Mippyville

Season's Greetings from Little Nemo

2022-12-25T05:00:00.001-08:00

Woolworth's 1954 Christmas Book -- the ads [repost]

2022-12-20T05:00:00.001-08:00

I suspect that kids who originally picked this up felt ripped off by the overwhelming number of ads. Almost seventy years later, the ads may be the most interesting part.

Toys you probably wouldn't want to leave under the tree

2022-12-19T04:30:00.001-08:00

From Lost Worlds number 5:

"The 3 Blind Mice and the Christmas Deed" by Walt Kelly

2022-12-18T14:25:00.002-08:00

Another author on my to-read list

2016-07-31T21:46:00.002-07:00

From Wikipedia:

Charles Williams (August 13, 1909 – ca. April 7, 1975) was an American author of crime fiction. He is regarded by some critics as one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1951 debut, the pulp paperback novel Hill Girl, sold more than a million copies. A dozen of his books have been adapted for movies, most popularly Dead Calm.

Any bright ideas?

2016-07-23T03:29:00.001-07:00

I almost want one of these...

from Avon's Attack on Planet Mars, 1951

Beaumont, Matheson. Lupino, and... Paladin

2016-07-18T02:01:00.002-07:00

Have Gun, Will Travel always had some amazing talent in front and behind the camera, but "The Lady on the Wall" may hold the record.

Director: Ida Lupino
Writers: Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson

Aired February 20th, 1960

Have Gun, Will Travel s03e23 The Lady On The Wall by MixedSeries16

Worth Carnahan's Puzzle Pages

2016-07-03T00:52:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I've been collecting puzzles from Golden Age comics and I'm particularly fond of the puzzles of the almost forgotten artist/publisher* Worth Carnahan. Here's a video I put together as part of a series on puzzles and problem solving.

* Or maybe artist/front. The industry was a bit sketchy back then.

Mannix joins Synanon

2016-06-22T01:29:00.002-07:00

A fascinating view of how Hollywood viewed Synanon back when the press was
overwhelmingly positive, before the organization was known for shaved heads and rattlesnake-based murder plots.

The depictions of the Synanon game are particularly interesting.

It Rhymes with Lust--The first graphic novel (sort of)

2016-04-23T02:31:00.001-07:00

Now available at Digital Comics Museum

From Wikipedia:

It Rhymes with Lust is a book, originally published in 1950, considered one of the most notable precursors of the graphic novel. Called a "picture novel" on the cover and published by the comic book and magazine company St. John Publications, it was written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (together using the pseudonym "Drake Waller"), with black-and-white art by Matt Baker and inker Ray Osrin.

Happy New Year from Windsor McCay and Little Nemo

2016-01-01T00:30:00.000-08:00

Make it a good one.

Merry Xmas from Walt Kelly

2015-12-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Disney casts a broad net when it comes to Star Wars Tie-Ins

2015-12-21T20:32:00.001-08:00

Yesterday's post briefly hit on the cultural side of the new Star Wars film. Now we start transitioning to the unprecedented scale of marketing behind the film.

Disney appears to be spending an unprecedented amount of money promoting this film. That total is being driven even further north by countless product tie-ins.

Of course, cross-promotion is nothing new. It is more or less standard with major franchise releases, even if only in the form of a happy meal. What is unique about the latest Star Wars is both the scale and the apparent lack of targeting. Tie-in tend strongly to match the perceived audience for a movie. Breakfast cereals for kid friendly shows, high-end watches for James Bond films.

By comparison, this is carpet-bombing.

"the world’s first $200 million STAR WARS fan-film"

2015-12-20T19:34:00.001-08:00

I'm not planning to see the new Star Wars film (I'm assuming you've heard about it). I'll probably catch some of it eventually on TV or via some streaming service, but I don't anticipate paying any money for it or giving it two plus dedicated hours of my time. This isn't because I didn't care for the last three or because I haven't liked anything I've seen from the director. I didn't and I haven't but those are minor points. I don't want to see the latest Star Wars film because, with the possible exception of another Genndy Tartakovsky short, I don't want to see any new Star Wars films.

The original trilogy was an attempt by what was then "new Hollywood" to reinvent the classic swashbuckler. It was, of course, incredibly successful commercially and reasonably successful artistically, though the various elements – – Errol Flynn meets Joseph Campbell meets, a bit later, David Lean – – never really coalesced and the problem got only worse as the series progressed .

Where the franchise does still hold some interest is as a cultural and marketing phenomena. I'll have more to say about the marketing later; for the cultural, the best take I've seen comes from Bob Chipman. Chipman is a good critic but he's also something more valuable and more difficult to find: a broadly knowledgeable and self-aware fanboy.

Viewed objectively, the prequels are “bad films” for the same reasons that plenty of other (substantially worse!) special-effects blockbusters are bad films: Poorly scripted, badly acted, tonally askew, etc. But as a young-ish fanboy back in the day, what really bugged me was that they didn’t “feel” STAR WARS enough, by which of course I mean that they didn’t remain slavishly devoted to the aesthetic and trappings I’d grown up obsessed with and didn’t throw out nearly enough references and callbacks and, well… “Star Wars” stuff. Whatever bad things you can say about THE PHANTOM MENACE, you can’t accuse George Lucas of pandering to the audience – that was ATTACK OF THE CLONES

My point is: I’ve long held a sneaky (and depressing) suspicion that if the prequels had been exactly as lacking on a technical filmmaking and storytelling level BUT had also been suitably packed to the gills with the requisite amount of fan-service, said fans would’ve largely overlooked those flaws and still be arguing their merits today.

And I’d been worried that I’d get a chance to test this hypothesis ever since it became clear that Disney and Lucasfilm were intent on selling THE FORCE AWAKENS based almost-exclusively around proving that they’d been listening to the last decade-plus of fanboy complaints; with a pre-release hype machine that ignored almost all discussion of story, themes or characters in favor of: “We’re using practical effects and models again!” “NO midichlorians!” “X-Wings and Tie-Fighters and Storm Troopers and The Falcon!” “Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie are all back!” Heck, they even went so far as to hire JJ Abrams – a remarkably UN-remarkable talent whose only skillset of genuine note is being an exceptional mimic of the style and feel of other peoples’ movies. If ever there was going to be a recipe to make O.G. STAR WARS fans spontaneously combust with joy *regardless* of whether or not the movie was actually any damn good, this was it.

BUT! My hypothesis will have to wait for another day. Because in spite of all that (and, if we’re being far, probably because of some of it) STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS is a pretty damn good movie. And since it in no way needed to be, I suppose that’s damn impressive in its own right.

Make no mistake though: What we’ve got here is effectively the world’s first $200 million STAR WARS fan-film – and I don’t use that designation to be flippant nor entirely critical. THE FORCE AWAKENS is scratching a nostalgia itch out of pure profit motive, but for good or ill the attachment generations of filmgoers have to the sights, sounds and characters of the original trilogy is a real, palpable thing that exists on a level above the base toy-salesmanship that grew to feed off of it. Yes, the narrative is pretty much a leisurely stroll down memory lane (with frequent detours onto Homage Avenue) but mostly feels organic and natural about it at least until you stop and start questioning the coincidences that have always been a big part of the series’ storytelling.

Borderline by Lawrence Block

2015-11-27T18:08:00.002-08:00

Early effort by Block (late fifties). Well crafted and very hard edged. The violence is graphic, the sex graphic and, for the time, taboo pushing. Like Westlake and Ellison, Block had been paying the bills writing porn and if the ratio of sex to plot were a bit higher, I might assume that was the original market. From a Twentieth Century perspective, the most interesting plot thread is probably the account of a young divorcee discovering her pan-sexuality in a border town bordello. Block scholars will want to take a look at the well-developed character of the serial killer who, in a true sign of the times, initially tried to satisfy his murderous appetites through a diet of horror comics.

"Little Nemo Meets Lieutenant Kijé"

2015-11-16T00:30:00.002-08:00

I recently decided to have some fun with two of my favorites...

For you halloween reading pleasure -- Frankenstein meets Frankenstein

2015-10-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

[A Mippyville repost]

Dick Briefer always had fun playing with the line between the merely dark and the truly grotesque. In the Mippyville stories, he normally pulled back before things got quite as potentially gruesome as this 1946 tale.

Briefer also enjoyed parodying popular culture figures from Bing Crosby to Inner Sanctum host Raymond. Boris Karloff fit right in.

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- Béla Lugosi in White Zombie

2015-10-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

"Do you want to see something really scary?" --

2015-10-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

With one exception, these are episodes of the Twilight Zone that creeped me out as a child and in some cases still do. The Grave doesn't quite fit in here, but it's awfully good anyway, written and directed by the great Montgomery Pittman and featuring one of the best casts you'll find on any half hour of television.

It's a Good Life

Perchance to Dream

The Grave

When the Sky Was Opened

Mirror Image

The After Hours

The Howling Man

The Invaders

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- silents are golden

2015-10-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Phantom of the Opera

Buster Keaton's "The Haunted House"

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde withJohn Barrymore

Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

For you halloween reading pleasure -- Frankie, Raymond and the birth of EC

2015-10-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

[A Mippyville repost]

At least the birth of EC's horror line which was inspired by what was thought of, even in the Fifties, as old time radio horror shows like Inner Sanctum (which featured the creepy, pun-loving host, Raymond) and Light's Out (which had stories every bit as violent and disturbing as anything EC ever published as well as a progressive political viewpoint similar to that of Gaines). Sanctum has dated badly but most of Light's Out remains effective to this day (listen for yourself here).

With that out of the way...

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. in Route 66

2015-10-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing

For your Halloween listening pleasure -- Orson Welles in Dracula

2015-10-25T13:22:00.001-07:00

The debut production of the Mercury Theatre of the Air.

Accoring to Terry Gilliam this is one of the ten best animated movies of all time.

2015-08-07T15:25:00.001-07:00

The Mascot - Stop Motion Animation by Vladislav Starevich (1933)

Proof that the Roomba is the technology of the future

2015-07-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

Science Fiction Theatre's adaptation of Jack Finney's short story, Such Interesting Neighbors.