Erik W Hendrix...  Has been sending out several notices that the judges for the 'Small Press Idol', (SPI), are no longer the Only Ones that Can Vote on entries that were submitted to the contest.  Well at least starting April 1st that is!

  Erik wrote me:  "I will end up sending a couple more of these before voting starts on April 1st, but just a reminder. If you have not already done so, please go to dimestoreproductions.com and sign up. The link is near the top left corner and it's a really quick and easy process. A link to the process I wrote on "how to sign up" is below.

Note: If you signed up but didn't get a confirmation email, send an email to ian@dimestoreproductions.com from the account you used to sign up and ask him to activate you.

Note 2: Starting on April 1st, you get ONE VOTE PER DAY, so please go onto the site daily and vote for your favorite (hopefully it's Faction).

Process for voting: http://www.geocities.com/thelastbard/faction/SPI-JoinForums.doc

Link directly to sign up for DimeStore: http://www.dimestoreproductions.com/signup.php ."  

My thanks to Erik for re-submitting this reminder to so many!  FYI, Erik also has an entry titled 'Faction', which is one of the 27 entries that are moving on to Round 2 of SPI... so give his work a look at also if you are so inclined!

 Ian Shires , (pictured to the left), listed on the main web site all 27 of the projects that made it into Round 2.   By making it that far all 27 are set to have their projects printed in 'Mysterious Visions' at the very least. 

Ian also says "But more over, they are still in contention for the $700 cash prize, 4-issue publishing commitment grand prize. So take a moment this week to check them all out, make your own notes about them, and get ready for Round 2 where we turn up the heat big time, and YOUR VOTES COUNT!"

Yesterday I blogged about the latest release in the set of... Conan The Barbarian statues based on the John Buscema & Ernie Chan cover for issue #88 of Marvel Comics 'Conan The Barbarian'.  I was blogging about the 'Belit - Queen of the Black Coast' statue that will be available in April.

After the blog post was published, I received several emails, questions, messages and comments about both blog versions of the post, which I was thankful for!

One question in particular asked me if there were any other Sword and Sorcery Comics that I would recommend for reading, since it looked like I knew something on S&S comics...

And I thought back to an earlier blog post where I delved into the short history of 'Wulf The Barbarian' that was created by Larry Hama.

When the Atlas - Seaboard comics were first printed, there weren't any trade paper back compilations being printed, and 'Graphic Novels' were just being thought of.  So to read these four issues of 'Wulf the Barbarian' you would have to purchase the individual copies of the issues.

Here is what I blogged about before on Wulf's history:

Larry Hama, (pictured above right), is known for his many projects in the Comics World, including G.I. Joe Comics!

Every so often I stop blogging about comics or graphic novels or comic book movies... And just gape at some statues that are being released now for collectors...

Like the one above!  Belit, Queen of the Black Coast, is just one of a set of three statues that are being released one at a time in this mini-series.

The reason this set strikes me is that it is based on a Conan the Barbarian comic book cover from Marvel Comics... AND the cover of this issue #88 was drawn by John Buscema with Ernie Chan!

Those two artists had a long run together when Marvel still had the rights to publish Conan.   Matter of fact, I can still visualize 'Big John' Buscema stating at his last San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) appearance, that Conan was what he enjoyed most illustrating at Marvel.  Like a big grizzly bear John repeatedly stated at the special SDCC program that he didn't like drawing superheroes, although his style at Marvel was overwhemingly loved by superhero fans, myself included.

It was Conan that he enjoyed most, and he verbally stated that he wished he had started sooner drawing him.  However when Marvel starting adapting stories from Conan's history, the company did not want a higher paid page rate artist drawing the then mostly unknown character as a comic book series.  At that time the 'Sword and Sorcery' genre had not really started in comics, although the paperbacks with Conan was a proven good seller in that market.

It wasn't until later that John was able to drawn the series as well as the black and white magazines published by Marvel at that time.

Back to the statue... Although the look is from the cover of issue #88, this piece is sculpted by Seth Vandable.  Conan has already been released, and Belit will be followed by Zula later.

The best thing about the Belit statue above is that all three statues in the set are designed with matching bases for display!  The Belit statue stands 13.5' tall and features her gripping both sword and dagger!  

Here's the point of this blog post:  Belit is already painted and ready to display when you buy her... BUT this Belit statue will be limited to a 500 edition run.  So Don't Miss Out if you have any interest in Belit, Conan, Zula or all three!  There are a lot of Robert E Howard (REH) cross over fans out there that make something like this a probable sell-out!  Even at the MSRP Of $239.00! 

No, we here at Make It So Marketing won't be selling any of the three statues!   I just wanted to point out this set, as this type of quality wasn't around when I was collecting models or statues earlier in my lifetime!

So either check your favorite online source for a pre-order, or check the web site at:  http://www.hardhero.com/belit-statue.html

(Please Note: A complimentary statue or other item for this mention / review was NOT provided.)