you know the name of King Kong

I can't believe I have never written about King Kong yet.  let's fix that.

the first version of King Kong I saw was the cartoon. it was at my friend Charles' house, he had one of those little hand cranked movie viewers which had maybe 30 or 60 seconds of some given film.

he had a cartridge of King Kong in "The Thousand Year Knockout" which is not on either of the DVDs that were released in 2005 to capitalize on the needless remake.  it's an episode where a stone gargoyle comes to life and Kong has to stop it.

pretty cool, and who would make a movie or tv show about gargoyles returning to life, that would never work! this show also boasted one of the best theme songs ever.

also notable is the series' main villain- Dr. Who.  he shows up in a number of the episodes, including one where he makes a giant mechanical ape version of Kong.  boy, I bet that would have made a great feature film!

yes, yes it did!

in more recent years it's become fashionable to for some overly silly fans to try to differentiate this Dr. Who from the other one by spelling his name as "Hu" or "Whu" or something else, but really, what's the point?  the one from King Kong Escapes is based on this one.

Billie Mae Richards provided voices for some of the characters, and she recently passed away on September 10th of this year.  she was a talented actress, known to most of our ears as Rudolph. RIP Billie.

Zigra DVD (R2)

doesn't this make the movie Gamera vs Zigra (1971) look like it would be just a great movie?

thus making the viewing experience even not as good.  Zigra was for many years one of the Grails of Japanese fandom over here in the States, since it was never released to tv by AIP.  a Titra dub could only have helped, and maybe some judicious editing.

the widescreen presentation does make it look a lot better than one might think.

Zigra does look pretty cool, overall.

8 vs 8th

here's a fun credit comparison between the Japanese 8 Man and the US 8th Man:



I think these are pretty fun and cool.

Meet Austin Idol (2009 shoot interview)

"shoot" interviews are interviews done by wrestlers where they talk about what really was going on behind the scenes while they wrestled.  they are pretty common now.  I find the older stars the more interesting ones that I have seen.

I got this interview from Highspots, and it's very interesting.  Austin was apparently a "most wanted" shoot, as he had disappeared from the scene many years ago.

turns out he was hiding in plain sight!

Austin comes across as really humble and likable.  he's funny as he tells his stories, especially his reason for leaving the WWWF in 1974. he has a lot of integrity about his reasons for being in so many territories.

"easiest to hire, easiest to fire" was his motto, especially in Tennessee.  seems like it kept him fresh with many places, which turns out to be a good idea overall.  he looks about the same, and is in great health.  he discusses his diet and such as well, and the book he is writing.

yes, that's a real autograph on the DVD cover.  fortunately the sound on the interview is good, as sometimes it can really be poor.  nicely lit as well.

cover idea for Xenorama #15

cover idea

just goofing around with mspaint and this came out.  I love the poster for Gigantis, The Fire Monster (1959) (and since Toho doesn't seem to think this movie exists any more, it should be safe, LOL) and thought it would be fun to try something like this with that poster.

of course, this wouldn't be exactly what I would do, but since I don't have photoshop (or really the skills to do anything cool) it's just a rough idea.  I'd probably take off the title complete, and center "Xenorama" at the top, so's people would know what they are reading.

of course, that means I probably should have an article in the zine about the movie, right?  I don't know that I have ever written about it before.  that could be kind of fun.

naturally, this may not happen at all, but it's kind of cool to consider.  if anyone else has any ideas please let me know!

original title card

a Derby Crisis!

this is too good a picture not to enjoy here, and possibly explain it a bit:

as some of you know, I have been doing some officiating for the local San Diego Roller Derby since January (which is amazing to me, in and of itself).  I've made a lot of new, good friends there and have been having a great time.  and losing weight, which is a bonus!

one of my new friends is Allison Ross, who goes by the name "Wonder Whoop'em" when she is in her derby gear.  this has led to some small discussion about Wonder Woman, here and there.  in fact, I called her youngest daughter "Wonder Tot" earlier today.  I am sure Allison just thought it was cute, without knowing there actually used to be a "Wonder Tot" in the past.

anyway, this past weekend there was an away bout in Huntington Beach (up in the "OC", if you will).  lo and behold, there was a skater up there going by the nom de guerre of "Wonder Roller".  naturally, this was a bit of fun for my comic book guy mind.  so of course I had to have a picture taken with both women.

now, I have no idea which one is from Earth 1 or Earth 2, since Southern California is kind of it's own little world in and of itself.

still, one more reason I love derby!

all crazee!

heard this version before I ever heard Slade's original. and let's just forget about Quiet Riot's completely.

Barugon poster

not the best poster out there

here's a cool poster for the second Gamera movie.  they sure don't weigh very much, as far as giant monsters go.  I would think Barugon was the 80 ton titan.

I wonder if there are more "international" posters made for the rest of the Gamera movies.

of mountains and octopi

half sheet

I first saw this movie in the mountains of Colorado, probably in the late summer of 1977.  my family had gone up to a cabin despite me telling them the movie would be on.

had a good time anyway. 

fortunately, there was a small black and white tv that we brought with us or was at the cabin.  I set the alarm (no vcrs yet) for something 1 or 2 AM, and went to bed.  it was the local NBC affiliate (channel 4 at the time) and that was THE ONLY channel that came through in the mountains.

when it went off, I thought I had missed the movie.  I'm not sure why, but being woken up suddenly can be disorientating.  luckily I set the clock just right, and then got to see the entire movie.  it was really cool.    an octopus makes a great monster.

a serious serial book

a much needed book

there have been lots of books about serials (and I'm surprised that this is my first post about them) but never a book about some of the geniuses behind them.

now there is, and it looks awesome.

but here's a much better blog post about it from my pal Dan Ross.  thanks Dan, for all that info!

I've got it in my wishlist at Amazon.