Spooky, Scary This 'n That Time! (Well, not that spooky or scary)

Gotta keep a theme going, y'know! Here's a bunch of shorter items to browse over:

ITEM! As some of you were probably expecting, I'm currently going to classes for fall quarter, as I get into my second year of college to become a Medical Assistant (which is why I got a bit further behind than usual in catching up on comments). Now that I've got a handle on the classes and the workload, I can definitely say I'm not stressing out as much as I was the first few weeks of spring quarter! All but one of the classes I have are medical-related (the odd one out being a math class), and it's definitely getting more interesting! Financial aid this quarter was very generous, giving me some much-needed breathing room.

ITEM! Any of you who are planning to attend the Portland Comic Book show on November 21st, keep an eye out for me, will you? I'll at least be there for two hours or so, probably around the first couple of hours of the show. I'll at least have my son Tristan in tow with me, and possibly my brother Jeff, too. I'll be looking for some fun cheap comics, and of course some blog fodder, when I'm not saying hi to some of the dealers and guests I only get to see at these things. Since this'll be my first comic show in a LONG time, I'm really looking forward to it! It's also looking very good for me to go at least one day of the next Emerald City Comic-Con!

ITEM! You already know about the Countdown to Halloween already in progress... and you know I do sort of a Countdown to Christmas in December (I have no plans for doing any kind of Thanksgiving-related countdown ever, by the way)... well, I can tell you now that there will be a special 14-day-long feature in February for Valentine's Day! More details on that as it gets closer.

ITEM! The Give-A-Show blog is still on hiatus... what am I waiting for in order to take it out of hiatus again? Well, there's one set that I've not been able to acquire so far, from the early 1970s, which I believe has Josie and the Pussycats on the box. I do have some additional Screen-A-Show cartridges that I'll be doing, too... and some adaptations from View-Master discs... but I want to make sure I'll have some actual Give-A-Show videos before I get to some of the related stuff. I also have a few extra Talking Show Projector sets that I need to work on, but those come with records that I'll need to convert to MP3 first. I've been trying to decide if I'll mail them off to a contact of mine on the East Coast who's ripped records for me in the past, or if I should find someone closer to home who can do it, or if I should just try to find a cheap used record player and figure out a way to do it myself (worse comes to worst, I can always just play the record player and record it to MP3 using the built-in mike on my computer). I keep checking eBay regularly, but the one set I need to complete the 1970s hasn't been showing up!

ITEM! For those of you interested in such things, as I write this, I've been working on future postings for this blog to run in January... some of my other blogs have already got posts prepared into 2012, if you can believe that! Some days, I think if I'm still blogging away when I die, none of my readers will realize something's wrong for months, if not longer!

ITEM! Speaking of future postings -- and this will sound weird, I know -- but I'm already running out of willing participants to be highlighted in the upcoming "Way of the Geek" feature that begins in November! The main focus of "The Way of the Geek" is to interview my fellow geek bloggers (or other geeks who are active in some way in their geekery) to find out more about them. I figured I'd at least manage to get a year's worth of features (52 features, at the rate of one per week), but it's getting difficult to get some people who've promised to respond to get around to it. So, consider this to be a double-plea... first, if you'd be interested in being interviewed for a future "Way of the Geek," please let me know via an email to me at waffyjon at comcast dot net (and tell me just a bit about yourself and why you think you might be an interesting interview... just having a geek blog is good enough for me, you know)... second, in the event that I just plain can't get new interviews going on, I'll need to replace that feature, so if any of you have an idea for a new weekly feature I could do (something that does relate to the stuff I've been posting), feel free to make a suggestion!

That's it for now!

By the 10s: The Three Stooges!

While there were Dell comics with the Stooges (selected Four Color Comics issues, anyway), I'll just be looking at Gold Key's series today!


Issue 10! More after the jump!

Countdown to Halloween: Movie of the Week - The Revenge of Frankenstein!

Trailer and more memorabilia after the jump!

Welcome to the 2010 Countdown to Halloween!

Hopefully I've got this figured out so those of you checking out the Random Acts of Geekery on October 1 will see this as the first post! Anyway...

Welcome to the 2010 Countdown to Halloween at the Random Acts of Geekery! As has been the case for the past several years, I'm joining with an ever-growing list of bloggers who are committed to posting Halloween-related stuff throughout the month of October! You should find a link to the blog somewhere on the left, and you can go directly to the entry with the participating blogs right here!

Those of you who've been around for the past few years have some idea as to what you can expect to find this time around, but I've added some twists to things this year, just to keep it fresh! Here's some of the Halloween-themed features you'll be seeing here, at least one of them each day (as well as the regular geekery, mind you):

Dog of the Geek: This regular feature will be all werewolves and wolfmen this month, as you'll see when you scroll down!

Movie of the Week: This regular Saturday feature should, as is typical, feature monster movies more often than not!

Monster Cards: Last year, I ended up not posting all the monster cards I'd collected photos of, so I'll be looking to finish those off this time around, but there's a twist to that, too, namely...

Horror-Be Humor Monster Cards: This is the set of cards that I designed and created, and all summer long, you've had a chance to try to out-funny me on those! I'll be posting the final versions of these sometime during the month!

Monster Mondays: My regular Monster Monday feature will, of course, continue through the month, although there won't be a bonus "Monster Mondays on Friday" this year, because I've got so much other Halloween themed stuff this time around!

Original Comic Art: As was the case last year, this month, the original comic art is going to all be from horror and monster comics!

Retro-Reviews: This month's Retro-Review of an old comic (in serialized form, probably) will feature a horror title!

Monster Magazines on Wednesdays: Starting this month, instead of posting one article each week from a selected monster magazine or book, I'll be posting the entirety of the mag or book each Wednesday! Yes, you read that right!

Random Videos of Geekery: Most, if not all of this month's Random Videos of Geekery will be Halloween-themed!

I think that should pretty much cover it! But for those of you who don't come here for the monster coolness, there'll still be the regular Random Acts of Geekery features...

Give-A-Show Fridays: Yes, the video repostings from the Give-A-Show Blog will continue here every Friday, and it's going to be Bionic Videos for quite a while, starting with the Kenner Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman sets, and then going on to the Chad Valley stuff from the UK!

By the 10s: Yes, I haven't featured all the By the 10's yet! Just what obscure comics will I be featuring this month? Wait and see!

Puzzle Sunday: This feature is not going away, ever!

Cool Stuff: Same goes for this! All the memorabilia featuring comics characters, Star Trek, and so forth will still be coming your way!

Comics Ads: Yes, the comic book advertisements are finally returning to the Random Acts of Geekery, after being absent for several years! I'll have a few things to say about these as I post 'em!

Children's Book Theatre: More stuff from my collection of genre-related kids books will continue to come your way!

So anyway, I hope that all of these features will be enjoyed by most of you, if not all of you... and have a happy Countdown to Halloween!

Countdown to Halloween: Dog of the Geek - Larry Talbot, aka the Wolfman!

Breed: Werewolf
Original Appearance: “The Wolf Man,” Universal (1941)
Other Appearances: “Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man” (1943), “House of Frankenstein” (1944), “House of Dracula” (1945), “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948)
Biography: Larry Talbot returned to his ancestral home in Wales after some time in America, hoping to reconcile with his father, Sir John Talbot. He meets a local girl who runs an antique shop, from whom he buys a silver-headed walking stick decorated with a wolf, which he is told represents a werewolf. That night, Larry attempts to rescue a friend of the girl's from a wolf attack, kills the wolf, but is bitten in the process. Larry learns it was a werewolf (the son of the gypsy fortuneteller Maleva), and has now become a werewolf himself. As the Wolf Man, Larry prowls the countryside until his father bludgeons him to death with the silver-headed cane. However, some time after his death, Larry's tomb is opened by graverobbers on the night of the full moon, and Larry revives, turning into the Wolf Man once more. Alive again, Larry goes to Frankenstein's castle in search of a scientific cure for his lycanthropy, discovering the frozen Frankenstein monster and meeting the Baroness Elsa Frankenstein. The Baroness has her father's notes, and gives them to Dr. Mannering, who has been tracking Talbot, in hopes that Mannering is able to drain all life from both Larry and the Monster. However, Mannering decides he wants to see the monster at full strength, and revives the monster – on the night of the full moon, unfortunately. The Wolf Man attacks the Monster, only to have the two apparently die in a flood after the town dam is blown up to drown the castle's inhabitants. However, this is not the end of Larry Talbot! Both he and the Monster are discovered frozen soldic in the catacombs of the castle by Dr. Gustav Niemann, who is traveling with his hunchbacked assistant Daniel and a gypsy girl. Larry and the gypsy girl fall in love, but Daniel loves her as well. When Niemann revives the Monster on the night of the full moon (nobody ever checks these things), Larry turns into the Wolf Man again, but is shot by the gypsy girl using a silver bullet, although she perishes as well. The Monster and Niemann end up drowing in quicksand. However, Larry did not permanently die from the silver bullet, as he appears again searching for a cure from Dr. Edelmann, who is also approached by Count Dracula, himself in search of a cure. Larry accidentally discovers the presence of the Frankenstein Monster during an abortive suicide atttempt. Edelmann manages to cure Larry, and Larry falls in love with Edelmann's lovely assistant, but apparently things didn't end well there (the monster was apparently burned to death when the castle is destroyed). Larry later learns of a plot of Count Dracula's involving the Frankenstein monster, and employs the assistance of two railway baggage clerks, Chick Young and Wilbur Grey. During the misadventures that ensue, Larry transforms again into the Wolf Man and battles Dracula, with the two of them apparently perishing when both fall over a balcony and into rocky seas.
Powers: As a werewolf, Larry Talbot has amazing agility and strength, and quite likely stronger senses of smell and hearing. His claws and fangs are able to maim human flesh very easily. Any victim of the Wolf Man's who is not killed by their wounds would become a werewolf themselves. The only vulnerability the Wolf Man has is to silver, although apparently this is not a permanent death. Perhaps if Larry's tomb hadn't been opened, with his corpse exposed to the rays of the full moon, he would have stayed dead; instead, this apparently gave him eternal life, with any injury later given to him by silver only having a temporary effect.
Group Affiliation: None
Miscellaneous: The Wolf Man is the only one of the classic Universal monsters to be portrayed by the same actor in every movie he appeared in. Most of the elements of werewolf lore that appeared in these movies were created by Hollywood. Lon Chaney Jr. would also play a werewolf in a 1959 Mexican film named “La Casa del Terror,” a 1962 episode of Route 66 that also featured Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster, and in one scene in 1971's Dracula Vs. Frankenstein. The 2010 “The Wolfman” remake apparently changed quite a bit of the plot, and was not nearly as successful financially as the original (relatively speaking, anyway).

Give-A-Show Fridays: 1973 Six Million Dollar Man (Kenner Version) Slides 1-8!

As presented in two parts!


The rest will follow next Friday! It's a Bionic Month for Give-A-Show Fridays!

Retro-Review: Amazing Adventures #1 (1950), Part 5!

Next, it's “The Stone Men” (artist unknown)! The tale begins in New York, when Stan Carlson, explorer for the International Scientific Institute, tells his fiancee, Judy Thomas, that the Institute is sending him to Mexico to look for a meteorite that crashed there. Judy insists on accompanying him, and so they wind up in the dense back country of Yucatan. They come across a huge stone figure lying on its back, and make camp near it. The next morning, Stan and Judy are the only members of the expedition still alive! Judy notices that the statue has moved since the previous day, but Stan doesn't believe her. (You'll be sorry, Stan!)

That night, Stan sleeps outside Judy's tent, but Judy slips off into the jungle alone, where she encounters the statute, walking around! Her scream awakens Stan, who takes off after her, seeing the stone statue carrying her off! Just then, a meteor strikes the ground ahead of where the statue is heading!

When Stan gets to the site, he discovers that what he thought was a meteorite is actually a space craft, and the aliens piloting the spacecraft apparently turn to stone the longer they're in our atmosphere. Stan decides that water must be what does the trick, and uses dynamite to divert a stream to the spacecraft, which of course changes the aliens to stone immediately. Stan explains to Judy that his reasoning was that the moist tropic air was what was slowly turning them to stone.

The comic wraps itself up with a one-page “Cosmic Comics,” with jokes based on the characters being robots (such as a smoking robot man blowing smoke nuts (as in nuts and bolts), and a female robot dropping her handkerchief in front of a suit of armor.
Finally, there is the one-page “Amazing Prophecies,” by Ogden Whitney. The page suggests that the nation that owns the moon will depend on which one wins the interplanetary race (whatever that's supposed to mean); that super-knowledge may be imparted to youngsters by mechanical means; explosions of super-atomic bombs may upset the polar ice-cap resulting in the seas overflowing (not quite global warming, but close, eh?); and that as a result of atomic warfare, the civilization of tomorrow may exist underground!

Next time: A horror comic, just in time for October's "Countdown to Halloween"!

Cool Stuff!

For those of you who were waiting for this post just for the GI Joe items, I'm afraid these two coloring/activity books are it! For those of you curious as to what else I have in store for you today... follow the jump!

Crestwood House Movie Monsters "Deadly Mantis" Part 6!

And now, the conclusion!

More after the jump!

CBT: Peter Potamus Coloring Book, Part 2!

When last we left Peter Potamus and So-So, they were headed into a storm!

More after the jump!

Cool Stuff: DC Stuff and More!

Starting off this edition, it's the Comdex Superheroes boxed set! I believe these were also sold individually. Cool an idea as this is, I would've never bought it as a kid, because... well... I've never been that great a painter! More after the jump!

Random Videos of Geekery: Peter Potamus in "Wagon Train Strain"!

Monster Monday!

It's Monster Monday, time for some mummies!

Mummy's Curse poster! More after the jump!

Original Comic Art!

We're starting with another story from Pocket Comics #1, with two more after that!

The seller of this art identified the artist as Edd Ashe! More after the jump!

Puzzle Sunday!

Last week's solution:

This week's puzzle after the jump!

By the 10s: Secret Hearts!

The romance parade continues on By the 10s with... Secret Hearts!

Issue 10! More after the jump!