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With Further Ado #233: Cheesy, Cheap & Charming – The Silver Surfer in a 1962 Charlton Comic

With Further Ado #233: Cheesy, Cheap & Charming – The Silver Surfer in a 1962 Charlton Comic

Posted on by Ed Catto

I recently rescued another treasure from a bargain box. It is Space Adventures #44 (Feb. 1962). It’s published by Charlton Comics. They always seemed to be a B-level (at best) publisher, but that doesn’t mean that some of my very favorite comics weren’t published by Charlton. In many ways, this issue is typical of Charlton – cheesy, cheap and charming!

(I’m really looking forward to reading Charlton Companion by Jon B. Cooke, in fact. Cooke is an outstanding historian and author. You can never go wrong reading anything he writes.)

Judging a Book by Its Cover

The cover copy above the logo proclaims that this issue of Space Adventures is “New! Different!”, but that might be an overstatement. From the vantage point of 60 years later, it almost seems like it should be magically changed to read “Nostalgic! Predictable!”

The cover features repurposed artwork from two interior stories. The heroic figure, “The Mercury Man” is miscolored, unfortunately. Come to think of it, the scary looking aliens are miscolored too. Continue reading “With Further Ado #233: Cheesy, Cheap & Charming – The Silver Surfer in a 1962 Charlton Comic” →

With Further Ado #228: 2022 Annual Gift Giving Guide – Part 2

With Further Ado #228: 2022 Annual Gift Giving Guide – Part 2

Posted on by Ed Catto

Like an overstuffed Christmas stocking, there are so many great gifting options that we’re spilling into Part 2 this week! Here’s some more wonderful and wonderous ideas for you all:

Being Bond: A Daniel Craig Retrospective
by Mark Salisbury

I often tell a family story from 1973. My mom wanted to take my brother and me to see the animated movie version of one of her favorite books Charlotte’s Web. My dad was less than excited about this family outing. He incredulously asked my mom, “You want to take these kids to see a movie about a pig?!?”

Instead, he whisked the whole family to the Auburn Palace Theater to see Live and Let Die, which was the latest James Bond thriller. It was my first encounter with James Bond. My head exploded. I think my brother Colin’s head exploded too.

This movie opened with M and Moneypenny visiting 007’s apartment (flat?), They haven’t been able to reach Bond and an Italian Special Agent is missing.

They knock on the door, and the camera cuts to James Bond being awakened and checking his digital wristwatch. This was months before digital watches were commercially available, and it was so cool to me.

And unbeknownst to his boss, James Bond also had that Italian special agent in his bedroom. She was beautiful and naked. Even as 10-year-old, I thought, “Gee, I’d like to have a beautiful naked Italian secret agent in my apartment someday.”

The point is that half of the fun of a James Bond movie is imagining what it would be like to be James Bond. Daniel Craig is one of the few men who actually got to be James Bond, and this book, Being Bond by Mark Salisbury, is a celebration of Craig’s turn as the iconic character.

This coffee table book has stories, gossip, bios and synopses and ephemera. It is packed with so many gorgeous photographs that it’s almost easy to overlook the movies’ storyboards. I find them fascinating. It’s another way to enjoy the story in the making, as we, as fans, toggle between the storyboards and the films.

I also really enjoyed the bits where author Salisbury pulls back the curtain to reveal how each of the Craig 007 movies got made. It was surprising, to me, how many breadcrumbs and lost bits of one film end up getting baked into the next movie. Continue reading “With Further Ado #228: 2022 Annual Gift Giving Guide – Part 2” →