Wednesday, April 22, 2020

CoronaVirus Captain's Library MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH Part 2

As the Red Death sweeps across the land, cruel Prince Prospero shelters his toadying "friends' in his castle while forcing the peasants to survive as best they can in the plague-ridden countryside.
He also lusts for peasant girl Francesca and has taken her (along with her father and betrothed) to his fortress.
But the captive Francesca has strange visions where past, present, and a possible future all intermingle...
Who will live?
Who will die?
Will the party really be the social event of the year?
Illustrated by Frank Springer, Dell's Masque of the Red Death (1964) is a fairly-faithful adaptation of the Roger Corman movie based on Edgar Allan Poe's stpry of the same name.
However, due to time constraints, in order to have the comic on newsstands when the movie was in theaters, it was produced using only the script and promo photos as reference, so there are some differences between it and the film as released!
AIP Studios knew the value of comics to their target audience ('tweens and teenagers) and a number of their films, including Beach Blanket Bingo and most of Roger Corman's "Poe" flicks, were adapted into Dell Comics (who didn't follow the Comics Code)!
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Friday, April 17, 2020

CoronaVirus Captain's Library MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH Part 1

A cruel ruler who enjoys tormenting his subjects and allows a pandemic to kill them!
Who does that remind us of?
What does Francesca tell Prospero, and how does he react?
Illustrated by Frank Springer, Dell's Masque of the Red Death (1964) is a fairly-faithful adaptation of the Roger Corman movie based on Edgar Allan Poe's stpry of the same name.
However, due to time constraints, in order to have the comic on newsstands when the movie was in theaters, it was produced using only the script and promo photos as reference, so there are some differences between it and the film as released!
The village is called "Catania" in the film, but Prince Prospero refers to it as "Esteban" in the comic.
AIP Studios knew the value of comics to their target audience ('tweens and teenagers) and a number of their films, including Beach Blanket Bingo and most of Roger Corman's "Poe" flicks, were adapted into Dell Comics (who didn't follow the Comics Code)!
Please Support Secret Sanctum of Captain Video
Visit Amazon and Order...

Monday, April 6, 2020

CoronaVirus Captain's Library I AM LEGEND: AWAKENINGS "Losing Voice: Ethan's Story"

When the post-apocalyptic pandemic movie I Am Legend opened in 2007...
...this comic, which combined both new material and adaptations of several motion comics from the film's website was distributed to comic stores and movie theaters!
Written by Steve Niles and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, this was the first of four prequel stories set in the movie's universe.
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(But not the 1960s Vincent Price adaptation.
That one, you can get here...)

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

CoronaVirus Captain's Library CRACKED "O'Meagre Man"

Much like Blacula, The Omega Man is one of the few 1950s-1970s genre films...
...that didn't have a "straight" comics adaptation!
For those who don't "get" the dated punchline, the final reveal shows the leader to be the primary character of the politically-incorrect 1970s TV series All in the Family.
Illustrated by John Severin (with an assist on likenesses by his sister, master caricaturist Marie Severin), this story from Major Publications' Cracked #100 (1972) is the only adaptation and only spoof of the movie, which itself is the second movie adaptation of Richard Matheson's novelette I Am Legend!
(The first was 1964's Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price!)
All three versions specify that a virus kills most of the human population and mutates almost all the survivors into creatures (ghouls/vampires/zombies depending on which version you're watching)!
Note: two of the three cinema versions specify that the disease is man-made!
(Thr original novella indicates it's a natural mutation of rabies and carried by animals!
In the Will Smith movie, it's called the "Krippen Virus" and was intended to destroy cancer cells.
In the Charlton Heston flick, it's nameless biological weapons used by Red China and the USSR in a border conflict which gets out of control!
In the Vincent Price movie, the plague's cause is unspecified.
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I Am Legend/Omega Man
Which features both the recent Will Smith version and the 1970s Charlton Heston version!
(But not the 1960s Vincent Price adaptation.
That one, you can get here...)
Last Man on Earth