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A Photo Tour of Japan

3 May

May 3, 2012

My brother has been sending back some simply amazing pictures from his tour of Japan. Over the next few weeks I will be showcasing some of  my favorites. I decided not to do them in any particular order so each set of ten will feature a cross-section from across the country. I think they represent, in some small way, the variety of Japan. Please enjoy this first set.

The Bullet Train

Kyoto

Kyoto by night

A vending machine in Kyoto

Another vending machine

The Golden Pavilion

Kiyomizu Dera Temple

Kenrokuen Gardens

The Manga Museum

Post-tsunami artwork at the Manga Museum

The Saturday Comics: Generic Comic Book

28 Apr

April 28, 2012

The time was 1983 and Marvel Comics was on top of the world. In fact, they put out a series of bizarre comics in the mid-80’s that I will detail  over the next couple of weeks. Each of them sold, and sold well. In this era Marvel could do no wrong and their fanatic Marvel Zombies gobbled up anything Marvel put out, including this thing.

Back before store brands were marketed as niche foods, generic cans and boxes of plain food were all over the aisles of your big chain grocery stores. Marvel, in what appeared to either be a parody, commentary, or an attempt to show that their fans would buy any piece of crap  anything they published, put out the Generic Comic Book. It was so generic that it did not even have creator credits. Check out their house ad that month:

It is probably good that the artist remained anonymous. However, Steve Skeates has claimed the writing credit.

Here are the rest of the details from mycomicshop.com:

22 page Generic Superhero story “A Superhero!”

Characters generic characters.
Genre parody; super-hero

It also claims that Stan Lee edited this issue himself. If only this guy would turn up in the Avengers movie. C’mon Stan! Make it happen!

Next Week: More mid-80’s Marvel.