Out of the Vault – Captain America #193

Posted on September 10, 2011 by Tony Frazier

So last week, we talked about Captain America and the Falcon #191, in which the Falcon’s trial for crimes committed before his hero career began ended with an attack by the Stilt-Man, who wanted to kill the Falcon, but instead exonerated him. The letters column of that issue contained multiple complaints that artist Frank Robbins was killing Captain America, and at the end of the letter column was a huge announcement: starting with issue #193, one of the original creators of Captain America, Jack “King” Kirby himself, would return to his creation, not only drawing, but also writing.

Well, this was a huge announcement. After all, not only had Kirby co-created Captain America, but he had also co-created virtually the entire Marvel Universe as the original artist on the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor (in Journey Into Mystery) and the Uncanny X-Men. And after he had left Marvel, he had gone to DC Comics where he had created the Fourth World series of books including New Gods, Mister Miracle and The Forever People, as well as Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. Yeah, the Fourth World books had had a relatively short run, but they had injected new life into almost the entire DC line. Continue reading →

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Pardon Our Dust and All That

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Tony Frazier

After Saturday’s Out of the Vault, updates are going to shut down until October 1 to give me time to get worked ahead on content and get switched over to a new theme with new graphics, new logo, new features and a new story.

That’s right, Monday, October 3, will mark the start of a brand new Digger epic, with a twist (you can read a special preview in the ebook of Hero Go Home). The story will run in daily 500 word chapters, Monday through Friday, for what I’m imagining will be a year, based on nothing other than I think a year-long story would be cool. Out of the Vault will still run on Saturdays, and I’m thinking Super Movie Monday will morph into Super Movie Sunday to give you new stuff every single day. Not to mention the new Twitter feed and the Facebook page (Twitter feed is already set up, Facebook is still in the works). Am I freaking crazy?

Yeah, probably. Especially given how little actual work I’ve gotten done on the actual story. I’ve put a lot of work into the graphic look and picking the right theme and this and that, but the story is still mostly a few scattered notes and a plan in my head, the second half of which is “Things get crazy.”

But I apparently need the terror of a deadline to get my ass in gear, so consider it downshifted. ouch

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Super Movie Monday – The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Tony Frazier



In 2003, director Stephen Norrington, best known for making a kick-ass movie about a comic book hero who wasn’t a traditional superhero (1998’s Blade) directed another film based on a group of comic book heroes who weren’t traditional superheroes, with a screenplay by respected comics writer James Robinson.

The movie was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, based on the graphic novel by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill. The comic was very successful and is considered by many a masterpiece.

The movie, alas, was neither. Continue reading →

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Out of the Vault – Captain America and the Falcon #191

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Tony Frazier

Last week, we featured Steve Englehart’s attempt to make Cap relevant and interesting to a 1970’s audience more interested in the Watergate scandal than WWII patriotic propaganda. As a parting gift before he left the series, Englehart decided to retcon (i.e. fuck with) the Falcon’s origin, revealing that he had not been a social worker with a heart of gold before shipping off to Exile Island, but had been a drug-dealing pimp in L.A. named “Snap” Wilson.

This little revelation was left as a parting gift to the new creative team, almost as classy a move as removing all the W’s from the computer keyboards in the White House. So in issue #191, cover dated November 1975, plotter Tony Isabella, scripter Bill Mantlo (who wrote short runs or fill-ins for virtually every book Marvel published in the 70’s–he was to writing at Marvel in the 70’s what Sal Buscema was to pencilling), and artists Frank Robbins and D. Bruce Berry had to deal with the fallout from Englehart’s revelation in “The Trial of the Falcon.” Continue reading →

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It’s Here! Hero Go Home Now Available on Smashwords and Kindle*

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Tony Frazier

Okay, the Kindle version seems to still be churning through the bowels of Amazon, but the Smashwords version is up right now! Featuring cleaned up text and a couple of minor revisions, plus a sneak preview of the new Digger serial launching in October, Hero Go Home, the ebook, is a fantastic value at only $3.99.

If you have been holding off from reading the story one chapter at a time on-line, now is your chance to get the whole thing at once. If you’re still holding out for paper, let me know, and I’ll make it happen. If you do read it and enjoy it, I only ask that you tell at least one friend about it and review it (at the least, toss it a star or two) at the place where you bought it.

You can buy the Smashwords version here.

ETA: The Kindle version can be purchased here.

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Super Movie Monday – Steamboy

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Tony Frazier

So I’ve been a part of this role-playing game for most of the last two years, which took place in a steampunk Atlantis setting. The game ended a few weeks ago, but apparently, I’m still not over it, because today, I found myself composing a rap parody of “The Humpty Dance” in the voice of my character, and now, here I am presenting Katsuhiro Otomo’s 2004 steampunk epic, Steamboy.

Otomo was the writer/director behind one of the most famous anime films to hit American shores, 1988’s Akira–a dazzling vision of an apocalyptic future. The story didn’t make sense in a conventionally Western way, but holy God, did it have atmosphere and style! Continue reading →

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Hero Go Home Cover Preview

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Tony Frazier

So I’ve been working on cover concepts off and on for a couple of months now, and the time is drawing near to settle on one. So here’s a preview of some variations that I’m really close to settling on.

Let me know what you think. I’m leaning toward the yellow-orange one, myself.

And if you’ve read through the novel on-line, right now you’re wondering, “Why should I spend money to buy this thing?”

Two reasons:

Number one, it will help ensure that there are future installments, because I really need for this to become profitable if I’m going to keep spending so much time and energy doing it.

And number two, the ebook will be a better, cleaner version of the story, with typos fixed and some conflicting information cleaned up. Plus, you can read it all in one go without having to click between pages.

Plus, there just might be some bonus content, like a sneak preview of Digger’s next adventure. Not guaranteeing anything, but I’m hoping to make it happen.

September 1. I would tell you to mark your calendars, but trust me, I’ll remind you.

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Out of the Vault – Captain America and the Falcon #176, 178

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Tony Frazier

Last week,we looked at Captain America #117, in which we saw the introduction of a new superhero, The Falcon. Lest you think this was merely a minor blip in the history of Cap, let’s jump forward five years, to 1974. Here’s the cover to Captain America #178, the first new issue of Captain America I ever purchased.

The title of the book is now Captain America and the Falcon, and if you notice the billboard, Captain America is missing. So this issue is likely to be all Falcon. Also, that robot really hates light bulbs for some reason; see how he’s shooting that one with pinpoint accuracy. Continue reading →

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Super Movie Monday – Jack the Giant Killer

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Tony Frazier

Okay, I admit, this one doesn’t have even the slightest connection to superheroes except maybe that Dell published a Jack the Giant Killer comic to tie in with the movie. Anyway, everything I wanted to do I either don’t have access to yet, or I’m saving for Halloween, so this is what you get.

So in 1958, Columbia Pictures released the Harryhausen classic, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Upon seeing its success, producer Edward Small (who apparently turned down an opportunity to produce the Harryhausen film) then decided to make virtually the same movie, hoping lightning would strike twice. To that end, he hired the same director and two of the same stars–Kerwin Mathews, who had played Sinbad, was cast as Jack while Torin Thatcher, in a follow-up to his role as the evil sorcerer Sokurah, was cast as the sorcerer Pendragon.

Small also hired the crew at special effects company Project Unlimited, founded by former Puppetoons animators and Academy Award winners Gene Warren, Wah Chang, and Tim Baar (credited as ‘Barr’ in the film), to do animated effects. Also working at Project Unlimited was a young Jim Danforth, who had visited Harryhausen at his studio during the animation of 7th Voyage and knew the process (dubbed Dynamation) that Harryhausen had used to create his effects.

So, same director, same stars, Academy Award-winning effects crew: the picture must have been pretty awesome, right?

Not so much… Continue reading →

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The Next Big Thing

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Tony Frazier

Okay, I have been hinting about changes coming for a while now, and it’s finally time to pull aside the curtain and let you see what the plans are.

First, editing is finally finished on Hero Go Home, the ebook. The cover still has to be finalized, and the various versions formatted, but the work is close enough to done that I can announce September 1 as the official publication date. When I get the cover finalized, I’ll give you a sneak preview of that.

Also, October is starting to take shape. I love Halloween and try to do something special on the blog to celebrate. This year, I decided to plan ahead, so the calendar is starting to fill up with spooky comic books, movies, and once again, a very special audio presentation to release on Monday, October 31st. I may put up a poll this week to let you vote on what you want to see in October.

But the really big news is that a brand new Digger serial will be starting soon. The story takes place after the events of Hero Go Home and will feature the return of several characters, as well as some new surprises. The big change will be in the format.

The story will update five days a week, Monday through Friday. That’s right, five days a week! The updates will be short, so if you got tired of reading a long chapter once a week during the previous storyline, this will be the perfect way to drop in every day and get your daily fix. This is an experiment for me, so keep your fingers crossed that it works.

To celebrate the new story, the entire site will be undergoing an upgrade: new layout, better navigation, new graphics–the whole schmeer. I’m really excited to see how it comes together, and I really hope you’ll like it. The relaunch date is tentatively set for September 19, but I may end up having to push it out past Halloween. Stay tuned…

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