This week's throwback episode of our old Columbo podcast, Just One More Thing, is Troubled Waters, which has maybe the most eccentric cast of the whole the series (Bernard Fox, Patrick Macnee, Dean Stockwell, Robert Vaughn w/ Gazzara directing). Columbo on a ship! Volare! Stage magic! It's all here!

Absolute Holy Grail comic here, Elric (1974) from Windy City Publications. Paty Cockrum cover, Steven Grant & John Adkins Richardson interiors plus Byrne on back cover...

A POW for the ages.

New on the blog today is another adventure from the missing decade of the Superman daily newspaper strip. Did you know that a Supergirl debuted a year before the Man of Steel's cousin made her first appearance? And did you know she was a mouthy broad? Shades of My Fair Lady, it's SUPER-MYRTLE!

The Grodalorian and Mangu.

Weird update on the geocache. I grabbed a snapshot of it this morning, there it is with the lid down on the left, and with the lid up on the right where you can see the marbles and a book and uh some animal scat? That was *not* there the first time I opened this thing.

I'll never get tired of this.

Sometimes I just throw this on a loop in the background while I work or clean. Must have seen it fifty times by now.

I take this post as a reminder to not let "having opinions" take over your personality, because you end up creating untested models of the universe in your mind and then saying them out loud without realizing how stupid they sound, and by the time you figure it out, you're screencapped.

Lookit this fucking great FULL-PAGE ad for the brand-new Superman comic strip, December 10 1939, in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Mr. Gorsky, your wriggling is all in vain!

This week's throwback episode of our old Columbo podcast Just One More Thing is By Dawn's Early Light which is, it's just, it's real good is what it is. Patrick McGoohan's in four episodes and this is my favorite one unless I'm feeling rambunctious in which case it's Last Salute to the Commodore.

Oh, my little heart.

Alright, how about (a) the Marv Wolfman-scripted Split Superman Saga, (b) as much of Giffen's Ambush Bug as they can cram in one volume, (c) Ostrander and Mandrake's Spectre, which was made to be collected on a thick paperback volume of lurid newsprint, and (d) Kyle Baker's incomparable Plastic Man

This is a good one, and I'll have to give some thought to my other three picks but the one I'd love to have in a collection would be The Split Superman Saga:

I'm on tenterhooks.

Me when I see misandry happening

Heritage has this gorgeous Starlin/Sinnott piece for Marvel UK's The Mighty World of Marvel that once again stirs suspicions in me that I'm not nearly as big a fan of comic books as I am a fan of comic book cover design. I just like insets and dimensional text. I think they're neat!

Gordo by Gus Arriola, January 25 1961: "Well, a body's got to fuss when his freedoms are threatened!"

Okay, I'm still scared that a train is going to come out of the screen at me.

I stumbled across a geocache on my morning walk at the local watershed, first time I've ever seen one of those things. It was a semi-opaque plastic box full of marbles, so someone will (?) be happy (?) to find it (?)

Imagine him saying all this shit to a book.

Oh no a dang bunch of Cenobites have sneaked onto the red carpet at the Met Gala, they've tricked Law Roach into solving the Lament Configuration, he's gone.

Met the Gala be with you.

Haven't watched Deadwood in ages, so we loaded up three episodes last night -- The Trial of Jack McCall through Bullock Returns to Camp -- and I couldn't help saying some of the lines along with the actors like a fucking Monty Python nerd. How can you hear "Be brief!" and not shout back "BE FUCKED!"

This week's throwback Just One Thing episode is Negative Reaction, in which Dick van Dyke gets his Lionel Barrymore/Henry Fonda heel turn as a furious photographer who frames a felon for the murder of his wife. SO much filler in this episode, but we all love Vito Scotti so who cares? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I hooted at "Murphy's Romance"

I got barely any money to spend on this Gordo strip on Heritage Auctions but I also own the original art for the day *after* this strip, so I at least had to put down a token bid just in case. We'll see in three days...

Big win for Team Comics:

I meant to include this newspaper clipping with the article -- the only coverage I could find mentioning the TV/comics crossover (Wayne Boring was credited as the strip's sole creator long after he left, so he's misattributed as "writer" here)... (Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet Oct 9 1955)

Feels like this should be an iconic panel:

Ray Billingsley's Curtis is a bit under my radar, so I have no idea how often asides like this 2019-2020 Kwanzaa storyline come about. I only know that uh I did not see where this was going...

Superman Suit: $6.98 Ramar of the Jungle: $5.98 Pinky Lee: $4.98

So excited about this I can barely make myself sit down to read it.

New on my blog, from the "Lost Decade" of the Superman newspaper strip, a quick introduction to the era AND a never-collected mid-50s storyline in its entirety --- SUPERMAN meets Tonight Show host and alleged Clark Kent lookalike STEVE ALLEN!

Not low enough. I like 'em *revolted*

Remembering Gerry Conway by watching Raimi's second Spider-Man film and recalling the sensation of tense delight I experienced in the theater wondering if they were going to turn J. Jonah Jameson's kid into a moon wolfman.

When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own, to some extent. When bourgeois newspapermen quarrel they reveal to the public the venality of the “big dailies” and the tricks they are up to.

Saving this for when my friends make a good point online.

why breed dogs with jaws large enough to tear through Flesh, when you could breed dogs with minds large enougj to tear through Fallacy.....

I reckon "middlebrow art" is anything that acknowledges the complexity or nuance of its premise but refuses to encourage the audience to engage with it in any way except as gratification. Like picking around the edges of a healthy dinner so you can get to the big slab of cake for dessert...

Anyone we know?

This week's throwback episode of Just One More Thing, a podcast all about Columbo, is "Exercise in Fatality" It's one of the ones where Columbo actually gets really mad! It's great! Plus Pat "Schneider" Harrington Jr in some of the sickest fits you'll ever see.

Owner of a Lonely Heart looking image, y'know?