Best Cheap but GREAT over-sized comic book posters of the Day!!!

Best Cheap but GREAT over-sized comic book posters!!!

Makes fantastic gifts or presents for the pop-culture fan in your life, or give to yourself as a nice present!

The Destroyer by Frank Frazetta Cool Wall Decor Art Print Poster 24×36

 

 

Captain America – Madbomb Marvel Retro” Maxi Poster 36 x 24

 

Alex Ross 70721 Marvel Generations Oversize Vinyl 62×48 Poster

 

Frank Frazetta Red Planet Mars Science Fiction Fantasy Artwork Classic Retro Vintage SciFi Artist Comic Book Cover 1970s Cool Wall Decor Art Print Poster 24×36

 

Magneto Triumphant Marvel Comics Retro Cover Art Cool Wall Decor Art Print Poster 24×36

 

Trends International DC Comics – Justice League – Alex Ross – The Elite, 22.375″ x 34″, Black Framed Version

Princess and The Panther by Frank Frazetta Cool Wall Decor Art Print Poster 24×36

 

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A 58-Year-Old Grandmother Was Imprisoned For Showing A Movie!?

There are some places where you can almost hear… time marching backwards.

Places I wouldn’t suggest moving a family to, or supporting by paying taxes, tribute to.

Places, communities where the whiff of yesterday is strong, and unappealing in the air. Where fear and bigotry and unequal policing covers up communities that are no longer ‘officially’ separate but still vastly unequal under the law.

EAST HIGH SCHOOL in Columbus Ohio is allegedly the school at the center of turning a seemingly simple disciplinary matter into an absurd and Kafkaesque criminal matter. A 90% white high school (according to their face-book page) and the surrounding community at the center of throwing a Black substitute teacher, a 58 yo Grand Mother, into prison for showing a well known mainstream horror movie, THE ABCs OF DEATH to a high-school Spanish class.

Judge Charles A. Schneider is allegedly the judge that handed down the sentence.

Without doubt the choice of film is questionable, and ill-advised, but to first cost a woman her job, and then to be worthy of the courts time, much less a sentence of prison is patently absurd and outrageous.

First this film is not a porno or a snuff film or even a SAW type movie, it’s a bit less salacious than that. A variety of directors, each taking a letter and illustrating a horror story around it. The film has moments of being well done, and moments of being truly tasteless and boring and inept, but in the 21st century shows very little that a class of high-schoolers had not been exposed to. The film is on most streaming services for free, so arguably most of the kids in that class had already seen the movie.

So while without a doubt the choice of showing a horror film, even an alphabet themed one in a Spanish class is not just ill advised but, let’s say it, crossing the border into stupid; stupidity last time I checked wasn’t a crime. If it was, seemingly many of the staff, administration, and parents involved in making this particular molehill into a mountain, would likewise be facing prison time.

So what can you do? Well it’s seemingly a done deal. But what about next time.

Well if I’m a parent I would like to know what part the school played in the above scenario? And if it had been a straight out of college blond 20something female teacher, who had done likewise… would there even have been a reprimand much less her losing her job, and facing criminal and archaic obscenity charges?

Add to that would this Blonde 20-something teacher up on obscenity charges have been tried by a jury made up of primarily of people of different ethnicities than her? And if all this was the case would she have been found guilty? And if found guilty would the judge have mandated prison time rather than a suspended sentence?

And if the first answer that strikes you to all the above hypothetical questions is no, than perhaps what is happening in Columbus, Ohio is far less to do with obscenity laws, and movie quality, and questionable teaching skills, and more to do with ethnicity, prejudice, mob mentality, and a lynching 21st style. With the media and the courts as the rope.

To learn more go here:

http://fantasticfest.com/news/entry/a-58-year-old-grandmother-was-imprisoned-for-showing-a-movie.-lets-get-her

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/5/sheila-kearns-ohio-teacher-gets-90-days-in-jail-fo/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/06/she-showed-a-horror-movie-to-high-schoolers-and-now-she-s-going-to-jail.html

Justice for Mike Brown Leadership Coalition calls for boycott of Burger King!!

I don’t like platitudes, I don’t like slogans, I don’t like lip-service in place of real change.

I don’t like the simple answers to complex questions that the nightly news would feed us all.

I do not like the parts they would have us play, the lines they would have us draw, the sides they would have us choose.

“Black Lives Matter” what an inane slogan to march under.

It is the thought process of aging decrepit hippies, and misguided youths who have not died enough to live. Black Lives Matter? To who? Why? For what reason?

This is not about Black lives, it is about all lives.

That is the only sane slogan.

It is about the quality of the republic.

It is about justice.

There are vile human beings of the Black persuasion I would not cross the street to spit on. There are vile human beings of the White and Brown and Yellow persuasion who are likewise cancers and abominations on the healthy body of society.

The job is to protect society from those vile humans, and a huge part of that is insuring these vile people aren’t issued badges. And most of them aren’t, unfortunately a few of them are. And it only takes a few, to bring us here.

Not everyone is cut out for the responsibility of making life and death decisions, and when the recruiting methods are questionable, and there are no checks and balances, no culpability, no reprisals for bad behavior, you are just priming a powder-keg… to explode.

Civilization, the orderly world you take for granted and hope to wake and sleep to, depends on those tasked with holding the line between anarchy and order. And bad cops and the bad administration that supports them, make that already heavy responsibility an untenable one.

Bad cops ruin the only thing a good cop has of value, the line, and the holding of it.

The law either binds us all, Black and Brown and Yellow and White, or it binds none of us. Preserves none of us, and we can all fall afoul of monsters with badges masquerading as men. Criminals posing as cops.

NYPD Brutality pattern

These bad cops, and bad DAs, and bad judges, make the line untenable to hold, make even the good cops smeared with the offal of the bad, until we are no longer protecting and serving, but suddenly we’re nothing more than an unruly mob, with enemies everywhere we look.

It is a bad road that we have seen before, and god defend us from seeing it again.

The answer is not with marches, at least not just with marching. That’s a 20th century response, that organizations like the NAACP in their stupidity do not realize is inadequate for a 21st century world. You want change that protects civilians from monsters with badges, you have to make it cost. That means NAACP you may have to actually get off your fat assess and boycott some of those rich sponsors that line your pockets to look the other way.

It means you may have to sacrifice.

That we may all have to sacrifice.

And the one thing more powerful than the vote, is financial reprisals. Putting someone’s money… at risk.

Do you think Black people in Jim Crow America, got to ride in the front of the bus because of Rosa Parks? No. Black people got to ride in the front of the bus because, for over 365 days, people outraged and enraged and fed-up; decided to be inspired by Rosa Parks, and decided they would not spend money with the mass transit system.

They would sacrifice.

And suddenly, that loss of revenue, that sacrifice, these people walking for miles for over a year, rather than sit in the back of a bus… that willingness to speak in volumes in the only language that America truly understands… dollars… that sacrifice made bigots willing to concede that their bigotry (in that situation) was of less value than your dollars.

It made them realize a lesson that you have to (from time to time) teach bullies… that the cost of disrespect can be far more expensive than the cost of respect. That respect is more affordable.

And the same must occur in any region where police brutality is an unpunished pattern such as in New york City and Ferguson, Missouri; you must make in those regions the cost of disrespect more expensive than the cost of respect.

You get businesses to sign petitions calling for the removal of this bad cop, and this bad police captain, and this bad DA, and this bad judge, and if necessary the Mayor, the Governor, the Senator. You find the businesses in that region who respect your dollars, and the ones who do not.

In the case of Ferguson they are starting by calling for the Boycott of BURGER KING, a company headquartered in the state where Trayvon Martin was killed. A humble start to be sure, but from such beginnings (this nation itself is proof)… great things do rise.

A regional and nationwide boycott, in Ferguson, in New York, in Baltimore, in Cincinnati, in your homes, in your hearts, a boycott of businesses that do not side with the populations that enrich them, over the abusive thugs posing as cops and lawyers, who jointly undo everything that can make our nation better.

It is a battle that not only can you win, with education and commitment and sacrifice, it is a battle others before you have paid dearly to win great portions of. Today is just your turn.

Your day in the sun.

To either meanly lose or nobly win… your freedom.

You don’t like bad cops.

Neither do good cops.

You want to do something of value, stand the eff up like men and help us.

Help us all.

What are you prepared to do?

I would say start here:

http://mikebrowncoalition.org/

Judge gives promising basketball recruit, High-schooler Tony Farmer 3-year sentence

I don’t follow the news, I have a hard enough time following my own life.

But the story of the 6’7″ highschool star forward, who was all set to be snapped up for future Basketball fame, getting 3 years in prison, for an altercation with his ex-girlfriend last year, well that made it on my radar.

Helped by the fact that he made a quite understandable, if not quite smart, spectacle of himself when the verdict was read.

Depending where you get your news he either wailed like a little girl, fell out, or fainted. Possibly not the image you want to project before heading to the big house.

It sounds like I’m taking this lightly, I’m really not.

Underneath the idiotic circus the media always makes of the news is perhaps an intriguing story, a hard lesson learned, perhaps a bit of a miscarriage of justice (not even his ex-girlfriend thinks sending him to prison is a good idea, for what, from what I can find, amounts to a stupid, but relatively minor domestic dispute).

I mean in a country where you can shoot somebody in the face and not do a day in jail, (Dick Cheney, I’m looking at you!), three years for a minor domestic is a bit much.

And his lawyer not pleading down the charges and getting rid of that Kidnap charge is what really got Farmer the heavy time (Calling kidnap what really sounds like a blustering moronic jock, putting hands on his girl, which is not something to be condoned, but it is something most moronic jocks grow out of, and it is something that you start throwing excessive prison time at, you’d have half the people in the NFL and NBA, in prison before they ever had their careers. Calling Kidnapping what amounts to hormones, or stupid young love or lust, may be more than a bit much),

I think the application of the charge of kidnap in this case may have been more than a bit fluid and excessive.

I’m not saying a promising career makes you above the law, but neither should other factors make you more harshly sentenced by the law.

So yeah for his lawyer not to plead out of that Kidnap charge, especially when the victim was willing, I tell you that’s the back-breaker.

It’s the problem with our justice system, it isn’t about what’s true or false, it isn’t about what is just…it’s about how good your lawyer is.

Are we better for another young man going to gladiator school, does anyone think he’ll come out and offer more to society, or will, having supped at America’s horrendous system, will he become a nightmare worthy of the caging.

Suddenly a young man who potentially could have added something to the world, is on the fast track to being a perennial drain on tax dollars, and perhaps a repeat offender, if statistics are to be believed.

Perspective.

Perspective.

He had none, and made a mistake. His excuse was he was 17. What will be our excuse, for our lack of perspective? There are people who deserve and warrant long prison sentences for the good of society, I don’t think anyone will argue that that is the case here.

Perspective.

I was also interested in finding a pic of the girlfriend, this Andrea Lane, whom an 18 year old (17 at the time) in a fit of stupidity lost his future for. This is a young man who, remove that night, would right now be talking about college at least, and NBA possibly, and would have had his pick of girls.

Again not making light, not being vulgar, I’m giving perspective to all sides.

It’s the thing about being young, you have no perspective, no patience, no belief in anything but now. And that stupidity is many things, but I have my doubts about such stupidity being grounds for incarceration. At least of the 3 year variety.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Pamela Barker has a 180 days to consider her sentence, to judge her own perspective, and see if… justice is served by it.

Time will tell.

Artist of the Day: Alex Ross!!

The only reason I started rereading comics or graphic novels or slims, is because of Alex Ross. I had turned my back on the medium, just tired of the juvenile art, the storytelling style, everything. Then Alex Ross exploded onto the scene with the one-two punch of the graphic novels MARVELS then KINGDOM COME.

Self contained, stand alone, complete stories, told with jaw droppingly astonishing painted art. People immediately began calling him the Norman Rockwell of comics, and that term is not quite undeserved.

Like Norman Rockwell, Alex Ross is able to imbue his scenes with a sense of homey Americana, that calls back a yearning to better, simpler days now passed… or perhaps never existed.

But he does more than imbue scenes with nostalgia, he does something Rockwell never did, perhaps never dreamt of doing, Alex Ross imbues his scenes with a sense of awe, of scale, of grandeur.

Of myth.

It has become habit these days for people without a fraction of Ross’ talent or vision to take his work for granted. To call his effort: extremism, and to call his meticulous paints: stiff, over rendering… I see nothing stiff or over-rendered in the work of Alex Ross but people are allowed their opinion, though the criticism always struck me as uninformed opinion.

It always struck me as the voices of jealous ants trying to deride an elephant. People disparaging Alex Ross, simply because he was that good.

Alex Ross is a meticulous perfectionist, who paints worlds that never were, but should be, and populates them with the stuff of faith…rewarded. Long before Hollywood made a habit of making our marvels real, Ross reached out to the lightning, and called down the thunder, and put it on paper, and gave us all a vision… to aspire to.

Many a painter has come on the sequential art scene since Ross’ mainstream debut, and they all bring something wonderful to the mix. But it’s a testament to Alex Ross’ skill, his understanding and his love for the heroic… that none of the numerous painters now in the medium, quite grasp that sense of grandeur that Ross brings to even the least of his creations.

All his creations look out at you with eyes that have seen the worst, yet still seem to say… “endure, be better.”

And end of the day, I figure… that’s not such a bad message for an artist and his art to leave us with. So for all these reasons Alex Ross is our Artist of the Day.

Check out all his work at the links below:

Site for Alex Ross Art and Info!

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross

Rough Justice: The DC Comics Sketches of Alex Ross

The Dynamite Art of Alex Ross HC

The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes

Absolute Justice

Absolute Kingdom Come

Uncle Sam: Deluxe Edition

COMIC BOOK SERIES OF THE DAY III of III: MOONSTONE

Cheating here a bit by listing as my series of the day, a company instead of a single title.

Moonstone is a publishing company that most of you may not have heard of. Their specialty is pulp heroes and I’m a huge fan! Check out some pulp greatness that I bought from them today!

Rocking huh?! And to get those great issues check your local comic store, or pick all the SPIDER stuff collected here: The Spider: Judge, Jury & Executioner HC

Enemies of the State, Young Alexanders and Multi National Corporations

Ohhhh

theres got to be more
on this
road of life
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife
oh hhhh
there’s got to be more
On the
Road of Life

oh
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife

oh
there’s got to be more
than this
horror and strife

Ohhh
there’s got to be
Mooooore
on a
Road called life

–copyright 2011 HT & this blog

So I lit into Microsoft a post or so back, and deservedly so. But, while they are one of the more egregious examples of power corrupting, there is culpability enough to go around,

President Obama and the FBI- earn my unhappy face for an administration that unfortunately differed from his predecessor’s only in eloquence. In the real nuts and bolts of what he signed into law, he continued the rape of the American citizen in the interest of big business, and the expansion of both the domestic and global police state, and the dismantling of civil liberties.

Sweeping into office on the dreams and quotations of better men, men who fought FOR civil liberties, his administration, as I feared (go back to my pre-election posts) has been a staggering betrayal of every election promise, and every election speech.

But even I, am surprised to the degree, that he has utterly sold out the American people.

He is the living, walking embodiment of the talking android from Ishmael Reed’s seminal MUMBO JUMBO (get the audio book, it reorders the text and is actually an improvement). Something designed to speak the words, and have the appearance of the common man and liberty, but underneath serves those who would see the bulk of men in chains.

His latest betrayal, not just of America, but the world, is signing into law Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Which basically gives media empires sweeping, unmitigated powers to shut down anything or anyone, anywhere in the world, with the full military might of Herr Sam backing them. It’s a blank check for tyranny.

Another one.

God, seriously, I get the idea of money, I even get the idea of power, and I know Obama, and the various acronym-ed agencies, distant step-children of the Nazi SS, are but pawns for massive multi-nationals, but I don’t get the pawn part.

I mean, I don’t get the trade-off of power and money for liberty and justice.

I don’t see the value of much, if you have to give up those last two things to get it. I don’t see what good money and power does you, after you’ve betrayed every single thing and every single one.

I don’t know how you look anyone in the eye, your children, your family, when they ask you how your day was… and you have to dodge around the fact that you spent the day eliminating liberties.

Not seeing the upside to that.

To surrender one freedom, to back pedal on one liberty, to erase one right, is to spit on the sacrifice, and blood, and suffering of countless people. It is to make a mockery of every war fought, and every life lost, if the purpose of all that blood, is but more efficient tyranny.

Is that really the job you signed up for?

More efficient tyranny?

Be it warrantless wiretaps, warrantless isp, email, vehicle and cell phone monitoring. Even usage of social networks, such as the whole Cops twittering fiasco. Any liberty you think you have online, law enforcement is using as a weapon.

Every single one.

How is Nazi Germany wrong, if a Patriot Act America and an Apartheid Israel can be right?

How? What did we fight for, if we surrender everyone of our liberties to people who live and die, by every tide, and every atrocity, we fought to stem.

We fought Nazis, only to become Nazis? And we fought slavery, only to become enslaved?

Not acceptable.

Not if you wrap it in the red, white, and blue, not if you have trumpets blaring, not if you sanctify it in tales of Holocaust.

It is not acceptable.

If you came out of a Holocaust, only to become a holocaust, then you are not acceptable.

And you can call yourself the FBI, and you can call yourself America, and you can yourself patriots.

But what you are, are your grandparents betrayers, and your Grandchildrens slavers. What you are… is the problem.

Money, Power?

For this you sell your past and your future?

Money,Power?

But how much of either do you see?

You young recruit, I’m asking you. Hired to bark on command, hired to put down protestors, and spy on citizens, and kill enemies.

Is the money good? Is the power good?

Not good enough I think.

Because I think even paying lip service to liberty, and justice, you begin to know those words. And in some part of you, you seek more of the American Dream, then the tatters they are using you to make of it.

They are old. And scared. These tired dragons of Woodrow’s New World Order dream, that hire you to protect their money and their power.

But you are young, and somewhere not quite dulled by the programming, is the idea… that we can all be more, than pawns in an old game.

Money and Power.

Those are old ideas for old men. They are illusions of paper and pen. And Alexanders would have laughed at them, and put all these foolish old men to the sword.

All of them.

All the captains of Industry. The plotters of wars. The hoarders of wealth.

Alexanders would have laughed at them, and put them all to the sword.

Liberty and justice.

THESE are words to put air in your lungs, these are words to make your chin rise, and your heart swell. These are words to raise children on. These are the causes you were put here for young Alexanders.

You are not here to be a simpering old man’s dog, protecting his ip and movie rights, and his numerous illusions, you are here young Alexander, in this place, in this time, in this position… to make right the things that are wrong.

To make right, the things that are wrong.

And I so charge you, by a right and a duty that transcends multi-nationals and war machines and orbital weapons, I charge you by a higher duty, your own decency…. look at all this blood… and be moved.

And how you pleaseth God, whatever God you bend your knee to… how you pleaseth God, dispose the day.

This is why old men love wars, because it is a meat grinder for the young, so you can not rise against them, so you learn your place… in the game. Their game.

Be better than that my young Alexanders.

Be better… than them.

They speak of evolution as if it’s a dead thing.

It is not.

You are evolution.

Which is why they are in such a hurry to kill or corrupt you.

Evolve past them, and past their sad little dreams of power and money.

The day is coming, some would say it is upon us, when you will have to choose young Alexanders… what masters you follow and what masters, like rotting oaks, you fell.

Choose well, my lords.

Choose well.

The Last Black Samurai: Remembering Marc Olden; an interview with Diane Crafford

22 Feb 2012 Wednesday

There’s some news on the horizon regarding Mark Olden’s seminal series BLACK SAMURAI, as well as other work. I don’t have the thumbs up yet… to break the news, but in the interim I thought it was a great time to re-present this fun and informative interview, to tide you over.

Plus it has been updated with new pics, courtesy of Ms. Crafford. Please Enjoy!

And is it me, or does the new film THE RAVEN bear more than a passing resemblance to Marc Olden’s POE MUST DIE? hmmmm. 🙂 .

**************************

The fact that what you are about to read and hear is a YEAR in the preparation, goes to the absurd vagaries of mi vida loca, my crazy life.

But here finally, before the clock turns over on yet another year is my interview with Diane Crafford, on one of my favorite writers, the late, great and incomparable Marc Olden.

We’ll start with the text portion of the interview, and following that the pretty free flowing audio interview. HUGE, HUGE thanks to Diane for her time, her good humor, her anecdotes, and her extreme patience.

Now without further delay….

1st to set the stage.

Who is Marc Olden?

Marc Olden is a writer I became aware of, oddly enough on an auction site. Being something of a bibliophile I’m always looking to pick up books, and no doubt I was looking for either Warren Murphy’s DESTROYER books, or books by the late great Donald Goines.

And instead I came across this auction of a near complete series of BLACK SAMURAI books by Marc Olden. Being a Blackophile as well as a Bibliophile 🙂 , the title alone, as well as the very impressive 70s art on the paperbacks were enough for me to decide to purchase the books.

So I won the auction got the books, and was… from book one, blown away. This was not the hokey Jim Kelly movie, this was the undiluted source material, and it was pure and gritty, and brilliantly written. I’ve a huge fan of the Warren Murphy DESTROYER books, as well as the James Bonds and the MacK Bolans, but BLACK SAMURAI takes it to another level. BLACK SAMURAI is the BEST of that flooded market that was Men’s Action Adventure Books of the 70s. And the fact that it was so relatively short lived, also makes it a far more accessible body of work, and to my mind, far more prized.

And passion leading to passion, I just became obsessed with collecting all the work, primarily the 70s work, of this somehow inexplicably under the radar writer. Two of the holy grails being the Edgar Nominated POE MUST DIE, and the even more obscure BOOK OF SHADOWS (which I have to thank Diane for really making me aware of).

And reading his books led me to wanting to share with the world more of this, I felt and feel, brilliant, important, and overlooked writer.

So I reached out to the person who was keeping the late Mr. Olden’s web presence alive, the gracious Diane Crafford, and she was both kind and crazy enough to consent to the following free flowing and I believe informative and engaging interview/conversation.

The early part of our interview… the audio does not capture Diane’s, bubbly, fun, immersive personality, so I’m going to transcribe that from notes, and memory as best I can (I have a tendency toward the romantic, so anything that sounds like bs I take the blame for) bullet points mainly, and then we’ll kick into the audio.

HT: Hi Diane, thanks in advance for your time. We’re here to discuss Marc Olden one of my, and I assume your, favorite writers. Now most of this I got from your site as well as my research: He’s done over 40 books. His first work of fiction NARC a series of nine novels. He also produced the eight book BLACK SAMURAI series, made into a bad movie with Jim Kelly. And POE MUST DIE a stunning immersive novel drenched in period detail.

DC: You do your homework.

HT: I try. Now I’m detecting a bit of an accent, and your name Crafford, Londoner?

DC: Welsh, actually.

HT: Ahh, missed it by that much. Now tell me a little about Marc Olden behind the books

DC: Well he was born in Baltimore and was a press agent before he gave it up to become a writer. And once he chose that road, he embraced it completely. He had a strong work ethic, he wrote every day. His Black Samurai series was written at the same time he wrote the Narc series. It was while writing Narc he got to know guys in Law Enforcement. With advanced degree black belts in Japanese Karate and Aikido, he coached and mentored many members of the NYPD in Aikido.

HT: So his writing was an extension of the man.

DC: Yes. Like every good writer he wrote what he knew, of his passions. And after the NARC, BLACK SAMURAI books, he went into stand-alone novels such as INFORMANT. It did well but was not a best seller.

HT: Going back to BLACK SAMURAI series for a second, what did he think of the film?

DC: He had no input into the film. And resigned himself to it being something distinct from his work.

HT: Well let’s backup a bit, and tell us bit about you and how you met Marc.

DC: -I met him here at New York. He was a press agent for a restaurant, and I was working in film. We hit it off immediately. He had a way of carrying himself. –Later I was in London working for a film Producer, Sidney Dujer. The film was THE TWELVE CHAIRS starring Frank Lagella.

It’s amazing the little decisions that make all the difference. Marc went from Press Agent to writer, writing magazine articles. And then was approached to write a book on Angela Davis. And at that time I was looking for work, and became his transcriptionist. He had a head full of stories, he loved to tell them. And at the center of them was his belief in Justice.

HT: Now how did one of his earliest books, and what I consider not just one of his best books, but one of THE best books, POE MUST DIE come about? It seems a very ecletic work and ahead of its time work, mixing historical fiction and figures, mystery, horror, action, and adventure.

DC: He loved Edgar Allen Poe and he loved Charles Dickens. And POE MUST DIE at its heart is his love letter to those influences, but done as only he could do it. Dicken’s Christmas Carol, all about redemption, at the heart of this elaborately researched and gothic murder mystery,

HT: I can definitely see that. The book is so full of period detail, and authenticity, it puts you there in that place and in that time, of a wilder and younger England and America. What were some of his other inspirations?

DC: He thought Raymond Chandler was the best American writer. He was inspired by Eastern Philosophy through his mother and father (his father was George Olden, an art director). This filtered down to the type of man he was. Very calm, very contained, very brave and strong. I once asked him, “What is it that makes you so together?” and he said, “Good looks and the power of prayer.”And while he said it with a smile, that was sincere, it was how he lived his life. In balance.

“It was a different breed of man who sat in the cherrywood chair, his legs crossed under a cashmere robe, a thin volume on his lap. His graying hair, immaculately groomed, seemed to highlight a strong-lined, somber face… An aura of greatness and elegance seemed to permeate his being, as if his presence lent dignity to the book-lined walls. He seemed like what men should be, but never were.“
….THE DESTROYER: CREATED, THE DESTROYER by Warren Murphy.

HT: You can see that balance in his work. It’s very measured and… sincere. Which is an odd thing to say about fiction, but he wrote fiction with Authenticity.

DC: Yes. All his work was an extension of his interests. Take BOOK OF SHADOWS, he got the idea for that on one of our annual trips to England. He loved history and was a real Anglophile. He became intrigued by the canals that snaked through England, and that was the impetus for BOOK OF SHADOWS about vacationing American’s who stumble across things best left undisturbed.

***********************************

Okay that brings our text portion to an end. Onto the audio. You’re going to hear a lot of paper shuffling, that’s me jotting down notes, and flipping back and forth in my book, to consult my notes. I don’t think it distracts too much, Diane does a great job. So please enjoy! And bottom line, if you haven’t read anything by Marc Olden, go to Diane’s site and get acquainted. I would also suggest purchasing through her site.

Diane’s great site on Marc Olden

For more on Marc Olden, and particularly BLACK SAMURAI also see the following sites:

Great overview of the 8 Book BLACK SAMURAI series
More great Marc Olden/Black Samurai coverage

The below audio is a little over 33 minutes,, and the audio has been noise reduced to minimize the sound (my frantic note taking) as much as possible. Not great audio, but definitely listenable, and DEFINITELY informative.

Okay! You can listen to it HERE!

Copyright 2000-2012 Masai Inc and other specified writers. Images copyright their respective owners.

ABSOLUTE JUSTICE HC by Alex Ross, Krueger, Braithwaite: First Impressions Review!

I received THE ABSOLUTE JUSTICE oversized HC book in the mail today. Listed in my posting of 100 Greatest Graphic Novels, my thoughts upon finally viewing it were odd, and perhaps not quite human. I wondered… If in 1000 years either God or Man would make something as fine as this?

Hyperbole to be sure. But hyperbole spawned from a very impressive product.

More to come.

Fox News Corporation (ie Liars R Us) and Shirley Sherrod

Today’s recommended link:

MILK AND COOKIES

Here’s the thing.

I don’t want to give a fuck about Fox News. I would like it to not be my concern.

But to echo the THIRD MAN, “we do not choose our concerns”. We are born into our times, and must either be shaper or shaped. Producer or product. Labeler or Labled.

I prefer striving toward the former.

Falling down going forward. Fighting all the idiocies and hatemongers and muckrackers of our age.

Fighting all those sneaky foxes. Fighting all the things that would betray us.

There has been a pattern going on too long now, of right wing interests attacking any person of color (be that color Black, or Brown, or Pink) who will not cowtow to their ever more bigoted and totalitarian line. From mayors and governors, elected by many people, being removed from office by the machinations of a klannish and goosestepping few, to mass-media, particularly the ‘news’, as ever more aggregious sounding board for voices of hate.

The Fox News Company indeed.

Here are some other voices, offering the news you won’t hear from Fox:

COLOR OF CHANGE

EFF

MOVE ON — I particularly like the coverage on a Senator Simpson and his ‘stance’ on Social Security recipients. Amazing. 🙂

BOYCOTT FOX NEWS site –site is a little wacky, but I quite like his list of Fox sponsors to boycott. Done and Done. 🙂

DEMOCRATS.COM? –I’ve lived long enough to see the culpability of both parties. Many democrats are acually conservatives in hiding. And a few republicans are actually a throwback to the progressive, abolitionist leanings of what their party was before being hijacked by racists post the reconstruction. But even if Democrats as a rule, don’t walk the talk, I at least like the fact that this site at least talks the talk.

Another BOYCOTT FOX site – Pretty packed site. Definitely worth taking for a spin!

INFOSHOP- Love that logo!

I’ll add to the list as we go.

“You have been sleeping. You have slept too long.”
—ROS