Thursday, April 24, 2014

How to Draw Superman

I would like to take a moment and give you my opinion on how Superman should look in the comics. I don't mean red trunks vs no red trunks, but more along the lines of how the face/body are drawn. Now, since a picture is worth 1,000 words, let me lay some examples on you.

This is how Superman should be drawn:

John Byrne

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (pbhn)

John Romita, Sr

Jerry Ordway

Dan Jurgens

And this is how Superman should NOT be drawn.

John Romita, Jr
Basically, if Superman looks like he should be carrying a club and saying "Ug. Me Sooperman.", you've got it wrong.

Now, it makes no nevermind to me, since I'm not going to buy anything that goes beyond 2000 with either company (I'm firmly in back-issue territory, as I explained on Episode 2 of The Hammer Podcasts!), but I would encourage anyone that loves the character to NOT pay for Neanderthal-Man.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Legends of the Superheroes


Since I had a special episode posted last week (and if you didn't know about that, you really need to look up The Hammer Strikes! on Facebook and Google+) I thought I'd let you all know my basic idea behind it.

Beyond being an attention grab for my show (which I don't deny that this is) it is also a way for me to explore live action versions of superheroes, or at least characters that first appeared in comic books. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe all the rage right now, I want to take a look back and see where this came from. There will be a high cheese factor on these episodes, simply because of the time period that many of these movies/tv shows were made, but that does not preclude there being gems in there.

Speaking of Marvel, I'm going to specifically skew away from the modern movies, since those are getting enough press already. It's not that I don't like them or am unwilling to talk about them, far from it. But as I've established on The Hammer Podcasts!, I like to look back and see where my love of certain things came from. Also, since I am going to be teaming with other podcasters, all of whom are much more experienced in the medium, I hope to learn a few things for my own use. Plus, I always like to hear different points of view and how others got into the same thing.

If there is a particular show/movie you'd like to see me cover, please feel free to let me know. You can drop me a line at Legends@thehammerstrikes.com, in the comments here, or on social media. Let me know what you want to hear and I'll shanghai someone more famous than I am see if I can find the appropriate podcaster to team up with.



BTW, if you missed the podcast, you can find it here:  http://www.twotruefreaks.com/media/podcasts/TheHammerPodcasts/mp3/SwampThing.mp3

Many thanks once again to Rob Kelly of The Aquaman Shrine for agreeing to be my first guest ever. It's amazing what he has to say, especially when he isn't interrupted. Make sure you check out his site for all the Aquaman you could ever ask for.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

John Pinette

On Monday I heard about Mickey Rooney's death and, while that is a shame, he was 93 and had a really good run in all forms of entertainment. I also learned of the death of someone that was taken much too soon, and that would be actor/comedian John Pinette. As a man of greater than average size and appetite, I really loved his stand up. Here are a few of my favorite bits of his. Enjoy.









P.S. The day after these two died, we also lost The Ultimate Warrior, one of my favorite WWF wrestler growing up. He was only 54 and had just been inducted into the Hall of Fame. He will also be missed.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Everything's Better with Brian Blessed

I know you've seen those pictures and T-Shirts that say everything's better with bacon, ninjas, hot sauce, or what have you.  Well, I've got one to beat them all.

Feel free to share.