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PRESENTS: |
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Introduction: Mild Mannered |
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I was recently in a discussion with someone familiar with my love for film, and they asked where it stemmed from. I replied that it was a natural outgrowth of my love for the medium of sequential art....AKA, the funnybook. Comic books, superhero mags....the stuff that mom warned you about that supposedly rotted yer mind.
Yes...I, The Hong Kong Cavalier, am a comic book fan. Pity me.
I also recently came to the shocking discovery that I'd been involved in the hobby for a considerable amount of time...25 years to be exact, after doin' the math (I started collecting at the tender age of 5, circa 1979). My obsession with the cape and cowl crowd began after a relative who was pretty hardcore into fandom and such during the late 1960s (until sometime in the mid-1980s) introduced me to it. This same relative took an active interest in my interest, guiding and mentoring me early on, providing me with fixes of some of the books of that time that were considered the good stuff.... |
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This is why before the age of ten, I was reading stuff like Alan Moore's ( the writer behind such comics as Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke, and two comics that were later turned into films, From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) Saga of the Swamp Thing, Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer ( which was later turned into a flick itself), Micheal T. Gilbert's Mr. Monster, Frank Miller's Daredevil, and Howard Chaykin's incredible sci-fi sexual innuendo filled political satire American Flagg! . No wonder I'm so f**ked up now.......
And along the way, I somehow aquired a taste for something I like to call Fringe Comics.
Y'know the type of titles that I'm speaking of....starring second and third tier heroes. They never seem to last more than 24 issues, and then tend to get cancelled due to lack of sales. Basically the comic book industry's equivelent to B-Movies..... |
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With this new SpeakEasy column, Capes and Scowls, I'm going to take the oppurtunity to educated the masses about some of my favorite books throughout my nearly three decades of reading...and warn the innocent about titles that are just plain awful....but "awful" in a funny way, informing them of the unintentional humor value contained within them. |
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So...sit back, relax, and get ready to start rummaging the quarter bins..... |
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