Sneakers Save Astronaut from Spys

The above commercial was shown inbetween episodes of Jonny Quest between 1964-65 when B.F. Goodrich, the makers of P.F. Flyers co-sponsored the cartoon. To me there’s something very surreal about the connection between the sneakers, spys and an astronaut. Although I love the idea of including a comic book as a bonus when you buy your footwear!

Found via Ira H. Gallen.

Space Shuttle Concept Art from 1971

Shown above is an ad for Tang from a November 1971 issue of Parents’ Magazine. Here’s some teaser copy that only a fanboy could love:

“Imagine a spacecraft that carries 12 passengers and lands as easily as an airplane. It will be ferrying back and forth to space by the late 1970’s. And if the future is like the present, Tang will be in its galley.”

Sadly the space shuttle didn’t look quite as cool as the concept art in the ad, although to credit the copy the shuttle did indeed take off ten years later in 1981 (which wasn’t too long after the late 70’s). The illustration of the ad was created by H. K. Wimmer. A second ad in the series can be seen here.

Found via Wishbook.

Miku Hatsune Figurine

I found this ever soooo cute Hatsune Miku figurine at Amazon.co.jp. For those not in the know she’s the character featured in all of those Vocaloid videos that you keep seeing on YouTube.

Tags: Miku Hatsune, Vocaloid

The Cucumber-flavored Drink Song

I was quite blown away by this cute moe themed Flash movie (shown above) which is by Ioshisu, which is a music/comedy group from Japan.

Cerebus Creator’s New Comic: Glamourpuss

Doesn’t the above artwork remind you of generic 80’s clip art? I was a bit surprised to find this news via MetaFilter:

“Four years after publishing the 300th and final issue of his epic-length Cerebus, comic artist Dave Sim has announced that he is launching a new bi-monthly title debuting April, 2008. The topic? Fashion.”

…you can look at the website here. The look of the comic reminds me a great deal of the old Apartment 3G which I always hated as a kid. I think my resentment was that soap operas dominated daytime TV, so why why not leave the comics page to the kids?

Stephen Hawking Attack Science Cuts

I’m always a fan of the professor:

Stephen Hawking joins attack on science cuts

“The world’s best known scientist, Prof Stephen Hawking, has added his name to a petition signed by thousands of physicists who are outraged by Government cuts. The recently established Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC has abandoned involvement in an international atom smasher and a telescope amid a range of budget slashing that has triggered vitriolic attacks on the Government by the scientific establishment of an intensity not seen since cuts were made under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The Council, which funds public research in particle physics and astronomy, has to save £80 million over the next three years because of lack of Government funding.”

Breakout Cartoonists: House of Twelve

Our Top Indie Cartoonists to Watch For in 2008: Keeping true to our “Anti-Superheroes in Tights” mood at fanboy, we took a look back at the comic books and graphic novels that caught our eye:

House of Twelve Goes to War! edited by Cheese Hasselberger

OK, full disclosure time: I’ve been a contributor to House of Twelve since the second issue, and Michael said I ought to fess up to that if I were going to do a blog entry on it. And come to think of it, Vanguard Media alumni Chris Prynoski, now with Cartoon Network, was a founding member too. But that’s a small price to pay to bring the gospel of HO12 to the masses.

Comix with an x arent what they used to be, you may have noticed. The sex, drugs, and lots of laffs aesthetic of the undergrounds has been replaced by many an auteurs gentle musings on falling leaves and springtime raindrops, and the preciousness of their kitties, or babies, or relationships. The House of Twelve books seek to hearken back to a time when underground comix were crass, politically incorrect (though I think this would be a time before political correctness was a term) satirical, and funny. As a result of this and their monthly bar meetings to imbibe and draw, the House of Twelve collective is often regarded as a bunch of crazy drunks. Which is a tarnished badge of honor, for many a golden era cartoonist was a crazy drunk as well.

Each anthology features a different theme picked by founding member and publisher Cheese Hasselberger, which the artists then expound on in their own unique ways. Themes have included such heady topics as religion, obscenity, and in the most current release, war. If youre looking for a thoughtful assessment of the current war and what its done to our country, well, you should probably read World War 3 or something. But for a hilarious pisstake on humanity’s most violent impulses, this is the book for you.

To learn more about the books, comic jam, and other House of 12 related ephemera, visit houseoftwelve.com.

Jenny Gonzalez is a New York City cartoonist and punk rock singer. You can see her stuff at jennydevildoll.com.

The Cutting Room Floor: Mulberry Street

As one of the Horrorfest: 8 Movies to Die For the film Mulberry Street takes place in a run down apartment building in Manhattan. Starring Nick Damici, Kim Blair, Ron Brice and Bo Corre. Mulberry is shot in a gritty, realistic low budget style in the vein of 28 Days Later.

The plot is simplistic, a disease runs rampant through Manhattan. It starts in the subway tunnels and back alleys. People are being attacked by rats. Those who are bitten become ill and the tension begins to mount as those who are infected begin to attack those who are healthy. As the movie progresses it veers away from the zombie movie feel by revealing that rather then the infected dying from their wounds they’re being transformed into rat like creatures.

It doesn’t take long for the film to pull back from the overall picture to the tenants of the apartment building on Mulberry Street. The retired boxer, his daughter, returning from the war, her face scarred from shrapnel. The flamboyantly gay next door neighbor who helped to raise the girl and the waitress and her son who live on the next floor up. Mix in a handyman who spends too much time in the basement and an old man who is bedridden and breathing off of an oxygen tank and you have an ensemble cast of blue collar and lower middle class people struggling just to get by day to day. It’s the perfect set up for an urban tale of terror and the struggle to survive.

Read more…

Breakout Cartoonists: Kevin Colden

Our Top Indie Cartoonists to Watch For in 2008: Keeping true to our “Anti-Superheroes in Tights” mood at fanboy, we took a look back at the comic books and graphic novels that caught our eye:

Fishtown, by Kevin Colden

“Fishtown” has an interesting story behind it, and not just because it’s a heavily fictionalized account of an actual incident. Creator Kevin Colden may be the first person to win a Xeric grant—and turn it down, in favor of distributing Fishtown for free on the internet, specifically the LiveJournal comics community Act I Vate. This doesn’t rule out the chances of Fishtown ever seeing print, but for the impatient of us there’s always the internet.

The story centers around teen brothers Keith and Adrian, whose main interests are both doing and dealing drugs. Keith’s other interest ishooking up with their clique’s token girl member, Angelica, a smack addicted, self-mutilating trainwreck who’s affections swerve between Keith, his friend Justin, and murder-victim-to-be Jesse. The story jumps back and forth in time between the aftermath of the murder and the events leading up to it, and shows how each of the teen killers has been affected.

Kevin renders his pages in a two-tone palette of muted yellow and blue, sickly hues which simultaneously evoke the dim lighting of an interrogation room or mental hospital and the haze of a drug trip, both of which are fitting for this story. The characters are often very distant looking, illustrating the facades they put up for each other and the authorities, with occasional flashes of expressiveness revealing their inner turmoil. Now, Act I Vate can be a little tricky to read through for a newcomer, what with over 20 different graphic stories being serialized on it at the same time, but fortunately there’s an archive of Fishtown.

Jenny Gonzalez is a New York City cartoonist and punk rock singer. You can see her stuff at jennydevildoll.com.

Japanamania: Gantz

Our Top Ten Anime and Manga Series to Watch For in 2008: It’s easy to find out about a Bleach or a Naruto once it’s being aired on Cartoon Network, but it can take years for an anime to be licensed, dubbed, and put on TV. So here’s our sneak peek at one of the ten manga or anime series that we feel are likely to hit it big in America in 2008:

Gantz (manga)
Status: Still running in Japan; Licensed by Dark Horse

Although the anime was released in the U.S. in 2004, it took until 2007 for someone to finally license Hiroya Oku’s sci-fi/supernatural action manga Gantz. It even came out in Spanish as early as 2002! The long-overdue announcement was made at Anime Expo 2007 to overjoyed fans of the fantastic- and violent -drama.

Gantz‘s uniquely gripping story revolves around people who have already died. Specifically, two high school boys- Kei and Masaru -are run over by a subway train, only to awaken seemingly alive and well in an unfurnished apartment in Tokyo along with a number of other people who have just recently died. In the room is a sphere called “Gantz,” from which the characters acquire ability-enhancing suits, weapons, and instructions on how to play the game.

The game is a bit like playing a video game, but in real life: the players must find and destroy aliens secretly living in Japan. They can’t leave a certain designated area, and if they live through the mission they get sent back to the sphere in perfect health, regardless of how near death they had been. Those who don’t survive, of course, die- for real, this time.

Gia Manry is a Portland, OR-based professional writer specializing in pop culture/entertainment writing. Read up on more of her work at giapet.net or hire her at GiaManry.com.

Nick’s Nippon Notebook: Nostalgic Interfaces

Retro good fans will enjoy Maywa Denki’s 2002-2003 series of “oldie- but-goodie” interface revivals. On the left is the Zihotch. Apparently you dial 117 on the phone dial and “schedule” a wakeup call or you just dial to hear an automated time announcement. On the right is the Gachacon. It brings back the rotary switch as a means to change channels on your TV remotely. I doubt it’s fully compatible with all sets (but the packaging mentions what Japanese models it’s compatible with).

Nick Kent is a New York based artist who works with electronic media and is an occasional pop culture pundit.

A Six Million Dollar Man Christmas

The exciting Christmas adventures of Steve Austin from 1978 includes the Kris Kringle Caper and the Elves Revolt. To listen to the adventures check out Accordion Guy’s website. Here’s the exciting flipside of the record cover:

Read more…

Empire Strikes Back: Christmas Toys from 1981

Shown above is page 496 from the 1981 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog (click on the image to see at full size), as you can see it was a great year to be a Star Wars fanboy! What people forget today is that prior to this film that sci fi themed sequels had a pretty bad reputation as a being a low budget way to cash in on the first film. The Empire Strikes Back blew us all away as the quality of the film and story was as good as the original Star Wars. I also hate to admit it, but I also believe that the success of the Empire Strikes Back gave Paramount the courage to bankroll the the second Star Trek film the Wrath of Khan in 1982. So in a strange way Star Wars may have saved Star Trek…

Found via Wishbook.

Christmas Comic Books

Merry Christmas from Fanboy.com! Shown above are comic books from Christmas past (click on the image to see it at full size):

Action Comics #93: Published in February of 1946 as Superman reunites refugees with their families all over the world, he witnesses many different ways of celebrating Christmas.

Mad Magazine #68: A rare jem from January 1962 featuring two Santas arguing on the cover illustrated by Don Martin.

Archie Comics Digest #3: Published for the Christmas season back in 1973.

Batman #27: This February 1945 issue Penguin trains the son of one of his criminal friends in the fine points of crime. The boy doesn’t want to be a criminal and fails. Penguin then orders the boy to study his crime files, which the boy uses to write a book. Penguin decides to sell the book to the underworld, but sadly no publisher will take it!

Collision Formed Moon Later Than Thought

What’s interesting about his study is that the thinking is that the moon is pretty new in terms of the age of the solar system:

Earth-Asteroid Collision Formed Moon Later Than Thought

“The moon was formed from fragments of Earth after a collision with a giant asteroid relatively late in our planet’s formation, new tests of moon rocks show. The finding upends many of the prior theories for how the moon came to be, researchers say.

Scientists have long believed that the moon was formed by a collision between our planet and a Mars-size object. Computer models have shown that in this scenario 80 percent of the moon’s material should have come from the asteroid, with only 20 percent from Earth. But the new study of moon rocks collected three decades ago by Apollo astronauts, however, found that Earth and the rocks were too similar for that to be the case.”

llustration courtesy Fahad Sulehria at novacelestia.com.

Japanamania: Romeo x Juliet

Our Top Ten Anime and Manga Series to Watch For in 2008: It’s easy to find out about a Bleach or a Naruto once it’s being aired on Cartoon Network, but it can take years for an anime to be licensed, dubbed, and put on TV. So here’s our sneak peek at one of the ten manga or anime series that we feel are likely to hit it big in America in 2008:

Romeo x Juliet (anime)
Status: Aired in Japan; Unlicensed

You may think that since you read Romeo and Juliet in high school, you don’t need to read this description, but I guarantee that you do. Gonzo’s Romeo x Juliet is like no version you’ve ever seen before. Set on the floating island of Neo-Verona, home to many pegasi, RxJ is a fantasy take on the tale.

While the series is unlicensed, Gonzo has made noise against fansubs of the series via FUNimation, which has not announced the series as being licensed- leading fans to speculation on Gonzo’s release plans. In any case, the series features a rather strong, sword-fighting Juliet as the only remaining member of the house of Capulet, which was destroyed by the leader of the Montague house years before. Montague is now the Duke of Neo-Verona, while the Capulets lay in the dust.

Juliet, who frequently defends the townspeople using the name The Red Wind, is given the task of restoring the family honor by defeating Montague, but not until after she’s already met and fallen for Romeo. The decisions that she makes will alter the lives of those around her irreparably- and in more ways than any of them imagine.

Below: The opening titles for Romeo x Juliet.

Gia Manry is a Portland, OR-based professional writer specializing in pop culture/entertainment writing. Read up on more of her work at giapet.net or hire her at GiaManry.com.

A First Class Cover by Marko Djurdjevic

I was perusing the latest batch of Marvel comics that will be released this week and I can across this nice cover Marko Djurdjevic for X-Men: First Class #7. What I love about the cover is that it has a very romantic quality to it that you just never see associated with the superhero genre.

Breakout Cartoonists: Miss Lasko-Gross

Our Top Indie Cartoonists to Watch For in 2008: Keeping true to our “Anti-Superheroes in Tights” mood at fanboy, we took a look back at the comic books and graphic novels that caught our eye:

Escape from “Special”, by Miss Lasko-Gross

Autobio is a tricky thing. It’s easy to become bland or self-important. And even an interesting life can suffer these fates in the hands of an inept storyteller. Or a once-entertaining autobio comic can degenerate into nothing but panel after panel of masterbation, both figuratively and literally. But take heart autobio readers, because there are also books like “Escape From Special” to take us out of the doldrums.

Miss’s protagonist “Melissa”, has an atypical childhood of counselors, special classes, and self-provoked angst as she questions her reality and the presumptions of all those around her,. She’s a sharp kid, and parents, teachers, and peers alike are not sure what to make of her. And neither will anyone looking for a trite, sentimental portrayal of childhood—this stuff is a real story about a real kid. I could relate to the somewhat progressive-yet in other ways conventional parents and the latter half of the book especially, where Melissa in her preteen years begins to question more her place with her peers, the needs to fit in and the burning question of whether she even wants to fit in with the typically lame suburban girls that plague her adolescence..And it’s all rendered in Miss’s unique and stunning grey marker style. This girl gets a range of depth out of a set of Pantones that few can match.

“Escape From Special” is available through Fantagraphics and a sequel is slated for sometime in 2008, possibly 2009. And if I haven’t convinced you to give it a try, check out the samples on her Comicspace page.

Jenny Gonzalez is a New York City cartoonist and punk rock singer. You can see her stuff at jennydevildoll.com.

Japanamania: Ouran High School Host Club

Our Top Ten Anime and Manga Series to Watch For in 2008: It’s easy to find out about a Bleach or a Naruto once it’s being aired on Cartoon Network, but it can take years for an anime to be licensed, dubbed, and put on TV. So here’s our sneak peek at one of the ten manga or anime series that we feel are likely to hit it big in America in 2008:

Ouran High School Host Club (anime)
Status: Aired in Japan; Unlicensed

For reasons unbeknownst to anyone, FUNimation sat on this license for quite some time before announcing it; it actually aired in Japan in 2006. Nonetheless, the shoujo reverse harem series (reverse in that it’s one girl surrounded by many good-looking guys) is a big hit with both the ladies and the gentlemen for both its zany humor and it’s relatively subtle drama.

Haruhi Fujioka is the lone impoverished scholarship student at Ouran High School, a school for kids so rich that a group of boys started a Host Club to entertain their female schoolmates in. One day Haruhi stumbles upon the Host Club while seeking a quiet place to study and instead accidentally breaks an expensive vase- and becomes the club’s newest toy to pay for it. At first a mere gopher, Haruhi eventually is given a makeover and becomes a host…then, and only then, do the guys realize that Haruhi is actually a girl.

The real genius of Host Club, though, isn’t the switcheroo it plays on classic gender roles. The true brilliance is that while the comedy stems from poking fun at traditional shoujo romance archetypes, the drama comes almost entirely from watching the characters grow up and learn who they are, a refreshing change of pace from the usual soap opera anime.

Below: Opening titles for Ouran High School Host Club.

Gia Manry is a Portland, OR-based professional writer specializing in pop culture/entertainment writing. Read up on more of her work at giapet.net or hire her at GiaManry.com.

Asahiyama Zoo: Red Pandas in the Snow

This is such a cute report from Japanese TV! It features a bunch of Red Pandas playing in the snow at the Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido, Japan.

The Cutting Room Floor: I Am Legend

The third version of the classic Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend tells the tale of a world wiped out by a plague that kills 90% of the human race and turns the rest into monsters. The first movie was the 1964 classic The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price in the lead role as Dr. Robert Morgan. The second treatment was the classic The Omega Man with Charlton Heston taking the role of Dr. Robert Neville in 1971.

The current movie, after spending close to a decade in limbo features Will Smith (Independence Day, I, Robot, Men in Black) picking of the mantle of Dr. Neville in a Manhattan sealed off from the rest of the world. What starts out as being a miracle cure for cancer spins wildly out of control and becomes the ultimate super plague. In an effort to contain the virus a decision is made to seal off Manhattan and prevent the infected from leaving and therefore saving the rest of the world.

Three years later the world is a wasteland and Neville and his dog Sam are the only survivors in the city. They spend the day foraging for food and searching for other survivors via an AM radio broadcast. It’s during the night that they’re forced to go into hiding from the vampire like creatures that the virus didn’t kill but rather mutated into savage monsters.

Read more…

Japanamania: Darker Than Black

Our Top Ten Anime and Manga Series to Watch For in 2008: It’s easy to find out about a Bleach or a Naruto once it’s being aired on Cartoon Network, but it can take years for an anime to be licensed, dubbed, and put on TV. So here’s our sneak peek at one of the ten manga or anime series that we feel are likely to hit it big in America in 2008:

Darker Than Black (anime)
Status: Aired in Japan; Licensed by FUNimation

Talk about a pedigree: Darker than Black was animated by BONES, the studio which produced, among other things, Fullmetal Alchemist, Wolf’s Rain, and Blood+. It was directed by Tensai Okamura, who directed the Cowboy Bebop movie and also worked on its TV series, as well as directing the Wolf’s Rain OVA. And perhaps greater than all of these is the music, created by none other than Yoko Kanno, the master who composed music for Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, various Macross series, and a dozen or so others. This collection of anime superstars pulled together a captivating series that is visually and musically stunning.

Read more…

The Cutting Room Floor: Halloween

This week Rob Zombie unleashes his story of Michael Myers, when Halloween comes to DVD. When word of this ambitious project first came out there were three very different opinions on this film being made. One side was the basic ‘oh great another remake’ and expected yet another watered down and lame attempt from a Hollywood that seemed to be out of original ideas. The second was the purists who wanted nothing to do with the new Halloween because nothing could ever top the John Carpenter original. The third group (and the one I firmly belonged in) was They’re redoing Halloween… and they got Rob Zombie to do it? Holy cow this is going to rock!

Read more…

Probe to Look for Earth-sized Planets

This is a great example of NASA getting good bang for the buck on a low budget:

Deep Impact extended mission heads for comet Hartley 2

“NASA has given University of Maryland scientists the green light to fly the Deep Impact probe to Comet Hartley 2. The spacecraft will pass Earth on New Year’s Eve at the beginning of a more than two-and-a-half-year journey to Hartley 2. During the first six months of the journey to Hartley 2, they will use the larger of the two telescopes on Deep Impact to search for Earth-sized planets around five stars selected as likely candidates for such planets. Upon arriving at the comet, Deep Impact will conduct an extended flyby of Hartley 2 using all three of the spacecraft’s instruments — two telescopes with digital color cameras and an infrared spectrometer.”

Found via Slashdot.