Edgar Allan Poe Museum Showcases Comics!

While Michael was growing up in San Diego and Alaska reading comics, I was curled up with a book in New Jersey.  From 4th-6th grade, it was most likely an Edgar Allan Poe novel or short story.  I loved the mystery and suspense.  Just the thought of the ending of The Fall of the House of Usher still creeps me out!

So, I read with interest this notice, (printed below), from The Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia.  Since April they've run a special exhibit devoted to “Poe in Comics.”  The exhibit's been so popular, especially bringing children to the museum, that they've extended its run for at least another month. If you're in the area, I'm sure you'll want to check it out.

This first-ever museum exhibit devoted to Poe’s presence in comics and graphic novels opened to the public with a bang last April, and brings together sixty years of comic books featuring adaptations of Poe’s tales and poems, stories in which Poe appears as a character, and parodies of Poe’s works. In addition to the comic books on display are dolls based on comic characters and fantastic original artwork by major comic artists including Michael Golden (shown in above photo), Gahan Wilson, Richard Corben, and Rick Geary.

According to the museum curator, Chris Semtner, Michael Golden’s work is a prominent part of the show. “Among the items on loan for the exhibit are Golden's illustrations for "The Cask of Amontillado" for Marvel Classics as well as a copy of that issue of Marvel Classics,” confirmed Semtner. “The drawings have been a great addition to the exhibit. Since we normally devote our exhibit space to manuscripts and artifacts from Poe's time, this show has given us a good opportunity to appeal to a younger audience, particularly the school groups who visit.”

Other highlights of the show include the superb draftsmanship and dramatic composition in Corben’s drawings for "The Tell-Tale Heart." And, Spanish artist Isidro Mones interprets “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” with the accomplished technique of a seventeenth century Dutch master.

It’s no wonder that the works of Edgar Allan Poe have been an inspiration to comic book artists. Called "America's Shakespeare," Poe created or mastered the short story, detective fiction, science fiction, lyric poetry and the horror story. His dark genius has invited children and adults to read and love literature for over 150 years.

Richmond's Poe Museum boasts the world's finest collection of Edgar Allan Poe's manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia and personal belongings. Opened in 1922, in The Old Stone House, the museum is only blocks away from Poe's first Richmond home and his first place of employment, the Southern Literary Messenger.

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For those of you that are new to our blog today, we have an ongoing 'Comics Con and Pop Culture Show' ourselves here at "Make It So Marketing Inc.", what with our daily blog posts and new listings of items for sale in our online store!

Thanks for reading this blog post today from Tina, and please join us again for more!

~  Michael

Note: If you work in the comic book industry or other pop culture productions, you are welcome to email us press releases, news items, and updates that you feel would be of interest to our blog readers!

Whip-Snap

Of Stan Lee's

 'Who Wants To Be A Superhero?"

TV Show!

I have still been watching our Blog's Stats Counter, even during the election cycle....

An interesting fact is that  'Whip Snap' from the Stan Lee show has been in the Top 10 of the most viewed archived blog posts in our almost 2,700 archived blog posts for the past five days!

Whip Snap, (pictured below), was on the Second Season of the Stan Lee show on the Sci-Fi Channel.

In real life, Whip-Snap's secret identity is that of Paula Thomas, a Security Officer, age approx 33 now.

An interesting note is that she worked with the 'Iron Enforcer' in real life before he competed in Season One of this same Show!

Earlier in her life, Paula idolized 'Cleopatra Jones', who she called the first African-American Superhero, while being interviewed on Feedback's 'After Show' shown on the Sci-Fi web site.

She thought her revised costume that Stan Lee had designed for her made her feel 'sexy'.

Whip-Snap's Catch Phrase was great:  "I'll whip you to unconsciousness and snap you back into reality!".

Whip-Snap's super-powers were pretty good too:   She gets her powers from her whip, which she wields with pinpoint accuracy! In severe circumstances, she can turn her foes to dust!  She possesses increased flexibility and stamina. She also has a bond with Mother Earth and derives special strength from the warmth of the planet!

IMHO Whip-Snap had two good costumes, both her own and the revised one, had a good catch phrase, and actually had pretty good super powers. 

She just didn't make it to the final episodes because of her continual crying on camera IMHO....

Possibly she has that under control now, and is being looked at for some other project, thus the increased viewings of her archived blog post that we have???

If so, we'll let you know here in our Blog. Thanks for reading this blog post today, and please join us again for more! .

~  Michael

Note: If you work in the comic book industry or other pop culture productions, you are welcome to email us press releases, news items, and updates that you feel would be of interest to our blog readers!

'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Film

 The View From SD Comic Con!

I've noticed our archived blog posts on the upcoming December 12th film has been seeing more and more viewers.

For those of you that are not familiar with this film, here is a repost of Tina's report from the 2008 San Diego Comic Con about the film:

"Klaatu barada nikto."

A bearded Keanu Reeves (The Matrix) introduced the beautiful Jennifer Connelly (The Rocketeer), Director Scott Derrickson, and Producer Erwin Staff to a capacity Comic Con Hall H Crowd for The Day The Earth Stood Still panel.

Director Derrickson told an interesting story of how as a film student he was treated to a dinner meeting with his idol Robert Wise, director of the original 1951 movie.  Wise advised Derrickson to make his first film in the genre he loved: horror.  He took his idol's advice and made the critically acclaimed The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Erwin Scott explained how he was first inspired to remake The Day The Earth Stood Still while making another movie years earlier with Reeves - Speed.  Erwin was waiting in a studio exec's office to pitch him a new movie idea.  On the wall behind the desk was a poster for the original movie.   When the exec finally arrived for the meeting, Erwin said forget what I was going to talk to you about, let's talk about a remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still.  The exec was interested, but as luck would have it in Hollywood, was out of a job two weeks later and Erwin's idea was put on hold.

The film's been "re-magined" to address today's issues.  The Cold War, crucial to the original, is over, and the environment and man's relationship to the earth and each other takes precedent in the remake explained Derrickson.  As a result, the look and feel of the movie as evidenced by Klaatu's spacesuit, the spaceship, and the aliens, is more "biological" than "industrial" look of the original.

Internet rumors notwithstanding, fans will be happy to know that Gort is in the remake.  So surely, someone will be saying, "Klaatu barada nikto!"

We even have an official The Day The Earth Stood Still T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase.  Check it out by clicking here if it is still available!

~Tina!

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For those of you that are new to our blog today, we have an ongoing 'Comics Con and Pop Culture Show' here at "Make It So Marketing Inc.", what with our daily blog posts and new listings of items for sale in our online store!

Thanks for reading this blog post today, and please join us again for more!

~  Michael

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

The Complete Series On DVD!

Warner has released a special DVD package recently, which I wanted to bring to our blog readers' attention.

It is in the same "attaché" packaging, and with the same content (both on-disc and off) that had been seen online and on TV in 2007 from Time-Life. 

The cost of this special set is $199.99 SRP.

I enjoyed watching this TV Show Series as a kid, and a friend of mine was a true fanatic, owning even models of the props used on the show, as well as the paperback books.

Myself, I settled for the Gold Key Comics that were issued from May 1965 to April of 1969. The series ran for 22 issues; see below photo for issue #6's cover.

When looking back at the TV Series, I remember seeing many guest stars including: Barbara Feldon, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Joan Crawford, Sonny and Cher, George Fnneman, among many others.

The original run of this TV series was from September 22nd 1964 to January 15th 1968.

Would you believe that the first season was broadcast in Black & White?!

There were a total of 105 episodes, so this DVD set will take a while to view!!

For those of you that are new to our blog today, we have an ongoing 'Comics Con and Pop Culture Show' here at "Make It So Marketing Inc.", what with our daily blog posts and new listings of items for sale in our online store!

Thanks for reading this blog post today, and please join us again for more!

~  Michael

Note: If you work in the comic book industry or other pop culture productions, you are welcome to email us press releases, news items, and updates that you feel would be of interest to our blog readers!

Voyagers.... Time Again?

For those of you new to our Blog, we have approximately 2,700 archived blog posts. Thus we've added a 'stats' counter to see what bloggers are viewing, and what posts we should be updating when possible.

This past week I've noticed that our archived blog post on the 'Voyagers' TV Show from 1982-83 is being viewed by severaI bloggers, and keeps showing up in our Top 20 Archived Blog Posts.

I have to admit that I am fascinated by Time Travel TV Series. Those series included 'Time Tunnel' in the 1960's, 'Quantum Leap' in the 1990's, and most recently 'Journeyman'  and now 'Life On Mars' in the 2000's.

One time travel series that I blogged about in the past was the TV Series 'Voyagers!', which was broadcast in the 1982-1983 season on NBC. When I blogged about it, I mentioned that it was on a DVD set, (see below)..

Starting on October 3, 1982 the series had Phineas Bogg (played by Jon-Erik Hexum) as one of a society of time travelers called 'Voyagers'.

Phineas along with the help of a young boy named Jeffrey Jones, (who was played by Meeno Peluce), used a hand-held device called an 'Omni' (that looked much like an old time large pocket watch) to travel thru time and ensured that history unfolded as we knew it at the time in 1982.

In the first episode Jeffrey was there to ensure that baby Moses' basket traveled down the Nile where it was met by Pharaoh's daughter. With Jeffrey it wasn't going to turn out that way...

For you new bloggers, I want to point out that there were several running gags in the episodes.

The biggest one was Phineas' lack of knowledge on important historical dates, so which the kid Jeffrey helped him set time right.

Phineas also had a fear of dogs, (i.e. Indiana Jones and snakes).

With his good looks, Phineas was of course a great womanizer and somehow fell for a beautiful woman almost every episode!

I currently have not found out why this archived blog post is being viewed so many times this past week. Quite often when this is the case, the bloggers viewing the archived blog post are looking for verification of rumours that a show is being developed again for another run or in a different format. Time will tell why the archived blog post is so active, (pun intended!).

For those of you that are new to our blog today, we have an ongoing 'Comics Con and Pop Culture Show' here at "Make It So Marketing Inc.", what with our daily blog posts and new listings of items for sale in our online store!

Thanks for reading this blog post today, and please join us again for more!

~  Michael