A Comic Tease, and Movies, Please

Here is a little teaser image of the 8-page comic I'm working on. Yeah, that would be a blurred breast right there. That's all I'm giving you for a little bit. Enjoy!

On that note, go check out the new page of Last Night and start your weekend off with a little suspense.

Updates on the birthday front: Definitely partying 1/26, that Saturday, at the 11th Frame, but not til after 8pm because we gotta wait until after Isabella goes to bed.

What am I watching? Here...we...goooooo!

Monster A Go-Go- Part of a double feature from the "Something Weird" video line. An astronaut returns from space in a capsule but disappears upon landing. People mysteriously die and show evidence of having been burned radioactively. Obviously we haven't been fully educated by 1965 of the cancerous effects of radiation. When the astronaut is found, it turns out he's a 10-foot-tall monster who prefers to prey on beach-goers and couples. The actor portraying the monster was 7'6" in real life. It's mostly narrated, as though this were a driving film from the 1960's.

Bedtime Booga Booga- This was a featurette on the same double feature as Monster A Go-Go. This one was actually pretty good for an amateur short. It's about 10-15 minutes long with no dialogue, just music. A guy gets ready for bed by watching a weird zombie-ish flick (not supposed to watch tv before bedtime!). He falls asleep, has a kickass dream about zombies trying to get him, they get him, then he wakes up to find his throat slashed and some creepy dude with a mask standing over him. Roommate? Stranger? Who knows? Nice effort, unfortunately, no imdb link to this one.

Psyched By the 2D Dot- Also on the same double feature but shorter than the featurette. A couple of nude chicks are being bothered by a black squiggly dot that keeps covering their private parts. If I'm not mistaken, this can be taken as an artsy little jab at censorship. Again, no dialogue, jst music.

Driving Miss Daisy Crazy- Another featurette from the same damned double feature. Since these last three have all been short films, this DVD isn't considered a quintuple feature or something. I don't know. By this point, I'm really starting to like Something Weird Videos. Anyway, in this one a woman is narrating a story about hw her husband is plotting against her through various wacky measures, such as hiring a man to pose as her psychiatrist, keeping tabs on where she goes, and playing on her fears of enclosed spaces (shuts her up in a closet as a joke) and, apparently fellatio (umm...trying to get her to give him head). She begins to think everyone, from her maid to her chauffeur are plotting against her, drugging her, abusing her sexually, photographing her, etc. By the end you can't really tell whether she's the crazy one or not. Not too bad, I'm glad I watch these things sober.

Psyched By the 4D Witch- Isn't the 4th dimension time or something? Anyway, this is the second feature of the double feature...finally! A girl is somehow possessed by an ancestor who happens to be one of the accused witches from the infamous Salem trials, named Abigail. She ends up having psychadelic out-of-body sexual experiences, each one more disturbing than the last, all the while keeping her virginity intact in the process. Abigail finally crosses the line when she tries to force the girl to have sex with the corpse of her best friend, recently killed in a car crash. It turns out to be a revenge plot that's taken almost 400 years to take place. The dead girl's father is ths girl's psychiatrist who comes up with the theory that she is kept prisoner by "Abigail" through "fantasy fucking" (his words), and proposes to release her through real sex. The sex is too much, he dies, she is released. Abigail then turns on her brother, who becomes a vampire with the worst fake fangs I have ever seen. The psychadelic imagery is pretty cool, though, and they managed to camp it up a bit by making her narration of the story emotionally distant and a little silly. This movie also has its own theme song performed by Johnny By the Way called "Beware of the 4d Witch".

Fire and Ice- This is an animated feature done by Ralph Bakshi with a little help from Frank Frazetta. Larn's village is destroyed by a glacier and taken over by the Ice Lord, Nekron. The king's daughter, Teegra, is kidnapped by Neanderthal henchmen (although neanderthals were barrel-chested and these guys looked like they walked out of the rain forest but whatever). Larn, aided by Darkwolf (a cool wolf-masked figure who fights like Batman) goes on a quest to rescue Teegra and defeat Nekron. Despite the kooky fantasy aspect of this movie (and it was kooky), the animation was amazing. The characters themselves had no special details that would have distinguished them from a He-Man character, but the movement and smooth flow of their animation was amazing. When a figure would run or shift in their seat, the movement was very realistic and would have made Disney's brain squirm in its jar in a fit of jealousy. The girls in it were a little scantily clad for the PG rating, but that's not really a complaint.

Skidoo- This was on TCM Underground last Friday. Check out this cast: Jackie Gleason stars as a retired mobster who's called back to work by an old associate and his son (father-Cesar Romero, son-Frankie Avalon) who want him to bump off his old best friend, played by Mickey Rooney. His wife (Carol Channing) and daughter are quickly becoming absorbed in the hippie culture, and his sidekick is murdered when he at first refuses, so he's got little choice. The target is in jail, so he gets himself placed in the klink and ends up in a cell with a rapist and a draft dodger (Austin Pendleton), who is also a technical genius. He decides against killing his old friend, and decides to get out to save his family from the clutches of his boss, God, played by noneother than Groucho Marx. Other cast members include Richard Kiel (big freaky giant), Frank Gorshin (Riddler), Harry Nillson (did that song "Without You"), Slim Pickens (come on, you fucking know who Slim Pickens is), along with others you might find in the 60's Batman tv show or other serials around that time. Jackie Gleason finds his family, but God escapes amid a stupid Carol Channing hippie sing-along and somehow ends up with Austin Pendleton's character, turns into a Krishna, and smokes up. Yeah, Groucho lights himself a doobie. Not only that, but while in jail, Gleason's character inadvertantly takes an acid trip. Despite the horrible ending, it was an alright movie.

The Incident- According to IMDB, this is Martin Sheen's acting debut. Ed Mcmahon and Beau Bridges are in it, too, as well as Brock Peters, though you don't recognize McMahon very well. A bunch of strangers are taking a New York subway home when a couple of ne'erdowells hop on, drunk as hell and looking for trouble. They terrorize the subway riders and keep them from leaving until a one guy, a soldier with an arm in a sling, finally won't take it anymore and confronts them face to face. I'll tell you it will piss you off as you watch the movie. You'll keep thinking "get up and punch the fuckin punks!" It's weird how people get, though. When in a group, Genovese syndrome can prevent people from standing up for themselves to a couple of troublemakers. Something in them must make them afraid the others won't do anything to help them either, and that any action they take will be futile in the face of hostility. The acting is awesome, though, and despite the anger you feel, the ending gives you a 'lesson learned' feeling.

Did you read all that? Wow, good job. Now go read a book or something.