Yes, the
San Diego Comic Con--or "Nerd Prom" as it is sometimes called--might be over for another year. But it's never too late to fill your life with tchotchkes that uphold your geek credentials. And it's especially easy when you have a resource like
The Budk Catalog. Imagine the envy of your nerdly pals--and the instant appearance of a SWAT team--when you parade through your hometown while wearing these Wolverine claws. Hospital coverage due to police sniper fire not included.
When I was a kid, I loved the comic strip
THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME, by
Jimmy Hatlo. It was one of my first introductions to poking fun at irrational or weird human behavior.
What I did not quite realize is that the strip had a revival under artist
Al Scaduto. But unfortunately, he passed away on December 8, 2007, and his last strip ran on February 3, 2008.
Here's an archive of that
current version.
If only you had been reading
Popular Mechanics magazine for February 1929! Then you could have purchased the same
Purple Ray healing device that Wonder Woman uses! Okay, so it was a "Violet Ray." Same difference, right?
Synchronicity in the creative arts is pretty weird. The independent invention of very similar things.
Charles Fort, one of the masters of all things weird, even had a term for it: "steam engine time." Fort's notion was that when an era was ripe, it called forth certain creations multiple times, without coordination among mere humans.
I was reminded of this recently in a small way while watching the 1942 film
TO BE OR NOT TO BE. In this film, Robert Stack plays a dashing Polish aviator named Lieut. Stanislav Sobinski.
What other fictional dashing Polish aviator premiered right at this time? None other than
Blackhawk, who debuted in August of 1941.
Could it be a simple case of the
Blackhawk comic influencing the scripter of
To Be or Not to Be? Unlikely, given the short span between the debut of Blackhawk and the release of the Robert Stack film, which had to be in production for some time prior.
It's more likely that the plight of Poland under Hitler's invasion called forth the notion of a national hero. But why aviator? Just the romance of aerial combat, I suppose.
Here're pictures of Blackhawk and Stack in his role (leftmost figure, below) to compare. Stack is out of uniform in this shot, but when he's wearing his flying outfit, the resemblance to Blackhawk is uncanny.
The next time someone sees you reading comics and criticizes your lowbrow tastes, whip out a hardcopy of this page and reply, "But no,
mon frere, I read only zee intellectual
bande dessinée, such as zee
Arthur et Zoé."