DAN FRAGA’S NEW BLACK FLAG STORY IS AVAILABLE NOW

Black FlagComic book legend Dan Fraga shook the industry recently when he joined up with the daring, iconoclastic creative titans led by Ethan Van Sciver, Jon Malin and others. Those “outlaws” – as I always call them – have broken away from the stale, corporate, suffocatingly conformist confines of the Big Two publishers to pursue their own creative vision.

Fraga became the latest addition to these blacklist-defying rebels and has dealt with the harrumphing backlash with true swashbuckling, two-fisted panache. Dan ran up the ComicsGate banner for the revival of his Black Flag superteam in their first adventure in 25 years.

The heroes Sniper, Rascal, Geisha, Guerilla, Raiden and Shrine are back at long last in a 48-page adventure which fuses the very best aspects of western comic books with manga plus unique elements that are pure Fraga. To order your Indiegogo copies: Continue reading

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I’M SURPRISED THIS OLD QUOTE ISN’T THROWN AROUND MORE RIGHT NOW

Mascot new lookWith assorted events in the news these days I keep being reminded of an old quote. You know the source.

I’ll paraphrase it as “Too late we realized that we would have to go on living under the new Plague Rules long after the Plague itself had gone away.”

In 1947 Albert Camus used a physical plague as a metaphor for his actual theme: The manner in which too many people react – or fail to react – when they are physically trapped by human “rats” who insist they obey orders and remain utterly compliant as their freedoms are taken away from them. Continue reading

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MERINA MYTHS: TOMPONDRANO

Tompondrano

The French who first came into contact with the people of Madagascar mistook Tompondrano for Leviathan from Christian mythology.

TOMPONDRANO – “Lord of the waters.” The supreme snake deity in Merina mythology. Not only were all other serpents subordinate to Tompondrano but he often acted as an ambassador between snakes and human beings, negotiating the end to conflicts between the two groups. 

A major myth about this deity includes its role in advising the Vazimba how to use sacrifices to appease gods and demons. The Vazimba were little people who were previously the dominant race of Madagascar. They are similar to the Menehune in Hawaiian myths and to “little people” who figure into mythology and folklore from around the world.  

One day a Vazimba boy was playing with a seven-headed serpent monster. That serpent decided to keep him and make him live with him under the water. The Vazimba prayed to Tompondrano to save him. Tompondrano advised the Vazimba boy to be patient, then sent the Kingfisher bird to the Vazimba’s parents with word that sacrificing a chicken and a sheep to the seven- headed serpent would appease it and get it to release their son. Continue reading

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TOOMORROW (1970): OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN’S DARK SECRET

ToomorrowTOOMORROW (1970) – What is one part Monkees episode, one part Frankie & Annette Beach Movie, one part Help!, one part Donny & Marie in Goin’ Coconuts, one part KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park and one part Beyond the Valley of the Dolls? The answer is Toomorrow, the infamous Don Kirshner/ Val Guest cult movie with a then-unknown Olivia Newton-John in a starring role.

The aim was to launch a new pre-fab pop band like the Monkees, but this time consisting of an Aussie (Newton-John of course), a Brit (Vic Cooper), an African-American (Karl Chambers) and a white American (Benny Thomas).   

Olivia sings and also dances around the guys while they play, Benny plays the guitar, Karl is the drummer and Vic plays the keyboard AND his special invention called a Tonalizer. The band is called Toomorrow because, as Karl observes, they are “Too much! Too-Morrow!”

Toomorrow 2We’re told that Vic’s Tonalizer is what gives Toomorrow its special “sound.” How special is that sound? So special that its unique vibrations can revive the stagnant culture of an alien race that’s facing decay and collapse. It seems the aliens’ own musical output has grown stale because they have long since progressed beyond the troublesome “emotions” and “heart” that Toomorrow’s members pour into their songs. 

Buy this movie for the Sandbaggers or Dalgleish fan in your life, because Roy “Neil Burnside” Marsden co-stars as Alpha, the captain of the aliens’ spaceship. His forever-terse voice is unmistakable despite the – admittedly competent – makeup and prosthetic effects for the ET’s (above right). Continue reading

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DEMOCRAT BIGOTS ATTACK MARTIN LUTHER KING PERSON OF COURAGE VERNON JONES

Vernon JonesThe Democrats, the party of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, the Japanese Internment and so much more, continue to treat African-Americans as if they are still slaves on the Democrats’ plantations. Last week Georgia State Democrat Representative Vernon Jones (left) endorsed de facto Third Party President Donald Trump instead of the Democrats’ probable candidate Joe Biden.

Per the Democrats at the Atlanta Journal Constitution and at The Hill:

Trump and black support“Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was not switching parties but praised Trump’s policies on certain issues.

“It’s very simple to me. President Trump’s handling of the economy, his support for historically black colleges and his criminal justice initiatives drew me to endorse his campaign,” Jones told the newspaper.

“There are a lot of African Americans who clearly see and appreciate he’s doing something that’s never been done before,” Jones added. “When you look at the unemployment rates among black Americans before the pandemic, they were at historic lows. That’s just a fact.” […]

Trump black supporters even more“A generation of African American families have been devastated by draconian policies that Joe Biden supported and voted for when he served in the U.S. Senate,” Jones said in a statement to CBS 46. “A change was needed and President Trump took action.”

That was just last week. Privileged white Democrats have since hounded the courageous Jones, as usual implying that any voters of color who disobey white Democrats are not “authentic.”

All for TrumpIn resigning his office today Jones stated “Turn the lights off, I have left the plantation.” (NOTE FOR OVERSEAS READERS: “Leaving the plantation” imagery is often used by heroic African-Americans who quit the Democrat party over its racism and its fascist attacks against those people of color who refuse to obey that political party.)

“I don’t plan to leave the Democratic Party because somebody’s got to be in there to hold them accountable —hold them accountable to how they are treating black people (and) root out the bigotry,” Jones said on The Rashad Richey Morning Show shortly after announcing his resignation. 

“I intend to help the Democrat Party get rid of its bigotry against Black people that are independent … ” Jones said in the statement announcing his resignation. “I endorsed the White guy (Donald J. Trump) that let Blacks out of jail, and they endorsed the White guy (Joe Biden) that put Blacks in jail.” Continue reading

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GEORGES (1843): ALEXANDRE DUMAS NOVEL ABOUT A SWORDSMAN FIGHTING SLAVERY

Mascot sword and pistolAlexandre Dumas pere is synonymous with swashbuckling historical adventures like The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask.

His name became SO associated with swordplay and intrigue that even a Dumas novel like The Corsican Brotherswhich in reality lacks any true action elements, has long been adapted as if it’s a swashbuckler. That’s a shame since there are other novels by Alexandre Dumas which are loaded with action and historical intrigue yet have been largely overlooked when it comes to movies and television. 

GeorgesGEORGES (1843) – Published just one year before The Three Musketeers, this novel is not only a rollicking adventure full of action, romance and double-crosses but it deals with racial issues in such a way that you would have thought it would have been adapted for film four or five decades ago. The title character uses his sword to fight slavery!  Continue reading

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I LOVE LUCY: SNARKY TELEVISION LISTINGS III

I love lucy2:00 PM – I LOVE LUCY (drama) – A Cuban-American entertainer named Ricky Ricardo compassionately deals with his mentally unstable wife Lucy even when her illness threatens to ruin his career in show business.

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Bonanza3:00 PM – BONANZA (psychological horror) – Ben Cartwright – a seemingly respectable Nevada rancher – mates, then kills, having one son each with a succession of wives whom he subsequently murders. Only his Chinese manservant Hop Sing suspects the horrors lurking at the Ponderosa Ranch. Continue reading

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MASKED MAN: STORY ELEVEN

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of B.C. Boyer’s neglected 1980s superhero the Masked Man. For Part One click HERE

Eclipse 9ECLIPSE MONTHLY Vol 1 #9 (June 1984)

Title: Goodbye

Villains: The Joe Manfredi Gang 

Synopsis: The Masked Man shared this issue of Eclipse Monthly with the sword & sorcery trio Steel, Stealth and Magic (cover art) and the old west gunslinger Rio.

The story opens at the offices of The Daily Horn newspaper a day or two after the attack by the Architectural Terrorists. The staff is still grinding out their daily paper while repairs are done to all the damage inflicted during last issue’s battle.

Masked Man faceThe Masked Man (Dick Carstairs) is on-hand as Editor-In-Chief J Judah Johnson (a pastiche of J Jonah Jameson) assigns our hero’s reporter friend Barney McAllister to scour the city to see if any more members of the Architectural Terrorists are still at large. Continue reading

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A PLUNGE INTO SPACE (1890): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

A plunge into spaceA PLUNGE INTO SPACE (1890) – Written by THE Robert Cromie, later editions of this novel came with a preface by Jules Verne himself. Scientist Henry Barnett, after 20 years of labor, has mastered “the ethereal force which permeates all things,” a combination of electricity and gravity. This mastery will allow for interplanetary space travel.

Barnett and a select group of colleagues establish a secret base in Alaska, where they construct a spherical fifty-foot black metal Flying Ball. The craft includes air tanks, a huge telescope, sophisticated instruments and more.  

A plunge into space 2In anticipation of encounters with hostile life-forms on other planets, the clique has also manufactured disintegrator weapons, with which they fight off curious parties of indigenous tribes in order to preserve their secret.

At last the vessel is ready for a flight to Mars. The crew will consist of Barnett as the Science Officer, plus MacGregor, a famous explorer and other presumed specialists in various fields, even politics, finance and literature. (Think of Napoleon’s military expedition to Egypt which took along scholars in many disciplines.)

The black spaceship heads for Mars at a speed of 50,000 miles per minute and arrives after roughly 12 hours. The crew learn that the so-called “canals” of Mars are really prolonged simooms (fast-moving wind-storms) and not canals at all. The planet has an atmosphere in which the Earthlings can breathe normally but is largely a desert.  Continue reading

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JOE BIDEN: SEVENTEEN INCOHERENT MINUTES WITH THE SENILE AND/ OR DEMENTED CANDIDATE

Joe Biden senile manThank you to the BERNIE BROS who brought this video to my attention. It’s yet ANOTHER look at the incoherent ramblings of the senile, crooked and inept presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Even though Bernie’s out, his supporters are still making the perfectly valid point that Joe Biden’s cognitive problems are as bad as the trail of corruption he has left behind him. Here is just ONE of the videos with the doddering fool Biden in action. #WALKAWAY

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