A cool new book has been published by TwoMorrows Publishing, written by Filmation co-founder Lou Scheimer (with Andy Mangels, a prolific writer, animation expert, and an all around swell guy). The book is filled with photos, history, anecdotes, and more related to all the great Filmation cartoons, such as Mighty Mouse, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, He-Man, and countless others. You can read a review of the book HERE. 

100 Greatest Games

Hi Everyone,

In addition to working on the next volume in my Classic Home Video Games series, I've been working even more on a new book for Schiffer Books covering the greatest console video games released from 1977-1987 (exact title TBD).

The book will include, obviously, games for the Atari 2600, on up through some of the early titles for the NES. Numerous titles for the Atari 5200, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Odyssey2, Sega Master System, and Atari 7800 will also be included, along with various dark horse entries.

The book will include pricing, publishing history, extensive gameplay details, my opinions on the games, quotes from other sources (magazines, books, and websites), full color photography (including screenshots), and more. Each entry will be 800-1300 words in length.

The book will also contain 100 honorable mentions listed in the back. Breaking down the book to 200 titles has been a blast, but some painful decisions have been made regarding titles I enjoy, but that just don't make the cut. The bottom line is how much fun the game is today, but I'm also taking into account historical importance, graphics, sounds, and the like.

I'm about 70% finished with the rough draft, but there are still some titles to be added (i.e. more painful decisions about which games to leave out).

The manuscript is due in August, and the book should be out by early 2014. Yeah, this is a ways off, but I'm excited about the project and am glad another publisher is interested in classic gaming.

The Classic Home Video Games series is a reference tool like Leonard Maltin's movie books, but this new book for Schiffer will be a lavish coffee table book with lengthy entries and all the trimmings.

As always, thanks for reading!

Filtered Future Newly Reviewed

By Colleen of Here Be Bookwyrms. You can READ IT HERE.

Five-Star Fiction Just 99 Cents!

My ebook of short stories, Filtered Future and Other Dark Tales of Science Fiction and Horror, is now just 99 cents. You can download it to your smart phone, iPod Touch, iPad, computer, or other electronic device via Amazon Kindle's free app (you don't have to have an actual Kindle device to download and read the book).

Here's the latest Amazon review of the book:

This collection of tales is a diverse, rich treasure trove for fans of dark fiction. Whether your taste is for sci-fi, fantasy, or horror, Weiss has something here for you. He engages each of these areas with originality and a marked intellectual approach.

Fans of all three genres will devour this volume with sheer delight. And these stories are far above mere escapist mind candy--Weiss explores philosophical and existential themes without his material coming across as contrived or pretentious. These tales have something substantive to say and do more than just entertain--they also provoke thoughtful reflection.

Stylistically, Weiss combines elements reminiscent of Poe, Lovecraft, Bradbury, Asimov, and Shelley--names I don't drop lightly. With memorable characters, authentic dialogue, optimal pacing, and plot twists that surprise while avoiding the deus ex machina pitfall, this collection of short stories is well worth your time. Highly recommended.

Twin Galaxies' Texas Trading Card Premiere

Pinballz Arcade in Austin, Texas is hosting a national video game event January 19th. For anyone interested in the history of gaming and contemporary video game culture, and for those who simply want to have fun while immersed in video games and pinball machines, it's an event not to be missed.

It is called the Texas Trading Card Premiere, and its purpose is to recognize various Texans and their contributions to video game culture. Walter Day, star of The King of Kong and Chasing Ghosts, is emceeing, and this is his last official trading card event, thus announcing his retirement from Twin Galaxies.

Honorees who will be presented with their very own Twin Galaxies trading card at the event include: Ben Gold, who won the “That’s Incredible” video game championship in 1983; Thor Aackerlund, the winner of the 1990 Nintendo World Championships; Mike Begum, who overcame disabilities to compete at the highest level; Josh Jones, Patrick Scott Patterson, and Billy Joe Cain, activists for and contributors to the “global video game culture,” along with various others with Texas ties. More than 30 new cards will be issued. I'm proud to be among the honorees.

In addition to the awards ceremony, there will be cosplay competition (dress as your favorite video game character), a 10-minute score challenge (highest score on 3 separate machines in 10 mins), doorprizes, raffles (including a multigame arcade cabinet), and, of course, lots and lots of gaming on more than 250 arcade cabs and pinball machines. Proceeds from this event benefit the American Cancer Society.

Pinballz Arcade

8940 Research Blvd., Suite 100
Austin, TX 78758
512-420-TILT (8458)

Date: January 19th.
Time: 12-6 PM.

Admission price: $10, which includes a raffle ticket for prizes to be announced, ranging from Pinballz tokens to much more valuable stuff! (Rachel is not among the prizes ;)).

Betty the Vampire Slayer!

I don't have as much time for the Comics Buyer's Guide as I used to, but I do have a review in the new issue, #1698. Here it is, reprinted:

Betty and Veronica #261

Archie Comics

$2.99, color, 32 pgs.

Writer: Dan Parent

Artist: Dan Parent

Grade: 4 Stars (Out of 4)

Everyone wants to live in Riverdale. It’s accepting, friendly, old fashioned, and fun. Not only that, it’s near the beach. Sunnydale, on the other hand, is a dark, scary place with a high death toll and more vampires than a Terence Fisher film. With Betty and Veronica #261, the two worlds collide.

The result is an extremely entertaining story set in the Archie universe, but with Buffy the Vampire Slayer overtones. The gang is enjoying a typically idyllic Riverdale scenario: a weenie roast on the beach. However, their revelry is interrupted by a quartet of mysterious night surfers, followed by a trio of creatures of the night.

As usual, Dan Parent, who is the face of Archie Comics these days, delivers the goods. Veronica is great as a Hammer-type femme fatale while Betty shines as the reluctant vampire slayer. The cover gives away the final page, but that’s okay: it’s a doozy of an ending that will slay fans of the old Warren magazines.

Best of all, the story is continued in the next issue.

Lou Ferrigno and The Incredible Hulk

Lou Ferrigno and The Incredible Hulk

With the box office success of The Avengers ($1,511,757,910), along with huge DVD sales, lots of attention is being paid these days to such classic Marvel heroes as Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk, the latter of whom was played in the film with gusto and good humor by Mark Ruffalo.

Decades before Ruffalo donned the green greasepaint for the silver screen (actually, he wore a green motion-capture suit), bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno played the not-so-jolly green giant on television in the popular The Incredible Hulk series, which ran on CBS from 1978 through 1982 for a total of 82 episodes.

In addition, there was a two-hour pilot on CBS in 1977, chronicling Hulk’s origin story (which differs considerably from the comics), plus three made-for-TV films: The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988), The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989), and The Death of the Incredible Hulk (1990), each of which aired on NBC.

Prior to The Incredible Hulk, Ferrigno starred with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the docudrama Pumping Iron (1977), which follows Schwarzenegger as he defends his Mr. Olympia title against Ferrigno and a French body builder named Serge Nubret. During the 1980s, Ferrigno appeared in such B-movie turkeys as Hercules (1983) and Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989), but the Hulk is easily his most important role.

As fans of the series well know, Bill Bixby played Dr. David Banner (Bruce Banner in the comics), Hulk’s alter-ego. Thanks to a gamma radiation experiment gone awry, when Banner would get upset (“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”), he would lose control and turn into a green-eyed, green-haired, green-skinned Lou Ferr…ahem, Incredible Hulk.

While The Incredible Hulk made Ferrigno an international star, Bixby was already famous for his roles on two popular shows: My Favorite Martian (1963-1966) and The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1969-1972).

Chris Latshaw, who runs North Texas Comic Book Shows, a quarterly mini-con in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, has fond memories of watching The Incredible Hulk when it originally aired and appreciates the acting chops of both Bixby and Ferrigno.

“I was a Bill Bixby fan from his previous work and followed him to the new endeavor,” Latshaw recalled. “I was 17 or 18 when the show hit the airwaves, and it was different than its [spiritual] predecessor, The Six Million Dollar Man. There was something about the anger in Hulk that appealed to me at that stage in my teen, testosterone-driven life. I liked TV shows and movies that presented larger-than-life characters like Conan and the Hulk.”

Viewed today, The Incredible Hulk is still a fun program, but Latshaw acknowledges that certain aspects of it haven’t held up particularly well, at least for younger audiences. “It’s a throwback to less sophisticated special effects, plot lines, and violence, so I imagine today's youth would find it campy,” he said.  “However, the Hulk has survived and flourished as evidenced by merchandising and sales of collectible items. While the show may no longer hold the same appeal for the masses, the character still does.”

The Hulk was originally created for Marvel Comics by writer Stan “The Man” Lee and artist Jack “King” Kirby in The Incredible Hulk, which was published for six issues from 1962-1963. Influenced by Boris Karloff’s sympathetic portrayal of the monster in Frankenstein (1931), and by Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), the Hulk was a work in progress at this early stage as he was gray (at least in the first issue) and only hulked out at night.

According to the 2012 Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (Gemstone Publishing), a near mint (9.2) copy of The Incredible Hulk #1 is worth a whopping $90,000 (first appearances of key characters are of HUGE importance to comic book collectors), with subsequent issues priced considerably lower: #2, $8,500; #3, $5,500; #4, $4,500; #5, $4,500, #6, $4,800.

Shortly after the cancellation of The Incredible Hulk comic book series, the character appeared in Fantastic Four #12 ($2,700), in which he battled the Thing, and then in Avengers #s 1 ($4,200), 2 ($935), 3 ($750), and 5 ($350). After a couple more Fantastic Four appearances and an appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #14 ($2,050), Hulk became a lead player in Tales to Astonish beginning with issue #60 ($175). Tales to Astonish ended in 1968 with #101 ($85), but later the same year Marvel continued the numbering with The Incredible Hulk #102 ($150), and that series ran until 1999 with issue #474 ($2.00).

Hundreds of Hulk comics have been published since then, and the character, who has gone from a raging brute to a rational creature with Banner’s intellect and back again, remains a Marvel staple. Latshaw owns comics from the recent World World Hulk series back to the “older stuff from the 1980s,” but his favorite Hulk item is a set of Smash Hands (now worth more than $100 new in the box) that he originally bought as a gift.

“You may remember these as they were mass marketed,” Latshaw said. “The hands are oversized and make sounds when you hit them against something. I bought them as a Christmas present for my son, but I may have had a secret desire to own them myself as I thought they were pretty cool.”

Judging by the next installment of Lathshaw’s North Texas ComicBook Shows, he thinks Lou Ferrigno is pretty cool as well. Ferrigno is going to be the featured guest at the event, meeting and greeting fans, posing for pictures, and signing autographs.

“Lou Ferrigno is an international star,” Latshaw said. “We’re honored to have him as our special guest.”

Even if you aren’t into the Hulk or Lou Ferrigno, you may want to plan on attending the show, which takes place January 5th and 6th at The Double Tree Hotel on Market Center Boulevard in Dallas. In addition to the Ferrigno autographing, there will be thousands of old and new comic books for sale, along with such related items as paperback books, model kits, action figures, and trading cards.

Contact:

info@comicbooksdallas.com

www.comicbooksdallas.com