Comics You Should Own – ‘Uncanny X-Men’ #182-200
If you thought I was going to stop writing about the X-Men, well, you’ve got another thing coming. Let’s check out the latest batch!
Hatcher’s Junk Drawer #7: A Book, a Movie, a TV Show, a Concert, and a Comic Book
Cool stuff that’s crossed my path the last few weeks, in no particular order, including: the latest from Hard Case Crime, a show I despised that’s been rebooted into something I rather like, and a guy who’s not a number.
‘Battle Beyond the Stars’ – The ‘Citizen Kane’ of Schlock Sci-fi
When Star Wars exploded on movie screens in 1977, it elevated sci-fi out of the low-budget B-movie ghetto in a way that 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes had tried to do and didn’t quite achieve. While those two films had the spectacular visuals, humanist allegories, and deep thoughts about the meaning of man, they lacked the slam-bang action of a great 1940s Flash Gordon movie. Star Wars showed that people would go for big dumb fun, and the race was on for the next one. In the years that followed, many studios attempted to join the “Me Too” Chorus, with Star Trek grabbing the high-end market and the original Battlestar Galactica locking up the TV audience. The low end was filled with cheesy movies featuring clumsy alien make-up and iffy blue-screen effects. 30-odd years later, one movie stands above them all as the greatest film in the crowded “cheap Star Wars knockoff” genre: ‘Battle Beyond the Stars.’
Byron Preiss: An Appreciation
Byron Preiss was a writer, compiler, editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and graphic novels. As a fan of those genres, as well as comics and pulp fiction, among other things, he tried to innovate ways to present and publish similar materials for a wider reading public – something he did throughout his life.
Review time! with ‘Babylon Berlin’
“I’m alone sitting with my broken glass / My four walls follow me through my past” I’m a big fan of Weimar Germany, so the fact that Babylon Berlin is …
Flippin’ through ‘Previews’ – April 2018
We’re a little late, so no time for preamble – let’s get to it!
