Few things bring me as much joy as a new collection of art from the clown princes of naughty, Fastner & Larson.  Good ol’ Sal Q has unleashed Tricks & Treats on fans of pin-up, the latest collection from the duo, all in gorgeous full color!  The cover tells the whole story here as the gorgeous hottie is passing out candy to the eager trick-or-treaters, but take a look down by her feet…it seems as if some little ghoul or goblin has decided to go in search of his own special treat under her dress.  This is what these guys do better than anyone else…hot babes laced with naughty, yet fairly harmless humor.  In this regard they are really a throwback to some of those great pinup artists of the 50’s and 60’s such as Art Frahm.

As you might gather from the title, this is a themed collection with an emphasis on monsters and horror, and of course, gorgeous women.  All of the pieces in the book are titled.  A favorite early on is “There Goes Tokyo” as a miniature Godzilla blasts a jet of fire at the read end of a schoolgirl who has bent over to pick up one of her books.  There again is the patented F & L humor on display.  “Party at Monster Beach” features the Wolf Man battling the Creature from the Black Lagoon, with the winner getting the scantily-clad girl firmly in the Wolf Man’s grip.  What happens when you eat “Too Much Candy?”  You get put over the knee of a pumpkin-headed scarecrow and get a good spanking on your backside, that’s what!  That one is just great!

Spankings and bondage are a central theme throughout the book, and the fans of Fastner & Larson wouldn’t have it any other way.  Another great spanking piece shows a tiny little sprite or pixie holding a BIG paddle and ready to deliver the punishment to the very cute, human-sized blonde.  Another favorite piece is “Clawfoot Tub” showing a woman enjoying a nice hot soak in the bathtub, oblivious to the eye and tentacle poking out of the water.  In all the book is 48 pages with cover-to-cover full color.  One of the best books yet from Fastner and Larson and SQP!

If you’ve never seen one of Insight Editions books on films you don’t know what you are missing.  These are not just books that you read, but they are the next best things to actually seeing the films.  You actually can experience the movie through words and pictures but also through the dozens of little surprises that pop out at you as you journey through the pages.  The smash Broadway hit musical Hairspray came to the big screen in July to rave reviews from both film critics and fans alike.  Newspapers and magazines such as the Boston Globe, Chicago Sun Times, Entertainment Weekly, New York Post, and Rolling Stone all gave the film a grade of an A or an A-.  It just proves that film fans still love a good musical when its done right.

In conjunction with the film, Insight Editions has released their wonderful book that brings the film home to fans in a unique way.  Beginning with a foreword by John Waters, the book explores the making of the film from the original version, to the stage, and finally this Summer’s blockbuster re-make, all in full, bold color.  The book contains literally hundreds of photos from the film as well as exclusive, behind-the-scene shots of cast and crew.   John Travolta not only plays the most unique role in his illustrious career as Mama Edna, but he supplies own thoughts on the role and why he decided to do the film.  Travolta discusses his approach to the role in trying to make Edna a believable character, from her voice right down to how she walks.  From his words, you can see that John had a great time making this movie, particularly the climactic dance number.  Besides Travolta you’ll meet the rest of the fantastic cast such as James Marsden as Corny Collins, Michelle Pfeiffer as Velma Von Tussle, Amanda Bynes as Penny Pingleton, Jerry Stiller as Mr. Pinky, Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle, and Christopher Walken as Wilbur Turnblad.  (Man!  That is some cast!) But this isn’t just some dry narration on making a movie.  As you begin to negotiate the pages you start encountering some of those surprises I talked about earlier.  There are all sorts of inserts placed in the book…faux posters for TV shows that were seen in the film, postcards that have nostalgic, period designs, cling-on stickers, and envelopes that you have to open that contain other special treats.  I’m not going to play spoiler, you’ll have to get the book and open them yourself!

There’s also great articles about the films song and dance numbers and lots of trivia about the early 1960’s like the top Juke Box hits of 1962, as well as styles of clothes and hair from the era.  From cover to cover this is just a treat for the eyes and will put a smile on your face.  A great collector’s book!

ewwww, not like THAT! sheesh. Anyway, the Shots in the Dark team will be representing Muggles everywhere as we travel to a magic-ified Hero Headquarters in Wheeling, IL TONIGHT, Friday 20th of July! The party celebrating the launch of the seventh book starts at 9 and runs past midnight, when you can buy your copy! There will be a real magician there putting on a show at about 10:30, and Shots in the Dark will be recording an extra special Potter-cast! Get it? Huh? Do you get it? I replaced “Pod” with “Potter.” Now do you get it? Cause it’s all about Harry Potter, with book summaries from the first six, a movie review of the 5th movie, and a little peek at what’s to come in Year Seven: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Get it now? Potter-cast. Heh. I crack myself up. Well, See you there, and if we don’t, check back tomorrow night for the all new episode of your favorite geek culture podcast, Shots in the Dark!

Whenever you listen to one of the old timers talk wrestling, you kind of wonder if they’re still working you or not. For the guys whose carny backgrounds demanded that they pay homage to kayfabe, their livelihoods and their health depended on it. After all, you didn’t want to be the guy caught smartening up the marks, because they would tell all their friends it was fake, then they wouldn’t come, and then your co-workers would break your legs.

On the other hand, it seems like these guys had the most amazing experiences, and that’s what you pick up out of Classy Freddie Blassie’s book Listen, You Pencil Neck Geeks. The road stories, the crazy fan stories, the lifestyle stories, the in-ring stories… this book has them all. It’s a very entertaining read and well worth your time.

One nice thing about this book is that Blassie doesn’t pull punches with himself or others. He’ll tell you how much money he made in one sentence, and then in the next sentence admit that he was a lousy father and a serial fornicator. Such honesty is refreshing, as the only comparable book that I’ve read is Ric Flair’s. Most of the other books out there tend to sweep such infidelities under the rug.

I honestly didn’t know as I was reading the book that Blassie passed away in the same year as this was published. It became a bit depressing to me then that I would never get to meet the man or hear him use that trademark catchphrase of his. Above all, he seemed to be a guy that made himself better and tried to do better for himself and his financially.

To say that the Mick Foley books and the Ric Flair book were some of the greatest wrestling books ever written are really unimaginative picks. This one deserves any accolades it gets, simply because it is one of the more understated offerings from WWE Books. Blassie’s career spanned seven decades, and he’s worked with and known all the great ones. This is an excellent book, and it’s a great history lesson of the who’s who of the wrestling business. In the end, I think Blassie got all the credit and stability he was searching for in wrestling when he started, and isn’t that all that really matters?

You remember in 4th grade when you learned all the cuss words? You probably felt like a big-shot dropping F-bombs out on the playground, showing off how cool you were and how you sounded like an adult. Well, this book reminds me of that, both figuratively and literally. World Wrestling Insanity by James Guttman covers WWE’s missteps between 2001 and 2005 and discusses ad nauseum all the follies of the company’s poor decision making. Instead, it only succeeds in driving away wrestling fans out of boredom and non-fans in confusion.

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The Shadow is back in a new series of officially licensed, pulp-sized trade paperbacks.  These re-print editions featuring unabridged text and the original illustrations are the result of a partnership between Sanctum Productions and Nostalgia Ventures. Each volume reprints two original stories from The Shadow Magazine as well as complementary articles.  Volume six of the series features “The Shadow’s Justice” from April 15, 1933, and “The Broken Napoleons” from July 15, 1936.

“The Shadow’s Justice” is a tale straight out of 1930’s crime noir thrillers.  A wealthy, but dying old man named Houston Bostwick has arranged for his estate to either go to his son, Carter, who is returning home after a ten year absence, or to his ne’er-do-well nephew Drew Westling, should anything happen to Carter.  Just one catch, the bulk of Bostwick’s money has been carefully hidden and he’s left clues for his son or nephew to find it, if they are worthy. Westling has gotten himself into debt with a racketeer named Hub Rowley.  Hub intends to make sure that Carter never makes it home and the money passes to Westling, whom he intends to extort as much of the wealth as he can.  He sends one of his men down to Cuba to hire local thugs to kill Carter before he can get on the ship home.   Only the timely intervention of the Shadow, with the twin .45’s blazing, saves Carter.

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Before you mock me, yes, I know this was on Oprah’s Book Club list last month. Generally, I would ignore what her sheeple are reading, but when I read the description for this novel, they had me at “post-apocalyptic”. I wasn’t familiar with McCarthy or his work prior to reading this novel, nor did I know that this book won the Pulitzer Prize this year for fiction.

The Road isn’t an exceptionally exciting post-apocalyptic tale in the vein of such tales as The Road Warrior, The Day After, or even Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, but McCarthy does make you think about what would happen to the survivors of a nuclear war and how desolate the world would be if 99% of the population of North America were wiped out.

Honestly, I can’t really tell you the plot, because I didn’t really get what was happening most of the time, and there really isn’t a lot going on besides the lead characters migrating and starving to death. The basic story is about a father and son who are the lone survivors of their family after what is assumed to be a nuclear war at least 10 years earlier. The man’s wife gave birth shortly after the war and later committed suicide because she had lost all hope for their meager existence. The man decides to head south so that they don’t have to go through another winter huddled up in their home with no heat. They pack up all their belongings into a shopping cart, hit the road, and head south.

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Chicago, IL (April 17, 2007) - The April 28th episode of Shots in the Dark will be recorded at the Shots in the Dark Launch Party at Hero Headquarters! The episode will include the usual geek news, as well as interviews with Tim Demeter, Mike Norton, and Skottie Young. You can participate in this week’s show just by attending the party and saying hi! The party will be from 10am - 9pm on Saturday, April 28th at Hero Headquarters, 1530 W. Lake Cook Rd. in Wheeling, IL.

Other activities at the launch party include gaming of many different kinds including Heroclix, raffles and auctions of signed goods from Brian K. Vaughan, Robert Richardson, Sean McKeever, Eric Wight, and Geoff Johns, as well as original sketches and pages by creators such as Phil Hester and Ande Parks. Half of the proceeds from the auctions and raffles, as well as 100% of the proceeds from any sketches done at the event will be donated to the Hero Initiative ( www.heroinitiative.org). The Shots in the Dark launch party also kicks off the Grand Re-Opening Week of Hero Headquarters which will culminate in their own celebration on May 5th!

Don’t forget there are now THREE great Shots in the Dark episodes available for download on the Shots in the Dark website, including the gang’s interview with comics legend Jeph Loeb!

Before I begin, I need to mention that our good friends over at Simon & Schuster have a contest going on over at simonsays.com. Click the link and check it out. 10 winners get signed copies of this book. The grand prize winner gets a phone call from the Mickster himself. Enter by May 13.

You get the sense from reading Mick Foley’s latest novel The Hardcore Diaries that this might be his swan song in both literature and sports entertainment. Unlike his past nonfiction books that were either autobiographical (Have a Nice Day) or opinionated (Foley Is Good), this book is kind of like a concept album. Foley says that the central idea of his book is to show behind the scenes how a wrestling storyline plays out from the pitch to the final product. The undercurrent is that Mick is making a simultaneous comeback in both the literary and sports entertainment worlds and trying to regain his passion for each in the process. Unfortunately, you don’t really see that passion, and the effect is noticeable.

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I was given the opportunity to review the book Women! Rebel! recently, and I accepted the offer for many reasons. The first is that as a writer, I enjoy reading other writers that are in the beginning stages of everything. The second is that I thought that even if I didn’t agree with the ideas behind the book, it sounded interesting.

The premise of the book is basically that women should not accept any crap from men. This is a valid premise, of course, and one I agree with. The author, Gabby Buzzman, was writing not only about others but also about her own experience after two divorces. It’s obvious from the title and the cover (three female fists in the air) that this was not going to be a happy-go-lucky book. But before I get into my feelings on the book, I must say that I understand why the author wrote it. It is a horrible thing to be treated like dirt, and no one deserves it. However, I did not deserve the suffering thrust upon me when I opened this book.

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A moment of silence, please…

 Kurt Vonegut, Jr.

November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007

 ” ‘A was a man, take him for all in all:

I shall not look upon his like again.”

Since Mick Foley broke into the literary business with his 1999 New York Times best-selling biography Have a Nice Day, anybody and everybody has tried to break into the business and authored their own books. It seems that the ensuing wake of pulp has fallen into three categories:

• Tell-alls you believe (the Foley books, Ric Flair, Edge)
• Tell-alls you don’t believe (Missy Hyatt, Diamond Dallas Page)
• Internet writers ranting on the business

That last category seems to have only sprung up within the past couple of years, as famed wrestling ranters like Scott Keith and others have cashed in on their popularity. There’s nothing wrong with that. I only wish I could get a sweet gig like that.

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BETTIE PAGE BY OLIVIA 

 If you thought that the pairing of the world’s premiere pin-up artist Olivia, and the most celebrated pin-up model Bettie Page, would be a match made in Heaven, you would be one-hundred percent correct. Like peanut butter and chocolate, the two were made for each other. Bettie Page by Olivia is a brand new book from Ozone Productions featuring over 50 paintings of the reclusive Ms. Page by Olivia.

Hugh Hefner provides the foreward to the book that gives Page & Olivia fans 80 pages of delectable art. Why Hefner? Well who better? Page appeared as a centerfold in the magazine in the 50’s and many of Olivia’s Page paintings first appeared in Playboy.

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I posted a short book review over on my blog. Go check it out here.

Also, Gerweck.net has a review up of the new Wrestlemania III Championship Edition DVD (linked through here). It looks very cool, and I look forward to getting my copy. Hopefully, WWE will release similar historical editions in the future. Please make sure to check out my classy treatment of Koko B. Ware’s bird (R.I.P.).

History is written by the victors, which was the impression that I got when I watched WWE’s Rise and Fall of ECW documentary. The only ex-ECW guys they interviewed were those on Vince McMahon’s payroll. Eric Bischoff and WCW were portrayed as a desperate predator who stole Paul Heyman’s talent. Vince McMahon was portrayed as ECW’s benefactor who kept them afloat until the very end. It’s an excellent DVD, but you get the idea by the end that you’ve only heard half the story.

That’s where Hardcore History: The Extremely Unauthorized Story of ECW comes in. Author Scott E. Williams got the side of the story in his book that WWE didn’t, and then took it one step further. Not only did he talk to the non-contracted talent like Shane Douglas, Raven, Terry Funk, Jerry Lynn, Francine, and others, but he also sought out former business partners and associates and co-promoters to get a side of Paul Heyman that I think everyone suspected, but had no idea of the degree of disorganization under which he operated. In fact, for a book that some would probably say primarily deals in “dirt”, this is about the best researched wrestling book that I’ve ever read.

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