Saturday, July 23, 2016

The World´s Greatest Artists : Kelley Jones

Today Kelley Jones celebrates his 54th birthday so I wanted to do a post about him. I know he´s mostly associated with his prolific work at DC but since my last post was a FLASH FRIDAY post this post is going to be about all of the work he did for other comic companies with a few comments.


He was one of the few guest artists on SPIDER - MAN 2099 ( the original SPIDER - MAN 2099, not the new series where the costume looks like s - word ) and despite the fact that he delivered his usual quality work it somehow didn´t fit the book. Which shows that sometimes an artist determines the look of a book so immensely that if it´s done by any other artist it just doesn´t look right no matter how good the fill in artist is.


Another Spider - Man related book by Kelley Jones was VENOM - THE MADNESS but while SPIDER - MAN 2099 was one of the few shining examples in the 90s this exemplified everything that was wrong with the 90s and most people were probably relieved that it only lasted three issues. As Venom had become a popular character Marvel did what all comic companies did at that time - which was to put him into as many cameos, guest appearances and crossovers as possible way beyond the point of oversaturation. They even gave him his own series but instead of doing just an ongoing they turned each story arc into a separate mini series because what sells better than a new number one ? This one at least had a nice embedded cover which was all the rage back then and the other two also had sturdy cardbox covers. So at least you could read them again - if you wanted to. I don´t remember much about the story and after going online and reading a few reviews I know why. If you want to know more check out Walter Sodja´s review on THE W DEFENDER , there´s a review of the accompanying Venom action figure from that story on OAFE ( which is probably the only reason they made that story ) and it´s naturally part of DEN OF GEEKS 15 Craziest Venom Moments .


This was another mini series that came out in the 90s but it was actually quite good. At this point the comic market wasn´t oversaturated with ALIENS comics yet so because I was already a fan of Kelley Jones art I bought it. The story is about a guy who mad a cybernetic ant to infiltrate a hive of ants to learn more about their species. Yay, science ! Which is not the interesting part. That starts when a woman approaches him who wants him to recreate his experiment but this time with a cybernetic alien to go into their hive to steal the alien queen mother´s royal jelly.


Sometimes we are so caught up in the constant crossover frenzy by the big two that really interesting comics can be put on the backburner until they fall on the wayside forever. Which is what happened with THE HAMMER. Luckily I found the series in Spain where it was easier to collect because they had two original issues in the spanish reprints. Talking about reprints, there has only been one trade so far which colleects the first mini series One Big Lie so you´ll have to look for the second 3 issue mini series THE OUTSIDER and the UNCLE ALEX special in back issue bins.


This is probably the first Kelley Jones comic I ever bought and I might have gotten this from one of the flea markets in Stuttgart. This was pre - internet so back when I was a strapping young lad who could - and would - walk miles to find one comic book I looked everywhere for US comics which were not as easy to find as Today. I don´t think I have all of the issues but this was back when I was a raving Michael Moorcock fanatic so I got any issue of any Corum related series I could lay my hands on. The art team was surprisingly good on this with Kelley Jones doing inks over Mike Mignola. To my knowledge this has never been reprinted but you might find some issues for cheap in the inventory of older comic shops.


So these are all the non DC comics by Kelley Jones I have read. I almost got to read the CONAN - BOOK OF TOTH mini series he did for Dark Horse but it had already sold out. Anyway, maybe there are a few new ones you want to check out although I don´t know if he did the interior artwork.


Since most of the interviews I found are about his DC work they will be included in my next post so we get right to Today´s other celebrity birthdays which are thankfully a much shorter list than usual beginning with the 27th birthday of Daniel Radcliffe best known as the male lead character in the Harry Potter movies. If you love the movies - and most people do - you should definitely read the books because as good as the movies are only about 40 percent of what is in the books has made it into the movies and characters like Professor Snape are really very two dimensional in the movies compared to how they appear in the books.



Cult tv bikini sexbomb Charisma Carpenter turns 46 who is best known as Cordelia Chase on Buffy and the spin off Angel although Today´s kids may better know her from her recurring role on Veronica Mars which means they missed a lot of scorching bikini scenes with Charisma´s huge 34Ds.


One of these days I´ll have to get the first season of Veronica Mars to find out how it all started since I came in at the tailend of that season - as usual. Besides Veronica Mars Charisma Carpenter was also in episode 11 of season 5 of Burn Notice where she showed she still has the goods.


In Germany only the first three seasons of Burn Notice have come out on DVD and right now I´m halfway through season 2. I´m not sure if I should wait any longer to see if they will do the rest someday or just get them through imports. Now that I´m invested I want to know how it plays out and there is even a spin off with Bruce Campbell´s character Sam. In any case Charisma´s funbags alone are worth the price of admission. Daimn !


Canadian comic book artist Dale Keown celebrates his 54th birthday and I might do a THIS MAN THIS MONSTER MONDAY post about his run on The Incredible Hulk if I manage to finish the two Joe Kelley posts and the Lynda Carter birthday post before that. Dale also had his creator owned The Pitt series where he repackaged and resold the same four issues for years but now he´s back at Marvel where he mainly does variant covers.


So far none of his Hulk issues have appeared in a hardcover and now that the Hulk Visionaries : Peter David trades with his work are out of print it seems Disney is bent on keeping it that way. There are 2 Epic Collections with the Hulk out from that time period and Future Imperfect starts with the Gary Frank issues while they managed to put so much other stuff into the Ghost Of The Past collection - like the entire Return Of The Defenders storyline - that only two of his issues made it into the 480 page trade.


I know that the issues in this come right after the last Hulk Visionaries trade but like I said most of them are out of print and if you can find them they go for astronomical prices. So Disney should have started fresh with the Hulk collections. Now if you already have the Hulk Visionaries trades and want to have the remaining Dale Keown Hulk issues but don´t want to spend 35 bucks there is an older trade also called Ghost Of The Past for which you shouldn´t pay more than 5 bucks. If you can find it.


Woody Harrelson turns 55 and his greatest cineastic achievement was to rub his raging Woody ( sorry, I couldn´t resist the pun ) all over Bruce Willis´ then wife Demi Moore in An Indecent Proposal. Come on, with a title like that you knew there would be some sheninagans involved.


What´s more in White Men Can´t Jump Woody also got to work with the ultimate MILF Rosie Perez whose breasts get bigger and bigger each year.


But I´m not the only one who is fascinated by Rosie´s rapidly rising rotund rack as they were even immortalized in a song by Kanye West much to the chagrin of Rosie : " I'm a woman of a certain age, if you're gonna mention me in a song, have a little respect. He mentions my breasts. When you walk down the street and you have 15 - year - old boys ... they're like, ' Yo, Rosie, D's D's, Rosie Perez,' it's no good." I´m not sure what being a woman of a " certain age " has to do with it, because strangers singing about the size of your breasts would have you uncomfortable at any age.

Someone who surely has some thoughts along that line is Craig Ferguson who makes her come again and again ... as a guest on his show I mean. Originally I wanted to post a video from The Tonight Show where she appeared with an r - rated cleavage but I haven´t found it yet on YouTube.



Ronny Cox celebrates his 78th birthday and even though he has a porn name he is not in the adult film industry and you know his face from such movies like Total Recall, Robocop, Star Trek : The Next Generation or Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop II with Brigitte Nielsen. I don´t know how much money she got when she divorced but Sylvester Stallone once answered the question if he´s the richest actor in Hollywood to the extent that he´s at least the actor with the richest ex wife in Hollywood.


Another movie Ronnie Cox appeared in is the 1990 Captain America movie and since I mentioned it just a few weeks back when another cast member, Ned Beatty celebrated his anniversary I want to re - post it.



In our dearly departed section we have two candidates who are related with crime series, Götz George who became a part of german pop culture for his portrayal of policeman Horst Schimanski and Raymond Chandler whose Phillip Marlowe stories have been adapted into all kind of media.



Since I couldn´t find a good video with Kelley Jones we´re staying with law enforcement and Nicole Beharie who plays Leftenant Abbie Mills on Sleepy Hollow. She´s one of the reason why it has had so much success.


Since one of the Kelley Jones covers in this post is for Sleepy Hollow ( although the movie with Johnny Depp, not the tv series ) I wanted to take the opportunity to pimp one of my favorite mystery series. On my last trip to Ludwigsburg I bought the first season although it´s the PG - 16 version so there might be some cut scenes. On the other hand there is no german R - rated version so if I want to ever watch it with my mother this is it. And I don´t think they cut any of the good scenes with Nicole.


I have just finished binge watching the third season and I´m anxious to see how they are going to continue. To avoid any spoilers you should not watch the following trailer if you haven´t seen the entire first season.



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