Monday, October 31, 2005

Sad Sack #292

Alan Harvey (of Harvey Comics fame) has gone to great lengths to return "Sad Sack" to comic book shelves. This time he appears in an oversize edition that features a previously unpublished cover by "Sad Sack's" creator George Baker, and many previously unpublished stories by longtime "Sad Sack" artist and writer Fred Rhoads. This is especially great as both of these artists have since passed away. Hopefully, Alan will publish a little more frequently than in the past, but this is a great start! Be warned that this is in black and white, but that means you can appreciate the artwork a little better. Also, this item is currently in stock despite Amazon's claims otherwise. For more information contact Alan Harvey at www.sadsack.net or Mark Arnold at http://thft.home.att.net

-Mark.

Money

Why is it that some people are totally unethical and immoral and have tons of money to play with and seem to be rewarded for their evil deeds or at the very least rewarded for doing some mindless sport or acting, while people that try to play by the rules and be a more positive influence on the planet are usually severely underpaid? If this sounds autobiographical, of course it is.

I am not saying celebrities and sport figures and politicians and CEO-types are all unethical or immoral, but they certainly are paid quite a lot sometimes for doing very little. I know, I know, they had to pay their dues to get where they are, but so have I. I have always been severely underpaid for what I do (I have never made six figures, just FYI).

I would love to come into a few hundred thousand dollars at one fell swoop in a windfall before the end of 2005. Not because I want to hoard it, but because I can use the money to help others and pay off my outstanding debts. And, I don't want it as a loan, I want it free and clear with no obligation to anyone.

When Hurricane Katrina happened, all I could do was sit back and pray, as I had no real tangible amount to contribute. In fact, there have been times during 2005 where I had no physical money amount to my name, no savings, no coinage, as it was all going towards paying previous debts and bills which have been piling up. Of course, I could sell my possessions, but I did get a paycheck eventually, for which I am grateful.

I pray to God daily and am thankful for the blessings I do receive and know that at some point I will finally be paid what I am worth for all that I do, be it sales, video, film, cartooning, writing, art, comic books, publishing, etc.

I hope that I am not sounding like a baby as much as sounding realistic. I am not asking for a handout (however if you want to send me something with no obligation, I won't object)...just your prayers. You will be blessed, too.

-Mark.

Friday, October 28, 2005

World Series Stuff and the Jolly Green Giant

So the White Sox won. Last year the Red Sox won. Next year? Anyway, I was told that three teams have not won the World Series in like 300 years. In no particular order, they are the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians and the San Francisco Giants topping the list. It would be fun for these teams to win, just so all of these stupid baseball curses can be put in the past, especially that goat one.

In other news, completely unrelated, the Jolly Green Giant died! Well, actually his voice. Elmer "Len" Dresslar, Jr., the voice of the Jolly Green Giant, was 80 years old. Dresslar was a jazz singer in the group Singers Unlimited but became best known for vocalizing "Ho, ho, Ho" on more than four decades of TV commercials.

See you next blog...

-Mark.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Bangla Desh

"The Concert for Bangla Desh" came out on a US DVD (it came out a few years ago in Brazil), as well as a remastered CD in regular and deluxe packaging. For those who don't know (or don't care?), The Concert for Bangla Desh was the first charity rock concert orchestrated by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar way back in 1971, long before Live Aid or Farm Aid, etc. The concert itself has some interesting moments, particularly the long set by Bob Dylan who apparently hadn't set foot on stage in a number of years, and a solo by Ringo who messes up the words to his own "It Don't Come Easy". Too many drugs or nerves or both. Apparently John and Paul were invited to this as well. Paul said no on principal and John wouldn't do it unless Yoko was allowed to sing too. George said no, so John said no. So much for Beatles reunions. What's really interesting now is to watch this and then watch "Concert for George" right after and see a lot of the same players a little older making great music together as kind of bookends to George's solo career.

A funny aside if you can find it, "The Concert IN Bangla Desh" is a parody done at the time, which features two comics telling bad jokes with a hindu accent. The rimshots are done with a sitar and finger cymbal. It's on National Lampoon's "Radio Dinner" which really should be released on CD.

Good stuff all around.

-Mark.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Allan Sherman

I received an e-mail from Rhino Handmade saying that they are finally releasing all of Allan Sherman's recordings onto CD. However, the six disc limited edition box set costs $120! I have been clamoring for this for years, but this is ridiculous! Oh well. I guess the demand isn't there. I would wait for a used copy, but since it is a limited edition, there probably aren't going to be any.

I'll just sit back and salivate...

-Mark.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Lee's Comics

Lee's Comics had a 25c comic book sale last Saturday. Sorry you missed it. I was asked to help out for some trade and gladly accepted since I didn't have anything particularly scheduled to do. It's amazing to me that when I was a kid comic books were worth something if published before 1970. With a few exceptions, that is still the case even though more time has passed since 1970, than the amount of time between 1938 (the arguable start date of comic books) to 1970, but books from 1970 aren't worth nearly as much as books from 1938 were worth in 1970.

It is a sign of changing times, where people are spending far more on homes, gas and utilities than on frivolous items such as comic books which hit their peak of collecting around 1993.

-Mark.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Legend of Zorro

I saw "The Legend of Zorro" last night on a sneak preview ticket. The movie itself doesn't open until October 28. The security at the theater was so tight that it was worse than going through the airport. A terrorist couldn't get into the movie!

As for the movie itself, it's pretty silly, but it is all mindless fun. A couple of friends who went with me didn't like it that much, but I said, "What were you expecting? It's Zorro!" It's like trying to get meaninful messages from Batman or Spider-Man.

Admittedly, some of the stunts didn't make logical sense, but that's not the point. It was all like a James Bond film with handsome Antonio Banderas and beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones reprising their roles from the first film. I liked it better than the first one (with Anthony Hopkins), and as far as Zorro films go, it rivals the Tyrone Power version for action and fun.

Highly recommended.

-Mark.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Napoleon Dynamite Part 2

So I went to the Mac Filmmakers meeting last night and the producer of "Napoleon Dynamite" was there talking about that and previewing his new film "Think Tank". This movie proves to be funnier than "Napoleon" judging from the preview scene that was shown. Both movies were shot on a shoestring budget (approximately $400,000). The reason why "Think Tank" was done so cheaply is that it was conceived before "Napoleon" and they started principle photography while "Napoleon" was still in the editing stages. To the general public, it looks like "Think Tank" was done with the success of "Napoleon", but that really isn't the case.

-Mark.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Evil Roy Slade

Didn't have much to write about today, so I decided to talk about "Evil Roy Slade". This made-for-TV movie was done in 1972 at a time when made-for-TV movies sometimes were as good or better than theatrical movies and before they became a "disease or disaster of the week" type affair. The movie stars John Astin of "Addams Family" fame as the cowboy that means to go straight, but can't. There are some off-color jokes compared to today's climate, and it's actually as daring in some respects as "Blazing Saddles", but doesn't have nearly the same cult following. Universal home video issued it on VHS a few years ago, but it is long out of print. You can order bootleg DVD on Ebay, but I'd rather have a commercial edition. Oh well. Come on Universal. How hard would it be to issue this on DVD. It is very funny and also stars Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Dom DeLuise, and many others, so it kind of plays like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" meets Mel Brooks.

-Mark.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Napoleon Dynamite

"Napoleon Dynamite" is one of those little cult films that has a huge following that somewhat escapes me. I mean, it's funny, in places, but it is overall incoherent. Just a series of vignettes. My favorite is the time machine portion. Anyway, as you can see below, the producer of the film will be on hand at the next Mac Filmmakers meeting at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA, on Wednesday. So if you can go...go!

-Mark.

Our next meeting is this Wednesday, October 19 at 7:00 pm in Apple's Town Hall. Featured speakers include:

Chris Wyatt, local filmmaker and the Producer of the recent hit "Napoleon Dynamite", along with members of his team, will present clips from and talk about their newest feature film "Think Tank", showing in theaters nationwide this Fall.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Richie Rich News

My friend Mike Curtis (of Shanda Fantasy Arts fame) informed me of this:

"Issue 1216 of COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE (Jan cover date, with Batman and Horror
Comics on the cover) has a 5 page article by John Jackson Miller entitled
EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT COMICS AND MORE I LEARNED FROM RICHIE
RICH. It's lavishly illustrated and has a new ilo by Chuck Fiala. I got my
subscription copy today."

If you want to hear more about Richie Rich, click onto the Richie Rich's Vault Yahoo! group to the left of this message.

-Mark.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Louis Nye Dies at 92

Another one bites the dust...

Veteran TV "second banana" Louis Nye, one of the regulars on Steve Allen's original The Tonight Show in the 1950's ("Hi, ho, Steverino!") died Sunday at age 92 of lung cancer, the Associated Press reported Monday. He had continued to work in television until 2002, when he appeared regularly on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Still, the role he was always identified with was that of Gordon Hathaway on Allen's 50s' show. "He was the suave, pretentious, smug country club braggart, that, in spite of the pretentiousness, you had to like because democratic nations like America need people like that to make fun of," Robert J. Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, told the New York Times. "Gordon Hathaway was to Steve Allen as Frasier was to Frasier's dad. Frasier was always this guy we liked to dislike for looking down his nose at us."

-Mark.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Lake Tahoe

Going to Lake Tahoe this weekend to wish my friend Dane a happy birthday. I haven't been there in about seven years so I am kind of curious if things have changed in the Tahoe area. Probably not. Dane bought a house up there about two years ago and has been inviting me over and over for quite some time, but I haven't had the time or the money or both to go up there, but it is his birthday, so I finally agreed to go. I'll post a report as soon as I get back...

-Mark.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Some Good BBC Shows You May Not Know About

With no particular reason, I am going to list some good TV shows that you may not know about that are currently airing on TV or are on DVD:

Posh Nosh - Little 10 minute cooking show parody featuring the guy that's in "Withnail and I" and "How to Get Ahead in Advertising.

My Hero - Lamebrain superhero domestic sitcom, but very funny. Stars Ardal O'Hanlon who also was in...

Father Ted - Strange comedy about a group of priests that have been sent to Craggy Island.

I'm sure there's more, but that's enough for now.

-Mark.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Downloading Music and McCartney

I am one that has no problem paying an artist his due, but what really annoys me is when an artist has no real control over his back catalog or puts out a rare track that's only available in another country.

I'll use my old buddy Paul McCartney as an example. In the old vinyl days, he'd issue an album every so often and then between times a single featuring either a brand new track on at least the "B" side and sometimes both sides of the record.

In those analog days, you would just tape a compilation on a cassette. When CD's became the rage, everyone wanted all of those elusive tracks in that same CD quality. McCartney did pretty good about capturing all of his pre-1982 tracks, but he missed a few like "I'll Give You a Ring" and "Ode to a Koala Bear". Now, granted these aren't necessarily McCartney's best known tunes, but they were originally b-sides of big hits like "Take it Away" and "Say, Say, Say".

McCartney is really sloppy about handling this so I have no problem downloading these tunes. If he put out a legal comprehensive box set of this material, I'd pay the money in a minute. So Paul, how's about it?

-Mark.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Blow Job

Blow Job
Blow Job is a comedy-drama movie we made in 2003 that depicts the lengths people might go through to get a job. This is my first video post. As we create more videos and convert others to a format compatible with a vblog you will see more.

Protecto and Mark Arnold Plug

It's time for another plug for my weekly on-line comic strip "Protecto, the Little Robot". You can access it at http://protecto.blogspot.com. I work on quite a few things and if you are reading this, you probably have at least a passing interest at what I do. You can read more about me at http://funideas.home.att.net or if you like Harvey Comics (Casper, Richie Rich), you can go to http://thft.home.att.net. If you like comic books in general, try http://rarecomics.home.att.net. Lots of stuff going on, so check it out...

-Mark.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Cinderelly...I mean Cinderella is on DVD!

It only took six years but the final Disney animated feature is out on DVD. I don't know what took them so long, but I can breathe a sigh of relief that now I have all of the animated films out on a single format! When DVD's started coming out, Disney had yet to release all of their animated features to VHS. To this day, there still are a couple that were never released to VHS. I am glad to finally have them in a consistent way. When I was a child, one thing I always wanted was to own all of the Disney animated films. Of course at the time I was thinking 16mm film and not tape or disc, so now here we are...

-Mark.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Monterey

My job today took me to Monterey. Monterey, CA is a very lovely place that's nice to get away to. Sometimes it is overcast, but today it is nice and sunny. There is a nice breeze, but overall it is very pleasant and very laid back. I could spend a longer time writing this blog to talk to you about it, or I could just enjoy it, so see ya...

-Mark.