Nick Bockwinkel vs Verne Gagne part 1 (1979)

In honor of Verne's passing, here's the first part of a classic match between Verne and the also legendary Nick Bockwinkel. It's sourced from a Japanese source, but the commentary isn't necessary to enjoy the match- the sure sign of two great performers!

Xenorama #19 on the move

So far I've only got two pages of the next issue done, but I'm expecting the Prince Planet episode guide to take up quite a few pages.  So if anyone is so inclined to contribute, get your articles in now!  I've also got articles on Thunderbirds Are Go! (the movie) and La Mujer Murcielago (1968) which you can read a bit about here. 

RIP Verne Gagne

The AWA legend has passed away.  The AWA was the promotion in my territory, before I understood the concept.  The first two shows I went to were AWA shows, to see the Road Warriors beat up the Freebirds.  I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, and wish I had started going much earlier, before the AWA talent pool was getting eaten up by Crocket and Vince.

The Moons - Gammera

Here's the rockin' theme song to the US version of Gammera The Invincible. It's by the Moons, and it's mostly instrumental. It's heard in the beginning of the movie as Gamera makes his way across the ice. It's quite possibly the best giant monster theme used in the movies, with The Green Slime a close second.

MOTW- Gamera

In 1965 the titanic mutant turtle burst forth on the silver screen in Japan, and later in 66 he showed up in slightly altered (and I'd argue better) form in the US.  It was his only US theatrical release back then, the following six movies were released directly to television.  Only one other movie bore the name Gamera, so you never knew if you would be getting a Gamera movie at times.  Which was kind of fun back then.  I really had no idea that Attack of the Monsters was going to be a Japanese monster movie.

The Spy From Necro

Here's a fun Prince Planet episode which introduces Frigina, one of Krag's aides. I'm still amazed that Hulu is showing this series, since it's one of the more obscure Japanese cartoons from the 60s. They have 47 of the 52 episodes, and I read a rumor that a company was going to make a DVD set of the show.

Marine Boy v 3

I forgot how great these episodes look now on DVD.  It's like they were made yesterday.  The sources used are still in great shape, I'm happy to say, and all the episodes are complete.  I'd highly recommend these sets to anyone.  It's still amazing to me that this show has more dubbed episodes than Kimba, Gigantor or Speed Racer.  That's pretty darn impressive if you ask me.

The Herculoids Intro (1966)

AS I've learned, this is ONE of the three openings this great cartoon has. Here's an earlier post with the same voice over (RIP Mike Roads) but different music. There's also an opening that has this music but no talking. I think this is the original music. I'm not sure if the 80s Herculoids cartoon has an intro at all, though they could have just recycled this one. It's been years since I've watched those.

Avengers #55

"Mayhem over Manhattan"

 In which the Masters of Evil are defeated by five Avengers and the Crimson Cowl is revealed to be not an hypnotized Jarvis but actually Ultron-5!  I believe this marks Ultron's first appearance in the book.  His origin will remain a mystery for some time, and will have far reaching consequences (we will have given up on the Avengers title long before that, by the way).  T'Challa still has his half mask on, though this changes before too long.

Lake of Dracula trailer

I just watched this movie (as I was cleaning a very dirty pan) and remembered the last time I had seen it, in a murky who knows how many gen tape from Video Search of Miami. Remember them? It was subtitled but barely watchable. I didn't remember anything much about it at all. However, due to a question posed to me earlier, I thought I'd try again.

MOTW- Manda

Manda, the "thousand meter serpent" as it was described way back in an issue of Japanese Giants (maybe #6, I think) first appeared in the excellent movie Atragon (1963).  The monster was kind of shoehorned into the movie, since it really wasn't necessary to have Manda in there, though for us monster loving kids it was always nice to have one show up.  Manda really doesn't do much in the movie at all, it's not even a match for the great undersea battleship Atragon- one blast of the freeze ray and Manda is down for the count.  Still, it's a great design, huh?

GOLDEN BAT (1966) Theatrical trailer

I first read about this movie in Monster!, one of the zines that inspired me to do my own. It was written by Horacio Higuchi and went into a lot of detail about the movie, because it was rather rare at the time. Who knew the internet would come along and make it so you could get a good subtitled copy of it?

Batman the Complete Season One

This was my birthday present to myself, since it was on sale and I had a $10 GC, it cost a whopping $7!  While I would love to get the complete blu ray set some day, this will do for now.  I'm really happy the entire series is out on DVD now, as it's something I never actually thought would happen, what with all the rights being tied up with a gazillion different companies.  But here we are, so let's be happy with it, since it's pretty great (what I've watched so far).

RIP Herbe Trimpe

I just heard the news that artist extraordinaire and all around nice guy Herb Trimpe has passed away.  To many fans he will always be known as the Hulk artist, but to me he was the Godzilla/Shogun Warrior artist.  Those 44 issues of both runs (well, ok, 42,  since he had a guest artist for #4 and #5 of Godzilla) let me know what a great storyteller he was.

Kamen Rider Skull

A good catchphrase makes characters a lot more memorable, especially if it's something easy to say.  The Kamen Riders (and a lot of Japanese superheroes) have always had a way with such things.  I think I've used this picture before, it's Kamen Rider Skull from the show Kamen Rider Double.  I haven't seen the entire series, just the first 13 or so episodes, but I like it quite a bit.  Nice detective story to go along with the various heroics.  I probably should watch it all in order again at some point.

Junkyard Dog vs Kamala

From deep in the heart of Mid-South/WCCW comes this match between the near superhero JYD and the canabalistic Ugandan giant, Kamala. Quality isn't that great, but it's quite enjoyable. I never did see JYD live, though I must have seen some Mid-South footage during the time I was watching GCW.

Happy 9th Birthday, Dacya!

This really has nothing to do with roller derby Xenorama, but I'm posting it anyway.  It's something I do every years now.  Aside from it being my birthday today, it's my tortoise shell cat Dacya's birthday as well.  She's nine years old now, and has been with me since she was seven months old.  She had such huge ears when I got her I wondered if she would ever grown into them.  But she finally did, after some rather awkward teenage years (she had a big body and a tiny head for about a year).  She's been my constant companion through a lot of stuff in both of our lives.

Weird Al- Happy Birthday

This is a pretty funny fanmade video. The song is from Al's first album. I owned the tape of it many years ago, but I hadn't thought of the song until recently for some reason. It's quite well done, and the acting is pretty hilarious at times, especially some of the birthday girl's reactions.

Yusei Shonen Popi

Or Papi, as the subs in this episode one call him.  Anyway, I've been watching more Prince Planet and I remembered I had this first episode subtitled from some nice people somewhere.  I hadn't watched all of it yet, but since I'm working on an episode guide I thought I should.  The quality of both subs and video is quite good, which makes me wish this would come out on DVD like Marine Boy has, even if it's not an official set like Astro Boy, Gigantor or Kimba The White Lion have had.  It's really a good show.  I like all those others, but perhaps I like the rarer shows more, since you don't see nearly as much written about them, even now with the internet.

Thunderbirds Are Go - TRAILER

Since there's all this talk of a new Thunderbirds show (it's gotten good reviews, despite the always weird looking CGI people) I recently watched the original movie. I'm in more awe than ever at how they did it. It took a while to find the best looking trailer on youtube.

Coloring books from beyond beyond

When I was quite young I had a lot of coloring books.  Some of these have been documented in issues of Xenorama, such as Space Ghost,  Moby Dick,  Samson and Goliath and even The Valley of Gwangi.  Some of these were essentially film books or extended episodes of the cartoons, though I barely remember the "plots" that were in Samson or Space Ghost.  A lot of times pictures got torn out to be stuck on fridges or somewhere else, and at that young age I rarely finished a page I had started.

NWA Crockett Cup 87

This is a rip from the old VHS tape. I owned it back in the day, think I paid $40 for it. I don't remember. But I was a bit (OK, a lot) disappointed that there was only one Road Warriors match on it, despite it being pretty great. I also wondered why there were three Magnum matches on the tape. This makes more sense now, and boy did the NWA take a hard hit when he went down.

Xenorama #18 is GO!

I think I use that term every time there's a new issued published, and some day I'll at least have to review the movie that inspired it.  Hmm, that's a great thought.  I really am a genius!  Anyway, after a few delays for the color editions back cover (it was exactly the same as the black and white editions, but for some reason createspace didn't like it now) the issue is now ready to be ordered!  It's chock full of goodness as I have mentioned in the last few posts here and there.

Iron Man 3 part 1

Who would have thought ol' Shell-Head would have a franchise of movies, and that they would be pretty enjoyable?  I would have said you were out of your mind had you told me that seven years ago.  Shows what I know, right?  Still, I think it's a testament to the cast, how good they are, rather than the plots, which are pretty standard comic book fare.  So far it's been easy to pick out the bad guys and so on from every Marvel movie, but then, when you've read 843 stories about AIM battling every Marvel hero there is, you know that sort of thing.  And of course, I am nearly two years behind on watching this movie, which is par for the course.  I remember now why I didn't see it, though.

Attack of the Crab Monsters Trailer

The original post's trailer is no longer is available, but I think this one might be more fun. It's one of my favorite early Corman movies. I saw it at the perfect age of about nine or ten years old in the middle of the night. Movies like this are a lot scarier then, I'll tell you what.

Xenorama 18 cover

Not a hoax! Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale!  Nor even an April Fool's joke!  Here's the new cover to Xenorama #18.  I'm pretty excited about it, Dan Ross has done it again.  There's more stuff in  here than just on the cover, but you'll have to buy the issue to see just what else is in it.  I think it's a pretty great issue as well.