Anyone in Japan want a ton of great American comics?

I'm not sure how many people in Japan read this blog-- probably close to 1 or maybe even 2-- but if you're out there and hungry for some comics to read, I know someone who can hook you up at a very reasonable price.

A nice guy named Gabe emailed me the other day.  He's got a dilemma.  He owns two longboxes full of fantastic comics.  The problem is, they're in Japan and he's in the United States.  Gabe wants these comics to go to a good home, to someone who will appreciate them.  Obviously, as I'm the number one Western comics freak in Japan, I was his first choice.  Unfortunately, as tempting as the offer is, I'm not really in a position to take them myself.  I barely have enough room in my apartment for the books I've already accumulated.

So there it is.  Two boxes packed with comic book goodness, yours for the taking.  The offer is good until the end of September.  If you're interested in working out a deal, email Gabe at lostpuppyproductions@yahoo.com.

Archie tangles with the Clampetts and the Munsters!

The official car of hillbillies.

Man, I knew I read these stories but it's taken me all this time to find proof.  Proof that I'm not insane!  Years ago, on a roadtrip, my mom bought me a little Archie paperback with the weirdest little trifles in it.  Instead of double-dating with Betty, Veronica and Reggie or scarfing down hamburgers with his foodie pal Jughead, Archie was scuba diving into undersea civilizations and meeting thinly disguised versions of families from television.  Now, thanks the wonders of the Internet, I now know these were reprints from Life With Archie, the unusual Archie comic that frequently featured the Riverdale gang in strange settings or as superheroes.

The book contained the scuba diving adventure, plus a truly lame story where the whole gang live in prehistoric times and involve themselves in a primitive form of golf, which they amusingly call "glof."  I'll deal with the undersea antics later, but right now while they're hot on my mind I want to spend a little time with my two favorite tales, the ones that have haunted me down through the ages, when a simple Google search about 10 years ago would have brought peace and possibly sobriety to my household.

The first, "The Riverdale Hillbillies," comes from Life with Archie #28 (July, 1964).  Veronica's dad needs money to keep his business afloat but instead of petitioning the federal government for a bail-out like today's brand of super-risk-averse capitalists, he asks his second cousin Clem Lodge, the "richest man in Sassafrass County."  Many years before a branch of the Lodges migrated south (I'm not sure where the others headed because where the heck is Riverdale anyway?) and settled in the Ozarks where they amassed a fabulous fortune.  So claims Mr. Lodge, who apparently isn't prepared for Clem and his less-than-modern appearance when he and his family show up in the Archie comics version of that weird car the Clampetts used to tool around in.

Okay, they're not perfect caricatures of The Beverly Hillbillies cast, although thinking about it now, Mr. Lodge does bear a slight resemblance to Milburn Drysdale.  Artist Harry Lucey made a few modest alterations to the guest cast in the interests of parody, fair comment and avoiding litigation.  Clem looks a smidge like Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett, but with a brushy mustache.  Close, just not a dead ringer.  The costume is dead-on, though.  The floppy hat, the collar-less undershirt, the weathered suit jacket with jeans years before all the other California millionaires made that look au courant.

Lucey changes the others even more.  Instead of Irene Ryan as Granny, we get Grampa Gooley, a bearded old fellow who dresses like a stereotypical female witch for some reason.  Ellie Mae is bisected into two little girls named Lulu and Lily, each half the age of Donna Douglas' character.  And Max Baer Jr.'s lovable lunkhead Jethro becomes a huge hunk-a-man called... wait for it... Mildew.  Veronica takes a personal interest in his well being, complete with flying hearts and-- from a heretofore unknown part of her anatomy-- a BOINNG sound effect that isn't symbolic because Mildew can actually hear it.

Oh man, she doesn't even care that he's her cousin!  And I'm sure Mildew is even less concerned.  If ya know what I mean.  But don't worry.  Nothing comes of it.  Apparently Veronica's sexual arousal was merely a passing fancy, or else she somehow satisfied it off-panel at some point.

The hillbilly Lodges have all sorts of comical hayseed misadventures over the next few pages.  Grampa Gooley tries to bathe in the washing machine, Mildew mistakes an inflatable pool toy for a monster and Lulu and Lily destroy half the lawn and Mr. Lodge's prized dahlias with a riding mower.

And what is this vast amount Mr. Lodge needs to keep his fortune?  The impossible-to-obtain sum of $500,000.  That's all it takes to threaten a worldwide consortium of real estate holdings, aerospace plants, hotels and fast-food restaurants.  He gets cousin Clem to help him out with a uranium mine, they all race to the Ozarks and back to beat the impending deadline, using the deed to the mine as collateral Mr. Lodge saves his vast financial empire-- only to find out he owed the money to cousin Clem in the first place.

I have to admit there's one panel that confused me as a child thanks to my imperfect grasp of English.  At one point Grampa Gooley cooks dinner with a toaster, burning the food.  Here it is:

Okay, obviously I knew the meaning of the word "hot."  "Grub" is the one that threw me.  This was before I learned it was just another way of saying "food."  I distinctly remember thinking the plates were burning Grampa Gooley's hands and "grub" was some kind of painful grunt the poor old guy was making.  Well, I puzzled over that for a while and even acted it out.  "HOT... GRUB!" I'd say in an approximation of an old man's voice, one who'd left far behind him the familiar rustic comforts of his hillside shanty and was now suffering third degree burns to feed his family in the confusing modern world of 1964 Riverdale.

Anyway, you can read the entire thing for yourself at a neat little blog called Eep!  Omigosh! that, unfortunately, appears to have died sometime in 2009.  It's a fast-paced tale complete with a little bit of meta-humor.  Pretty far-sighted for the mid-60s.

The second story, "Archie Meets the Kreeps," is from Life With Archie #39 (July, 1965).  This one made a stronger impression on me at the time, as evidenced by my vivid memory of its final panels.  A strange young woman named Wendy bewitches Archie with a love potion and takes him home to meet her family, who prove to be stranger still.  After Archie and a jealous Veronica escape, Wendy transforms into her normal appearance-- that of an anthropomorphic fish.  Yeah, right at the end of the story you learn a talking fish has been putting the mystical moves on our favorite mixed-up teenager.  Wendy the fish-girl is heartbroken at having lost Archie.  Aunt and Uncle Kreep attempt to console her, but it falls flat.  This is where I learned the idiom "There are plenty of other fish in the sea."

Even though Wendy isn't particularly nice, I felt for her.  Just a little.  She would spend the rest of her life isolated from others her own age, never knowing the joys and terrors of true love, something Archie, Betty, Veronica and even resident misogynist Jughead would take for granted.  And I wondered how a Frankenstein's monster who's a Fred Gwynne lookalike and a vampire resembling Yvonne De Carlo could possibly be aunt and uncle to a fish.

A stronger impression, yet a skimpy write-up.  I wish I could tell you more about "Archie Meets the Kreeps," but I haven't read it in thirty years.  I'm dying to, though.  Here's hoping it sees a reprinting, and soon.  Someone out there really needs to collect this material into a book featuring the strangest Life with Archie stories.  If you want to know more about "Archie Meets the Kreeps," including its relationship to none other than Frank Frazetta,  Scott Shaw! has you covered, once again proving there is nothing-- not a single weird, outlandish or freaky comic-- that I can remember that someone else hasn't already written about at length on another blog.  And better.

Conan's elephant friend

Here's a page from one of my favorite Conan stories.  It's from "The Tower of the Elephant," adapted by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith (with inks by Sal Buscema) from the Robert E. Howard short story, and it appeared in Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #4 (April, 1971).  As you can see, Windsor-Smith's art is in a transitional state between his earlier clunky Jack Kirby imitations and his current ornate pre-Raphaelite look.  But his Conan is still wearing that silly horned helmet Windsor-Smith stuck on him right at the start.

In this story, we find a younger, slimmer Conan just starting his adventuresome career.  It's right after he quit McDonald's, but before he studied accounting at the local two-year community college.  Like a lot of young Hyborian dudes on the make, Conan spends a lot of time in the taverns of Arenjun, the "thief-city of Zamora."  There he overhears a big blowhard spouting off about the Tower of the Elephant and its fabulous treasure, the Heart of the Elephant.  Someone really likes elephants.  Probably Yara, the priest who lives in the tower.  He used to collect clown figurines, but his mom got him this little elephant carving for his birthday one year and he was never the same after that.

Anyway, the mouthy braggart has a Conan-type accident, and our favorite barbarian slips out to snag that fancy jewel for himself.  He's a little nervous about it-- this Yara guy is some kind of magician, and magic is the one thing that gives Conan the shivers-- but he climbs the walls, meets another thief with the unlikely name Taurus.  Taurus proves useful when a couple of lions show up.  A quick puff of the ol' black lotus and it's good bye, lions.  Taurus doesn't last long, either.  They manage to shimmy up a slender rope Taurus thoughtfully brought along, right to the top of the tower-- itself made itself of jewels of incredible value-- but then the ever-prepared Taurus dies from a spider bite.  Guess that's one thing he didn't see coming.  Conan kills the spider, then makes his way down into the tower only to meet this green elephant.

Yag-Kosha is his name.  Yara's blinded him and kept him in torment for 300 years while trying to learn all his elephantine magical secrets, such as the special ingredients to his famous chocolate chip cookies.

It's really kind of a melancholy story, the kind that proves Howard had more on his mind than just pulpy action.  It resists cliche.  Thomas, taking his cue from Howard, treats the first killing almost coyly.  We don't see it, just its aftermath.  Then there's Conan's palpable fear as he undertakes his thievery; he's not just a stolid, dull-minded hero.  Rather than have Conan fight his way into the tower, the story has him just a moment or two behind the action as Taurus else dispatches the guards and the first few lions for him.  Conan does get to fight a lion a little later, which is pretty sweet, but Thomas and Windsor-Smith don't dwell on it.  It's over in four panels, the first being a small silhouetted image.  Windsor-Smith crops the killing blow so we actually don't get to see it.

Yag-Kosha could easily have been a monster for Conan to fight, but instead he's treated sympathetically.  He simply tells his sad story-- which fills Conan with shame at being human-- and uses the barbarian as a vessel for his vengeance against Yara.  Which also doesn't involve violence, but a strange transformation that freaks poor Conan right the hell out.  Conan doesn't gain a treasure and comes away with nothing but an interesting story.  And that's what I've always liked about it.

Tiny People Theatre presents "Tuna Fish: a Fable from the Ancients"

Tokyo Comic Book Report: Japanese girls love Deadpool!

Majority of patrons that Saturday were women.

Well, to turn a generalization into something more accurate... at least one does.  When I visited Blister in Hamacho, one young woman was flipping through a Deadpool comic, cracking up and excitedly sharing various panels with her friend.  Before I left, she had in her hands a huge stack of American comics, at least one of which featured Deadpool.  So someone in Japan likes Deadpool, Marvel.  Take my infallible advice and start a huge marketing push centered on Deadpool over here and I'm sure it'll pay dividends!  Thank me with money.  You're welcome.

I'm not sure how I got the idea Blister was so difficult to reach, like a comic book Shangri-la.  It turns out it's pretty darned easy if you're staying in Hatagaya.  The subway train that takes you to Shinjuku will deliver you to Hamacho Station and from there it's about a five minute walk.  The first time I visited Blister I believe I went to a different platform in Shinjuku Station, but that was several lifetimes ago.  I've cheated death so many times since then, they all tend to blur together.

Blister's running on limited hours these days, but on Saturdays, they're open from 11am to 5pm, which gives you plenty of time to get in and browse.  The store is very cramped, and on this particular day there were six or seven other customers.  It felt crowded.  The store is heavily invested in Marvel and DC, mainstream stuff.  The going price for a brand new American comic magazine in Japan these days is 540 yen.  That's about 6.85 USD to you and me, Russ.  Blister does feature some bargain 100 yen comics in longboxes to your right as you enter.  The selection is hodgepodge and I long ago bought them out of every single Cassandra Cain Batgirl back issue they had.  None are to be had these days, but you can still buy issues of the Stephanie Brown series.

The Avengers were hanging out in Shibuya.

Speaking of Cass, I bought the very last copy of Batgirl: Fists of Fury found in the wild here in Japan, so don't look for that, either.  It cost 1800 yen (22.83 USD, quite a mark-up from the 14.95 US SRP), but it was worth it to reaffirm my position as her #1 fan in Japan.  It seems the other Cass trades like Silent Running and Death Wish are slipping out of print and going for mega-yen on Amazon.jp.  While Fists seems to be hanging in there and I could have paid 500 yen less for it online, the trouble I've had getting things like Showcase Presents Batman and the Outsiders 1 and New Mutants Classic Volume 1 means snap it up if you see it.

Besides the Cass book, I also bought Astonishing X-Men #52 (because it has a neat Xi'an Coy Manh cover), Conan #32 (a random choice because it was 100 yen and I still enjoy Kurt Busiek's run on that title), Conan the Barbarian #2 and 3 (more Dark Horse, love Becky Cloonan's art), Minutemen #1 and 2 (the pull of Darwyn Cooke proved too strong to resist), New Mutants #46 (more Xi'an, but this time with Dani Moonstar, also irresistable) and Walking Dead #100 (Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard-- this is the second time you've scarred me with a single horrific image!  I nearly barfed!).  No Dark Horse Presents, so no new Nexus.

Blister is stocked deep with Before Watchmen titles.  I only wanted a sample, so I didn't catalog everything they had, but I think I could have bought the entire run up to current if I'd been so inclined.  Good runs of the New 52, if you're into that.  Heavy on the Marvel mutant stuff.  They also have a lot of trades and collections, plus just about every Avengers movie action figure you could want, along with The Dark Knight Rises stuff.  The guy working the cash register was friendly enough, but we didn't chat due to the language barrier.  I think he recognized me from my last visit there, way back in 2010.  Now that I know an easier way to get there I could see myself patronizing Blister a bit more if I lived in Tokyo.  Maybe they could order more Fantagraphics and Dark Horse stuff for me, too.

Probably jet-lag, but Hulk really wanted to punch Thor.

My other comics-related activities included visits to Tower Records in Shibuya and Kinokuniya in Shinjuku.  Tower Records was having a major sale in their English-language book department so I snapped up a few bargains.  Now, Tower Records stocks a lot of Fantagraphics titles, but they seemed kind of depleted.  Coupled with the close-out type prices on other books, I'm wondering if they're overhauling things or getting out of the business.  That would truly be tragic because Tower Records has been a Tokyo destination if you want groovy things by Los Bros Hernandez, Peter Bagge and the like.

At Tower Records, I bought Lone Wolf and Cub volumes 4 (783 yen, marked down from 1565, or 9.93/19.85 USD), 19, 20, 22, 23, 25 and 26 (290 yen each, 3.68 USD).  I was tempted to go back and clean them out entirely.  I also found and bought a shelf-worn copy of Showcase Presents Batman and the Outsiders 1 (2573/32.64).  See what I mean about snap it up?

Kinokuniya has a very small section for Western comics, but it was there I managed to find and buy the elusive Perla La Loca (receipt lost, price unknown, a pearl of great value to me) to complete my Locas collection.  I'd ordered it months ago from Amazon.jp, but kept getting messages that it was delayed.  This was the only Love and Rockets book they had in stock, so apparently it was meant for me.  And now we are together at last and all is right in the comic book world.

Isis meets Bigfoot, shallow moral lesson ensues...

Back in the 1970s, your TV show wasn't anything unless it featured Bigfoot in some way. Colonel Steve Austin, known for his bionics, had a memorable tete-a-tete with Sasquatch in a wo-part episode during the third season of The Six Million Dollar Man. But he wasn't the first. On October 18, 1975, Joanna Cameron as Isis had her own encounter with...

Well, let's watch and find out.



The gentle sounds of Rick Mason. Quite the talent on guitar, isn't he? The director gives him a spectacular musical spotlight to begin this episode. Do I detect a subtle sexual tension underlying his scenes with Andrea Thomas? No, I don't. They're as chaste and awkward a pair as you're likely to meet.

I'm not sure how accurately Isis depicts Egyptian mythology, but the narrator is right-- Ms. Thomas is a young science teacher. A very young science teacher. Cameron was a mere 24 years old when this episode first aired. Essentially the same age as most of the cast portraying her students. Scott Colomby, the actor playing Lee (not to be confused with Joanna Pang's character named Cindy Lee) would later go on to menace Michael O'Keefe as tough guy caddy Tony D'Annunzio in the 1980 slobs vs. snobs classic Caddyshack. He's about a year younger than his teacher Cameron.

I don't know about you, but I'm anxious to see what kind of special effects make-up or costuming the producers use to realize their vision of Bigfoot! Here's more Isis.



Ah, Cindy Lee. Cindy wins the Most Scholarly Student Award, and also Concerned Citizen of the Year. You may notice Bigfoot has come to the same conclusion as Thoreau, but for different reasons. Mickey hangs out in the woods with the boys, but still carries on a monologue.

Colomby really sells the ankle injury. That's the late William Engesser as the tragic giant.

We're roughly halfway through the episode and yet there are still so many questions left unanswered. For example, why is Mickey dressed like Howard Cunningham on an off-day? And did the actors die inside a little each time they had to pretend to interact with Tut the crow?

In our final installment, Bigfoot puts his life at risk for what I consider to be a silly reason. Can Isis save him then hammer home the episode's simplistic moral lesson? Let's watch the exciting conclusion of Isis: Bigfoot.



Here's a special bonus feature with Cameron guest-starring alongside Nicholas Hammond as Spider-Man.  Yes, the white bikini is gratuitous, but Cameron's body easily acts Hammond right off the screen.

Well, that about wraps things up with Cass Cain...

Unless she's a zygote in the New 52.  In the meantime, a small group of dedicated Cass-fans are attempting to organize a mass buy of the digital Batgirl #1.