More Space Disco Album Art

Here are a couple more "space disco" album covers, beginning with another sci-fi themes compilation from Geoff Love And His Orchestra, sporting cover art that exhibits some interestingly off-model (or simply "cleverly disguised") Space: 1970 icons....

... and, then we have this: Bang Bang Robot's (I love that name!) rip-off of Meco's smash-hit Star Wars disco medley. To be honest, I actually listen to this album every once in a while, and used one of its non-Wars tracks as the theme to my first - and to date, only - Space: 1970 podcast. If the cover art is to be trusted, this edition seems to have actually been at least somewhat authorized, with an actual photo of R2-D2 and the real Star Wars logo, and a release by the 20th Century Records label.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1978) TV Guide Cover

I might as well go on record here: The Incredible Hulk is my favorite of the comic-based television series/specials of the 1970s. Oh, I loved Wonder Woman, Isis, and Shazam!, and even the Spider-Man and Captain America shows, but The Incredible Hulk was (in my opinion) the best of them all.

As developed by Kenneth Johnson (one of the more genre-savvy producers of the era), Hulk was a science fiction show first, with storylines designed to appeal to both adolescent and adult audiences. The format was borrowed from The Fugitive (and a few dozen other shows), but the characterization and pseudo-science of Banner's transformation gave the show a distinct identity, and it ended up running longer than any of the other "superhero" shows, garnering strong ratings for much of its run.

Veteran television actor Bill Bixby was a compelling, sympathetic lead, bringing remarkable humanity to his role and always taking it seriously... without ever being grim. Lou Ferrigno's Hulk was a monster in the vein of the Universal Monster films of the 30s and 40s, a misunderstood and persecuted brute that, even through the rage, retained a spark of humanity and compassion.

Comic book purists may bitch and complain about the Hulk's scaled down strength, or the changing of Banner's first name, but frankly, that's all irrelevant bullshit. Comic book fans - moreso than most - should understand and forgive different interpretations of their favorite characters, and if they can't, they should rationalize and accept that the TV Hulk simply existed in a parallel universe from his four color cousin.

The changes wrought on The Incredible Hulk to make it sustainable as a prime time 70s television series were all sound and well-considered, and I believe resulted in a genuinely "classic" TV series.

STAR HAWKS (1977) Paperbacks

 

As we've seen here before, back in '77, in the pop cultural afterglow of Star Wars' unprecedented success, lots of folks tried to cash in on the perceived appetite for space opera entertainment. Along with the film and television knock-offs, toys and games, there were a handful of "original" sci-fi comics, many of them with the word "star" in the titles. One of these was the Star Hawks newspaper comic strip, which I've written about here before.

As knock-offs go, Star Hawks - written by sci-fi author and comics historian Ron Goulart, and drawn by legendary comic book artist Gil Kane - was reasonably successful, running daily and Sundays for three and a half years, for a total of 1,252 strips. Some of these strips were collected into two standard-size paperbacks by Ace/Tempo books, in 1979 and 1980. To the publisher's credit, the artwork was not cut apart panel-by-panel and re-formatted to standard page size, but run intact - although the strip's unique two-tier format required that the art be run on its side, forcing the reader to turn the book sideways to read it.

Actually, I don't find that to be a problem, but the small size of the lettering does make it difficult for these aging eyes to read, even with these damned, old man bifocals I wear these days. 

Anyway, aside from two strip collections from Ace/Tempo, Goulart wrote two Star Hawks prose novels, published by Playboy Press, beginning in 1980. The first of these, Empire 99, makes its connection to the newspaper strip very clear, with a cover and interior illustrations by comics collaborator Kane - and even trumpets its comic strip origins as a selling point. The second novel, on the other hand, came out well after the strip had been cancelled, and was marketed less as a comic strip tie-in. 

I haven't included a scan of that second novel, The Cyborg King, here because a.) I don't have it (yet), and b.) it doesn't have a Gil Kane cover, and c.) I couldn't find a decent cover scan online.

ADDENDUM: Thanks to "Tex," here's a scan of the cover of the second Goulart Star Hawks novel, The Cyborg King:

THE ALIENS ARE COMING (1980)

I have very little memory of this Quinn Martin-produced (one of his last, I believe) TV movie/pilot film from March of 1980, but I did watch it, and clipped this TV Guide ad for my scrapbook. The eclectic cast which includes Melinda Fee from The Invisible Man and Escape from The Planet Of the Apes' Eric Braeden, certainly looks intriguing. Any other Star Kids remember this one? Hopefully better than I do?

Oddly, The Aliens Are Coming did get a VHS release from budget label Goodtimes in the 80s, and I'm thinking I might try and get my hands on a copy one of these days so I can review it for Space: 1970.

Behind-The-Scenes Pix #36: STARCRASH

Here's a Behind-The-Scenes photo guaranteed to warm you up on a cold, late-January morning! The stunning Caroline Munro on location as space smuggler/interstellar heroine Stella Star during the filming of Luigi Cozzi's Starcrash in early 1978.

Friday Night is Super Hero Night on CBS!

Ah, Friday nights on CBS in 1978 were fantastic fun for Star Kids, with back-to-back episodes of The New Adventures Of Wonder Woman, starring the stunning Lynda Carter, and The Incredible Hulk, with Bill Bixby and the titanic Lou Ferrigno! Two hours of prime time, live action comic book hero adventure.... and, apparently, lots of "evil scientists!" Those were the days, indeed!

Countdown To PERILS ON PLANET X

Although I'm always a bit reluctant to plug my own projects here on the Space: 1970 blog, I'm making an exception for my forthcoming Perils On Planet X webcomic, which begins its weekly schedule one week from today (February 1st) at www.perilsonplanetx.com.

Inspired, in large part, by Space: 1970 classics as Planet Of The Apes, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Jason Of Star Command and, yes, even Star Wars - but mostly the animated adventures of Filmation's Flash Gordon and Blackstar - the serialized Perils On Planet X is chock-full of action, adventure, monsters, raygun fights, gorgeous alien princesses (rendered with exceptional skill and talent by my artistic collaborator, Gene Gonzales), sword fights, airships, mad scientists, strato-pirates... and batwinged, vampire gorillas.

It's because I believe that most Space: 1970 readers - especially you Old School gamers (and I know there's a lot of you) - would really enjoy the webcomic that I'm choosing to promote Perils On Planet X on this site. I'll try not to overdo it (once it launches, I'll try and only mention it in my "Captain's bLog" entries), but I want to be sure you folks know about it and consider giving it a chance. If you get a moment, click over to the site and if you like what you see, bookmark it. I'm pretty excited about finally getting POPX out to the public (I've been working on it for about a decade), and I'd appreciate your support.

Now... back to our regularly-scheduled nostalgia.....

MOONRAKER (1979) Poster Art By Dan Goozee

Dan Goozee was a popular movie poster artist in the late 70s and 80s, and starting with 1979's Moonraker (through A View To A  Kill) was United Artists' go-to guy for the James Bond movie posters. Goozee usually designed a few alternate versions for each entry, and here are a selection of his spacey illustrations for the franchise's answer to Star Wars, which sent 007 (in the form of Roger Moore) into orbit and climaxed with a zero-G laser battle. Watching Moonraker now, as an adult James Bond fan, I'm appropriately appalled... but as an unrepentant Star Kid, I'm always utterly enthralled.

Apart from studio movie posters (including art for the original Clash of the Titans and Superman IV), Goozee also did some production designs for the original Battlestar Galactica and painted a handful of very cool sci-fi originals that were sold as posters through Captain Company ads in the back of Famous Monsters and other Warren magazines in the late 70s. If anyone has good scans of those posters, let me know - I've wanted to feature them here on the blog for a while.

Re-Post: Regarding Comments

I posted these thoughts about comments in one of my Captain's bLogs a while back, but based on what I've been seeing lately, they bear repeating:

This may sound cranky or curmudgeonly, but as I close in on my half-century mark, I think I'm entitled to a bit of, uh, curmudgeoness. Anyway, I'm trying to be more selective about which comments I approve for publication on this blog. Over the last two and a half years, the reader comments posted to this blog have overwhelmingly been in line with my intentions for the site: enthusiastic, celebratory, nostalgic and, generally, upbeat. We've also remained virtually troll-free. But recently, I'm finding myself slightly less happy with the "interactive" aspect of this blog.

Perhaps it's inevitable that as readership grows, I'm going to see more comments show up in my e-mail box for moderation that I'm uncomfortable with or that, frankly, just irritate me. I'm even thinking about disallowing "Anonymous" posting entirely, as most (though not all) of the comments that bug me are posted without a name attached. I haven't taken that step yet, but I'm considering it.

So, for the record, here are the types of comments I'm not likely to approve:

• People selling something. That's not what this site is about. Try ebay. Related: people trying to find out what their memorabilia is worth. Again, that's not what this site is about. There are hundreds of other places online that are more appropriate for that kind of question. Use Google. That's what it's for.

• Linking to illegal downloads/bootleg merchandise. I've actually addressed this before. Comments that link to torrent sites or unauthorized video dealers will not be approved. No moral judgement here; I just don't want to have this site hosting those sort of links. This includes links to full-length shows & films on sites like YouTube - those are copyrighted works and usually not authorized.

• Non sequiturs. Okay, this is the one that's really driving me nuts lately. I've been seeing a lot of comments recently that I simply cannot make any sense of whatsoever. I understand that this site can be accessed all over the world, and English isn't everyone's first language - but I can usually tell when that is the problem. Far more often, I get comments that simply repeat the information I wrote about in the post (as if the commenter only looked at the headline and/or illustration before clicking the comment tab, feeling compelled to show off his knowledge of the subject) or utterly nonsensical comments that, well, indicate serious weaknesses in reading comprehension. If you're going to take the time and make the effort to comment on something I've posted here, please think about it a bit, and make it worthwhile.

 • Negativity. You know, I understand that not everyone likes the movies and television shows and other stuff I write about on this blog; some people outright hate them. Others think they're "cheesy" (a word that really bugs me and automatically raises my defensive shields), "lame," or just trash. And yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But this blog isn't the place to tell the world how crappy you think The Starlost is, or for expressing your ironic sense of post-modern snark. In the header at the top of this page, I use the word "celebrate," and that's what this blog is about. If you think the original Battlestar Galactica is lame, or that Starcrash is the Worst Movie Ever, write about it on your own site, or go find an appropriate message board somewhere. This is a blog, and, more to the point, it's my blog, and I'm not going to stand for people coming in and being jerks in my house.

This doesn't mean we can't have some good-natured fun with these shows, or acknowledge their flaws and amusing defects, but the key words there are "good-natured." (And don't send me angry comments about me not respecting your freedom of speech, or me being too cowardly to hear differing opinions. A. This isn't a public forum, and B. I really don't particularly care about the opinions of anonymous strangers.)

Please do keep sharing your own Star Kid memories in the comments, or passing on cool behind-the-scenes information, and politely correcting factual errors I make. And please, have fun with (and make fun of) these shows and movies. Just try and keep it... affectionate. That's the word I'm looking for, I guess.

I'm also not saying that people can't disagree with my opinions. That's cool. Just be polite about it, okay?

Thanks.

ADVENTURES ON THE PLANET OF THE APES (1975) Marvel Comics Cover Gallery

Marvel didn't get around to color comic book adaptations of the wildly popular Planet Of The Apes films until two years after the last movie, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, had come and gone from theaters. Hell, even the television series had already run its course. But someone decided to reprint - in color - the movie adaptation that Marvel had done the year before in the black & white POTA comics mags... and the color version ran almost a year (11 issues), adapting the first two POTA flicks.

A Birthday Blast for Buck!

From those of us who are still living in Buck Rogers' 25th Century, here's wishing our very best to 70's space hero - and intergalactic Romeo - Gil Gerard on his 70th birthday.

Look-In: Steve Austin Meets John Koenig

Here's a team-up that you'd only find on the cover of Britain's Look-In magazine. Here's The Six Million Dollar Man and Space: 1999's intrepid Moonbase Commander, as rendered by artist Arnaldo Putzu in 1975.