Dork Art: Howard The Duck & Man-Thing Puppet

This past weekend Guardians of the Galaxy officially became the highest grossing August film ever - it's not only the biggest film of this summer, but it's already made more money than last year's Man of Steel.  That is crazy.  Nothing to bring the crowd in besides an excellent trailer, and the Marvel brand.  Talking trees, rocket raccoons.  What's next?  Doctor Strange?  Black Panther?  How about Howard The Duck?  As we saw in the post credits tag of the James Gunn movie, Seth Green brought voice to a new Howard.  The first time I saw the film, the tag brought a few "Wha??"s & a couple "WTF??"s from the crowd.  Me?  A big fanboy grin.  I've always been a fan.  I dig the George Lucas flick.  It's a awkward whackjob flick, perfectly encapsulating the confusion of the 80s.  But I understand the disdain.  I just wish that disdain didn't block fanboys from exploring the original comic book.  However, now's the time folks.  Howard The Duck is cool again.

Created by Steve Gerber & Val Mayerik, Howard The Duck first appeared in the pages of Adventures into Fear #19 when Marvel's Man-Thing fell into the Nexus of Realities, encountering both Howard and The Peanut Butter Barbarian....yeah, you read that right, The Peanut Butter Barbarian.  Eventually Howard The Duck got his own title, and it allowed for Steve Gerber to write some scathing satire amongst the webslingers and fantastic families.  It's a goofy, weird, and immensely fun book.  If all you know about the character is the Lucas flop, then I encourage you to snatch up a few of those early issues.  They run fairly cheap at cons, but maybe not for long.  Do I expect Howard The Duck in Marvel's Phase 3 or 4?  Doubtful.  The James Gunn tag is pretty much a one-shot joke.  Still, it's possible that Howard pops up in Guardians 2 or some other cosmic outing.  Right now, Marvel's testing the waters.  They're re-releasing the omnibus in October, Funko is adding him into their Pop Vinyl line, nd artist Val Mayerik is finding himself in the spotlight once again.

On September 20th, coinciding with Fantastic Fest, Mondo will be holding their very first Posterpalooza dedicated to the art of the one-sheet - Mondo Con.  The typical Mondo artists like Jason Edmiston, Tyler Stout, and Jay Shaw will be on hand hosting panels & releasing new exclusives.  But there's plenty of new blood.  Mike Mignola, Tim Sale, Bernie Wrightson and Val Mayerik.  Seriously enjoying the inclusion of these comic book greats.  Mayerik recently did a signing at Austin Books, where he was selling the Howard the Duck/Man-Thing print seen all the way at the top of this post.  I've already hit up ebay looking for this beauty, but no luck so far.  I want it.  I need it.  Hopefully, Mondo will make it available to the public soon enough.  Whatever the case, the time for Howard the Duck is once again upon us.  And there's no George Lucas to muck it up.

--Brad

A Fistful of Marvel Wannabes! (Matt’s Picks)

    Brad and I have talked about this at length, but it needs to be said again.  The Avengers happened.  Last year, a major Hollywood studio put out  movie based on the long running superhero team comic, The Avengers.  We currently live in a world where Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America have been featured in their own movies and in a movie together.  That’s insane!  But the insanity of that may just be topped next year (it’s next year, right?) when the lead in movie to the Avengers sequel will be the Guardians of the Galaxy.  Wait a tick.  A movie about a tree, a raccoon, and a bunch of other weirdos running around the galaxy fighting the good fight is going to be a tent pole summer picture?  I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore.  It’s all gone mad.  Next thing you know, they’ll be making a movie about a murderous, telekinetic car tire obsessing over a French girl in the desert while a 70s B-movie actor sits in a wheelchair watching (See Rubber!  It’s great!).

    Anyway, if The Avengers can happen, if Iron Man 3 can be hitting the theaters with record breaking box office expectations, if a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is even being discussed, clearly anything can happen.  With that in mind, here’s my list of Marvel comics I want to see hit the big screen.

5:  Who doesn’t want to see a seven foot tall, green woman, in a sharp business suit, trying court cases?  Communists.  That’s who.  I really don’t get She-Hulk.  I mean, she’s green and she’s buff.  But that seems to be where the Hulk connection ends.  I don’t know what’s up with her as a character, beyond that she’s a lawyer or something.  But if years of watching Star Trek taught me anything, it’s that green ladies are pretty keen.  So, whatever.  Get Joss Whedon to write it or something.  I’ll be there.

It's like Boston Legal...With a Hulk.

4:  The Silver Surfer is a cosmic character.  I want to see a movie with the Surfer where he actually travels the spaceways.  I want crazy, trippy, weird science fiction with meditative insanity.  Get me some kind of electronica score (Daft Punk, the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, whatever).  I want the nebula from The Fountain, the stargate from 2001, and all the nutty, weird visuals our best and brightest can put together.  And I want the Surfer to be the Surfer, dang it.  I don’t want him to spend one minute on the planet Earth.  Not one second.  And yes, I know he appeared in Fantastic Four 2.  But it was hardly his movie.  And he should have his own.

3:  I’ve always liked the look of Black Panther, and I love that he’s the King of a technological utopia hiding in the wilderness of Africa.  It tickles the lost civilization enthusiast in me, as well as my interest in blending high tech utopias in general.  And if I’m not mistaken, the comics at some point had Storm hook up with the King.  Storm is about the only member of the X-Men I find even remotely interesting.  Perhaps a movie about the two of them, set entirely in Africa could be an interesting change of pace for Marvel movies.

2:  I like a lot of stuff.  But two of the things I’ve liked since I can remember are lost civilizations and sexy ladies.  King Kong was an early fascination.  Sheena as well.  Tarzan, obviously (it had ladies!).  So, it’s no shock that I would absolutely love to see Shanna the She-Devil, Ka-Zar, and the rest of the jungle dwelling, dinosaur fighting folk of the Savage Lands get their own movie.  Who else is going to fight the leftover Nazis, nasty lizards, and whatever other wacky stuff is running around in there?  And if she’s standing next to a guy in an animal hide loincloth, it’s automatically not sexist, right?  I think that’s in the Constitution.

1:  A few years back, some two dollar sweatshop movie studio somehow rubbed a magic lamp and made a Man-Thing movie.  With all the quality of a made-for-SyFy crapathon, and all the fidelity of Charlie Sheen on a coke binge (aka Thursdays), it was quickly forgotten by the ten suckers…I mean people, who bothered to watch it (that includes me).  Well, F that movie.  I want to see a Man-Thing film that has something to do with the comic.  I want him to be the semi-sentient guardian of the Nexus of All Realities.  I want him to burn the flesh of the guilty.  I want him to see the realms beyond our perception.  And I want the sleaziest, funniest danged duck, Howard, to pop his pervy little head into our world.  If they can do the Avengers, they can do Doctor Strange, the Man-Thing, Howard the Duck, etc. going against Baron Mordo or whoever, with magic and hallucinations flying this way and that.  The real question is, can we handle the Peanut Butter Barbarian?!  I say, his time has come!

    Obviously, there are some other characters I’d love to see, like Killraven, the original Vision, and Rom.  And there are a couple specific volumes I’d like to see adapted, like Marvels.  But this is a beginning.

I'll get you, you Martian bastards!

-Matt