These will make you think twice about squashing those little bugs you see crawling around.  Enjoy and remember it’s just a movie, it’s just a movie, it’s only just a movie.

I’m by no means an expert on pulp characters. I do have most of the Bantam Doc Savages, all of The Shadows in book form, and all the mass market Spiders. Other than those three, I’ve only read a handful of the G-8 novels.

The Spider I would like to see more of in mass market paperbacks. The few I’ve seen in the facsimile editions and others look good, but trying to assemble all of them is just not cost effective for me.

The best find I’ve made recently is this collection of three novels in one volume, collectively known as The Complete Black Police Trilogy. From Age of Aces Books, it brings together the novels that originally appeared in the September, October, and November 1938 issues of The Spider Magazine.

THE CITY THAT PAID TO DIE

THE SPIDER AT BAY

SCOURGE OF THE BLACK LEGIONS

The book begins with a forward by Thomas Krabacher(correction of a stupid error earlier by myself) that gives us an overview of the Thirties and the climate that brought us this trilogy. The Depression, the rise of the Nazi Empire, movies and books that had the government usurped by dictators. Norvell Page may have visited Europe in the mid-thirties and witnessed first hand what Nazism was doing.

During an election year, the Party of Justice swept the major elections in New York, as well as most of those in the larger cities. Unknown was that criminals were backing the party and they swiftly moved to consolidate their new empire, drafting new laws for high taxes and sweeping authority. Pardons were issued to residents of the prisons and they formed the newly organized NYBI, the Black Police that had power over any local police force.

They would move in and demand taxes from small merchants immediately. If they couldn’t pay, they could be beaten with whips or hanged on the spot. Concentration camps were set up for these scofflaws.

An obvious take on the Nazi party. It’s all orchestrated by someone known only as the Master, appearing only in special mirrors as a white blob to dispense orders to his lieutenants.

The Spider had always fought crime from the shadows. Indeed, he was considered a criminal himself for his uncompromising attitude toward those who preyed on the innocent. He would respond in kind, cutting them down if they didn’t surrender.

Now he, in his real identity of Richard Wentworth, becomes a leader of the resistance and, along with his best friend, Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick, gets a $10,000 dead or alive reward placed on their heads. Preferably dead, no questions asked. The pair had always played the game of Who’s the Spider? Kirkpatrick was sure Wentworth was his man and, friend or no, would arrest him if he got the proof.

Now Wentworth has to play a dangerous game of pretending he is not the Spider, but using the identity to inspire the populace. Who knew where the real Spider was or where he might be in these dangerous times?

The identity of the Master must be learned. He’s using every trick to loot banks and businesses, even to using a leprosy-like disease, claiming anyone who opposed the Master automatically contracted it. But every time in the three novels Wentworth learns who his opponent is, the man slips away, leaving a taunting note and peeling away another false identity.

The action moves at breakneck speed as usual with the Spider.

The book is gorgeously designed from the Chris Kalb cover to the ten pages of black and white illustrations before each novel from the original magazine by John Fleming Gould to the three magazine covers by John Newton Howitt.

A nicely done package that should be a part of any pulp fan’s collection.

After their recent war of words, it appears as though former Chute Box teammates Anderson Silva and Wanderlei Silva have put aside any differences they may have had.

A report from Tatame quotes Anderson as saying:

Wanderlei is crazy (laughs), he’s crazy, but it’s ok, we’re ok… He knows all my critics [sic] are positive, that I know his talent… We’re together, Wanderlei is amazing.

…And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…

Source: Tatame.

It’s difficult to read a James Bond book and think about it critically. Bond is a character I grew up with, and still want to emulate! I couldn’t help but watch the true James Bond (Roger Moore, come on people!) seducing women, killing baddies and quipping while they die, an eyebrow raised mischievously. Having grown up with the films, in the same way I grew up with the Conan novels, I can’t help but cherish them and know that no matter how life changes, they will always have a place in my heart.

I’ve probably seen the Doctor No film, or at least bits of it, dozens of times. Some of the scenes are so familiar they are instantly recognisable, although I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually watched Ursula Andreas walk up the beach in her bikini.

But the books are slightly different, as you would expect. Moonraker bares little if any resemblance to the original novel.

I can’t remember the film enough to do a critique of the development of novel into film and I’d prefer not to. People with too much time on their hands can do that while I simply offer my opinion on a book that cleverly encompasses the extremes and thrills of the pulp era, whilst nodding towards the realism and action of the modern thriller. That’s what sets the Bond novels apart from many of their contemporaries, such as Chandler. There’s still a healthy dose of nostalgia for earlier times, a retro pulp action-thriller feel to the novels.

When two secret agents go missing in Jamaica, Bond is sent in to investigate, with the help of Quarrel Bond finds himself on an isolated island owned by the mysterious Doctor No, who protects his privacy by murdering all trespassers. Bond meets up with a young innocent girl, Honeychile, who turns up naked on the beach searching for shells in the area. Unfortunately Doctor No’s troops are alerted to their presence and set out to find them, and the poor girl is dragged into a cat and mouse chase across the island, until they are eventually caught by a dragon!

The pulp tradition is strong in this novel, our hero is tortured by the mad genius, and must go through a series of hideously painful challenges, which even include fighting a giant squid. But where Bond moves the genre forward is the level of detail and the general realism that Fleming uses to describe his hero and the situations he faces, and his weapons.

Bond is the essence of the modern pulp hero, he’s courageous, he’s strong and intelligent, and despite the backing of the British Secret Service, he’s on his own fighting all manner of super villains. In the same way that Batman or The Spider fight crime, with his hands, his ingenuity and his weapons, Bond is also a superhero in the same league, having no special powers (apart from his own God-given abilities) and fighting crime simply because it’s wrong and must be stopped.

Fleming’s original books have dated, just as the original Batman comics and the adventures of The Spider, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan have also dated, but they were a product of their time, and that’s what still makes them so powerful. Because back then there was hope that one man could make a difference, and that’s why I find these pulp characters so appealing. There’s no modern cynicism to get in the way of the innocent enjoyment of the books and comics and films.

Bond lives forever, unstoppable, in the hearts of his fans, and that’s why he continues to live on through his many different incarnations, but the original books will also live on forever.

JUDGEMENT KNIGHT is a gorgeously done graphic novel from the folks at Moonstone. It’s based on The Devil’s Paymaster from The Spider Magazine, May, 1941, adapted by Howard Hopkins with artwork, both the color cover and the black and white noir paintings inside by Gary Carbon.

A mix of prose and art, each page has three sections, prose top and bottom, about half the page, and an art panel in the middle, half the page. As you look at two facing pages, the art is one continuous panel stretching across both. They call it wide-vision.

Someone has turned a harmless device, one to produce synthetic radium for cancer treatments into a ray that infuses metal with killing heat. They use it to rob banks and murder people, terrorizing them, making anyone reluctant to try to stop them.

There’s a “ghost” of the son of the inventor, supposedly having committed suicide by jumping overboard from a cruise liner, that keeps popping up before every murder. And a beautiful blond that somehow seems to get “accidentally” in the way every time Jackson, the Spider/Richard Wentworth’s driver, and Ram Singh, Wentworth’s faithful servant/bodyguard get close to the criminals involved.

There’s a final showdown with the gang in the Statue of Liberty before The Spider reveals the leader of the criminal enterprise. And a surprise wedding at the end!

I enjoyed this, both the story and the art, and wouldn’t be averse to more Spider graphics from this team.

If you read this blog regularly (well, as regularly as I post to it anyway, these days), you may have noticed I love old school pulp adventure. Doc Savage, The Shadow, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer, that sort of thing.

It’ll also be obvious to anyone who takes a peek at my book Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, first in my series of pulp adventure novels from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, suitable for all ages, incredibly well-reviewed, buy it now.

Anyway. One of my favorite pulp heroes is The Spider. I subscribe to Girasol Collectibles’ quarterly reprints, each of which contains two of the Depression-era Spider novels, most of which were written by Norvell Page under the publisher’s house name of Grant Stockbridge. I also have other paperback Spider reprints, including one of those currently in print from Baen Books.

The blog entry I linked to in the first paragraph gives some basic info on the pulps, and sources for pulp books including The Spider. In it I also wrote, “The Spider started as a Shadow rip-off, but evolved swiftly into something much more demented. The Spider tales are more violent, more epic in scale, and far weirder than usual, even for pulp. At the same time, The Spider is a more human and realistic hero than either of his more famous brethren, showing genuine emotion and even involved in a fully committed, intense, passionately romantic relationship.”

Now, Age of Aces Books has released a volume of three interconnected Spider novels called The Spider Vs. The Empire State: The Complete Black Police Trilogy. My copy arrived from Amazon yesterday, and it’s a gorgeous book, all lurid red and black with the feel of a fascist propaganda poster.

Credit for the cover art and book design is to maestro Chris Kalb, who also produced this poster for the recent Pulpfest convention:

(And if Age of Aces or anyone else out there has a copy of this poster they’d be willing to donate to a poor modern pulp author, please let me know).

Gotta love that tag-line. They said it couldn’t happen here. Then they said one man couldn’t stop it.

Inside, the book is wonderfully illustrated with full-page images by John Fleming Gould and John Newton Howitt from the original pulp magazines. There’s also an insightful foreward, “Black Shirts on Broadway” by Thomas Krabacher of California State University, which gives some background about the events and politics of the era these stories were written, and about the creators’ impetus for producing them:

In 1938 the world was changing, and it changed The Spider. Up until that year The Spider magazine–one of the most imaginative and popular pulp fiction magazines of the 1930s–was offering its readers fast-paced action fantasies that featured its title character, The Spider, waging a clandestine war against more or less traditional criminal masterminds and their exotic menaces. The storylines, always melodramatic and often bizarre, provided readers an escape from the uncomfortably real worries of daily life in depression-era America.

But, in 1938 with the September to November issues…the magazine does a dramatic about-face and confronts some of the central political anxieties of its era. These stories…offer an allegory for the totalitarianism that was then occurring abroad and a cautionary tale for what many feared could happen here…

I haven’t read the book yet (but will soon, and a review will occur), but I’m drooling to. Not only does it sound like great Spidery adventure, but it seems downright topical after a decade of off-the-book prison camps, torture, illegal wiretapping of American citizens, and silencing of dissent, as well as in these weeks of shrieking dullards and right wing zealots bringing loaded guns to political events.

You can get the book here. And take a look at this really cool promo site for the book, which has a great graphical effect.

For some free Spidery fun, Baen Books has the entire contents of their collection The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham to be read free online. The main page, with links to various file formats, is here. One caveat though is that the book opens with a story by Joel Frieman about Norvell Page, the author of The Spider. You may or may not find that interesting, but it’s not reflective of Page’s work, which actually begins with Satan’s Murder Machines. You can find that story in HTML format here.

For a fun read, Ryan Harvey’s reviews of the two Baen Books Spider volumes will give you a fair idea of just how crazy and wonderful these stories really are:

Part 1: The Spider Returns! Villains, Pray for Your Deaths!

Part 2: The Spider Is Here: Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin

The night was a weird one especially one of the co-main events, but lets get started with the main card in the opening match Josh Neer and Kurt Pellegrino put up a close fight. But Neer’s extreme elbows towards the end of the third round were just a little too late Pellegrino wins the fight from the judges table’s decision. Next fight was more of the same between Grove and Almeida, Almedia wins from unanimous decision after three rounds. Next fight was kind of fast betweem Amir Sandollah and Johnny Hendricks, Amir got an opening and got Hendricks at the cage. Amir then begun to punch until Hendricks appeared knocked out, when he was really getting up. Fight ends after a TKO (more like an early stoppage) 29 seconds into the first round.

Now we go to the last three matches on the card Shane Nelson and Aaron Riley had a close match but Aaron Riley won in the end by unanimous decision. Now this match was most definitely the shock of the night Anderson Silva verses Forrest Griffin, Silva and Griffin start out in the ring then the referee starts the match. Then they are just pawing a lot and Griffin is doing lazy kicks, but then Anderson Silva gives Forrest a “Come on lets go!’” Then Silva just starts punching eventually lands a right hook on Griffin and he is hurting. Griffin pretty much realizes he wont be beating Silva, Silva lands a punch combo. The last punch was a walk away punch, it knocked Griffin out hit him clean on the chin Griffin got dominated.

Griffin gunned it out of the cage after he lost, and in disappointment my favorite UFC fighter just got wrecked by Anderson Silva seriously there is a video at the end of the fight. Griffin losses three minutes and twenty three seconds into the first round via knockout. BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian was interesting to say the least although Florian was just ramming Penn into the cage trying to get him to lose stamina. Penn eventually in round 4 locks in a vicious rear naked choke, Florian taps out BJ Penn is the victor. Video of the Griffin vs. Silva fight below…

EDIT: The YouTube link was removed, so here’s a backup.

http://dansmuaythaimma.com/?p=3530

Starstruck: a Benefit for “Gentleman Gene” Colan at The Henry Miller Library, Big Sur. The original off-Broadway sci-fantasy comedy, and basis for the Elaine Lee/Michael Kaluta comic book series, presented for the first time in 25 years!

Saturday, August 15: 6:30pm reception, 7:30pm performance. $12.80 advance admission, $20.00 at the door. Silent auction! Libations! United Federation of Freedom Fighters! www.henrymiller.org to make reservations.

Featuring Lance Roger Axt, Victoria Blaszczak, Arden Eaton, Renee Infelise, Ami-Sue Lawless, David Manchel, Geoff Mutch, Barbara Smythe, and Jennie Tezak, with Lance Roger Axt, Rob Eaton, and David Manchel on SFX. Special guests: Elaine Lee (Starstruck’s creator) and painter Lee Moyer (colorist of the new series from IDW Publishing).

So we’re in the home stretch re: the warm-up reading/benefit of Starstruck at The Henry Miller Library. There have been major cast changes in just the last two weeks with actors joining and then quitting and then joining and then quitting…and people say actors are flakey…but as you can see from the above cast list, we have our cast finalized, I’m right now pulling SFX, and we went through Act 2 earlier in the day…so it’s coming together. We also have a few more items for the silent auction!

Okay, here’s a question for you: we have Starstruck lined up for next year. We have quite a few adaptations in the pipeline with the aformentioned publisher in San Diego (secret identity to be revealed soon…), and once again, here is our wish list:

Doc Savage, The Escapist, Arrowsmith, The Dresden Files, The Elementals, A Killing in Comics, Torso, Coyote, American Flagg!, The Looking Glass Wars, The Waiting Place, Watchmensch, Grimjack, Ignition City, Jon Sable: Freelance, The Pilgrim, Hawaiian Dick, Noble Causes, Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Buckaroo Banzai, The Metamorphosis Odyssey/Dreadstar, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The Goon, Moonshadow, Spawn, Battle Hymn, Grendel, Ghost, Zenith, Madman, Athena Voltaire, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Black Coat, Crossfire, Leave it to Chance, Miracleman (now Marvelman), the complete Lensman series, Sabre, The Spider, The Yellow Kid, Rip Kirby, The Saint, Terry and the Pirates, Mandrake the Magician, The Green Hornet, Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom, Ghost Zero, True Story Swear to God, Tor, the Defiant Comics line, THUNDER Agents, The Red Circle/MLJ Heroes, Mage, Rising Stars, Mr. Monster, Nexus, The Phantom, and eventually Astro City, Global Frequency, Steampunk, Planetary, The Authority, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Shazam!, The New Gods, Batman, The Flash, Blackhawk, JSA, Capt. Britain and MI13, Werewolf by Night, Cloak and Dagger, Moon Knight, Daredevil, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Squadron Supreme, The Fantastic Four, and of course New York City’s friendly neighborhood wall-crawler…

Okay, so you know what we’re interested in. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds, nay thousands of other titles out there. So our question of the day:

What comics. comic strips, and graphic novels, would YOU like to hear as full-cast state-of-the-art audio dramas? Let us know by responding below!

I ran into a deal on this one. The Devil’s Paymaster is one of those facsimile editions by Wildside Press of the May, 1941 issue of The Spider magazine. It looks brand new(this edition was 2005), but the price was $2.00 + $3.99 S&H. Original cover price: $19.95.

The villain in this one had stolen a device designed for “radium” treatments of the ill and turned it into a weapon, a ray that would heat metals, specifically gold and silver, causing horrific burns and death.

The Spider races around trying to save lives as he unravels the plot, constantly being thwarted by a blond-haired young beauty that had caught Jackson’s eye(you know us men).

The final climactic battle takes place inside the Statue of Liberty as the ray has been planted in the torch to bathe New York City.

This reproduction had everything the original magazine carried, down to the ads, a personals section, and a letters column. A typewriter could be had for sixty cents a week, you could be a radio technician and earn $30, $40, or even $50 a week. There was a Charles Atlas ad as well. In the personals, women could be a local demonstrator for Fashion Frocks, earning up to $23 weekly, own dresses free.

You could enlist in the Spider League for Crime Prevention for $.25 and receive a genuine Spider ring.

And the ads for sister magazines had such wonderful pulpy titles as The Corpse Sings A Torch Song(a Fire Marshall novel), Fangs of The Winged Cobra(A G-8 tale), The Tunnel Death Built(from Ace G-Man Stories), and Those Who Die Laughing(Strange Detective Stories). Not to mention the next issue Spider novel, The Benevolent Order Of Death!

There is even a short story, The Man Who Dialed Death, a tale of a pyromaniac.

Great fun all around. Norvell Page could write.

*Follow me on Twitter, http://twitter.com/CKfighter, for more blogs and updates and get in on the American Fighter T-Shirt contest*

There is pretty much no match MMA fans want to see more than a George St.Pierre v. Anderson Silva match. After all we’re talking the two best pound for pound fighters in UFC currently if not all MMA. The match would be epic, it would finally give GSP the striker that fans have been waiting for while it would finally give Anderson the ultimate challenge that he’s been craving ever since his dominance of the sandman. However, when you break everything down you begin to realize that such a match is a lot easier to imagine then to get set up.

Ok so let’s start with GSP. With his pulled groin the athletic commission has to suspend him until January 2010. So that’s 6 months going by with no chance in hell of a match between him and Anderson. It gets even worse when we realize that the match at UFC 103 between Swick and Kampmann is to decide who the number one contender will be for GSP. Now UFC 103 is happening in September, it is feasible that a match between the winner of that match and GSP could be slated for early 2010 as it would give both fighters enough time to recover and train. However, that would REALLY be cutting it thin in my opinion which makes me believe that they would most likely make the match for later in February or early March.

This now brings us to Anderson. With his fight next month against Griffin we have to assume that it would be sometime until Silva fights again, most likely into early next year 2010. Since Henderson beat Bisping, Dan now has the contender slot to face off against Silva for the second time for the title. Now if we assume that both GSP’s and Silva’s title shots have to take place before they go up against each other we would be staring at way late into 2010 to even have a reasonable chance at getting these two fighters together. Even then, that assumes that Anderson does not get injured in the fight against Griffin or Henderson. Same thing for GSP we assume he won’t pull another groin in his fight against either Kampmann or Swick.

Silva has stated he wants to retire in April of 2010, which is WAY earlier than when a predicted match between him and GSP would take place. Assuming Dana is able to contractually make him stay, then the match taking place in late 2010 is on the table. However there is still another problem. The epic stature of this pound for pound match is based on the fact that both of these fighters are champions with Silva being undefeated in the UFC and GSP being pretty close to undefeated as well. The longer that this gets dragged out and the more matches that Silva and GSP have to go through before they face off, the harder the chances get for this match to be the epic stage that we have all constructed in our minds. In the end when I look at this, a LOT of things have to go right for the MMA fans to get what they have been dreaming of. The question is, will God be so kind to grant us all those things to provide us with our dream match? I’ll be praying, how about you?

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A Red Red Rose for You! by Tamara L. Redfern

Compassion, Courtesy, Kindness, Sweetness, Happiness, Love, Ice cream (well maybe not ice cream) a little bit of most good things can go a long way.

Holding the door for someone behind you while sharing a smile. Picking up something for someone that they accidentally dropped. Helping a neighbor do chores for free. Paying a minimal toll for the car behind you. Small things that add up to a lifetime of good and happy moments.

Allah says in the Quran in Surah Al ’Ankabut ( the Chapter The Spider):

Like rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens,  bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, wild gees that fly with the moon on their wings small deeds are a few of my favorite things. InshaAllah they will help us all grow and attain ultimate success in this life and the next.

What are some small deeds that you like to share with others? Let us know and maybe we can learn a few new habits.

Commit to a lifetime of learning!

Teacher~Tamara

© 2009 Teacher~Tamara ™.  All rights reserved.

The spider is still there.  It didn’t come out.  Maybe I should go to the doctor to check.  Just in case.  I heard yesterday about fire ants that are turned into zombies by flies.  They inject their larva into the ants, the larva grows and migrates to the ant’s head where it lays content for weeks sucking the ant’s brain.  Until the ant has just enough left to walk away from the ant pile to have the grown larva cut its head off from within.  Then the larva climbs out of the ant’s head and flies away.  A happy fly waiting to mate, to find a suitable ant for her eggs and then die.

If there is any truth to people coming back for another round of life as something else, I would definitely not choose to come back as this particular kind of fire ants!

I feel a bit of scratching in the inside of my head.  I have read spiders live between 3 months and a year, and they may lay from 2 to 2000 eggs! okay, that’s it.  I’m going to the doctor.

A spider went up my nose today. It was white, all of it, with pale yellow marks on its back. I think I still feel it crawling around in my skull.

I knelt down to pick up a southern fleabane to show my little boy, who waited sitting in his stroller. I put the tiny white flowers to my nose to see if they had any scent. They had none.

I felt first its hard sharp little legs trampling hurriedly up through my nose hairs. Then I felt the panic of my brain making sense of what my eyes had seen before I put the flowers to my nose.

I’d seen the spider. Cuddled up in the center of one of the tiny flowers. Perhaps it was taking a nap. It’s legs curled up. Quiet, at peace. Enjoying the clean blue sky, the sun, the cool breeze, the tall grass, and its flower bed. Then came me, to sniff it up, scare it silly, and so it goes up my nose. A warm, moist little cave to hide in.

I’ve sneezed so many times, I’ve blown my nose, I’ve made those horrible hacking noises, I’ve put salt drops. It just won’t come out. Maybe it got stuck somewhere. It is trapped by a booger, I don’t know.

Will it rot up there? Will it lay eggs? I think I’m hyperventilating. I’m going to bed. Maybe it’ll come out my ear if I lay down.

Chuck Liddell’s career ending knockdown.

This is the knockdown that ended Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell’s MMA Career. It was in 4:28 of the first round that The Iceman got knocked out by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. Rua’s record improved to W:18-L:3, while Liddell’s fell to W:21-L:7. Prior to this fight, he lost to Rashad Evans at UFC 88 via KO(Punches).

After the fight, UFC President Dana White, also Chuck’s friend and promoter, announced that this fight was The Iceman’s last and that he is retired from fighting.

Liddell has been fighting in the UFC since 1998. He was known as “The Iceman”, considered one of the greatest mma fighters. He was one of the most popular fighters during his prime. He was even feature as a coach in one of the Ultimate Fighter shows. He is turning 40 this year.

A member of the mma team “The Pit, “Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell was a Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He was also a Division 1 Wrestler during his college days. He also has a Kenpo and  Koei-kan Karate, and Kickboxing in his martial arts arsenal. He fights out of San Luis Obispo, California.

He was actually one of the first MMA fighters that I knew when I first watched the UFC.  He was one of the reasons why I got hooked into MMA. He was one of the most exciting fighters to watch. But as he lost 4 out of 5 of his last fights, I started to get the impression that his career is slowly fading.

Anderson Silva’s “unimpressive” performance in the main event

Anderson Silva vs Thales Leites. Silva doing a weird leg kick in the second image.

Anderson “Spider” Silva won the main event match of the UFC 97 over Thales Leites via Unanimous Decision saturday night, retaining his Middleweight title. Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole tagged it as a mystifying and dreadful performance and even UFC President Dana White got angry and embarrassed.

And in Mr. White words he said, ”I can honestly tell you that I’ve never put on an event that I was embarrassed to be at until tonight. I want to publicly apologize to all the fans.”

It was so bad that Silva’s being a number one pound for pound mma fighter along side Fedor Emelianko was questioned. Silva has won 9 of his last 9 fights in the UFC. But this was the only fight where he won via Unanimous Decision.

Known for his skills in Muay Thai, Silva is also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt under  Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera of Team Minotauro. He also is a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and Judo.

I guess, as a fan, I can’t be in the position to judge Anderson Silva as a fighter based on his performance during the match. But as he is tagged as the number one pound for pound mma fighter, the pressure is very much on him. I just hope he does better during his next match. I’m an Anderson Silva fan and I definitely do not want to see him fighting this way again.

Just my two cents here.

Worn in the ring by what many people say is the greatest pound for pound UFC Champion representing the Middle Weight division. Worn in UFC 77: Hostile Territory when he beat Rich Franklin for the second time in a Champion rematch fight.

You can now own the same shirt as Anderson “The Spider” Silva at Official Pro Sports your complete MMA and sports store.

http://www.officialprosports.com/sinister-brand-apparel-clothing-mma.html

Silva, Leites

Anderson Silva: 23 | 4 | 0
Thales Leites: 14 |1 |0

Anderson Silva will make history at UFC 97 by successfully defending his title of middleweight champion for the fifth consecutive time. There’s just no reason to believe otherwise. The Spider has fought and dismantled more skilled fighters that have much more experience than Leites. James Irvin, Dan Henderson, Rich Franklin, Nate Marquardt and Chris Leben just to name a few. Even when it appears that he might be in danger, like in his fights against Dan Henderson and Travis Lutter, he managed to not only rebound but submit his opponents.

Leites take downs are superb, and his submission game is top-of-the-line. He does have one win against a top level competitor (Nathan Marquardt), but, it was a split decision in which Marquardt was deducted two points for illegal blows. He’s a great fighter, but will have more than he can handle on the 18th.

Both fighters have excellent winning percentages. Leites with the purely statistical advantage of 93% vs. 85%. I think it would be foolish to not factor in experience in this equation with Silva fighting almost twice as many MMA opponents in his career.

If one was so inclined to choose Leites, a submission is the way to go as it is his strong suit and has been the predominant way to defeat Silva.

I’ll go with the combined stats here and say that it will be a short fight.

Prediction: Silva | tko | Round 1 | Min 3.

hay una araña en el fregadero y siente dolor
y no quiere morir más que tu o yo
está luchando por vivir pero no tiene mucho tiempo
más que tu o yo, tu o yo

tenemos que morir, tenemos que vivir
tenemos que tomar lo que podemos obtener
nos vendemos por bonito cambio
y cuando morimos nos arreglamos
es hora de tomarlo de nuevo
es hora de tomarlo de nuevo
quiero que me ames como yo te amo

no hay nada más que tenga que decir
hable lo mio me iré por mi camino
e estaré contigo bien allá donde vayas
puede que necesites ayuda pero no lo sabré
porque estoy aquí en mi propia celda
podría ser el cielo podría ser el infierno
nunca sabremos lo que somos
porque cuando muramos seremos estrellas
y las estrellas no pueden hablar porque
no tienen boca para hablar de su pasado
simplemente brillan en el cielo
y dan su luz para ti y para mi
y donde estariamos sin su luz
llamariasmo por nuestros nombres
y comenzariamos una pelea
pero entonces otra vez es lo que hacemos
me odio y te odio tambien
porque estoy dolorido como la araña
en el fregadero, soy un luchador
pero no puedo ganar, tengo que perder
dame fuerza para verme superarlo
y suaviza el dolor que debo sentir
mientras mis huesos se rompen y sienteo el acero
mientras me voy por el fregadero
estoy loco

FANATIC R.S.V.P. from writer MARTIN POWELL

This is a red-letter day at Funny Book Fanatic. One of the goals I’ve had for a while is to get others in the comic business to share their “behind the scenes” stories. I’ve had a lot of nibbles, but the first comic book professional to answer my invitation is the multi-talented Martin Powell.

Scarlet in Gaslight #3 from Eternity

I’ve frankly been struggling with this introduction because if you go to Wikipedia (my usual crutch in situations like this) you’ll only find a British musician and a 19th Century baseball player from the Detroit Wolverines.

Martin Powell is very familiar to me (because as you’ll read below), he was one of our g0-to writers at Malibu Comics. He wrote at least eight different comic titles/series for Malibu. Scarlet in Gaslight (a story where Sherlock Holmes met Dracula) was nominated for a 1989 Will Eisner  Comics Industry Award (it lost to the Stan Lee/Mobius Silver Surfer mini-series). 

Most recently, you can find Martin Powell work over at Moonstone Books, where he’s contributed to books about pulp heroes The Spider, The Avenger and Captain Midnight. If you read more about Martin Powell, the best resource I found is the 10 questions he answered for ComicsCareer.com. You’ll even get to see a picture of him standing next to the Batmobile. Or you can check out his blog HERE.

Moonstone's The Avenger Chronicles

And I’ll always be a little jealous of Martin because he gets to wake up each morning in St. Paul, Minnesota. Now … on with the story.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

BLEEDING THE LADY

by Martin Powell

Back in the early 90s I was a guest creator at Dragon Con, in Atlanta.  I was freelancing for several publishers then, but most of my work was for Malibu Comics and I was seated at their table.  This was the first time I met some of my editors in person, such as Chris Ulm and Roland Mann, although we’d already worked together for a few years.  They couldn’t have been nicer, and made me feel very welcome.  It was a good time, and very memorable to me for a number of reasons.

This particular adventure started while I was checking into the hotel.  A very unhappy guest was in the line ahead of me, angrily complaining to the perpetually smiling young woman behind the front desk.  His language was foul and heated, but was also uncannily eloquent as cursing and swearing goes.  I couldn’t quite make out what the problem was, but it seemed to finally be resolved after a few minutes.  The guest then turned sharply and banged right into me.  Our eyes met, his seething, mine aghast.

It was Robert Bloch.

Robert Bloch

He grumbled a low apology and disappeared in the elevator.  Later that evening horror author Brian Lumley asked me if I was attended “Bob’s Party”.

“Bob?” I wondered.

“Bob Bloch.  He’s having a party in his hotel room.  All the horror guys will be there.  You should come, too.”

I stammered something about not being invited.

“Aw, hell,” Brian scoffed back, “I’m inviting you.  Forry (Ackerman) will be there, too.  It’ll be a snort.”

No Caption Necessary

I’m not sure why, but I didn’t go to the party.  I was still so new to the business, having been published for only about six years, at that time, that somehow I just didn’t feel like I belonged.  Hadn’t paid my dues.  Something like that.  I still regret not going, though.  What a wasted chance, if I was worthy or not.  I was probably really the only person there who even cared about that kind of thing.

Robert Bloch died a few months later.

The next day, during the con, I was sitting at the Malibu table signing copies of the Necroscope comic book I’d recently written, a horror series based on Brian Lumley’s best-selling vampire books.  It was a lively crowd and everyone was very upbeat and having a great time.

Then, I saw the fan.

She was beautifully grotesque, very tall, very thin, and very pale.  Dressed as a sort of Goth scarecrow, her floor-length black trench coat dragged two pairs of plastic baby-doll arms from the ragged hem behind her.  We made eye contact and the fan smiled, displaying dazzling white teeth behind the black lipstick.  Despite the bizarre masquerade she wasn’t in the least unattractive, especially when she smiled.  I was actually a bit captivated.

Lumley's NECROSCOPE comic by Malibu & Powell

“Would you sign these?” she handed me several issues of the Necroscope comic.

The fan told me her name was “Dark Amy“.  I duly scribbled across the covers with a silver pen, and handed them back, thanking her.

Her dark green eyes never blinked.

“I love these books.  You changed my life,” she droned, lifelessly except for her moistening eyes.

I wanted to apologize for that, but quickly concluded that she must have thought I was Brian.  Without leaving my gaze, she fished around in a big leather shopping bag and offered me thirteen roses, spray-painted black, wrapped in shiny spiked handcuffs.

“I brought these for you,” she whispered, and then hastily retreated.

It was kind of sweet really.  I’d never received flowers from a fan before, even if they probably were meant for Brian.  Obviously, I’ve never forgotten her.

Writer (and convention-goer) Brian Lumley

I continued signing comics and posters throughout the afternoon, clumsily cutting myself on the handcuff spikes more than once.  After another fan accidentally injured herself on them, too, I knew that the black blossoms had to go, or someone was going to get blood-poisoning or worse.  The only trashcan close to my table was already so full it was spilling over.  I certainly wouldn’t want to hurt Dark Amy’s feelings if she floated by again and saw her precious blooms heaped among the common paper cups and McDonald’s bags.  What was I to do?

Then, I noticed a certain female horror author, who was also a guest at Dragoncon.  I scooped up the flowers (painfully jabbing myself again in the process), and caught up with the lady writer.  Rapidly introducing myself, I explained that a fan had giving me the flowers, but I felt that she deserved them more.  The lady beamed a appreciative grin and cuddled the roses close, then squeaked out an “Ouch!”, suddenly slightly bleeding from her thumb.

I still feel a bit guilty about making the horror lady bleed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thanks Martin Powell. I appreciate it.

All you comic professional fanatics, answer the clarion call to send me your instructive and reasonably interesting story behind the scenes of the funny book business. 

NEXT: 2nd String Character Hall of Fame stuff

AFTER THAT: Origin of Malibu Comics Part Four

If you’re looking for my next Brent Anderson story, you’re just going to have to wait, there is a story developing that may be even better than the one I had attended. Stay tuned!

          – Dave Olbrich (DWO) Wed. Feb. 25, 2009

One of the earlier Spider novels, and one of the best. A sinister terror plot has the minions of a mysterious Master use a stolen chemical formula that can turn stainless steel into so much brittle slag.  Skyscrapers fall, beginning with The Sky Building (the Empire State Building, with the serial numbers filed off) with only the actions of the Spider saving some of its office workers. Both Grand Central Station and parts of the subway are destroyed along with thousands of innocent lives.

Incandescent with rage and anger, the vigilante-hero Spider fights back.  A violent war is waged between him and criminal gangs controlled by the Master over the ruined landscape of NYC. Trains are wrecked and building fall in a vain attempt to squash the Spider, who relentlessly moves in to the final kill…

The Spider was perhaps the most ruthless and blood thirsty of the pulp heroes to mete out two-gun justice in the sordid streets of NYC.  And even if the plotting of this tale is muddled up and confused (like some many other of Norvell Page’s creations), the high kinetic action is so blazing and frenetic you hardly notice.

Previously I had only read a heavily edited and revised paperback version of this pulp story.  Eerily, in that 1974 Pocketbooks version, instead of the Sky Building being the first skyscraper to be destroyed, they substituted the Two Towers of the World Trade Centre as the first skyscraper victim of the terror plot.

You can find this version available in several places in a facsimile edition, else as the first novel in the recently published omnibus collection released under Page’s own name, Spider: City of Doom.

::B::

For the first time in a long while, it’s easy to build a nice collection of classic pulp adventure fiction, and I’ve been doing just that. I started with the Doc Savage reprints put out monthly by Anthony Tollin, magazine-size volumes using gorgeously restored original art, each book collecting two of the long out-of-print novels, like:

“Resurrection Day” and “Repel”
“The Polar Treasure” and “Pirate of the Pacific”
“The Man of Bronze” and “The Land of Terror”

For the uninitiated, Doc Savage was second only to The Shadow in popularity during the pulp era, and served as a key inspiration to the creators of later characters ranging from Superman and Batman to James Bond and Buckaroo Banzai. He’s also the primary ancestor of my own hero, Doc Wilde. The Savage books were reprinted earlier by Bantam, starting in 1964, and I grew up reading them and wanted to give my son something to read that offered the same sort of adventure.

Tollin offers The Shadow in the same format, also monthly. Till this year, I’d read some Shadow comics and two novels, heard a radio play or two, and seen the film with Alec Baldwin (which is unfortunately campy, but possesses some genuine wit, some gorgeous visuals, and a perfectly cast hero). I was going to just get a Shadow volume here and there, being a lot less of a fan than I was of Doc Savage, but after reading a couple I subscribed to that whole series as well. The Shadow is a magnificent character, and the stories are intricate and action-packed. Here are some great examples:

“The Red Blot” and “The Voodoo Master”
“The Plot Master” and “Death Jewels”
“The Blue Sphinx” and “Jibaro Death”

I subscribed to one more series, The Spider. These reprints also come two to a volume, in nice magazine-sized editions using the original art, but are published quarterly instead of monthly, and by Girasol Collectables.  The Spider started as a Shadow rip-off, but evolved swiftly into something much more demented. The Spider tales are more violent, more epic in scale, and far weirder than usual, even for pulp. At the same time, The Spider is a more human and realistic hero than either of his more famous brethren, showing genuine emotion and even involved in a fully committed, intense, passionately romantic relationship.

Baen Books offers a great place to start with The Spider,  a couple of volumes of classic tales with beautiful artwork by Jim Steranko:

The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham
The Spider: City of Doom

Pulp adventure tales like this are great for us grown-ups who love Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer, or James Bond, but they’re also great for young readers, especially boys. And if you start building your own shelf of pulp, don’t forget to put Doc Wilde into the mix.

Anyone know more great pulp stuff that’s available?