More Totleben Awaits You...

...here, at Bob McLeod's Rough Stuff website.

More art Bob couldn't fit into Rough Stuff #4 (see yesterday's post), plus John's comments. Check it out!

Other insider info:

Tim and Donna Lucas's Mario Bava book is almost a reality! They just posted these photos of themselves with the ozalids of the book (check it out, especially if you need to know what ozalids are).

How cool is that?

Amazing, too, that lifelong Wizard of Oz fan Donna is now savoring "ozalids" of her and Tim's own creation -- I'm amazed there was never a drug dealer who adopted the term (though it likely didn't exist pre-digital era). It all fits together, somehow.

Ah, it's closer to reality -- and to my own bookshelf! -- and it's looking more than ever like the ass-kicking book of the year! Heartfelt congrats, Tim and Donna! Thanks for posting the pix and update!

That's a lot of book! Tim sez, "Do not drop this book on your cat!"

More post later today -- gotta run!

More Uncle Sam Zombies...

Now that I've opened this can of worms, everything's coming up maggots!

I posted an announcement about

Leah Moore and John Reppion's Raise the Dead comic series earlier this week,

including a peek at the cover art -- and now there's Uncle Sam zombies crawling out of the woodwork.

As already noted, I first "saw" the image in a screenplay Tim Lucas wrote and shared with me 20 years ago; at that time, Tim had come up with something original and unique. Alas, the script was never filmed, so that specific image never reached the public eye -- but here it is again, the unsung pop image of 2006.

Clearly, "its" time has come. Though no one "owes" a debt to Tim, per se, it's still worth noting for the record that his script is the first eruption of that image I personally encountered. Now, Undead Uncle Sam is everywhere.

Berni Wrightson's ad art for the high-def horror channel Monsters HD includes a fun riff on the old Jack Kamen Creepshow poster art, featuring the nervous young lad with a remote in his hand, Alex Gordon/Edward Kahn's The She Creature playing on TV, and Berni's take on the She Creature malingering outside the boy's bedroom window, peeking in. But relevant to this topic at hand is Wrightson's "Eye Want You!" parody of the famous Flagg Uncle Sam recruitment poster, looking a little worse for the wear

(here's the link to the site's liveliest use of Berni's Uncle Sam zombie painting!).

(For those of you with long memories, this recalls Wrightson's stylishly done Howard the Duck for President poster, which I still have somewhere in my collection.)

Well, OK, with Wrightson doing his take on zombie Uncle Sam, you'd think that would be enough. Nope, the new wave of zombie comics has embraced the image like a long lost patriarch come home at last.

Not counting the Captain America zombie Art Suydam painted for the Marvel Zombies series (itself satirizing the iconic Jack Kirby 'Cap is Back' cover from the '60s), along with the stirring Uncle Sam alternative Raise the Dead cover for Leah and John's series (likewise painted by Art Suydam), it turns out there's a "Cover B" alternative cover to

Mark Kidwell & Nat Jones's Image Comics one-shot '68, their undead-in-Vietnam opus (alternative cover pictured as this post's lead; here's a review of their comic by Don MacPherson at Eye on Comics).

Even better, to my mind, is Art Suydam's mock Norman Rockwell zombie cover for Raise the Dead #2, which you can get to

here, just click on the entry to the Raise the Dead preview link below the double-cover preview image.

I would have posted it here, but I wanted to be sure to give you a reason to revisit and spend a little time at Leah and John's site this weekend, which was all I was really trying to do earlier this week anyway.

And that's enough on that subject, don't you think?

___________________

So, I now have a retail venue in our new home area here in Vermont...

If you're touring Vermont this spring or summer or fall, and you find yourself on Route 4 in Quechee, VT -- a real easy, short (less than two miles) drive off Interstate 89 -- pop on over to

the Quechee Gorge Village

and enter

the Vermont Antique Mall --

-- and visit my collectibles sales booth!

Hey, my stuff's now in one of those booths crammed with insane, gotta-have-it, gotta-buy-it stuff!

I'm dealer #653, and the booth is now up and running -- comics, including signed copies of my own publications, are waiting for you there, along with a plethora of collectible books, DVDs, videos, toys, and odds (very odd) and ends.

They're open seven days a week (July 4th-Labor Day, from 9:30am-5:30pm; Labor Day-July 4th from 10:00am-5:00pm), they're awful nice folks, and this seemed an ideal means of at last giving folks access to my and the Center for Cartoon Studies' work, creations and collectible curios. No, we're not there, but our stuff is -- priced to sell! -- and I'll be refreshing and restocking the booth biweekly, so there will always be something of interest waiting for you there.

This space prominently feature work from the CCS students, too, with all sales income from their work going to them -- providing a one-stop shopping venue for those of you interested in picking up the students's comics, mini-comics, art, pottery, etc., all signed by the creators. I'll post pics once the booth is closer to its intended status (gotta start somewhere, and right now it's in its infancy) -- but this is likely to remain my (and CCS's) sole retail venue, so make a point of visiting our booth in the Vermont Antique Mall this year!

Of course, those of you wanting to sample the CCS student comics, graphic novels and minicomics now for sale online can immediately go to

the "I Know Joe Kimpel" site and support the next generation of cartoonists with your hard-earned dollars and interest.

____________________

The Bava Book is Coming -- SOON!

Have a great weekend...

Bava Bio Book of the Year?

It's too soon to say -- since it's just off to the printer this past week -- but I daresay I've not been this eager to hold a book in my hands since the announcement of Joe Kubert returning to Tor (via the Epic series), or Ray Harryhausen's first book coming out back in the 1970s.

The image Tim and Donna built this cover around is burned into my braincells, searing seven-year-old Bissette's young Catholic mind as no other movie image had or would for years.

It's hard to communicate today how potent a film like Black Sunday was in the early '60s, just after the modern horror film was born (via Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom) but before it had become the mirror of that decade that the genre became (via George Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Michael Reeves's The Witchfinder General aka The Conqueror Worm). Mario Bava's black-and-white phantasmagoria spoke louder and clearer to me of matters of the soul, good and evil, and the power of light over darkness than any of the "religious" films I'd been subjected to at that tender age (at that time, Charlton Heston epics like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments were required viewing, even at age five and six).

More on Bava, and Tim's new book, in coming posts...

__________

I've just completed two new interviews with Bryan Talbot -- another for PaneltoPanel.net, and one for this blog -- which will be online soon. More info, and the Myrant interview, soon!

___________

Gotta run, be back later today...

Bravo Tim!
Bravo Donna!
Bravo Bava!

This past week,

Tim and Donna Lucas finished work at last on Tim's Mario Bava biography, and shipped it off to the printer.

A hearty congrats to Tim and Donna! Tim and I first met via our mutual love for Mario Bava -- via a fan letter I addressed to him courtesy of Fangoria, enthusiastically responding to Tim's Bava article in that zine -- and I instantly turned over all my Bava files (such as they were) to him, grateful to know someone shared my obsession and was working on a book-length study of Bava.

Tim's a much better writer than I was or will ever be, so it was a treat. I've been a long-distance cheerleader for Tim's book ever since, though he's had much heavier-hitter cheerleaders and much more vital collections turned over to him.

It's taken Tim well over two decades to see through his dream project, and he and Donna have poured enormous amounts of blood, sweat, tears, energy and dollars into this venture.

See, dreams do come true...

More -- on this and more -- later this morning.

A Birthday Ghost

Precursor to Fellini and Del Toro's specters: Mario Bava's Melissa Graps (played by boy Valerio Valeri, and no doubt the inspiration for a key element in Mario's son Lamberto Bava's later giallo A Blade in the Dark) from Kill, Baby... Kill!, now on DVD from Dark Sky.

Not much to write today, due to a very busy Thursday ahead, including guest artist visit from Rick Veitch to enrich the CCS experience. I'll post properly tomorrow, AM.

Big thank you to Tim and Donna Lucas for the early birthday gift of Dark Sky's DVD release of Kill, Baby... Kill!, original title Operazione Paura (1966), which I steeped myself in the past couple of days. It's a terrific disc, stem to stern, and by far the best this Bava gem has looked since its original theatrical showing. In fact, it looks a whole lot better than the theatrical venues I caught it in (twice, on the big drive-in screen, under its Curse of the Living Dead incarnation in the Orgy of the Living Dead triple-bill that unreeled across the US in the early '70s), and it sounds better, too, via digital sound restoration which puts the tinny ol' drive-in speakers in the dirt they often ended up in.

I know this particular Bava film isn't for all tastes -- I've loaned it to friends who love ghost movies, but hated this film ("too slow") -- but it's among my favorite films of all time. Bava's cinematic creation of an ethereal, haunted netherworld defined certain corners of my own visual imagination in ways that render it critic-proof, as many formative experiences remain -- and seeing such a primal experience in such a splendid restoration of color, light and movement is intoxicating in and of itself.

So, take my recommendation with a grain of salt, if you must, but that's beside the point: Thank you, Tim and Donna!

BTW, Tim's far more eloquent discussions of Kill, Baby... Kill! and all things Bava -- and much, much more -- await you

at Tim's Video Watchblog, always worth a read.

A special thanks, too, to Phil for the birthday bash package that arrived yesterday at CCS -- I am already deep into reading the excellent Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction: A Thematic Survey by Allen A. Debus, for which I particularly thank you! Extraordinary book. Back in 1996, I was working on a Tyrant Media Guide, given the dirth of literature on dinosaurian media; well, that's all changed in the ensuing decade, hasn't it? McFarland alone has issued at least three books covering various aspects of the genre, though Debus's book is by far the best of the McFarland brood to date. I appreciate everything else in the package, too, Phil, but this is a real sweet treat I didn't even know existed. Thank you!

OK, off to work -- have a great Thursday --

Sunday Moaning

I'm feeling under the weather completely today. My online session this AM to post early crashed, but I managed to rescue much of my original attempt to post -- here 'tis, then back to moaning and feeling miserable for this lad. My first real cold of the season -- I'm going to let it soak through.

The final word is in at last on the Mario Bava boxed set from Anchor Bay -- and Tim Lucas has posted it all

here at the Video Watchblog.

Alas, no English/AIP (American International Pictures -- the original US distributor) prints of the key '60s trio of films (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Girl Who Knew Too Much/The Evil Eye) -- so reckon I'm hanging on to those old vhs versions. Still, I'm eagerly anticipating this purchase!

Thanks to Tim, an early birthday gift of the Dark Sky edition of Kill, Baby... Kill!/Operazione Paura joined my collection yesterday morning. Can't wait to screen it! I have stolen a little time to view the bonus documentary by David Gregory, in which Mario's son Lamberto tours the original locations the film was shot in over 35 years ago; astounding, really, though sections of the ancient Italian village are succumbing to decay and finally crumbling into rubble. The transfer of the film itself looks fantastic -- come dark, I'm savoring the experience of this, among my favorite of all Bava films, anew.

And speaking of screening --

CINE-KETCHUP, Part the Later

* Absolute Wilson (2006) -- Katharina Otto-Bernstein's bio-documentary of innovative theatrical director Robert Wilson (The White Raven, Einstein on the Beach, The Black Rider, etc.) is a real treat. To my eye and ear, Wilson's brand of theater makes for lively viewing -- the stark, iconographic imagery and movement; the inventive play with sound & music; the imaginative use of color, costume and body language -- and is, once integrated with the interview/'witness' format and use of archival home movie and film clips, completely cinematic.

The presentation of Wilson's life is deftly communicated in broad strokes, from his childhood in Waco, TX (with a black child, Leroy, his best friend in a segregated community and Wilson's further isolation due to his stuttering) to his early outing of his gay life & escape to New York City and exposure to the work of Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and others. The chronology moves quickly into his university, architecture, film, dance and directing theatrical career, touching on his innovative movement therapy work with brain-damaged children (a mere 15-20 minutes into the running time). The tantalizing, too-fleeting glimpses of Wilson's film The House (1965) is tied to his suicide attempt and hospitalization after his return to Waco, after which Wilson returned to NYC and his blossoming thereafter, from his ongoing non-verbal movement & dance therapy work (with paralyzed patients) to his theatrical work he is now renowned for, emerging from the hotbed of 1960s countercultural experimentation.

The expansive, playful and sculptural (in terms of movement, objects, and use of space) variety of Wilson's theatrical creations showcased throughout the film's running time makes for always engaging viewing, and director Otto-Bernstein's insistence on contextualizing every aspect and phase of Wilson's personal and creative life makes this a very satisfying experience. The onscreen presence of Susan Sontag, Philip Glass, Tom Waites, Trudy Kramer, John Rockwell, David Byrne, Jim Neu, Earl Mack, and many others is integral to the biographical tapestry Otto-Bernstein effectively weaves, further enhancing the viewing experience. A terrific documentary, highly recommended!

* The Grandfather Trilogy (1978-81) -- I'm pretty well versed in underground and experimental film history, but this trilogy from filmmaker Allen Ross was new to me. This is comprised of three short films: Papa (30 min, b&w, 1978), Thanksgiving, 1979 (color, 20 min., 1979), and Burials (color, approx 10 min., 1981). The first and third were shot in South Carolina, the second in Illinois, and these are hardly your typical 'family portrait' films. If anything, Papa isn't so much a portrait of Allen Ross's grandfather as much as it is an obfuscation: the camera is almost always on its side or akimbo, or focusing on Ross's grandfather's feet, or some other person or feature of the room or landscape, peppered with erratic sound (sometimes silent, sometimes ambient) and precious little of his grandfather really emerges. The most extensive passage offering tentative connections for viewers features Ross reading a passage from the Bible at his Grandfather's urging, and a brief exchange of words after: the camera, resting on the tabletop on its side, again captures this askew in the frame. We see a black woman walking with Grandpa, sitting alone in a car -- who is she? What's her relation? We don't know, and Allen doesn't tell or even hint. All this may have had meaning for Ross, but it conveys little but frustration to the most patient or indulgent of viewers.

Thanksgiving, 1979 has a perverse appeal in that it captures, by and large, the utter tedium of family holidays, comprised in part of shots of Grandpa and other family members sleeping (on chairs, couches) in their holiday best clothes. Everyone waves as they drive off to church; the family assembles before an (offscreen) TV, where then-current news of the Ayatollah, the hostages and Iran is heard offscreen. Same as it ever was! Burials presents Grandpa's burial, period, with a deliberately irritating soundtrack of harsh, grinding white noise (the clatter of the camera?). Together, these indeed are a coherent trilogy, but I can't admit to having gleaned much from the whole or parts.

* The Messengers (2007) -- Hard to believe my generation had so few ghost movies as reference points -- The Uninvited (1941), The Haunting and The Innocents (both 1961), and little else of note outside the Topper-like ghost comedies of the '30s and '40s were on TV (along with reruns of Topper, the TV series), and aside from 13 Ghosts, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and Mario Bava gems like Kill, Baby... Kill!, the big screen was rarely haunted by ghosts. The largest quantity of ghost films my generation experienced were the made-for-TV movie-of-the-week outings, peopled by the likes of Hope Lange or Dennis Weaver, often produced by Aaron Spelling and/or directed by John Moxey, and rarely providing more than 90 minutes of distraction (though there were gems, including Steven Spielberg's Something Evil).

Alas, The Messengers, for all its J-horror flourishes, is the rough equivalent of one of those made-for-TV exercises, right down to its family-in-jeopardy scenario, ominous flocks of crows and remote North Dakota sunflower farm (yep, sunflowers) setting. Since the popular success of The Sixth Sense and the transoceanic import of J-horror and seemingly endless remakes of Japanese and Asian contemporary spins on the venerable genre, we old-timers can barely keep up with the plethora of almost weekly ghost flicks the current generation have been inundated with. This is the latest Ghost House Pictures opus, which I made a point of catching due to the involvement of co-directors Danny and Oxide Pang, whose Bangkok Dangerous (1996), Gin gwai/The Eye (2002) and sequel I quite enjoyed.

The Pang Brothers bring their usual eye and ear for the uncanny to bear here, but the formulaic strait-jackets simultaneously defining and confining this contemporary vein of ectoplasmic antics prevents the film from ever transcending its TV-movie premise or feel. The cast is TV-movie perfect, including Northern Exposure and Sex and the City's John Corbett's turn as the wanderer-turned-handyman so integral to the plot and a red herring appearance by ol' X-Files Cancer Man himself William B. Davis, but I'm happy to report that Kristen Stewart (Panic Room, Cold Creek Manor, Undertow, etc.) almost elevates this up a notch thanks to her sympathetic performance alone as the unhappily displaced teen daughter. The visualizations of the malignant spirits plaguing the remote farm house and grounds will seem like just more Grudge residue to the casual viewer, but the fact is these spidery, spastic wraiths clinging so tenaciously to the ceilings are lifted from William Peter Blatty's underrated The Exorcist III, which was where I first saw this kind of imagery evoking a real chill. Thanks to CGI, the crow massings and attacks are worthy of The Birds; Ub Iwerks would have been proud. The Pangs do all they can with the material they've been given to work with, managing to mount a couple of effective setpieces and maintain an integrity of visual design and pacing worthy of better source material, but it all succumbs to the unfortunate over-familiarity of the narrative, which wouldn't have worked up a sweat back on 1973 ABC-TV's lineup. I wish I'd have made the extra ten minute drive to Blood and Chocolate instead; at least the premise of that flick (werewolves and -- cartoonists!) rings a bell closer to home.

* Music and Lyrics (2007) -- A Marge movie choice, and a painless way to pass the time... though I'm no fan of this kind of sitcom-style romantic comedy fluff, so take whatever I have to say here with a vast vat of salt. Writer/director Marc Lawrence (Life With Mikey, Miss Congeniality, etc.) maintains the light touch of all his work, and the matching of Hugh Grant (as 'washed up' '80s music star Alex Fletcher) and Drew Barrymore (as surprise freelance-plant-caretaker-turned-lyricist Sophie Fisher) seemed to work for the audience we saw it with. I perversely couldn't forget that Grant was in Maurice roughly the same time Drew was in Babes in Toyland (1985/6) -- that kept things in perspective, especially once they were coupling (offscreen) under the piano. The core of this confection revolves around lovely but (intentionally) vacuous Haley Bennett, neatly sending up the 21st Century pop scene playing teen pop sensation Cora Corman, a tidy conflation of every blonde teen pop starlet of the past six years. You see, Cora is a fan of Alex's MTV-era band "Pop" and gives Alex mere days to compose a new tune for her upcoming CD and tour, and ol' Alex sorely needs the career resurrection this might provide. Enter Sophie, filling in for Alex's usual apartment plant-caretaker (someone to water his plants -- I know, I know, it didn't make a lick of sense to this backwoods fella, either. Water your own fucking plants!), thus our two star-crossed lovers-to-be meet "cute," and begin the unlikely lyricist/composer relationship this whole chick flick revolves around. And around. And around.

This inherently coy tease of a genre depends eternally on deferring, delaying and waylaying the inevitable union of its protagonists -- when will they get together? What will seperate them? What will the reconciliatory moment be? -- and Lawrence juggles those requirements and expectations skillfully enough, though it's usually sheer agony to me. The oddest aspect of this film that kept distracting me had to do with how little the New York City locations looked like New York -- is it just me? Thankfully, the clever framing conceit (the film opens with Pop's 1984 music video, "Pop Goes My Heart," and closes with the Pop-Up Video reboot of same) and satiric collision of 1980s pop music conventions with 2006 pop music conventions is neatly maintained stem to stern; it ain't deep, but it is entertaining enough for this one-time music video junkie. I'm not vulnerable to either Grant's patter or Barrymore's perk, but there are a couple of laughs at Grant's expense, passages of clever dialogue and exchange, and all ends happily. A nice evening out -- nothing more, nothing less.

* The Other Way Back: Dancing With Dudley (2006) -- This is an excellent regional VT/NH documentary on Contra Dance populist Dudley Laufman (aka William Dudley Laufman) from local filmmaker/teacher David Millstone, a followup to his first documentary on New England Contra Dancing, Paid to Eat Ice Cream. Made with considerable more polish and skill than Paid to Eat Ice Cream (which was a solid piece of work, nonetheless), Millstone once again brings his passion for the contra dancing tradition to bear, composing an affection and thorough portrait of poet/Quaker/musician/caller Dudley Laufman of Canterbury, NH.

Laufman's career dates back to 1953; he was a Quaker who registered as a conscientious objector, a 'back to the land' poet with roots in Brattleboro, VT, Concord, NH and his home in Canterbury, NH, and he emerged as the keystone of the Contra Dancing revival of the '70s. Laufman's devotion to the tradition, and the passing on of that tradition, is manifest, from his 1965 Newport Folk Festival participation and subsequent workshop to his absolutely vital, pivotal leadership of the 1970s Contra Dance revival, which also had its political and social dimensions, fully articulated herein. Millstone's integration of on-camera interviews with Laufman himself along with Vince O'Donnell, Dillon Bustin, Jack Perron, Randy Miller and many others is compelling, gracefully orchestrated with an abundance of archival concert footage (the earliest dating from 1964, though the most extensive archival material dates from 1974-75), onscreen use of clippings, posters, flyers and other artifacts of Laufman's career, and plenty of contemporary footage. Millstone doesn't shy away from Laufman's reputation as a womanizer (including comments from charmed women), or his 'fade' from the scene as other contra bands blossomed in the wake of his mid-'70s popularization of the dance; this culminated in Laufman's decision to mount family dances and work with local schools, passing the core traditions on to new generations of youth as he saw others (to his mind) modernize and dilute those original traditions of music and dance. It's all here, and we're the richer for it.

Have a great Sunday, what's left of it...

Taking Measure on a Friday

"Why, this old comic collection might indeed be bigger than my dick!"
(Photo: Joe Citro)

Catch-up and then outta here -- CCS senior Adam Staffaroni and I are off to St. Albans, VT to speak at the library at BFA UHS #48, thanks to an invite from librarian Peter Jones.

Glad I moved an hour closer to St. Albans!

Anyhoot, gotta be quick this morning, sooooo --

* Rick Veitch and his older son Ezra (younger son Kirby is still in college; "hey!" from here to both of you, Ezra and Kirby!) have a unique jam you can watch and listen to, which you

can download from here,

and I think this post scoops this link!

What is it?

Well, here's how Rick describes it, as "a podcast of me reading the text from Can't Get No, with Ezra providing the ghost soundscape behind me.... If you click on this link it brings you to a list of different podcasts available. Just click on Can't Get No for the 49 meg download."

If your computer system and online access is up to the task, go for it, folks, and enjoy!

* Remember that lovely Mario Bava boxed set I foamed-at-the-mouth about here last week?

Well, Tim Lucas has been getting lots of mixed signals from Anchor Bay about what may or may not ultimately be in that set.

Until Tim posts the final word on this matter, I refer you to his blog, and we're all waiting with bated Bava breath for what we can or can't see, come street-date for that lovely brick of Bava.


* My old crony and amigo Steve Perry is a guest at Megacon in Orlando, FL this coming Saturday, so if you're in the Orlando area, here's your chance to meet the man who co-created many characters, from Marvel's Varnae and the Epic series Timespirits, to many of the villains and supporting characters on the Thundercats (and, dare I forget, Silverhawks) cartoon programs and more.

Steve, along with Mark Whitcomb, Jack Venooker and Tim "Doc Ersatz" Viereck, convinced me back in 1976 (while we were all at Johnson State College) to pursue my dream, via applying to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc.'s first-ever year of operation, and it was in fact Steve (with his subscription to The Comic Buyer's Guide and that paper's "Beautiful Balloons" column, announcing the opening of the JK School) who initiated that push.

We had the pleasure of working together on a number of projects, including my first-ever published comics work in Abyss, pro stories for Bizarre Adventures, Epic ("Kultz" in Epic #6, among my personal faves of anything I ever did in comics), Heavy Metal, etc., and have stayed in touch over the years, through thick and thin.

I'm happy to report I just wrote the introduction for the upcoming graphic novel collection of Steve's and fellow XQB and dear friend Tom Yeates's classic 1980s Epic miniseries Timespirits. (Steve's hoping to get Tom to Megacon next year, and emailed me a proposition to join them -- time will tell!)

So, if you're planning on visiting Megacon, look for Steve on Saturday, bring your copies of Timespirits, Bizarre Adventures, Thundercats & Silverhawks for signing, and say hello -- this is his first con in almost 20 years!

* In a followup to my Tuesday post, allow me to note that

the official Brattleboro Reformer obit for Alan Eames, who passed away this past weekend, is here (scroll down to it).

Curiously, it reads like Alan himself wrote it -- I can hear his voice quite clearly in this!

R.I.P., Alan; glad to have met you and known you a bit before your passing. Much love to his family, especially to Sheila, Elena, and most of all to Adrian and Andrew.

[A curious note: the guest book, which both I and my daughter Maia have posted to, is up until -- gulp -- my birthday. Weird, eh?]

* Vermonters have been happily

emailing this to one another all week;

I gotta give credit to actor, fellow ex-First Run Video employee and fellow native Vermonter Michael Dean for sending the link to me. Check it out!

Our representatives in the Federal government have done pretty well by us, and I've been particularly savoring

Philip Baruth reminding me regularly of why I love Senator Patrick Leahy.

Bring on the bottled water, by all means, if only to ensure I hydrate as needed during my daily visit to

The Vermont Daily Briefing.

Check it out, too.
Daily.

Have a great weekend, one and all!

Bava
in a
Box

As noted earlier this week, the upcoming DVD re-releases of some of Mario Bava's key 1960s features is cause for celebration in the Bissette household, and it's amazing to see competing releases of Kill, Baby, Kill/Operazione Paura (1966) popping up after years of public domain videocassettes and DVDs.

The upcoming Anchor Bay boxed set (pictured here) promises transfers of the original European versions (I can't say Italian, given Black Sunday's packaging of US and UK prints only; see the links noted below) along with their US theatrical versions, the American-International Pictures (AIP) edits we all grew up with. Those brassy Les Baxter musical scores defined my generation's only experience with these classics prior to the video bootleg market and eventual official DVD releases, which were at times revelatory: Black Sabbath in particular is a completely different experience and film, from AIP's reorchestration of the order of the three stories to the Boris Karloff Thriller-like intros to the deletion of all lesbian references essential to "The Telephone" (a story that never made a lick of sense in its AIP cut, and I do mean cut). Most infamous of all was/is AIP's removal of Bava's original unusual coda, a comedic flourish featuring Karloff in his wurdulak makeup and costume astride a horse mockup that playfully reveals the artifice of Bava's filmmaking tricks (which makes this a precursor to the ending of Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, sans the fusion/faux-religious context). Seeing this at last (it had been mentioned in newsstand monster zines like Castle of Frankenstein and in Karloff bios in the 1960s, but never seen in the US) was the icing on the Bava birthday cake, but there are elements of the AIP version I still love and miss. At last, they'll be together, in one release!


Anchor Bay is also releasing (April 3) Bava's lost film Rabid Dogs/Cani Arrabbiati, which had malingered in post-production limbo and was imprisoned & unreleased for three decades. Only a lucky, attentive and devoted few (including moi) snapped up the limited-edition Lucertola Media DVD release from Germany years ago (1997); Anchor Bay's upcoming DVD represents the film's US debut in any form. Rabid Dogs is a lean-and-mean-spirited gem. It was and is unlike any other of Bava's films, essentially an entry in the ire-fueled Italian crime film cycle of the 1970s caustically fused with a Last House on the Left "anything can and will go bad" intensity unique to the '70s; shot and shelved in 1974 -- the death of one of its key investors in a car accident doomed the raw footage to impoundment, finally 'freed' and edited in 1996 according to Bava's notes! -- this taut, claustrophobic nerve-jangler boasts the tightest script of any Bava film and a volatile, in-your-face ferocity (and morbid final turn of the blade) that razors the edge of Bay of Blood (aka Antefatto, Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Last House Part II) to a less stylized, more pragmatic & lethal precision. It's a missing link in Bava's body of work, very much of its time and a direct prototype/contemporary of Pasquale Festa Campanile's better-known (and why not? It was completed and released!) Hitch-Hike/Autostop rosso sangue (1977), which starred Franco Nero and Last House on the Left's David Hess. Bava had no such star-power, but Rabid Dogs is the superior film, and it also anticipates more contemporary incarnations of the genre like, well, Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. Anchor Bay is offering two versions of this resurrected opus, Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped; I've no idea what (other than the one-minute difference in running time) defines the differences between these two versions, but I can't wait to find out.

This generosity extends to Anchor Bay's Bava boxed set (Vol. 1), which finally preserves both the European and US versions of the two films most often referenced as Bava's best (sorry, Bava diehards like yours truly beg to differ, though they are delicious and deserving of their classic stature). Black Sunday and Black Sabbath are packaged with the seminal giallo (the first of the genre!) The Girl Who Knew Too Much (coupled with its AIP version, The Evil Eye, never released legally in any format since 16mm, and strikingly different from the Italian version in many respects), the spectral Kill, Baby, Kill (which surprising fared best of all of Bava's '60s horror films, in that it was intact in its US releases whatever title it was released under) and Bava's muscular remake of Shane as a Cameron Mitchell viking opus, Knives of the Avenger. That may not sound promising, but it's among my favorite Bava films, eschewing the maestro's usual color schemes for an earthier palette amid inventively restagings of the generic western elements (i.e., six-shooters become thrown knives) while infusing the Shane boy/child relationship with a more primal paternal twist (Viking rape and pillaging yields an illegitimate son, the young boy the now-repentant viking loner bonds with) and showcasing an excellent Mitchell performance. Its among the most heartfelt of Bava's films, and a real treat; give it a look.

The 'Volume 1' status is worthy of notice, too: if a Volume 2 is in the works, one can hope at last for a definitive US release of Antefatto/Bay of Blood, my favorite of all Bava's 1970s films. Image's 2000 DVD release of this classic (as part of their mastheaded "The Mario Bava Collection") was visually impeccable but fatally flawed by a botched soundtrack transfer that distorted the terrific Stelvio Cipriana score on every system I played it on, rendering the film almost unwatchable. Despite mono sound, even Simitar's cheapjack 1999 DVD release was preferable, despite its shoddy image, for being at least listenable; this eventually drove me to purchase the Raro Video/Nocturno/Horror Club import DVD, though that, too, had its problems. Here's hoping Anchor Bay's re-releases and restorations includes salvaging this seminal slasher and Bava's best black comedy, and preserving Hallmark Releasing's delirious Carnage trailer, which is still among the oddest of its very-odd drive-in era.

[An aside: Hallmark -- the Boston-based exploitation distributor who made their indelible mark with their release of Last House on the Left and Mark of the Devil -- test-marketed Bay of Blood in Boston markets under the title Carnage and tried to revisit the boxoffice bonanza of Mark of the Devil by promoting Carnage as "The 2nd Film Rated 'V' for Violence," and with a possessive "Mario Bava's" moniker above the title (!). That apparently failed to produce results, so Hallmark trotted the film back out later that summer under the much more successful (and inspired) Twitch of the Death Nerve title, with aggressive new ballyhoo: "The first motion picture to require a face-to-face warning*" -- the ad then referencing with its asterisk follow-through, "* Every Ticket Holder Must Pass Through The Final Warning Station -- We Must Warn You Face-to-Face!" Ah, the '70s. Anchor Bay can't restore The Final Warning Station, but if they can restore the soundtrack, I'll be happy!]

This all bodes well for those of us who've long waited for definitive releases of these classics, and

Tim Lucas's Video Watchblog is hands-down the best place to find info on this boxed set and the rest of the upcoming Bava releases.

It's also worth nothing that

the Latarnia Fantastique International forum is also keeping tabs on this Bava boxed set release.

Sweetening the Bava Year in Fear of 2007 is also the pending release of

Tim's massive Bava bio (1,115+ pages!), which you should pre-order ASAP if you're a fan of the man's work (Mario's and/or Tim's).

Tim and Donna are closing in on their long-awaited printing date, so keep an eye on the Bava book blog for updates. This is one of those essential & expensive film books that will only become more essential and much, much more expensive after it drops out of print.

30 and 40 years ago, it was almost impossible to find anything on Bava outside of the insightful capsule reviews (many by Joe Dante) in Castle of Frankenstein, and seeing a Bava film was a matter of haunting late-night TV broadcasts and local drive-ins, usually rewarded with cut and pan-and-scanned dubbed prints in rough shape.

2007 is shaping up to be quite a year from where I sit...

Have a great weekend, one and all!

Monday Monkey See, Monkey Do:

Creative Burnouts go Fishing,
Reading Tyrant Aloud to Eli,
Panel to Panel Update,
Trees & Hills,
Blair's Music Blaring,
Mario Bava and More!

Why I Love Mario Bava Fig. 1: The Three Faces of Fear, Indeed!
Intergenerational bonding in Black Sabbath (1963)

A lot of ground to cover this AM, so heeeeeeere goes:
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Colin Tedford, co-founder (with Dan Barlow) of the Vermont/New Hampshire/Massachusetts/New England comics creative collective the Trees & Hills Group, just sent me their February update:

* Tuesday, 2/6: Creator's Group gathering and Comics Schmooze, one after the other in Northampton, MA.

* Saturday, 2/17: Trees & Hills Drawing Social in Keene, NH.

Plus: * Tim Hulsizer is running a comic art auction for charity.
* Keene Free Comics is reviving in honor of TV Turnoff week and calling for submissions no later than 3/18.
* New comics online!
* Brattleboro Commons seeks local political cartoonist (and others - scroll down a few entries for this one & be sure to read the comments).

All this and more awaits you

here, on their site.

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I've been posting a lot of Center for Cartoon Studies student websites of late, but also should keep you abreast of fellow CCSer Blair Sterrett's activities online. Chief among those, archivist of the unusual that Blair is, be his online music posts on WFMU's 365 Days 2007 Project:

His most recent post I know of is 365 Days #27 - General Electric - Go Fly A Kite (mp3s)

365 Days #20 - American Standard - Today We Bought A Home (mp3s)

is, according to Blair, "a mini product musical by American-Standard." It sports artwork by Suzanne Baumann, who Blair met "in person during the small press comic convention last fall. Strangely she recognized me in the crowd from photos of my old radio show... Start off by listening to track 3." BTW, Suzanne's comics website can be found

here; enjoy.

More of Blair's postings as he posts about his posts for us folks.

___________

This just in from James Kochalka, concerning the ongoing

Fine Toon (here's the link)

Vermont Cartoonists exhibition at the Helen Day Art Gallery in Stowe, VT (catch it twixt now and the end of March, it's a terrific showcase!):

"Eva the Deadbeat interviewed me for her awesome video blog (Stuck in Vermont). She cornered me at Fine Toon: The Art of Vermont Cartoonists opening at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe Vermont, which was a smashing success:

Here's the YouTube clip!

I like the part where me and Eli are reading a page from Steve Bissette's Tyrant.

I provided most of the music too, except for the theme song at the beginning by Burlington band The Smittens."

Thanks, James, and it was great to see you and your family at the opening night gala!

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BTW, at that gallery exhibition, you'll not only see Kochalka originals (including paintings by the grand fellow) and Tyrant original art, but also originals from Rick Veitch's and my first full-color jam creation, "Monkey See" (from Epic #2, circa 1979).

The double-page spread that sold the story: Bissette & Veitch, 1978-79

But don't go scrambling for back issues of Epic via online auctions: Rick is reprinting "Monkey See," along with all his solo creations from the late '70s and early '80s for zines like Epic, in his latest trade paperback collection Shiny Beasts, currently listed in the April Diamond catalogue.

Rick and I have a long-standing agreement to allow one another to anthologize our collaborative work -- particularly our 'Creative Burnouts' creations from the '70s and early '80s -- and Rick's first up to the plate via his ongoing King Hell Press collections of Veitch's out-of-print creations. Shiny Beasts will also include his long-sought-after Epic collaboration with Alan Moore, a tale of love, sex and interstellar venereal disease that also features an eye-popping panel Rick called me in for. You want alien VD imagery to die for, just call Bissette!

Shiny Beasts collects, for the first time anywhere, Rick's key post-Kubert School years, pre-graphic novel period of development, much of which was executed under the steady editorial guidance of the late, great Archie Goodwin. Though Marvel's Epic magazine was initiated by editor Rick Marschall, it was Archie who helmed that publishing experiment (Marvel's short-lived retort to Heavy Metal's unexpected newsstand success) to fruition, and Rick was in every issue of Epic from its debut (wherein he colored John Buscema's art for a one-shot Silver Surfer story). It was the color spread I've posted above that landed Rick and I our foot-in-the-door at Epic, on the heels of our offering the piece to Heavy Metal's beloved art director John Workman; John wanted it, but as a stand-alone illustration, whereas Rick and I were hoping to sell a story using the painting as a springboard.

Now, I'd worked for editor Rick Marschall doing two stories for the black-and-white Marvel comics zines (including Bizarre Adventures, a sort-of precursor to Epic). Rick Marschall was still in the editorial chair when I showed up in his and (then) assistant editor Ralph Macchio's office waaaaay back in 1978. Rick M. liked the piece and immediately requested Veitch and I expand it into a story. We made a couple of attempts, first proposing a fantasy coming-of-age story concept (with roughs) Rick M. shot down. Back to the drawing board we went, and Veitch and I then concocted "Monkey See," which we jammed on as we did everything at that time, literally passing the pages (and bowls) back and forth until we had pulled something together we liked well enough to put to the brush. Thus, we shared all tasks: the scripting, pencils, inks, and colors, though it was Rick who was the airbrush maestro, pulling everything together with his painstaking use of that venerable commercial art tool. Rick was among the first wave of cartoonists to embrace the airbrush after Richard Corben's seminal early '70s underground and Warren creations, and it indeed opened many doors for Rick (and me: Rick graced a number of my first pro jobs with his airbrush tones) at the time. Rick Marschall accepted our revamp of "Monkey See," but by the time we delivered the job, Rick M. had been unceremoniously booted from his Marvel editorial position and Archie Goodwin was the man in the hotseat.

Archie graciously honored Rick M.'s commitment to publish "Monkey See," and thus was Rick Veitch's run of impressive Epic stories initiated (I only did one other, "Kultz," with co-writer Steve Perry, for Epic #6). Rick learned much from his subsequent efforts under Archie's steady editorial hand, culminating in

his first serialized graphic novel for Epic, Abrasax and the Earthman (now available, with a stunning signed and limited print by Veitch and Al Williamson, at PaneltoPanel.net!)

It's all those extraordinary Epic self-standing stories (and more!) that comprise Shiny Beasts; not to be missed!

I'll be posting Shiny Beasts preorder info, and more on "Monkey See" (including a peek at a few more pages) here later in February. Given Rick's ongoing solid relations with PaneltoPanel.net, I'd personally recommend waiting to preorder via PaneltoPanel -- there will no doubt be a limited edition print of some kind to savor! -- and I'll post that link here as soon as P2P guru John Rovnak sends me the specs.

______________

And speaking of John Rovnak and

PaneltoPanel.net,

I'm deep in work prepping another batch of online reviews for John's site; I'll post those links once the reviews are in John's hands and up for reading (I had two book introductions to get off my desk first, amid the moving and house buying-and-selling and all; as of this past Friday, those deadlines have been met and intros accepted by their respective publishers).

However, that's not the big news. Dig, for a limited time John is promoting his marvelous online comic retail site with the following "catch it while you can!" February promotion:

Join Panel to Panel.Net's comic book subscription service during the month of February, and receive two titles FREE for one year!

Simply order a copy of a PREVIEWS catalog

here,

and then email us back with your desired titles and books. Now you're buying books with Panel to Panel's excellent subscription service; and if your monthly orders are at a minimum $35.00 each month, you'll receive two titles (of your choice) for an entire year absolutely FREE!!

Titles to choose from include:

USAGI YOJIMBO (Dark Horse Comics)
THE SPIRIT (DC Comics)
ARMY @ LOVE (DC/Vertigo)
[Note: This is Rick Veitch's upcoming series, and it looks fantastic from the pencils Rick has shown me.]
GODLAND (Image Comics)
MIGHTY AVENGERS (Marvel Comics)
RUNAWAYS (Marvel Comics)
ELEPHANTMEN (Image Comics)
TALES OF THE TMNT (Mirage Studios)
BRAVE & THE BOLD (DC Comics)
SHONEN JUMP * (Viz Media)
LOVE & ROCKETS (Fantagraphics)

*counts as two titles

Plus, as a subscriber, you'll also receive 10% off all items ordered; and you'll receive the best customer service around, which has kept our subscribers happy for years.

I'm among John's long-time subscribers and customers -- here's my plug, along with one from compadre and fellow cartoonist Mitch Waxman:

"I've been using Panel To Panel's comics subscription service for over a decade and have been overjoyed with every aspect of it: the service, the attention to my interests and needs, and best of all the occasional bringing to my attention something I otherwise wouldn't have known existed. It's my one-stop comics and graphic novel shopping center!" - Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing, Tyrant, Taboo)

"Panel To Panel knows exactly what kind of comics, artists and writers that I like, and makes great suggestions for new ones. They're knowledgeable, approachable and a great comics resource. Panel To Panel's subscription service is invaluable; I get the comics I want, without being overwhelmed in the comic shop (if I can find one near me). Panel To Panel has been sending me a monthly box of goodies for 8 years, making them king of comics convenience years before Netflix or Fresh Direct delivered their first movie or bread stick." - Mitch Waxman (www.weirdass.net)

Give us a try, and make us your online comics resource; We'd love to earn your business.
More information about subscribing with us is available

here!

February is a short month, so don't dawdle! Take advantage of this invite now. There's nothing in this for me, but plenty in it for you. Give John and PaneltoPanel.net a shot; he'll be a resource for my own past and coming work in the comics field for years and years to come.
__________________

Did I say coming work? Why, yes I did.

2007 will be the year of my return to the medium (not the US industry) of comics, and there's much to share -- as and when the time comes. I've been busy, not only scripting but also working my pencil and slinging the inks, thanks entirely to my son Daniel, the folks at CCS, and a few tempting invites from friends.

Keep your eyes on this blog, the announcements will be forthcoming as winter gives way to spring!
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Why I Love Bava Fig. 2: The spectral Melissa at the window in Operazione Paura/ Kill, Baby, Kill!/Curse of the Living Dead (1966), a drive-in fave of my teenage years under any title.

Other excitement for 2007 that's got me wound up of late is the coming wave of Mario Bava DVD releases and re-releases, which my long-time amigo Tim Lucas (who happens also to be the Bava biographer of choice and the venerable creator/editor/copublisher of Video Watchdog, with his lovely Oz-collecting wife Donna) has been touting of late on blog (links below).

As many of you may know, Mario Bava's films were absolutely central to my own growing up. I savored some long discussion board debates about Bava's films on the old Swamp boards (in The Kingdom; alas, all gone and now longer archived online), but you must understand how vital Bava's films were and are to me. I was traumatized as a Catholic youth by Black Sunday; however, Bava's films were forever elusive, often hiding under retitlings and even sans Bava's name in the credits. I thereafter scoured the pages of Castle of Frankenstein and haunted the TV Guide listings, studied the 16mm rental catalogues (in high school, I ran the student film program and snuck Danger: Diabolik onto the programming, much to the outrage of a particular French teacher at Harwood Union High School; at Johnson State College, I booked a then-complete retrospective of Bava's films for the Sunday afternoon "Bentley B-Flicks" matinees) and (once I had my driver's license) the drive-ins and grindhouses for any and all Bava creations.

As I got into underground comics, I became convinced Bava's films were influencing other cartoonists of that generation and my own: consider, for a moment, Richard Corben's color horror comics, which seemed the first overt eruption of Bava's color aesthetic into the medium. I've never had that particular conversation with Corben, but I'm willing to bet Bava was as formative an influence on his Kansas City upbringing as Bava was on my backwoods Vermont adolescence and teenage years.

It was our mutual obsessive devotion and love for Bava's films that brought Tim Lucas and I together, via a letter I mailed to Fangoria in response to their publication of Tim's first article on Bava, and we've been friends ever since. It's sometimes hard to believe that almost every single film Bava made has been released on DVD, but there's more to come, and soon!

Why I love Bava Fig. 3: Another indelible gothic image from Kill, Baby, Kill!

First up, there's the coming

Dark Sky DVD release of a digitally-remastered and restored edition of Bava's Operazione Paura/Kill, Baby, Kill!

Tim's got my appetite up, and given Dark Sky's track record to date (I have nearly all their genre releases on my shelves, and in my head) and the promise of David Gregory's bonus feature, visiting all the key locations Bava used for his gothic gem, this promises to be the definitive release (at last!) of this minor masterpiece.

But there's more!

In his February 3rd post on the Video Watchblog, Tim reveals what's in store in Anchor Bay's upcoming boxed set Mario Bava Collection Volume 1,

and you'll have to excuse me, but I think I just came in my pants. This boxed set provides the best intro to Bava's work to date, and for the uninitiated among you, this is the investment to go for.

Jeez, I better go change my shorts.

_______________

Have a great week!

I don't know if I'll be able to post daily this week, as it's a busy one for me: I'm speaking to two classes at Brattleboro's Center for Digital Art tomorrow, so I'll be on the road early. My daughter Maia is coming up to visit this week (and work on our comic project together; her bro' Dan has already completed his jam with his Pop, namely yours truly) and we have two guest artists at CCS this week --

Tom Hart

and

Leela Corman

-- which will keep us all preoccupied and happy.

Still, I'll be popping up here, too, as time permits.

New DVDs I Love: The Euro-SF Revelation
___

First, a reminder -- I'll be on the comics panel at 3 PM at the Burlington Literary Festival at the Fletcher Free Library tomorrow -- for info, see my post for Sept. 16 (skip to the bottom for directions, links) and Sept. 10. That would be

here

and

here.

Hope to see you there!

BTW, VT filmmaker extraordinaire Bill Simmons (the man behind The Perfect Goodnight Kiss, etc.) will be at the event; he writes, "I will be broadcasting your panel discussion at the Fletcher Free Library Saturday live on tv on Cable channel 15 in the greater Burlington area." Since it's a live broadcast, times will correspond with the panel times given in my previous posts. Bill is also Technical Coordinator for the upcoming October annual Vermont International Film Festival; more info later.

OK, on to today's scheduled DVD recommendation...
__

Among the DVDs I've savored of late is one you probably haven't heard or read anything about, so consider this a heads up. The only print alert I saw was in The NY Times, which is a hoot in and of itself.

I have a real affection for European and Russian sf from the 1960s and '70s; it's was pretty hard to come by back then, but my appetite was instilled by early-to-mid-1960s childhood theatrical viewing of two that slipped through the distribution system relatively intact, First Spaceship on Venus and Voyage to the End of the Universe.

Why these films should have appealed so to me, I couldn't articulate: I mean, they were both rather downbeat affairs, dramatically turgid for one raised on 1950s US sf, more than a little dogmatic, completely monster-less and skirting any exploitative elements whatsoever. But they felt more adult than any sf I'd seen, and they offered an alternative take on the genre I found enticing for its odd, non-American (as opposed to un-American, mind you) flavor. Later '60s international sf was more immediately appealing: citing just two MGM pickups that swept through northern VT in their day, I loved both the Italian Wild, Wild Planet, with its mutants, tick-tack futuristic cars and costumes, and oceans of blood, and the Japanese The Green Slime for its hilarious theme song and monsters, bogus miniature & model work, and shameless potboiler energy. As my tastes matured (?), I later gravitated to Tarkovsky's Solaris and more serious European, Russian, and Asian sf fare, but the first taste test was passed and provided by First Spaceship on Venus and Voyage to the End of the Universe.

These weren't like the US, Italian, or Japanese sf films I loved; these were something else entirely. First Spaceship was a colorful, widescreen epic of sorts, a multi-national production (German/Polish, based on a Russian novel) which was reflected in its pre-Star Trek casting of multi-gender and racial cosmonauts (white males -- German, Polish, and American -- a scientist from India, an Asian male & female, and a black male) that made quite an impression on little ol' me, if only because it seemed such a novelty at age seven or eight. This was the first truly multinational, multi-racial crew I’d seen in any film, truth to tell, and this at a time when a Vermonter like me had never seen anything but white folks in real life! Better yet, its alien landscapes (with multi-color veined skies, odd geometric metallic 'flora,' weird flitting metallic lifeforms puppeted from invisible but nonetheless obvious strings, and a sentient black magma that figured in the climax) were eye-popping and different, anticipating the pre-psychedelic landscapes I later savored in Mario Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World and Planet of the Vampires. Its modest but cool tank-like robot seemed (despite its ‘humanized’ face) pragmatic and functional in a Popular Mechanics way that American humanoid robots never were; and its room-sized computers (operated by the eldest member of the expedition, endlessly pushing buttons without looking at them as if they were a piano keyboard) seemed state-of-the-art in the early ‘60s. Its scenario, though almost indecipherably stodgy to me as a youth, was anchored by a seriousness of tenor and intent that was unlike anything I'd seen -- I’d read sf like this already, but sf movies were never this serious. A mysterious object is found on Earth, its alien message partially decoded, directing the world attention to Venus, so an international space expedition is mounted -- blah, blah, blah, but something here was compelling, and the whole was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

Voyage to the End of the Universe was an AIP release of a somber black-and-white Czech space-travel gem originally titled Ikarie XB-1. Like First Spaceship, it proposed a multi-gender crew in space sans the romantic overtures American '50s sf required, with long stretches in which crew members debated, danced, relaxed, and argued: adults acting like adults, however arch the dubbing or dramaturgy. The core of the film for me, though, was a long, partially silent, almost slow-motion (due to the convincing illusion of weightlessness and movement without gravity created) and utterly haunting sequence in the middle of the film in which the crew responds to a distress signal. They come across an apparently abandoned derelict spaceship, and cautiously enter the vessel: here was the seed for subsequent faves like Queen of Blood, Planet of the Vampires, and Alien, played straight -- no monsters waited on board, only stillness, death, and an unsolved mystery that ends in disaster. One image, of a dead, decay-ravaged crew member aboard the derelict being found, the gray crust of dried facial skin drifting away like a mask from the bare bone of the skull at the slightest touch, malingers in my memory to this day. It was as breathtaking a moment of quiet horror as the unmasking of Barbara Steele’s pallid corpse in Bava’s Black Sunday, even more startling for its appearance in the relatively sterile confines of a dubbed black-and-white sf import.

I dug the film -- so much so that I later arranged to rent it in 16mm for a public sf double-feature (as student council film dude at Harwood Union High School) and again for a sf literature class at Johnson State College. Post-2001: A Space Odyssey, of course, it seemed like mild tea indeed, but oh, that derelict sequence...

Over the years, I've gravitated to such films like a moth to a flame. Among my first 8mm film purchases (remember 8mm film 'cutdowns' of features, anyone?) was a Ken Films 50-foot release of First Spaceship on Venus, which was sharp but in black-and-white, it's barely-five-minute running time condensing the black-magma climax into a weird little Blob knockoff with cosmonauts. Still, it was a souvenir of that childhood theater experience, and as such treasured. As I teenager, I caught a late-night TV broadcast of First Spaceship on Venus, and I couldn't believe how wretched it was, an impression intensified by the fact that the colors were so faded the film seemed to be in black-and-white, and the widescreen images I so vividly recalled were pan-and-scanned into almost incomprehensible nonsense. Could I have really so mis-remembered the film?

When the vhs era hit, I snagged a $5 copy of Star Classic's threadbare 1986 video release of First Spaceship on Venus, and it was agonizing, but an accurate record of the crap pan-and-scanned prints TV used to broadcast. Perversely, I held onto it -- which panned out, when Englewood's sterling color, letterboxed restoration of First Spaceship surfaced on the market in 1998. I incorporated duplicate clips from both video versions in my film classes, relating the story of my fond childhood memories of the film, my dismal teenage and adult experiences with the pan-and-scan 'decolorized' prints, and the wonders of letterboxed restorations (which led into a broader section on the joys of letterboxed video and DVD, and its importance to storytelling, using companion clips -- p&s vs. letterboxed -- from Dressed to Kill and Pulp Fiction, among others).

Which brings me at long-last to the DVD set I am bringing to your attention:

The DEFA Sci-Fi Collection is a singularly unappealing title, but I suggest you pick it up if you love sf cinema. Its a boxed set sporting three individually-cased feature films: DEFA's first sf opus, The Silent Star, along with In the Dust of the Stars and Eolomea, and though I've just begun to view the set, imagine my surprise when The Silent Star (original East German title: Der Schweigend Stern)turns out to be -- at long last! -- the complete, original-language, restored Polish/East German production I first saw, cut and dubbed on the big screen, as First Spaceship on Venus! First Run Features' functional packaging makes no mention of this fact, making me doubly glad I dumb-lucked into this on a pre-order listing and ordered it, sight unseen.

I'll post a full review of the entire set on my site once I get through all three films, but I must say The Silent Star is a revelation. Adapted from a Stanislaw Lem novel I'm unfamiliar with, The Astronauts, this 95-minute color, stereo, and letterboxed (16:9, showcasing DEFA's 'TotalScope') subtitled Agfacolor print is crystal clear and intoxicatingly vivid. The extras are terrific, too: a short gallery of set design sketches (b&w pencil/charcoal roughs and color) for the film, bio and filmography of director Kurt Maetzig (who co-founded DEFA in the 1940s, and directed 20 features before retiring), set designer Alfred Hirschmeier and special effects creator Ernst Kunstmann (whose career stretches back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, and Murnau's The Last Laugh, and many more!), and a text essay "Socialists in Outer Space" by the University of Toronto's Stefan Soldovieri (which does acknowledge the US version First Spaceship and cites a few of the changes made for the US condensation). Best of all are the subtitled East German 1959 newsreel excerpts -- a UK filmmaker's visit to the DEFA Studio, including a behind-the-scenes Silent Star set visit, and the brief but cool A Rocket in the Soviet Zone, showing the film's special effects and miniature work being shot -- and the preview trailers for all three films in the set.

BTW, the other two films are enticing. In contrast to the 1960 Silent Star, the two companion films are 1970s efforts, with Eolomea, 1972, looking like the most unusual of the trio. The preview is a sui generis tease -- "Is this film a love story?... Is this a nature film?... Or perhaps a thriller?" -- as it eases into increasingly obvious sf imagery and trappings, arriving at "It's the new utopian film by DEFA!" Metal Hurlant-like imagery is wed to absurdist dialogue shorn of any context ("You don't know me at all. You're not getting the container from me." "We're entering your shadow. Over and out!")... hmmm, just like vintage Heavy Metal translations. This I gotta see! In the Dust of the Stars looks like the most traditional sf of the three, with more mysterious messages drawing expeditions to distant worlds inhabited by lounge-lizard humans with big hair and colorful spandex outfits, silly dancing girls, cosmonaut interrogation and torture, ragged slaves laboring away in subterranean chambers, helmeted laser-toting soldiers, disembodied sentient heads, et al., along with a Diabolik like shower scene. You'll never see a preview for an American sf film end with bracing ballyhoo like, "Will they stay and assume responsibility? Or will they return to their cozy lives?" Incredible! Bring it on, DEFA...

Back to Silent Star/First Spaceship: The film is vastly improved sans dubbing, but the subtitled dialogue is nonetheless risible at times ("I appeal to the consortium to accept that nothing will deter me!"). The script is completely coherent in its complete form, and indeed brimming with imaginative touches and concepts lost in the clumsy First Spaceship condensation and dubbing. "The indespensible robot Omega" is still as clunky and pragmatic as ever; if anything, after the recent NASA Mars robots, Omega looks more realistic than ever. But the film has never looked lovelier, with one foot in Destination Moon and Rocketship X-M traditions (the inevitable meteor shower; ongoing "should we stay or should we go?" angst; etc.) and the other anticipating the trippy imagery and psychedelia of later '60s sf and Gene Roddenberry's 'innovations' for Star Trek (again, multi-racial and gender crews).

BTW, Silent Star in its uncut form makes a fascinating companion piece to the Russian Planeta Burg (Planet of Storms), which launched another group of Cosmonauts to Venus to find prehistoric reptiles (a pteranodon, ‘brontosaur,’ and outsized man-in-suit bipedal lizards) and... something else. Carlos Clarens first wrote about this gem in his seminal An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967, a book that changed my life), and thankfully video put it in reach at last; this has been available from Sinister Cinema and other 'gray market' sources for almost a decade, and is well worth scouting out. Corman drafted Curtis Harrington and Peter Bogdanovich to revamp this Russian gem into Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, respectively, for AIP-TV release in the mid-60s, which makes it all the more extraordinary that seven-or-eight-year-old Steve Bissette was actually able to see as much of First Spaceship as he did on the big screen, sans too much US distributor manhandling.

Counting one's blessings, it's even more astounding to see The Silent Star at last in its original form in such a glorious restoration. Man, I’m glad I lived long enough to enjoy the DVD revolution!

For more info ASAP, go to

the First Run Features website.

First Run is offering the set at 25% off its list price of $59.95 -- a bargain at $44.96, though there may be better pricing at other online venues.

FYI, DEFA was an acronym for Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft (German Film Shareholders Company), the state-run studios of the former German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany) that were headquartered in what was formerly the UFA Studios in Babelsberg (near Berlin).

Curiously enough, it turns out the US branch of the DEFA Film Library is based not far from my Green Mountain State home: The University of Masschusetts in Amherst, MA, in fact. For more info, go to

the DEFA site.

More DVD blather tomorrow!

Test, eh? Well...

It all began with the monster movies I grew up on: Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures, 1950s sf gems and turds, the Universal rogue's gallery (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Creature), the Hammer horrors, Mario Bava's BLACK SUNDAY. It all began with the beloved comics of my youth... STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES ("The War That Time Forgot!"), GORGO (see cover at right), KONGA, and best of all KONA, MONARCH OF MONSTER ISLE!

Welcome to Myrant, the Bissette blog. It'll be anything goes, day to day, but out of this will emerge a chronology of my current adventures -- as a writer, as a cartoonist, as a teacher. As of September, I will starting a new adventure, teaching at James Sturm and Michelle Ollie's amazing new Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT (see LINKS on the RIGHT of the screen; lots of good stuff there to check out besides the CCS, too!).

This turn of events brings a major arc of my life and career full circle: I began working as a pro in comics as a student at the first-ever class in a new experiment in education, the Joe Kubert School for Cartoon and Graphic Art, Inc. in Dover, NJ (Sept. 1976-June 1978). Now I'll be among the faculty for the first-ever class at the Center for Cartoon Studies -- a new experiment in education -- on the other side of the classroom. The fun begins after the September 10th Grand Opening, and who knows where it'll go from there! I'll be posting my thoughts, perspectives, and misadventures here, so stay tuned!

At the time of this first blog posting, I have also completed the first volume in a new book series, S.R. BISSETTE'S BLUR, compiling my weekly newspaper column "Video Views," which appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer from Sept. 1999 thru October of 2001. Volumes 2 and 3 are now completed and being formatted, all of this out soon from my dear friends at Black Coat Press.

This weekend seems momentous, too: The Brattleboro Museum is hosting a remarkable 24-Hour Comic Creation marathon, which has already attracted an incredible 48+ (final count forthcoming later) participants. I am the Crypt-Keeper, so to speak, the Master of Ceremonies who ushers in and ushers out the event. I'll be posting at length, here, as well as providing links as they're available.

OK, enough for now -- more to follow... time to begin the blog proper. This was not just a test.