PERILS ON PLANET X - THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION On Sale Now!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls... AVAILABLE AT LAST! The PERILS ON PLANET X Definitive Collection Trade Paperback!

This handsome 140-page tome contains the entire 2016 "Hawke of Terra" miniseries by Yours Truly & Gene Gonzales, all the original 2002 webcomics drawn by Jon Plante, a bonus story, sketchbooks and a pin-up gallery. All in Color on high-quality paper stock and available with two variant covers!

Just $25 + shipping. Click on the links below to get yours TODAY! (Please SHARE and spread the word!)

Gene Gonzales Cover

 

Eduardo Barreto Cover

PERILS ON PLANET X Collection Coming Soon

So, I was hoping to have the Perils On Planet X: The Definitive Collection trade paperback available for purchase this month, but I got sidetracked by other projects (and my office has been uncomfortably cold for the last several weeks and I've been avoiding it). Now, I'm aiming for a late May-early June release. The book is shaping up nicely - I just received Gene Gonzales' beautiful new cover art (the book will also be available with a variant cover by the late Eduardo Barreto) - and will include all three issues of the "Hawke of Terra" miniseries, all of the 2002 webcomics by Jon Plante, sketchbook and gallery features... and more.

So, if you're one of the three people who've been pestering me for a collection for the past few years, start saving your pennies now! This one's gonna cost you!

ON SALE NOW! PERILS ON PLANET X Print Editions

After more than 15 years in production, all three issues of the interplanetary swashbuckler, Perils On Planet X,  by Yours Truly and Gene Gonzales, with colors by Ian Sokoliwski, are available to purchase NOW!

They are only available by mail order from IndyPlanet. This is is the best way to support us and the book, as the profits go directly to Gene and myself. Each issue is 32 full-color pages, printed on high-quality, heavy paper stock and includes pin-up art by several well-known comics creators.

Sales of these issues will help Gene and I determine whether there's enough demand for Volume 2: "Agent of Empyr," so if you'd like to see further Perils On Planet X adventures, be sure to order your copies soon.

Wednesday Cover: FLASH GORDON

This one is cool. It's the fourth volume of Tempo Books' late 70s paperback reprints of the Flash Gordon newspaper strips, and its cover features a rare, non-painted cover illustration by Boris Vallejo. I have several of Vallejo's art books, and I always thought that his freehand line drawings were more dynamic than most of his paintings, which often have a very "posed" quality. Since, according to those aforementioned books, he frequently painted using posed photos of models, that's probably not too surprising.

Indeed!

I was watching Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) on DVD the other night, and thought this bit with Dr. Watson enjoying the American funny pages was genuinely amusing. For the record, I couldn't agree with the good doctor more!

It occurred to me that Universal might have been cleverly plugging their own Flash Gordon serials, but Sherlock Holmes in Washington came out three years after their last Gordon serial, Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, so it seems a bit late.

Adventures On Other Worlds

My birthday was earlier this week, and I was fortunate to receive a little cash as gifts from various family members. As I usually do around my birthday & Christmas time, I decided to pick up a few graphic novels. This year, my focus was almost entirely on the interplanetary adventure genre.

I ordered two John Carter Of Mars comics collections from Dark Horse Comics. The first of these, Weird Worlds, collects all of the Carter stories published by DC Comics in the early 1970s, while the other volume presents nearly the entire run of Marvel Comics' series from the latter half of that decade. The Marvel John Carter, Warlord Of Mars book was one of my favorite comic book series of all time (along with their Star Wars series of the same vintage), and I've long wanted a square-bound collection of those Barsoomian chronicles for my bookshelf.

The other two trade paperbacks I sprung for were from Dynamite Comics, a company that I've had mixed feelings about in the past. Exploiting the public domain status of Burroughs' early novels, they've been publishing their own Carter comics for the past few years. I've never read any of their Mars books, but I took a chance on Warriors Of Mars because I was intrigued by the premise. In this book they've dusted off Edwin Arnold's Gullivar Jones (protagonist of Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, a Martian adventure novel published more than a decade before Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess Of Mars), and introduced him to John Carter's milieu. Scholars have long noted the similarites between Arnold's novel and Burroughs' subsequent Martian tales, so I'm intrigued by the idea of seeing the two works/characters combined.

I also picked up the collection of their Flash Gordon: Zeitgeist miniseries, because I've read that the Alex Ross-plotted tale incorporates a lot of story elements from the 1980 Flash Gordon movie and the 1979 Filmation animated television feature. I happen to like both of those versions, and I know that Ross is a huge Flash fan, so I'm curious to see how that series turned out.

With luck, most of these books will be here by the weekend! 

The First Flash Gordon Story

Well, my first Flash Gordon story, anyway.

Along with the Dark Horse reprints of the Flash Gordon comics and the last two 80's Tempo Books Flash novels by David Hagberg, I recently purchased, I also bought this children's paperback, published in 1976 - Flash Gordon In The Sand World Of Mongo.

Written by Horace Elias, it's basically a Big Little Book, but in standard paperback format. Every other page is a full-page illustration, and the text is in large print, written in very simple language for young children. The artist is uncredited, and the art is, unfortunately, somewhat amateurish. But... I found it for about a buck (the 1976 cover price!).

And here's the thing: I remember reading this back in Junior High. Even then, I was a little old for the simplistic story and prose, but I stumbled across it in the school library, and found the sword-wielding guy on the cover intriguing. So I checked it out and read it during my lunch break.

It may not be a particularly good adventure story (it's not), but it was the first Flash Gordon story I ever read... and the last one I needed to complete my collection of Flash paperbacks.

A Holiday On Mongo...

As I noted a few posts back, Brandi let me order the first three of Dark Horse's hardcover Flash Gordon comics collections as my holiday gift from her. Have I mentioned that she's a great wife? Well, she came home tonight and informed me that she'd finished the budgeting for the month, and that I could go ahead and order the remaining two volumes! (Fortunately, I'd found an online dealer offering all five at a HUGE discount - being perpetually broke means I've gotten really good at finding bargains. I purchased all five volumes for the cover price of just one - not counting shipping.)

Plus, she also allowed me a little extra cash to order used copies of the last two David Hagerberg Flash Gordon paperback novels published by Tempo Books in 1980 that I needed to complete the series. Have I mentioned just how awesome my wife is?

So, in a few weeks, I'll be kickin' back on Mongo, enjoying forty years' worth of interplanetary swashbuckling. In fact, I've been totally immersed in the space opera genre lately. Writing it (Perils On Planet X), reading it (Spacehawk), watching it... and if there's one thing I've learned, it's to....

Monday Morning Musings

So, let's see... what's been going on here at stately Mills Manor? One cool thing was that Brandi let me order the first three Dark Horse Flash Gordon hardcover collections as my holiday present. This series of volumes collect all of the Flash Gordon original comic book stories (omitting the newspaper strip reprints) published by Dell, King Comics, Charlton Comics, Gold Key and Whitman, from the late Forties through the early 80s. Can't wait for them to arrive - I've read most of the King Comics issues (in Vol. 2) by Al Williamson, but the early Dell issues (in Vol. 1) and the Charlton issues (in Vol. 3) are all new to me!

Now if I could just pick up a little freelance income (or holiday cash), I could get the remaining two volumes....

Along the same general theme: after ten years of distractions, detours and discouragements (almost entirely of my own doing), I'm finally finishing the third chapter of the first story arc of my own space adventure comic, Perils On Planet X, this week. You have no idea how pleased I am to actually be writing the concluding scenes of a story that has been in my head for so long... especially since the art for the damned thing has been more than half finished for, literally, years.

I'm so excited that I really hope POPX will be successful enough to warrant artist Gene Gonzales and I producing the two further story arcs that I have in mind (I've always planned it as a trilogy) - and that it doesn't take another decade (or two) to get around to telling them.

If all goes well, we'll begin serializing Perils On Planet X online, a page or two a week, sometime in 2013, and will probably try a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign to finance an eventual print volume. Stay tuned for further updates, and I'll be sure to let people know when we're ready to launch the new webcomic version.

And, finally, it looks like we may have a new canine companion sooner than anticipated. After losing our girl China last November, we didn't want to rush into getting another dog. For one thing, the loss was so great that honestly, we're still grieving. But in the past few months we'd been talking more and more about adding another critter to the menagerie - we just figured we'd wait until Spring to start looking seriously.

But last week, Brandi was browsing Craig's List, and found an ad placed by an Arkansas shelter/rescue looking for a home for one of their dogs. There were pictures and a video. After checking them out, she showed the ad to me, and we agreed that the dog looked like a good fit for us.

Anyway, Brandi contacted them, then filled out an application, and then had a phone interview, all of which went well... and barring any last minute complications, it looks like we'll be adopting "Wags" (chances are we'll be renaming him) before the end of the month. We just need to finalize a few details - like getting him to Maine - and scrape up the adoption fees, but it all looks good. 

Here's hoping all goes smoothly. Wish us luck. This house needs a dog.

Roaring Rockets!

This picture illustrates some of my most recent book purchases. Can you guess what sort of reading mood I've been in lately...?

Weekend Double Feature... In Space!

What I'm Reading This Week

I'm currently reading the first of author David Hagberg's six Flash Gordon novels for Tempo Books, originally published in 1980 and '81. They're mostly remembered for the striking Boris Vallejo cover art on volumes 1-4.

Though they started coming out the same year as the Dino DeLaurentis/Mike Hodges movie, they are not connected to it. In fact, unlike the film, which was based fairly faithfully on the original Alex Raymond newspaper comic strip continuity, this series of books instead eschews that backstory in favor of a whole new fictional universe.

Instead of being set in the 30's (or even the then-present, as was the 1980 film) with our heroes traveling to the wandering planet Mongo to battle the evil Ming the Merciless and saving Earth, these books take place in the 22nd century. Colonel Flash Gordon is a young widower and an agent for the Federation Central Intelligence Division, for which Doctor Zarkov is a scientific advisor. Dale Arden is Zarkov's niece, and at least in these first early chapters, is just a friend to Flash and assistant to her uncle. No Ming or Mongo.

Actually, this pretty closely resembles the version of Flash Gordon from the short-lived 1950's TV series. On that show, set in the distant future, Flash (played by Steve Holland) and Zarkov were agents for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, and Dale was their assistant.Of course, the Hagberg novels are much greater in scope, and aren't limited by the impoverished production values of that low-budget syndicated TV incarnation.

Anyway, I'm only up to chapter five, and I'm digging it so far. I also have book two, and if I enjoy them, I intend to hunt down the remaining four volumes.

After that, I hope to dig into the Ace Buck Rogers novel series from the 80s that were written by various authors, based on the original Philip Francis Nowlan novels, Armageddon 2419 A.D. and The Airlords of Han, from an outline by Jerry Pournelle & Larry Niven. There were four in that series, and I've had two of them on my shelf for years - which I've never read.

I am also continuing my program of re-reading the P.I. fiction that I first read in the Eighties. I just re-read Wayne Dundee's first Joe Hannibal novel, The Burning Season, and now I'm re-reading William DeAndrea's Killed In The Ratings. This was the first of eight novels featuring Matt Cobb, troubleshooter for a major television network. I have most of the books in the series, and look forward to revisiting them all. After that, well, probably either Robert J. Randisi's first Mile Jacoby book or one of the Peter Bragg novels by Jack Lynch.

R.I.P. Al Willamson

Possibly my favorite adventure cartoonist of all time, Al Williamson, passed away yesterday at the age of 79. I have been a fan of Williamson's art since at least the early 80s, when he drew the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back. In the years that followed, I made a concerted effort to track down as much of WIlliamson's work as I could find - and when I got my hands on James Van Hise's book, The Art of Al Williamson, I was knocked off my feet.

I loved his detailed, lush art style, his noble-but-human heroes, his stunning women, his imaginative and utterly convincing alien worlds. He was as much a master of real-world adventure (Secret Agent Corrigan) as he was interplanetary adventure (Flash Gordon, Star Wars), and he was equally adept at atmospheric horror (Creepy), gritty Westerns and exotic jungle thrills (Jann of the Jungle).

Right next to my desk, on a bookshelf within easy reach, are nine large volumes devoted to his work: the aforementioned Art of Al Williamson, Al Williamson Hidden Lands, Al Williamson Adventures, the lovely Al Williamson's Flash Gordon collection, the hardcover edition of his Flash Gordon movie adaptation, three volumes of Classic Star Wars strips, and a Secret Agent Corrigan album from Pioneer Books.

Following so quickly on the heels of the death of his friend Frank Frazetta, I can't help but feel that a distinct era of heroic fantasy illustration has passed, and that we'll never see its like again. Oh, there are talented artists out there working in the tradition of Frazetta and Williamson, like Mark Schultz, Gary Gianni and Mike Hoffman, but it's not the same.

Rest in Peace, Al, and thanks for sharing the adventure. I miss you already.

Buck VERSUS Flash!

It's the clash of classic comic strip space aces in a contest for cosmic supremacy – Buck Rogers: heroic aviator who is transported to a war-torn 25th century by a freak dirigible accident with his teenage sidekick Buddy, and Flash Gordon: Yale polo star who, along with the beautiful Dale Arden, is shanghaied by the mad Doctor Zarkov to the oppressed planet of Mongo!

Of course, both of these interplanetary paragons were portrayed in Thirties serials by the same Olympic swimmer-turned-action star, Larry "Buster" Crabbe.

Now, Buck's got cool 25th century gadgets (courtesy of Dr. Huer) and a sexy female pilot (Wilma Deering) to chauffeur him back and forth to Saturn, but his arch-foe, Killer Kane, is pretty much just a hood with delusions of grandeur. Flash has a smokin' hot girlfriend (Dale) lots of weird, alien allies (Barin, Thun, Vultan), is good with fists and swords, and has as his nemesis probably the coolest galactic despot ever, Ming the Merciless.

I'm calling this one for Flash (after all, he had three chapterplays to Buck's one), though I really love the 1939 Buck Rogers serial, and think it's highly underrated. Besides, I think it's telling that when Buster showed up on the 1979 Buck Rogers In The 25th Century television series, his character was named Brigadier Gordon.

"Captain, I've been doing this sort of thing since before you were born."

"Think so, huh?"

"Son, I know so."

What do you folks say? (Remember, it's only the Buster Crabbe serial versions of the characters that we're dealing with here.)

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon

I mentioned this over on the Planet X blog a couple of months ago, but I wanted to bring it up again over here, since the book is supposed to be coming out soon.

Al Williamson's Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic - Coming in early 2009!

Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic, collects all the major works of the artist featuring the character. At 256 pages, it encompasses Williamson’s three stints of depicting Flash in comic book format: the legendary King Comics stories from the 1960s, the 1980 adaptation of the Universal Flash Gordon motion picture, and the Marvel Comics miniseries of 1994.

In addition to these classics of sequential storytelling, Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon features Williamson’s Flash drawings done for commercial illustration and prints, his assists on the Flash Gordon comic strip, a variety of Flash images contributed to amateur publications, and a selection of largely unpublished images spanning his interest in the character from childhood to the conclusion of his career. With an introduction by Sergio Aragones, text by Mark Schultz, and images reproduced directly from the artist’s original drawings, this long-overdue collection of evocative artwork documents the lifelong impact that Flash Gordon had on Williamson and the particular impact that Williamson had on Flash Gordon.

Hardcover, 256 pages,
$44.95
ISBN-10: 193386513X
ISBN-13: 978-1933865133
Flesk Publications

I own much of this material already, in various formats, but to have it all collected under one cover is like a dream come true. More information from the publisher can be found here.

Right now, Amazon is offering it for pre-order at a substantial discount, with the $45 hardcover edition marked down to only $30 bucks, and the softcover for $20. Trust me, for this material, which represents some of the greatest adventure comics art of all time, that's a bargain!

Skeletor VERSUS Ming the Merciless!

It's the clash of 80's cinematic intergalactic despots: Skeletor from the 1987 live-action Masters of the Universe, versus Ming the Merciless from the 1980 film, Flash Gordon!

Both tyrannical titans are probably the best things about their respective films (both flicks are favorites of mine, nonetheless) – as both Frank Langella and Max Von Sydow rise above their scripted dialogue with classy, sublimely sinister performances. Langella, in particular, shines, working through a thick, nearly immobile rubber mask.

But in a battle between ultimate evils, who would win?

Skeletor, with his army of Darth Vader-esque stormtroopers and the stolen power of Castle Grayskull, or the self-styled Emperor of the Universe, with his ability to control the weather of distant planets, brainwashing rays and fleet of art deco rocketships?

Place your bets, folks!

(Note – we're only taking about these particular versions of the characters.)

Wednesday Cover: Back to Mongo

I've been reading Arthur Byron Cover's novelization of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie, and finding myself entertained (and occasionally appalled – according to the author, Dale Arden had a penchant for 70's New York swingers clubs before being shanghaied to Mongo) by Cover's embellishments to the Lorenzo Semple screenplay.

That paperback has a boring movie still on its cover, though, so here's another Gold Key Flash Gordon comic from that era, cover artist unknown. Great Ming, and I love those rocketships...

Wednesday Cover: Flash... Ah-ah!

I don't know who painted it, but I like it!

Okay, maybe THIS is Ming, still...

Okay, I admit it. I may have been wrong, but in my defense, that other photo didn't have a caption when I found it on the SciFi Channel website.

Apparently that guy was just a lackey.

From this new Flash Gordon cast photo (click on it for a bigger view), it looks like Ming is marginally more imposing than I originally thought, even if the costuming and set design here just reeks of cheapness and unoriginality. I mean really – where's the glamour? The romance? The style?

Oh yeah – that stuff just doesn't "fly" these days.

But even by the standards of made-for-cable TV, the sets and costumes (for more shots, check out the SciFi Channel website) just look terrible; like Sliders and Andromeda had a yard sale, and then the Flash folks bought up stuff in bulk but took out all the interesting details.

And having watched some of the promo material online, my reaction is that they've sucked all of the adventure, romance and fantasy out of it. And that's not Flash Gordon, to me.

THIS is Ming the Merciless?

Ewwwwww.... what the hell? Seriously, this guy's got third-string, nameless henchperson written all over him. Or maybe Ming's lawyer. But Ruler of the Universe?

I mean, not even a goatee?

Bleah.

I dunno. Maybe this guy's such a good actor that we'll be able to get past the most uninspired, off-the-rack sci-fi villain costume ever and stupid rubber brain headpiece.... and be blown away by his awesome malevolence and terrifying presence...

But somehow, I doubt it.

I can't imagine that this guy'll be making anyone forget Charles Middleton or Max Von Sydow any time soon.