I went to a food and wine festival last night, and it was amazing - imagine a space the size of a small warehouse, filled with restaurants doling out small portions of their best food and/or drink. I went from never having had pork belly to having had it three distinct ways! I finally understand why they're such hot investment fodder!
COME HERE, PIG. GIVE ME YOUR BELLY MEATS. I NEED THEM.
You may or may not remember my special report on some alternate, reader-suggested costumes for Robin a while back, and Rachelle's post on some terrible costumes that Batman was retconned into having considered even further back. Well, guess what? I have more! Evidently the suggestions just kept on rolling in, and in Batman No. 259 they printed up another batch.
Of course the fact that the costume on the lower right is very similar to the modern Red Robin grab is interesting and worth noting and nodding thoughtfully while stroking your chin, but the tunic/hairdo/moustache combo on the upper left is simply breathtaking. If only this had become the official Robin costume of the 70s - what an amazing cultural artifact that would have been! what mileage the comic bloggers of today would be getting out of it! Mourn, mourn for what might have been.
Oh, and that one at the top looks like a red version of the Nightwing costume. That's cool.
Where there is a Hawkman there is going to be a Hawkgirl or Hawkwoman. It's now a thing. Initially, though, it took a little more than twenty issues for Carter Hall's galpal Sheira to get a costume of her own and start getting into scrapes. This is not terribly remarkable. What is, however, is the fact that for at least the first couple of issues that she was dabbling in the winged lifestyle this kept on happening:
Now I'll admit that if there was a flying superhero in my costume and I saw someone wearing a similar costume streaking overhead I might assume that it was them without checking for secondary sex characteristics and the like, but the fact that Sheira was repeatedly able to have extended conversations with people without them catching on to the fact that she was a she?
Well that's just weird. Here, look at this:
Literally the only time in two Sheira-as-Hawkgirl stories that I've read where her gender was sussed out.
I don't know. Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this. Maybe it's just a case of everybody involved being too embarrassed to mention to their friends that they found Hawkman quite attractive. Once a gangster cottons to having checked out a lawman's rack, well, it's pretty much all over, career-wise.
Though the comics that I've designated Unfunnies usually existed solely to fill space (or possibly they were part of some attempt to circumvent mailing regulations, I've never been too clear on the nitty-gritty), every once in a while DC took a stab at sneaking a little extra advertising into one, and I'm sure that they never found a more willing shill than the odious Little Pete:
Not only does Dr. Means reinforce Pete's lying ways, but he jumps on the cash-fuelled Trik-Trak bandwagon without hesitation.
Here's the regular ad that ran in DC books about the same time:
Note that Trik-Trak was made by Transogram, makers of Ka-bala, the incredible home occultism game, and that Ka-bala is the other product that was stealth-advertised in an Unfunny. What does this all mean? I have no idea.
- Little Pete's shame was found in Challengers of the Unknown No. 44, while the Trik-Trak ad is from Aquaman No. 19.
Bit of a sparse week for me, comics-wise, so I have but three observations, one per book. Not that I only bought three books, that is. I just have three observations and they're spread out over three books. Yeah.
Young Justice No. 1 - Though I haven't yet seen the cartoon that this is spun off of, I was quite fond of the original Young Justice book and so trying this out seemed like a good idea. I am going to blame the fact that I found it completely incomprehensible on my lack of prior research - everything seems to make sense, after all, but it felt like I was missing some essential bits of information for not having the show under my belt. Actually, come to think of it that might be a good thing: comics based on other properties are often lacklustre precisely because they're constantly summarizing and paraphrasing what has come before. So I guess I'll just suck it up and watch a cartoon like a man. And shut my fat mouth.
Green Lantern No. 62 - Halfway through, Hal Jordan has a weird prophetic dream that indicates that one of Earth's Green Lanterns is going to die, or at least go away (be "lost" in the words if not the tense of the Guardian who indicates it). Anybody want to start a pool on who that'll be? Because I have a shiny golden dollar coin that I will bet on John Stewart.
And finally:
Dungeons & Dragons No. 4 - I'm trying to decide which of these is more likely to be the case, that all floating, talking skulls are hilarious or that I have only ever encountered hilariously-written floating, talking skulls. In either case, this book continues to capture the joy of a good game of Dungeons & Dragons in a way that both delights and, uh, delights again.
NO FURTHER OBSERVATIONS WILL BE MADE
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