Here are three DVDs I saw in Blockbuster last night:
Hero walking towards the viewer? Check.
Gun in right hand? Check.
Explosion behind him? Check.
Circle or cross-hair motif? Check.
Queen to King’s Rook Four? Check.
Category: Fish In A Barrel Page 7 of 23
Pictured, the comic character Plastic Man, who you may recognise from the cartoons which used to be shown on TV.
However, despite the fact that the glasses look kind of similar, am I alone in thinking that ‘Plastic Man’ may not have been the original name for this fancy dress costume?
The hair doesn’t match at all, and the overall look and pose makes me think it may actually have been intended to be someone else who recently died, and who was alleged to have had a fair amount of involvement with plastic in a more medical sense…
This week, Marvel Comics have been celebrating their 70th Birthday – and good for them, I’ve often enjoyed their stuff, and they seem to have bounced back rather well after being declared bankrupt a few years ago.
That said, I do seem to remember an Anniversary back when I was a teenager – here’s the corner box from Marvel’s X-Men comic, issue 211 in 1986:
So, 1961 + 70 = 2009? Oh Marvel, I hope it’s not creative accounting that has helped you claim to have a healthier bank balance…
Canary Wharf is in Docklands in the East of London, not far from Forest Gate, where I spotted this on the pavement the other night:
I’m not forgetting about the lasers and everything, but now I’ve seen one in real life, I think that they’re slightly less menacing. Forget firing paint onto their eyestalk, it looks as if putting a carrier bag over them might be enough to render them blind.
Then again, most people look taller on TV, don’t they? The Daleks’ agents must have demanded that they’re only shot from the most flattering of angles.
In a post last week I pointed out a couple of films vying to be Least Necessary Sequel, 2009, but don’t fill in your voting card just yet – check out this contender!
Clearly, this contest ain’t over until … um, the multi-lingual copyright warnings start to appear on your TV screen.
… in the hope that the excitement contained in one might rub off on the other.
I’ll leave it to you to decide which is the exciting one.
… to win the coveted prize of Least Necessary Sequel, 2009! Check out these recent releases!
Coming soon: Thelma and Louise 2, and Police Academy 8: Tackleberry – The Early Years!*
*I’m kidding about these. At least, I think I made them up. Lord have mercy on us all if they’re sitting on a development list somewhere.
Between 1998 and 2004, there was a comic book publisher in the USA called Crossgen Comics.
As is the case with many comic companies, Crossgen’s various titles had shared themes and some overlap of concepts, one of which was that various characters had been endowed with superhuman abilities or powers after they’d been branded with a sigil – a mark which also doubled as Crossgen’s logo, and which looked like this:
In the comics, the origin of the sigils was a running mystery which was gradually explained over the course of a couple of years, but now, well after the event, it occurs to me that perhaps readers might have saved time by looking a bit closer to home for the origin of the sigil:
Or even – if you squint a bit – this, dating from the 1960s:
And to think people worry that I wasted my time at college. Fie, I say!
All right, all right, I know I said that I wouldn’t post any more about our recent holiday (it’s mere footsteps away from blogging about what I had for lunch, I know)… but I forgot to share one picture.
What do you think this is ? Apart from what a policeman would call ‘probable cause’, I mean…
Well, yes, we all know what it looks like, but it’s far more innocently than it appears: as mad as it may seem, the above is how the HHI Hotel in Varanasi provides you with in-room powdered milk for making tea and coffee.
Whilst I’ve – ahem – been known to avail myself of the little shampoo and shower gel bottles you get in hotel bathrooms, I’d certainly think twice about nicking the HHI’s in-room powdered milk. I mean, imagine the reaction if customs search your luggage.
“And what’s this, sir?”
“Um, I think it’s Coffee-Mate, but it could be Marvel – some kind of powdered milk, anyway.”
“Of course, sir. Would you like to come into this back room for a humiliating strip search?”
*This numbering system is valid, by the way – both Douglas Adams and Mad magazine have used it, so it must be all right.