Xmas Presence

There's a better than fair chance that i'm not here currently - holed up in the deep parts of the cave more likely, but Christmas is definitely upon us. However, if i'm in hiding, worry not - I've got you Covered (part the first) -

The queue is loaded to drop Xmas comics & cartoons throughout the next 3 days.
Whenever you're bored, avoiding relations, or waiting for the drinks to heat or pie to cool - drop on by and there's a fair chance something new has popped up in the past few hours, even if i've yet to return.

covers from - they're covers! They tell you where they're from. (1883-1997)

FF&G #23 (Puzzle Free)

It would have scanned better on 3 lines, but i can't insert breaks into the subject line.
Ah, well...

You've got all weekend to go watch Friday Night Fights and Vote for the Winner. Here and now, we're hiding out once again for

With all the holiday pressures, i suspect we could all use a light and fun edition this week. (I certainly can. I only realized what day it was half an hour ago, my time. Kind of spaced days all week - not good for my meds.)
So, no puzzles, quizzes or conundrums today. Just some 1960s Batman fun & games - 3 of them, in fact: Bat-Track, Trapped By The Penguin and Batman's Crime Patrol. (For extra fun, in Crime Patrol, one team plays for Batman, the other for Joker.)

Our games come from 1966's Batman Giant Games Book:

Kind of strange showing that sort of thing up front, but there's no solutions to be found there-in - only games and the story of The Doomstown Menace (a Batman text adventure). Let me point out that this wasn't just your typical fun & games comic. Bot the outer cover and the centerfold were printed on cardboard stock to provide actual playable pieces when cut out by the readers. (Oh, the horror!) They even went a step further, making sure you're covered even if you don't have a 6-sided die to roll at home:

(That parenthetical "do this twice" isn't an actual instruction, it's my inner alt-write urge to correct the common error - dice is plural, die is singular)

Also provided, of course, are playing pieces and cards you'll need to play the games:

And here are our rules and game boards:

(I tried to keep the boards fairly big in case anyone actually was going to print & play)

To wrap things up, in addition to the story and two more games, the book also gives us a couple classic portraits of the Dynamic Duo:

the works from the Batman Giant Games Book (1966)

An Introduction

Once upon a time there was a personal project entitled Mad Science! with Dr. Nick.

Playing with a more cartoony style,  Dr. Nick was an alternate history version of Nicola Tesla, backed up by a steampunk cyborg Teddy Roosevelt, a descendant of Judge Dee, a mythic assassin, an automaton, an international woman of mystery, and ... something else.

While creating the cast, i had fairly clear visions of most, though one was always changing, and another on partly existed. Lady Sommerset, however, eluded me. She needed to be special. I needed to cast a woman who both exuded pure sex and looked like she could provide an intellectual match for Tesla and his team (before joining them as the above mentioned "woman of mystery")
I found the perfect choice, pre-loaded with irony.

Here's a quick peek at her introduction in the comic, when hired by Edison for his evil plot...

Of course, the style adopted for this series does Ramona Sommerset no justice.

But, it does serve as another circumlocutory approach to introducing a new recurring feature with a personal touch. Anna and the Kid's concerted efforts have finally convinced me to start showcasing Personifications Of Beauty. (POB? Nope. I don't think so)
A Pulchritudinous Presentation. (No. Just No.)
A...

I need a name. Names can be significant.
In today's case, the name brings that "pre-loaded irony" to which i referred. When seeking the perfect foil for my alternate Tesla, i found her in Marconi.

May we present the Venezuelan/Italian beauty of Carolina Marconi:

Ahh...
An Exquisite Exhibition. (Nope, that's not it)

Actually, i'm favouring Dibellean Depictions or something along that lines currently.
Dreams Of Dibella?  
Dibellan Delights?

For those of you who don't spend time in Tamriel, Dibella is the goddess of Love & Beauty in the Elder Scrolls games, the 5th of which is the insanely popular Skyrim. I spend a lot of time there, though it changes all the time. (Magnificent mods)

pages from Mad Science with Dr. Nick! (2013), Carolina Marconi from a benevolent deity.

The Mystery Solved!

Since the US election campaign of 2016, the world has been asking itself one question...  What the actual fuck was that guy thinking?
Does he not own mirrors? (I could see a flat screen display with image correction software replacing his mirrors) Or are his mirrors all color skewed with gold plated so he'll look "classy" in reflection?
What was going on here...

Finally, the answer has been found.

When bumbling businessman Arthur Carlson found himself trapped as a candidate in an election he no longer wanted to win, this is how he appeared on television for the debate:

TV based decision making - of course! It was all a desperate ploy to lose the election inspired by the WKRP In Cincinnati episode, Carlson For President (S02E06). I'm sure it seemed like it would work - it worked on TV.
Matt & Trey may have called this one correctly.

SO much makes more sense now...

Gordon Jump as Arthur Carlson from WKRP In Cincinnati (1979)

THE Champions

Oh, sure - plenty have used the name over the years. But ever since i first saw the opening to their tv show in the late 60s, these 3 were The Champions in my eyes:

If you're going to bring someone from the USA to star in a UK series, Prince Charming is a pretty good way to go.

If you saw her playing opposite Kirk Douglas in Draw!,
you know those superhuman treatments were holding up mighty well.

If you ever look at that photo on the back of the Neuromancer manual with the three of us staring off in different directions and wondered what the hells i was doing, come back and look at William Gaunt here.
(I let Troy be the pretty one)

Readers like the Mindbender will recall that i drafted a fairly elaborate feature on them back in ancient APA days. No and Every pun intended, but i'd gladly champion a BBC/ITC effort to revive the series. In those days, it was severely hampered by a limited (BBC limited) budget, though the writers tried hard to work with what they had.
For example, Craig shows us how to make an entrance and dispose of inconvenient guards with low budget super strength:

With modern effects and a fair budget, they could do some great things with the team these days.

But - Who were the Champions, and what were their superpowers? And what the heck is Nemesis?
Let's let Joe 90: Top Secret #1 give you the quick summary:

While quite a few British stars you might recognize have appeared on the series, you won't see that old man from the mountains these days. He was seriously old - Felix Aylmer was born in 1889! (I just thought that was kind of noteworthy)

More familiar names include Michael Gough (Alfred in the Batman movies before Michael Caine), Julian Glover (Grand Master Pycelle on Game Of Thrones), David Prowse (Darth Vader), Aubrey Morris (Everywhere from Dr. Zhivago to It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This is getting old), Paul Eddington (you know him, Yes?), Gabrielle Drake, Tony Steedman, and Donald Sutherland...

...among many others.
Sutherland gets his picture in here because he tries to dress like a supervillain...

...sort of. I can appreciate that.
He also gets bonus genre cred for having been on The Avengers and The Saint (twice) as well.

Anyway, i get carried away because i've been a fan for nearly 50 years, but this was all just introduction for some comics. After the quick summary above, here's a bit more information on the origins of Nemesis and The Champions from the Joe 90: Top Secret Annual 1969.
(You can skip right past if you're not interested in background info)

And, finally, on to our comics. We have three short comics from the first 3 issues of Joe 90: Top Secret.
If we're really lucky, one of our UK readers will know who wrote & drew the stories.

That little tease about their powers at the end was typical of the tv show, too. It eventually led to what's generally considered the best episode, The Interrogation, in which Craig is kidnapped and probed for information about their powers.

...but, we eventually learn that it was Tremayne & Nemesis who abducted him, wanting to know how they accomplish their missions - triggering a rift between the team and their boss.

I'm not sure how many issues the series ran, but i think it was about the same as the number of TV episodes - 30. After that, Joe 90 merged into TV 21 and The Champions was lost in the shuffle since it was no longer on the air. The Saint (Roger Moore version) started up in the slot instead. (but Vincent Price is still my favorite version of Simon Templar)

stills from The Champions s01e16 & e18, pages from Joe 90: Top Secret #s 1-3 & Annual '69 (1969)

Dinky Wasn't (Dinky)

I've been digging through early issues of Joe 90 for those comics i mentioned starring The Champions, my old favorite TV Superhero show. Along the way i've been enjoying lots of other little things - like, remember the old '60s TV show, Land Of The Giants? They had a comic that ran in Joe 90, along with the excellent Star Trek series we've seen previously in this blog.

While contemplating how unknown Joe 90 is to most readers in the USA, i also ran into a nice toy ad to help explain. Dinky made some of the best old school TV toys, including their classic Enterprise (NCC-1701) with working shuttle bay and firing Photon Discs. And they made these toys of metal, not plastic.
Well, the photon discs and shuttle craft were plastic. But they were tough, solid toys, made for adventuring.

Here's their beauty version of Joe 90's car:

You'll have to make it bigger if you want to check out the special features.

Though the name Dinky might have sounded "rinky-dinky", the brand was anything but - those old toys lasted through many years of hard play. 

Looking at the other toys advertised might give one a fair idea of what Joe 90 was. It was a supermarionation series from Gerry Anderson, like Captain Scarlet and the Thunderbirds.
(Hell, for all i know, it's been revived, like the Thunderbirds)
Joe was actually quite ahead of its time in concept - the series was about a kid who essentially uploaded skills & data into his head as needed to function as a superspy, much like cyberpunk and modern scifi stories, but back in the late 1960s. So, yeah - we'll probably do a feature on him before too long.

But that's another time. For now, it's off to hunt those Champions DVDs and see if we can't grab a few screens to go with the comics...

Dinky advert from Joe 90 #1 (1969)

Future Gaming?

I'm a fairly big gamer.

Started with the 3 basic little paper-bound booklets for Dungeons & Dragons (with a side of Chainmail) back in the mid-late 70s, and kept going into the computer era with gusto. I used homegrown Basic software  to generate populations and auxiliary materials for moderating my campaigns after building my first computer back in 1980. I got involved in created computer games later in the decade - back when we only had 4 colours with which to work.

My relationship with games has continued to the present day, where half my retired life is spent gaming.

And yet...

I have to admit some small concerns over the new Virtual Pac-Man game...

NOTE: This image contains nudity and Pac Man,

and has been moved to our back room for adult content.

The text remains for context & comprehension.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive

of the original post to view the artwork.

b&w original by ??? from Gasm #2 (1977)

You'd think that comic magazines would be better at crediting comic artists by '77, wouldn't you?