Award!

I got an award!

Thanks to longtime virtual chum Joe Bloke of Grantbridge Street and Other Misadventures for the Kreativ Blogger award! It's going on my mantel next to my Dardos Award, My Nobel Peace Prize, my Oscar, and my Cable ACE award. Check out his ripping good blog while you're at it. For one thing, it has more pictures of sexy babes ("fit birds" as they call 'em across the pond) than this one has. Real life has made it harder to find time for blogging and reading other blogs, but I sure appreciate any recognition sent my way. Cheers, mate!


Update: 6/10/10
So, a little more than a month later, I get a second Kreativ Blogger Award, this time from the wall-crawling Spider-Man Reviewed blog. Thanks, "Cryptic Critic"!

Krypto's Cat-Crook Caper!

Just about a year ago, we discussed Krypto the Superdog's career with the Space Canine Patrol Agents at length, first here, then here. But there was one more tail yet to be told. It is a story of failure and redemption; of rodeos, hot dogs, and fund-raisers; of cats and dogs living together in harmony. It is a tale called "Krypto's Cat-Crook Caper!", presented here complete and uncut for the first time since 1966. Enjoy the Space Canine madness, pals! 

"Krypto's Cat-Crook Caper!"
Script:Otto Binder
Art: George Papp
Story scanned from Superboy #132, DC Comics (October 1966)
(from the M. Coco library)

Strike Up the Band for Our 500th Post!

Has it been five hundred of these things already? My God! What have I done?!?

I am truly surprised that I have stuck with this so long, but here we are, almost four years old, with a fairly substantial body of work. If you're new to Again With the Comics, my name is Brian Hughes, and I've been reading funnybooks all my life. Babbling about them on the internet feeds my ego in a sad, sick way, and apparently a bunch of you get something out of this too. Yay co-dependence!

Big thanks go out to my readers, followers, commenters, and to all those who link to this blog. The comics blogosphere is a big place, with a lot of great work, so I appreciate any portion of time you devote to Again With the Comics, you guys! Newer readers may have missed some of the best stuff from the recent past, though, so here's a handy list of some recent hits:

Be haunted by some Deeply Disturbing Hostess Ads!

   Visit The Bearded Gentlemen's Club of Metropolis!

Behold the forgotten FREE Marvel Benefit issue!

He's SO DIFFERENT from the original Superman from Krypton!! The Future Superman of 2965!

Blast off to adventure, or the Emergency Room, with Dynamite Thor!

Please to joining Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, and Nagraj in fighting manic magic midget!

Mock the many shortcomings of Newspaper Comic Strip Spider-Man and his Lame Villains!

1993's Marvel Superstars of Tomorrow: Today! (Originally published October 2009!)

Marvel at bang up Mister Muscles' thrilling displays of physical strength and power!

Beware mysterious doors, reader, for they might lead to tedious paperwork...IN THE FUTURE!

And then there was that time the Punisher crushed Wolverine with a steam roller.

With that, I'd like to open the comments up for topic suggestions. I'm only one guy, and it gets a bit hard to come up with new things to write about, so with that in mind, what would you like to see me discuss, dear readers? What crazy old character/book are you dying to hear my opinion of? Any bright ideas, smart guy? I make no promises, but I'll consider any reasonable request! Let me know in the comments!

The Quatro drum & bugle corps appear courtesy of Baron and Rude's Nexus #27, a fine issue of a series I still haven't raved enough about yet. 

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The Doom Patrol Gets Bugged

(SPOILERS for Doom Patrol #9.)

Having recently praised Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, let me hasten to add the the current Doom Patrol series by Keith Giffen and Matthew Clark has also been a dream come true for your humble host. I am a sucker for the DP in general, as well as a Giffen fan, so it's almost as if this book was custom made for me specifically. In Doom Patrol #9, it looks like we get some surprisising new additions to the supporting cast, one of which comes as something of an ambush...

 

I was afraid that Once-Crazy-Now-Sane Jane and Danny the Brick might be "Doomed" after they re-appeared in DP #7 and 8, pursued by the Gentrifiers, who had bulldozed and built over the other-dimensional Planet Danny. It looks like they'll be settling on Oolong island though, and further, it looks like Ambush Bug will be moving into a rebuilt Danny the Bungalow as well! Why? Read the button, fanboy! 

This should be a lot of fun, returning the Bug to his roots as a pest within the DC Universe, after a couple of decades of being consigned to only his own, increasingly bizarre books. Longtime fans will recall that the Bug made his debut as a manic, pesky villain against Superman and the Doom Patrol in DC Comics Presents #52, so this is like coming home for him after that recent misfire of a mini-series. Indeed, the Bug was doing Deadpool's "annoy serious heroes" shtick long before Deadpool was a gleam in Rob Liefeld's beady little eye.  

So let me Ambush you one more time, and Bug you to buy Doom Patrol!

Hostess Villains I Want to See in the Actual Comics!

Some Hostess villains are too good to be consigned to snack cake ad limbo. They ought to be used in actual comics, and I think Marvel, at least, owns the rights to their Hostess characters. Only one has made it from the ads to the "real' Marvel Universe.

ICEMASTER showed up in the Crimson Cowl's Masters of Evil during the early issues of Thunderbolts. Kurt Busiek put a whole host of obscure villains on the Cowl's team, and made a contest of identifying the members. In order to make it tough, he added Icemaster from the above Fruit Pie ad, and thus, the frosty Human Torch foe became "official". If they can do it for him, they can do it for these other Hostess highlights:

THE DING-A-LING FAMILY

Everyone loves hillbillies. A space-faring clan of buck-toothed hillbillies traveling the cosmos in a time-warping motor home was sheer genius, and pairing them off against Thor and the flowery-talking Asgardians was the perfect comedic match. In fact, I suspect this strip was the inspiration for Thor's current adventures in and above Oklahoma.The obvious next step? Bring in the Ding-a-Lings!

THE FLEA-MARKET EATING FLEA

With hideous, blood sucking freaks more popular than ever, it's time for the Flea Market Eating Flea to return. I'm thinking that these people should be very grateful that this abomination is just eating their old paperbacks and auto parts, then Twinkies, rather than feasting on the flea's typical food source: rich warm blood!  Small consolation that the Hanta Virus would be a non-issue with this guy; a bite from a flea this big would be fatal, mitigating the risk of infection entirely in lieu of a gushing chest wound. That guy in the jaunty straw boater won't be so happy when he gets back to his stall and finds a slimy heap  of quivering flea  larvae laid in his back stock of velvet Jesus and Dogs-Playing-Poker wall hangings.

THE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS

Phineas and Fat Freddy should have waited for Freewheelin' Franklin, but you know how it is with the munchies...

LEGAL EAGLE

An evil lawyer trying to usurp Presidential power through legal trickery, Ralph G Fake could serve as a metaphor for oh so many current day issues. They could even do a story where he tries to delegitimize the sitting, duly-elected president with a bunch of crazy baseless lawsuits questioning his citizenship! Oh wait, we already have a wrinkly, crazy buzzard lady trying to do that for real. Never mind.

THE CHAIRMAN

You know, I'm not sure a crime was even committed here. Is there a law against turning people into chairs?

PEACHY KEEN

I figure if Batman can have villains that are obsessed with jokes, birds, cats, duality, and riddles, then his across-town rival can have a villain that's obsessed with peaches. Fair is fair, after all.

BIG MOUTH

There must have been something about the boringness of Captain Mar-Vell that inspired Hostess ad writers to give him the wackiest adversaries, because, well, look at his guy. A world that has room for MODOK, Arnim Zola, and Mojo can surely find a niche for a giant disembodied mouth with little bitty hands, no?