The Summer of Bond, James Bond

Every Thirty Years or so I re-read Ian Fleming's James Bond series, what can I say I'm a creature of habit. As I write this the Andy Griffith Show episode THE PICKLE STORY is playing on my iPad for probably the 300th time, but that’s fodder for another post.

I first read the Bond books as a teenager during one of my summers in Oregon.  Those lazy days with little commitments other than getting together with some like minded artists to do silk-screens meant I had some downtime.  The Bond books were (and are) light reading.

Written from @1953 to about 1963 they are very much a product of their time.  They are dated and have extreme thoughts on race and a fair amount of sexism and violence.  They are very straightforward in their descriptive narrative and they bear very little resemblance to the film series which started with DR NO in 1962.

Bond himself is described as tall with dark hair and piercing blue eyes.  He's ruggedly handsome but resembles .... Hoagy Carmichael.

I'm familiar with Carmichael from his role in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  Carmichael seems to have gone to the Don Knotts gym because he looks to be about 130lbs soaking wet.   But that didn't keep Ian Fleming from basing his spy on him.

Notice I called him a spy, not a super-spy like he's often referred to when someone is talking about the movies.  The books are very different.  Bond is more a normal man who gets himself through some difficult situations without Sean Connery's wit or Roger Moore's smirk.

The books run about 200 pages in length so you can get through all 14 pretty quickly if you decide to find something for your Summer reading.

They aren’t Raymond Chandler, they’re not even Mickey Spillane, but they are fun.

Convention Report: TERRIFICON July 2022 Mohegan Sun CT

Not my photo but man you have to admit this place is beautiful.

Since Wednesdays are Comic Book Related I thought a Con Report would fit in here:

TERRIFICON is a Comic Book Convention held annually at Mohegan Sun Casino in CT at the end of July. I decided to check it out and see if I couldn’t find some old comic books I was looking for and help out at SUPERWORLD COMICS run by my friend Ted, managed by my son Joe and son Adam handles all of their 21st Century Marketing and design work as well as being a full timer. Ted also had some other guys who were either helping out or hanging around (hard to tell sometimes). This was my first time at this particular convention.

A quick note to anyone coming to the show with a wife, girlfriend or a SO who isn't into comics-- there is a TON to do here.  There is a connected Mall and a boat load of restaurants with bars and TVs, so even if they don't have any interest in gambling you can find ways to entertain yourself for several hours without much effort.   I'd been here 2-3 times before since it opened, it's about an hour from home for us, and I've done some blackjack and poker in the past but it's not something I really enjoy all that much even though I usually do pretty well.

The Hall itself is very large and the thing that really struck me was the counter balance this show had to SDCC-- there you'd find the Hollywood section absolutely jammed and the comics section relatively quiet, here it was the other way around.   Artists Alley and the Celebrity section were fairly quiet.   There were lines for a few people but overall you had a lot of space to wander around in that area.

Some of the books I picked up at the show.

Comics-wise there were many dealers there; my favorites and the ones I bought something from were SUPERWORLD (of course), MOVING PICTURES, HIGH GRADE COMICS (Bob!), and 3 KEYS along with couple of dealers whose names I didn't catch.   Primarily a Golden Age collector I managed to find some gems including BLACK CAT WESTERN and AMERICA'S GREATEST HEROES as well as WHIZ COMICS.   There was a small amount of pre-code horror kicking around but nothing I either didn't already have or it was not quite in the condition or price range I wanted to play in.

I went back and forth on a BATMAN #7 from 1941 (it’s 82 years old!) which had minor restoration.   Restoration is when someone tries to fix the flaws that the book picks up over the years. The worst of restoration is color touch— and collectors hate it. If you were to send it in to a grading company where they encase it in plastic you would end up with a purple label, which is affectionately referred to as “The Purple Label of Death” by said collectors. It was a nice copy but purple label of death thing and all.  I didn't want to pay market non-resto value for it because let's be honest you have to downgrade it at least a full number grade.  Still....

It’s a BATMAN #7— a very early issue— way back when I first collected pre-Robin Detective Comics (Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 and Robin was introduced a year later in Detective Comics #38) and set a goal to collect BATMAN COMICS #2-20 (skipping #13 and #17 because I didn’t like the covers— I had some strange quirks) #7 was one of the few issues I couldn’t find, or I couldn’t find it in good enough shape at a price I wanted to pay. The cover has a lot of white to it, and after 40-50 years of kids handling it the comic can get dirty— white also invites kids to write their name on it, or doodle, or some such thing.

Thanks to #2 son Joe and Superworld’s Ted Van Liew they were able to negotiate a good deal on it for me so a nice win.

The great WWII era cover of AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS #6

I didn't notice a large amount of nonsense crafty type sellers so common to Comic book conventions today but there were some sculptors selling work, and a woman selling stick on masks one of which looked like it'd work if you wanted to do your Denny Colt SPIRIT costume next year.

I only saw a few tables of original art, Spencer Beck's THE ARTIST CHOICE was setup and it's been a number of years since I've seen him.  I managed to find a John Romita Jr page which I really liked-- I've got a history with JJ going back to the 90s when I was working as Paul Ryan's assistant-- and I'd hoped to reconnect with him at the show but every time I swung by he was off doing something.  Not only is he my favorite modern comics artist-- his work channels Kirby to me-- plus he (and his Dad) is/are one of the nicest guys on the planet.   

JRJR’s bold blocky style looks a lot like Jack Kirby’s later work to me— it has power and energy and his storytelling is excellent. This is the page I bought now framed over my drawing table.

I chatted with writer Paul Kupperberg, current DICK TRACY artist Joe Staton and former SPIDER-MAN artist Alex Savuik who contininued our conversation from the green room at CHICAGO COMIC CON at the beginning of this month. I had a quick meet with CB Celuski who currently edits Marvel Comics and said hello to Dan Didio whose tenure as DC Editor wasn't my favorite but you can't argue he wasn't enthusiastic in his role and didn't deserved the exit he got when he got fired.  

Everyone was asking me why I wasn't setup at the show and I told them we don't get invited to local shows for some reason and that it was nice to just be there as a fan for a change with no commissions or panels to contend with.

As I noted, the celebrity area was pretty quiet.   Unlike most celeb heavy shows this one had actors I've actually heard of, although that's not normally a great thing as I just don't watch modern superhero movies or sci fi.  No wrestlers either which I know even less of.  They had Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy-- Superman and Batman from the respective Animated Series.  Dave Foley from NEWSRADIO and KIDS IN THE HALL, Kirsty Swanson who was the original BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and a bunch more who certainly had their fans.

It was interesting to see Michael Gray and John Davey-- Billy Batson and Captain Marvel from that absolutely terrible 70s SHAZAM! show where Billy drove around in a Winnebago with Mentor saving the day and giving us a morality lesson.   I always wondered why nobody asked Billy why he was driving around in such a thing with an old man or why they have a Captain Marvel decal on the front of the van but that’s superhero shows of the 70s for ya. The show was bad but I tuned in faithfully with my bowl of Cocoa Puffs every Saturday morning because back then we were desperate for anything comic related.   Both of them look good for guys in their 70s and 80s but I have to admit to laughing that Michael Gray’s banner said “former teen idol”. I think I’m going to put that on my own banner.

EDIT: The show is currently airing on TUBI, a free streaming service- and while its bad it actually has some really good writing and hilarious special effects, well worth tuning in for.

Veronica arrived at 5pm - she wanted to say hello to Dave Foley and Kristy Swanson.   She also really enjoyed talking to Alex Savuik in Chicago and wanted to catch up with him.   I’d seen pretty much everything I’d wanted to see and I was done shopping the show so we decided to kill some time before dinner by finding a nice bar to have a drink in. We walked pretty deep into the Casino and found one— one thing I’d say about a Casino based convention vs a standard convention center hotel bar is the drinks are much cheaper. After having two drinks in Chicago and facing a $60 tab it was nice to have the bill handed over and it was only $15!

Indian Casino’s are interesting things to me— when Foxwoods first opened up I went expecting a Monte Carlo type of place with everyone in tuxes and dinner jackets— instead it was mostly grandmother’s on scooters chain smoking and people in gym shorts and sneakers playing blackjack.

Mohegan Sun appears to be smoke free— so that’s a big plus, but it’s still sad to see how trashy many people are and how many clearly have a problem. But the venue itself is beautiful.

We didn’t do any gambling but we enjoyed our drink and then headed over to the restaurant area to see if we could get a table for 10 (!?!?) on a Saturday night at 8pm— after the first four restaurants laughed at me I was able to arrange it at Landsdowne, an Irish Pub.

That look on my face is because Veronica almost dropped my phone while taking this pic and I had visions of having to buy a new one after spending so much on comics. John Romita Jr is a legend.

Veronica had never met John Romita Jr before but she had heard my ridiculous stories of one of our adventures together and as we walked back from finding our dinner options we ran into him and he CONFIRMED the event to her-- she'll never doubt me again. I asked him how his dad was doing (more on John in one of the GREAT COMIC ARTISTS Posts running on Friday) because he’s ALSO a legendary comic book creator and caught up with him before exchanging our info and saying goodbye.

also not my photo, but the shopping area at Mohegan Sun is impressive.

We still had about a half hour to kill before everyone would be meeting us for dinner so we walked won to the shopping area and Veronica found some bargains while I wandered for a minute through TOMMY BAHAMA. I then occupied myself helping take photos of people who were trying to get good angles in front of the many attractions and I was happy to see so many dogs around. It’s hard for me to pass by a dog without saying hello but I always check with the owner first. There was a great mini Irish Setter who was so excited to say hello he tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up.

After a short while the group got together and the restaurant brought us inside— we weren’t able to get two tables together but we made do with a split of 6 and 4.

We had a nice conversation and the food was really good. Veronica and I said our goodbye’s and walked back towards the parking area but not before stopping for some amazing Fudge at a place called CHOCO something.

The ride home was great— very easy ride— we’ll be back for Terrificon ‘24!

NO TIME TO DIE (2021) Craig's Last 007 and mine too.

NO TIME TO DIE (2021) 163 Minutes! Dir By Cary Joji Fukunaga. Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Rami Malek, Lea Seydoux.

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE MINUTES.

Am I supposed to quit my job to watch these marathon films?

The 25th entry in the Official James Bond franchise was delayed several times over and finally found a release date in the Fall of 2021.

Overall it’s a better movie than our last visit with Bond in 2015’s SPECTRE which featured Christoph Waltz as the evil head of the secret organization Ernst Blofeld.

Blofeld returns after having been captured by Bond and he’s in a high security prison cell reminiscent of Hannibal Lector in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Where the movies stumbles for me is in the return of Lea Seydoux as the psychiatrist from SPECTRE, she had zero chemistry with Daniel Craig in that one and it’s only multiplied here because of her importance to the plot.

Bond has decided to settle down with Seydoux and give up the 00 life, but then things lead him to believe that she’s betrayed him so they split and he retires from the lifestyle living comfortably as a fishing hermit in Jamaica. Movie should have ended right there.

Along comes Bond’s old pal, Felix Leiter played to perfection (again) by Jeffrey Wright, and he needs Bond’s help in an upcoming CIA mission.

Rami Malek is our villain this time around, and he’s developed a virus that will attack and kill certain DNA profiles, and he plans on mass producing it and wiping out much of the world’s population— so typical Bond villain stuff. He even gives us a “we’re the same, you and I…” because we haven’t heard that enough times. Malek is suitably creepy and gives us a Bond villain who seems a combination of Michael Jackson and Prince. I half expected him to moon-walk out of a scene.

Worse still is Lashana Lynch as the agent who replaced Bond as the new 007— it comes across as a gimmick and the character is flat and lifeless with no glimmer of why she was given the classic agent number.

A quick note about “wokeness” here, because I was told by several sources this film was loaded with it— it was absolutely not. Special Agent Q is casually revealed to be gay and if that upsets you then you seriously need to re-evaluate your trigger mechanism because he’s a great character and it’s equally great to see him given some depth. Lynch’s 007 is not an angry feminist out to prove how male agents are useless, she’s portrayed as serious and competent (and sadly kind of boring).

The big stand out is Ana de Armas as CIA Agent Paloma who is featured so prominently in the poster art and even billed second on IMDB that you would expect her to have a large role in the movie. She’s in it for all of 10 minutes but she’s brilliant- I would have watched a whole movie with her character in it (provided Craig’s Bond was there as well). She adds the right amount of humor and escapism that has been missing from all the Craig films.

Other highlights in the film are larger parts for M, Q and Miss Moneypenny (Ralph Fiennes, Ben WInshaw and Naomie Harris who have all defined their roles— although no one could ever replace Dame Judi Dench as M, Fiennes character is a literal replacement for the character so it works).

NO TIME TO DIE also suffers from a been there done that (and done better) type of syndrome as well as the Chris Nolan Batman Trilogy reverence that all of these Craig films seem to have.

How about Daniel Craig, Bond himself? He remains the best actor to have ever played the character and we can’t fault him that his version of the character seems to be in a constant state of melancholy- its a running joke in these films that “Bond has gone rogue” over and over again. Craig is still a gem.

Overlong but it seldom drags, Craig’s final Bond outing is a disappointment if you go in with high expectations, I had ZERO so it lands as not the worst of the Craig Bond’s but a far shake from CASINO ROYALE. Craig definitively ended his tenure as Bond, rumors abounded that Idris Elba would be taking over the role—and I was ALL IN with that idea. It’s since been decided he’s too old for the role so they’re leaning towards a thirty something who played Loki or someone else in the Marvel Universe— yawn. I’m out 007 it’s been a good ride, for me if I feel the Bond itch coming I’ll stick with what’s been done before.

BOND RATING: ***½

Veronica is a Cover Girl! Plus Coming Up On Da Blog…

2011— my wife was a cover girl— and she still is!

COVER GIRL! I like this picture of her— she’s a beautiful woman but the camera is not always her friend. When we were in Japan a few years ago my brother was laughing at how bad she takes a picture. That’s not an insult— it’s because she’s so pretty the pictures are funny when they’re bad. Wouldn’t it be worse if there was a bad photo of you and someone said “Oh good likeness!”

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COMING ON THE BLOG! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but this year I really pre-posted the blog posts, I think at one point I was SIX MONTHS ahead— I’m not kidding! Well that lead is long gone now and I face coming up with posts while I’m knee deep in deadlines, I love a challenge!

Coming up— we’ll be visiting some favorite places.. including…

The Baldwin Bar

My Latest Adventure...

WHAT’S AN UBER?

Had quite a week— flew out to Chicago on Thursday and began what was supposed to be a very productive trip— quick stop at Chicago Comic Con, get some other personal business done and all of it came to a screeching halt when the rental van I was in suddenly started smoking and the dashboard let me know that the transmission had given up the ghost.

Chatting with Enterprise produced a solution, but it would mean getting from my current location to some 55 miles to the East. I went to bed in my hotel thinking this would be an easy thing. Boy was I wrong.

Now I love the middle of the country— those charming small towns that still have Main Street Stores really harken back to a better time in America. The people are salt of the Earth too.

After a quick breakfast I pulled out my phone and ordered an UBER ™ for my 55 mile ride east— and got that dreaded symbol that made it clear they were sending out a call for drivers but nobody was biting— because they told me I should be able to see my driver and car options in about 90 minutes. Now in UBER ™ talk that means at best in 90 minutes a driver would bid to take on the ride and then depending on how far away he or she is they would come and get me— which could mean I’m sitting there for 3-4 hours.

I tried UBER ™ rival LYFT ™ and they were no better. I asked the front desk if they had Taxi’s in town, and he dusted off a card and handed it to me— and the number was out of service. We finally got someone called KRAMER CABS but he had to make a “quick stop” in Chicago first— okay— that’s like 3 hours to the West so roundtrip 6 hours. I finally found a company that was family run (I’m not going to name them here because I’m going to tell it straight— rest assured I gave them 5 stars on Google because at the end of the day they got the job done) and after about 5 minutes what looked like a 1997 Dodge Caravan whisked into the hotel parking lot with two little old ladies sitting in the front seat with a tiny 4lb dog.

We got into the minivan which smelled of old cigarettes and our driver, who was turning 80 in two days, managed to hit every curb in the two block trip to the gas station. I offered to pump the gas for her but she insisted on doing her own. She got back in and proudly said to her co-driver “We’re going to take the interstate!”

I learned a lot about life on that ride— I learned a lot of what makes the middle of America the heartland, and as she pulled into the wrong Enterprise lot — I knew it was the wrong one because I was looking for Enterprise Truck and this was loaded with cars— but I didn’t have the heart to tell her, and I wanted to get into some fresh air, so I opted to walk the last half mile down the road to the correct location.

ROYALTIES don’t make you a KING

As someone who works in publishing I often get royalty checks. They’re always a nice surprise because you don’t know how much its going to be. Sometimes it’s a check for $63 sometimes it’s a check for $6300— always a nice surprise. Today I got an email from a publisher I have in England and the check was a decent one. Unfortunately they needed an updated I-9 and Bank Routing form— I hate filling out forms almost more than I hate broccoli and that’s saying something. Rather than putting it off I did them right away— proud of myself I got an email from the folks at San Diego Comic Con saying my Professional Credentials were up and I needed to re-verify that I’m a working professional in the comics industry— more forms. I got those knocked off— and they do a nice job of making it easy to do— and then the publisher reached out and said they needed a voided check too. Ugh. I don’t keep a lot of checks around, all of my bills are paid electronically so that would mean digging through the safe to find a check for the account I had given them the routing number for.

IN SADDER NEWS

Johnny Mangaul passed away this week— he ran THE HALL OF COMICS in Westboro Ma— he was only 58 years old— and he was easily one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with in comics. I last saw him around Christmas time— I’m not a regular of his shop (I’m not a regular of anyone’s shop if I’m being honest) but I would try and stop in at least twice a year— and he came out of his office to make a point to say hello to me in his very busy shop. He was always doing something for Charity and he was going to run a marathon sketch-a-thon and I mentioned I’d love to be part of that next year. We shook hands and went our separate ways (I did manage to spend some money at his store), and that was the last time I would see him.

Life is funny like that sometimes. It was great to see some old friends last week at Chicago Comic Con— it’s a big convention but it’s not unmanageable the way New York Comic Con is— and it’s a good show for comics— I picked up a lot of great old comics, maybe that’ll be a post.

But the loss of John gave me pause— we don’t know how long we have with people, treat them well.

Apps Worth Having: SPOT HERO! Make Parking Stress Go Away!

Like UBER, Spot Hero was introduced to me by #2 son Joe who does a lot of traveling for business.

Spot Hero is extremely simple; If you’re driving to an event and you want to find parking you simply download this app, enter the address you’re going to and available spots and prices will pop up on a map. Choose the one you want and you’ll prepay for the space, and you’ll get a picture of what the spot looks like. This is frickin’ genius. Recently we used it going to the Boston Symphony and rather than pay the $30 event parking at the big garage next door, we opted to go with this app which offered us a parking spot in a tiny hidden parking lot not much further away for less than half the price.

The app will even give you detailed directions to find your spot, and when you arrive that spot will have a sign on it with the number you’ve been given for it. You put your own license plate number in so that the spot owner knows it’s you when you get there. You also put in an amount of time you want to be in the spot. To show you an example, that garage space if we parked from 1pm to 10pm (we planned on grabbing dinner) would have been $60— Spot Hero price? $14.

So what do you do if there is a problem, like if someone is in your spot when you get there?
Well, each signed spot says you will be towed if you park here without using the app, and the app gives you the contact info of the person who owns the spot. On this particular day we arrived at our spot in a parking lot that we would have never found without the app and sure enough some moron from Ontario was parked there. We reached out to the owner, sent them a screen shot of the illegally parked car as well as a screenshot of our own confirmation and within seconds he secured us another spot a block away.

This second spot was even closer and even more hidden, down a back alley which is very James Bond ish.
Five stars for the app— I will NEVER go into a city again without it.

This is a GREAT App.

Convention Report Jet City Tacoma Washington, Part V: The Return

SLC Airport is stunning- this is a real photo not some doctored junk.

I hate connecting flights but this one was in Salt Lake City which is one of the most beautiful airports in the world. It was the only choice unless we wanted to leave at 7am which would have meant rising at 4am— I wasn’t about it so I decided to suffer through the layover in one of the most beautiful airports in the world.

We called a LYFT at 11 and we were at the airport by 11:30— thankful again for TSA PreCheck we avoided a HUGE security line and were at our gate and waiting for our flight with time to spare. SLC is a nice airport with a lot of restaurants (Logan should follow suit). We had about 40 minutes to kill so we grabbed a quick sandwich at a nearby cafe. The flight boarded on time and we jammed into our seats for the short 90 minute jump to SLC.


I don’t understand why people stand at the gate like there is a mad rush— the seats are reserved after all. Veronica had a good point that now that airlines charge for checked bags people are carrying on more stuff and they want to make sure they get bin space.

We were scheduled to arrive in Boston at 11:59pm and the next Logan Express bus that would take us to Framingham (where our car was parked) would be at 1:15am— after that no buses until morning— so we would have some time to kill once we landed.

The flight back was mostly unremarkable but it was still unpleasant. The plane touched down and got us to the gate at 11:51pm we made our way to baggage claim and I started a conversation with a guy when Veronica yelled my name and pointed out the window— Logan Express was sitting right there. I looked to the baggage carousal and lo and behold there was our bag! I grabbed it and ran outside and we made it on the 12am bus! Woo hoo! Someone was looking out for us.

We made it home by 1:30 and made ourselves a couple of egg sandwiches before turning in. In a few weeks I’ll be re-running more convention recaps.