Cartoon Flophouse humor comics!

Current Reading: DIANA PRINCE AS DIANA RIGG! Sekowsky's New WONDER WOMAN (from 1968) and Charles Portis's TRUE GRIT

2011-03-16T10:35:00.001-07:00

Wouldja believe....Diana Prince once emulated Diana Rigg?

Let's face it....I was never much of a DC fan growing up (let alone a book such as WONDER WOMAN) but these days, between some of my favorite books (UNKNOWN SOLDIER, PHANTOM STRANGER, the DC horror anthologies) and my never-ending quest for Frank Robbins and Gerry Talaoc material, I've grown to really appreciate Silver and Bronze Age DC Comics that I slept on during my formative years. It's been fun re-discovering DC Comics of yore, an acquired taste for me compared to the very accessible, "grounded in reality" (by comparison) Marvel Comics that Stan Lee brilliantly sold readers on.

Before I was born, the mighty Mike Sekowsky drew a run of late 1960s WONDER WOMAN comics (written by Denny O'Neil) that I'm currently reading and they're a lot of fun, mainly because how blantantly the adventures of Diana Prince and blind Chinese mentor I. Ching are riffing off of the Diana Rigg/Emma Peel THE AVENGERS. They've comically dispensed with Wonder Woman's corny costume for some Mod Carnaby Street haute couture and espionage antics. It's not really a Wonder Woman book (and I understand this entire take was an embarrassment and a poor seller at the time) but I'm diggin' it, daddy-o!

Side by side, I'm more than halfway through TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis, the book that inspired both the John Wayne and the Coen Bros. adaptations (neither movie I have seen). It's a pretty interesting Western, written in the voice of a 14-year-old female protagonist....and while I keep hearing the TRUE GRIT movie by the Coen Bros. is borderline interesting/borderline boring, I will rent it when it comes to DVD. When all is said and done, I found it hilarious that TRUE GRIT, with (I think) five Academy Awards nominations, did not win one award...but THE WOLF-MAN won an Oscar! Cosmic jokes never go out of style!

Another nifty painted cover....

2011-03-15T16:41:00.001-07:00

If only the interiors of today's mainstream comics were as good as their painted covers....Another doosy from the upcoming FEAR ITSELF: BOOK OF THE SKULL. Why can't the insides be this exciting anymore?

Komark's Remarkable Kovers for DOCTOR SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM

2011-03-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

One of the best features of the Jim Shooter reboot of DOCTOR SOLAR over at Dark Horse are the Michael Komark painted covers. They get better and better with each issue. Here's the one for the current issue, #5. Beautifully done.

THE CULT OF HENK CONTINUES....Cowboy Henk goes Stonehedge iconic...

2011-03-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

One of my all-time favorite comics character is hands-down the loopy, surreal COWBOY HENK by Kamagurka and Seele (a.k.a. COWBOY JEAN, COWBOY MAURICE, etc.) from Belgium. Well, as it turns out, I'm not the lone fan on the planet of this long-running outrageous strip (myself and the editors of RAW notwithstanding....) Here are some global tributes to the character, who is literally getting bigger and bigger every day...

Ride on, Cowboy Henk! Ride on!

Two of the Worst Comedies I've Seen All Year...Back to Back...And Both Starring Steve Carell!

2011-02-26T22:52:00.000-08:00

I like Steve Carell a lot on THE OFFICE...Michael Scott is one of the funniest characters ever conceived on American television...

....so it's particularly painful to report that DATE NIGHT and DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS (a remake of the great 1998 Francis Veber comedy LE DINER DE CONS), which I just saw back to back on Friday and Saturday nights, are so vapid and unfunny, they almost make FUNNY PEOPLE look like an accomplished arthouse classic. Both star Carell (who maybe should not rush to exit his hit TV shows if he's going to make movies like these). Both are nearly impossible to sit through at home on DVD...How the hell did people make it through 90 minutes of this crap in a movie theater?!?

To call these two 2010 stinkers broad comedy is insulting to broads all over the world!

By the way, if you want to see Zach Gararfinkulosopolis officially jump the shark, DINNER is the movie for you! Poor Paul Rudd, didn't he read the script? Maybe Carell is so big a star, he hires a mole to read his scripts for him. Or a bat. It's hard to believe that these smart actors would want to make this movie based on the "jokes."

Once again, I can't muster up the energy or enthusiasm to post a photo to represent this diptych of drek. I will try to close my eyes and forget this weekend, cinematically.

I only pray that Veber got a truckload of money for letting the Hollywood studios crap all over his concept. He's a great filmmaker and a good guy in person and his work is more deserving than this shabby treatment.

To recap....2010: Not exactly the Year of the Comedy in Hollywood...

Movies I've Enjoyed Recently: CYRUS, BLACK DYNAMITE, SE7EN (yes, SE7EN!!)

2011-02-20T22:03:00.000-08:00

I've seen a lot of random movies lately, it's been a mixed bag of highs and lows.

The biggest disappointment was no disappointment because based on the trailer, I knew I wasn't going to connect with INCEPTION. It never even began to draw me in and reminded me of that empty mindfuck exercise known as THE MATRIX (never saw that one more than once, never saw the sequels). I don't generally like these kinds of movies, esp. when the mythology (and lead actors) are so weak.

Another movie that could been way better but at least was decent for what it was: GET HIM TO THE GREEK with Jonah Hill, who I think is way funnier than Seth Rogen. Not as unfunny as FUNNY PEOPLE, not as funny as 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN. Somewhere in the middle, I guess.

Speaking of Jonah Hill, I really enjoyed CYRUS with John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei. I had just seen THE WRESTLER, which was okay and she was in that. But this was a nice little dramedy, not as wacky as one would expect from these folks, even though Reilly was basically a toned-down version of that STEPBROTHERS character.

BLACK DYNAMITE is one of the best movies I've seen recently. That's a spot-on send-up of the blaxploitation flick and has one of the best presidential encounters in a movie ever. Right up there with the ending of HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANMO BAY!

Oh, yeah, late to the party, I finally saw the David Fincher film SE7EN and love it. It may be the first Gwynth Paltrow film I ever liked (maybe because of the way her character ends up?). Well, the first IRON MAN, I guess. SE7EN is like a better, tight version of Fincher's later work, ZODIAC, which I liked but did not love. This was a taut, enjoyable movie and it had Nine Inch Nails all over the soundtrack (a SOCIAL NETWORK precursor).

Also saw the doc MAN ON WIRE - interesting and hair-raising, even though you know he'll survive.

I'm too lazy tonight to post a photo to go with this article. Please Google it up yourself or close your eyes and imagine it.

What I'd like to see now, stuff I've missed like SPEED RACER, GREENBERG, and the new TAKEN wannabe UNKNOWN.

Is this the Captain America movie we really want to see?

2011-01-26T08:49:00.000-08:00

Is the above the Captain America movie I really want to see?!!!

NO!

Below is the Captain America movie I want to see! Notice he is not wearing Reb Brown's motorcycle helmet!!!!