We Interrupt This Blog.....#19

... to actually offer some helpful advice. Yeah, I'm getting lazy.

House Ads #15 Very Best in Comics Reading

I may have to locate a copy of that Justice League, even though I hate the art.

Jonah Hex #63 "Ship of Doom!"

Jonah Hex #63
"Ship of Doom!"
Michael Fleisher, story - Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga, art - Ross Andru & Dick Giordano, cover

Jonah Hex & Mei Ling, in the hold of the ship Malay Tiger, have discovered that the ship is smuggling opium. Capt. Quirt, Barnaby Sledge and several crewmen descend into the hold with Sledge explaining why Jonah & Mei Ling were really brought aboard the ship. Seems like the Capt had killed a crewman via keelhauling and they need Jonah to replace him. As for Mei Ling....heh heh heh, if'n ya know what I mean.

Well, Jonah responds to that by slamming Sledge's head into a huge timber, splitting his skull and killing him. The rest of the crew rushes Hex and they finally take him by slamming a crate over his head. Quint orders that Jonah be stripped and held down and Quint commences whipping Jonah across the back.

Of course, one of the crew decides to protect Mei Ling from the horrible sight by holding her head against his chest.

Once Jonah recovers, he is put to hard work and then after an undisclosed amount of time one of the crew starts complaining about cramps. He breaks out in a terrible sweat and three other crewmen realize that he has cholera. They grab him and toss him overboard in order to save themselves.

The ship's doctor comes running and explains that cholera is passed through food and water, throwing the man to his death did nothing to save the others, in fact he can spot it in several of the other crew, including Jonah. The Doc orders all of the infected men to bedrest, thinking to himself that at the best, in two weeks maybe 15% percent will survive.

Needless to say (but I'm gonna say it anyway) after nine days Jonah is suffering from a high fever and is having delusions, delusions that take him back to the winter of 1848 when he was just 10 years old. Jonah comes home from rabbit hunting to find...

At one point Woodson takes a broken bottle and heads for Ginny. That's when Jonah steps in between them and...
Woodson then grabs the broken bottle and starts chasing Ginny around the house. Ginny is screaming at the top of her lungs and Jonah suddenly snaps out of his fever dream to find himself in the bunk in the ship but the screams continue. Once Jonah makes his way through the ship, he discovers that Mei Ling has been trying to take care of the sick crew on the deck but Capt. Quint is trying to force himself upon her.

Jonah stumbles up the stairs, but he is still sick and Quint starts pummeling him. Quint pulls out his whip once again and Jonah grabs a crate hook.

Whip - 0, Crate Hook - 1

Of course, Jonah grabs Quint's dying body and heaves it overboard. Mei Ling shouts for him to stop, but it too late. Jonah has just thrown overboard the only man well enough to navigate the ship. The entire crew is either dead or dying except for the doctor, Mei Ling, and a very sick Jonah Hex.

Jonah and the doc heave the corpses overboard and for the next 22 days they survive on fish they catch as the men continue to die. Then late one night a huge storm hits the ship. Jonah is doing the best he can to hold the ship together. Jonah shouts for help from the doc who is below deck, trying to lash the water casks doen so they don't break but it is too late, the ship slams into some rocks and the entire ship breaks apart.

Jonah Hex, Mei Ling and the doctor are thrown into the water and the sharks start swarming. In two creepy panels, the Doc goes down.

Mei Ling makes it to a life boat but Jonah is too far away and realizes that he has to fight the shark. You read it right. Jonah Freaking Hex vs. a Freaking Shark!!!!!

and when this man who is badass incarnate dives below the waves to encounter the shark on its own terms he learns... he will be fighting TWO FREAKING SHARKS!



Mei Ling, Mistress of the Obvious! But on the plus side, them there shark be-yotches are bleeding a whole lot more than my man.

Mei Ling bandages Jonah bitten leg and they lay in the lifeboat, embracing each other. Seven long days later they are picked up by another ship bound for San Francisco. The ship's surgeon is able to treat Jonah for the bite and he says that Jonah will be on crutches for a few weeks. Once the doc leaves, Jonah apologizes for how he has messed up their lives and he wants to start over.

Mei Ling replies that sometimes people love one another but there is no way that they can be happy together. They tried hard to be married, but they only made each other miserable and Mei Ling tells Jonah goodbye.

Three weeks later in San Francisco Mei Ling is leaving the ship and Jonah presses her once more. Mei Ling says that she will not change her mind and that she is going back to her brother's house to take care of their son, Jason.

Statistics for this Issue

Men Killed by Jonah - 2 and two sharks!
Running Total - 362, a snow leopard, and TWO SHARKS!
Jonah's Injuries - Whipped, knocked out, contracted cholera, shark bite on left leg.
Timeline - Wow, let's add this up shall we? An unknown number of days (let's say a week) + 9 days + 22 days + 1 week + 3 weeks = 66 days (two whole months!) Add that to the 129 days from the time this adventure started we end up with 195 days, placing this end of the voyage around the middle of November. So, whatever year this took place, Jonah was out of the country from May 1st to the middle of November 1876

Let's take a look at the flashback to 1848. Ginny left Woodson in June of '48, so this had to take place between Jan and, oh, let's say, end of March (depending on where the Hex family called home), so that places Jonah's birthday in that timeframe rather than in November.

As a storyline, this has been one of my favorites with Jonah being a fish outta water (hee hee, I made a funny, see? Jonah was fighting sharks and I made a reference to fish? Ahhh, never mind), Mei Ling endangered, and foreign intrigue. A+ all around on this storyline.

Did I mention the SHARKS?!?!?! Take THAT Devil Dinosaur!

Next Issue: Jonah has to face the dangers of San Francisco and Sharon Hillard!!!! (there's no way to make this sound exciting, but be here nonetheless, okay?)

Pitchman-A-Go-Go #47

Woods Edge & Fighting Ships, two games I never owned. How awesome is that artwork though? Nazis dying, guys tossing grenades, ships exploding. Sadly the games don't look like they lived up to the hype.

Weekly Wonderous Moment in Comics #40

There are times, in those long cold hours between 3 am and dawn, that I wake up screaming. When my lovely wife asks what causes these episodes I show her this.....

Plastic man has no organs, he's just a solid piece of ...... plastic. uurrrrgh!

From Brave & Bold #76

Them's fighting words!!!

Sea of Green has a hilarious post about Jonah Hex vs. Devil Dinosaur, but sadly she does not show Hex unleashing his second favorite weapon.... Dynamite!! Until she actually shows Jonah lobbing a few sticks, I refuse to believe the outcome of her fixed fight.

But that did get me thinking about other matchups like ....
Hex vs Optimus Prime?
Hex vs Power Pack?
Hex vs Lobo?
Hex vs ?????

I'll be gone next week (still posting a few things) but after that, I'll have to get cracking on a few of these.

Devil Dinosaur wins, my @$$

We Interrupt This Blog.......#18

... to inform you that the "Captain" didn't find Machu Picchu, Scrooge McDuck did!


We also want to warn you about any old "Captains" offering to take you aboard their "land ship", if ya know what I mean.

Jonah Hex #62 "In the Belly of the Malay Tiger!"

Jonah Hex #62 July 1982
"In the Belly of the Malay Tiger!"
Michael Fleisher, story - Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga, art - Ross Andru & Dick Giordano, cover

Jonah is stuck in a dead end, several Chinese guards ready to gun him down when another guard comes running up, shouting to the leader of that group. The guards lower their rifles and then take Jonah prisoner, hauling him before the Emperor himself.

The Emperor speaks English and tells Jonah that he knows of the plot, but they cannot locate his female helper. Jonah plays dumb but that gets him a rifle butt to the shoulder. The Emperor says that Jonah will get a quick death if he tells where Mei Ling is. Hex says she has already escaped so the Emperor has Jonah taken away for some quality torture time.

Meanwhile, Mei Ling is trying to get back to the harem and is discovered by a wandering guard. The guard starts to take her into custody, but Mei Ling starts using her feminine wiles, untying her top. When the guard grabs her and embraces her, she grabs his knife and appears to stab him in the back (but she probably doesn't since she leaves him bound and gagged.)


Down in the torture chamber, Jonah is getting the living daylights knocked outta him. Then he gets hung by his heels and the torture-master grabs a hot poker. Right before the poker hits Jonah's face, he grabs his knife and throws it into the dungeon master's chest. Just then Mei Ling bursts in and...


.. makes me think she's a really hot sword-wielding, rifle-toting Asian harem girl. (Let's see how many google searches THAT brings). She and Jonah start making tracks, but sadly the rifle is a muzzle-loader and has only one shot. Before they can get captured, Jonah tosses a huge urn over the balcony, tells Mei Ling to hang on and they use a chandelier to make their getaway.

Once they are out in the palace grounds they realize that they have gone from the frying pan into the fire because the Emperor has a pet snow leopard. Jonah grabs his knife while Mei Ling heads for a tree.

Yeah, pistol-whipping a snow leopard was an Olympic sport in 1875. With the big cat dispatched, Jonah leaps off the wall carrying Mei Ling. Later in town, the couple is hiding in an alley when they are approached by a large man named Barnaby Sledge. Sledge takes them to his mistress's house.

Jonah explains that they are being pursued and that they are looking to get back to the states. Sledge offers them a ride on the Malay Tiger, the ship he works on.
Sledge gives Hex and Mei a room for the night (it would be safer traveling at night since they are fugitives) and once they are alone, Mei Ling says that Sledge scares her. Jonah states that they have to trust someone and asks if HE scares her as well. Mei Ling whispers that Jonah scares her as well and while the couple kiss passionately, Sledge is seen peeping through a curtain, watching them (Perve!)

That night Sledge smuggles the couple out of town, hidden in a wagon and as dawn breaks they come to the ocean where the Malay Tiger is anchored off the coast.

Meanwhile, the Emperor has had his forces invade the palace of the White Lotus and as the palace falls under the superior army, the Warlord commits suicide and Phat makes his escape, swearing vengence on Jonah Hex & Mei Ling.

Much later, Jonah & Ling are in the hold of the ship and Jonah is poking around the cargo (which is supposed to be silk). He pokes one of the bags with his knife and a powder falls out. Mei Ling recognizes it as opium and tells him to leave it alone. Sadly, the warning is too late.

Statistics for This Issue
Men Killed by Jonah - 2
Running Total - 360
Jonah's Injuries - Beat up & tortured
Timeline - This is the ongoing storyline and covers one evening and the next morning.

This was a really great story (the whole arc has been fantastic) and happily we had the full issue with no backup story. This whole idea of Jonah being out of his natural element was delightful and I would like to see the current Jonah Hex book take Hex to Europe or even Russia. Of course, they are going to have a 6 issue arc soon, so that should be great.

Next Issue - Jonah Hex vs Freaking Sharks!!!

House Ads #14 Captain Carrot

Yeah, I actually had this book and I did follow Carrot for a year or two.

Pitchman-A-Go-Go #46

MAGNETS!!!! I never ordered them but I sure thought that teacher was hawt!! Looking at this I'm surprised that I didn't recognize the artwork as being Ross Andru's earlier than today.

Weekly Wonderous Moment in Comics #39

Yeah, so we've seen Batman throwing a car battery, we've seen Batman with shark-chuks, but you've never seen Batman beat the holy living crap outta two thugs while swinging another thug by the ankle and shouting....

Final Burst of Volcanic Force, that'll be the name of my new band.
or my next child.

What Batman needs is a better battle-cry. How about...?



And here are some of yours!!

The lovely Sea of Green obviously has some issues dating back to her personal run-in with Steve Bartman .

Tony Z has been reading WAAAYYYY too much All Star Batman.

Here is one for you to play with

We Interrupt This Blog #17 ......

... to confound all those smarty-panty folks at the CSI.

..at least before there was DNA.
Your mother's got DNA!!!!

House Ads #13 Batman

I have the actual books that "drown or be shot" and the Giant Bowling Alley are in. A heat lamp? Are they serious?

Jonah Hex #61 "In the Lair of the Manchus!"

Jonah Hex #61 June 1982
"In the Lair of the Manchus!"
Michael Fleisher, story - Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga, art - Ross Andru & Dick Giordano, cover

To start where we left off last time...

MEI LING!!!

Okay, so Jonah is has been kidnapped and taken to China where an evil warlord & head of the White Lotus has decided that he wants to employ Jonah Hex & to insure his cooperation, Mei Ling has been kidnapped as well.

Wu Bong Phat explains how he was in the US on a trade mission when he kept hearing of Hex's exploits. Phat realized that Jonah would be just the man that the White Lotus society needed. Therefore they kidnapped him and brought him to this point.

The deed for which they hired Jonah? Assassination of current Manchu emperor in his palace in Peking.

Phat takes Jonah on a walk through the grounds of the White Lotus, explaining that over the last 200 years the Manchu dynasty has become corrupt. In 1796, the White Lotus tried to overthrow the Manchus but eight years later the White Lotus was crushed..for a time. Now they are back and plan to overthrow the government. Phat shows Jonah a teacher explaining to villagers how, when the White Lotus gains power, the Maitreya Buddha will come down from heaven and all disease & suffering. Phat takes Jonah to another teacher, explaining to six men how paradise awaits them if they die in the fight for the White Lotus. Phat tells Jonah that a man who knows paradise awaits him can be an unbeatable foe.

Suddenly, Phat gives a signal and the six men rush at Jonah with knives and hatchets. Jonah grabs the first man, flips him over, gut punches a second and delivers a roundhouse knockout to a third. The next man lands a hard chop on Jonah's left shoulder, completely numbing his arm and leaving him to fight one handed. Jonah lands a hard blow to the chest and a quick two-punch to the jaw, taking out the fourth opponent.

The final two decide to attack together, but Jonah manages to swing up into a tree, one handed, swing around a branch and place a boot into each man's jaw. Jonah stand triumphant, surrounded by the fallen men. At an overhead balcony, the warlord has been watching everything and is delighted with Jonah's abilities and that he passed this test.

Phat then takes Jonah to his room for the night. Mei Ling is there and as Phat & the guard leave, the guard gives Jonah one more bust to the chops with a rifle butt. Mei Ling runs to Jonah's side. Jonah asks Ling how she got mixed up all of this and she explains that she had received a telegram stating that Jonah was in danger. When she went to the place appointed in the telegram, she was abducted.

Jonah notes that Mei Ling must still have some feelings for him and decides to cozy up to her, but Mei Ling says that even though she has feelings for Jonah, she can't talk about them here or now.

The next morning Phat explains his plan to Jonah and Ling. Ling will be escorted northward to Peking and placed into the emperor's harem and in a few weeks, she will be able to act as a guide for Jonah and allow him entrance into the palace. Phat mentions that one as lovely as Ling would be very attractive to the emperor and maybe......

Jonah understands and rushes Phat in anger, getting a rifle butt to the head. Mei Ling is led away to Peking.

Ten days later, Mei Ling and her escorts arrive at the palace. The escorts leave her in the charge of a stable groom. He sneaks her into the palace and shows her a hidden passage that will lead her to the harem. He cannot take her farther, for he is not to even be in the palace. Mei Ling heads down the passage and right after the groom closes the hidden door, he is discovered by guards. He attempts to kill himself, but he is knocked out and drug away.

The next morning, Phat is reviewing the plan once more with Jonah. Jonah's pistols and knife are returned and he is told that once he completes his mission, he will be paid by Phat's spy and that Hex & Mei Ling will be placed on a boat bound for America. An escort party will take Jonah to Peking and Jonah says that is anything happens to Mei Ling, Hex will come back and wring Phat's fat neck.

As Hex rides off, Phat chuckles to himself because the plan is that after the assassination, Jonah will be captured by the White Lotus and will rise to power with the blessing of a grateful populace.

Ten days later, after coming within sight of the Great Wall of China (which is north of Peking, therefore Jonah, coming from the south, rode PAST Peking and then back!), Jonah is at the palace. His escorts leave and Jonah uses his rope to scale the palace wall in the darkness. He strangles one guard and stabs another.

Meanwhile, the stable groom is taken from the dungeon where he is being tortured (for 10 days!?!) and brought before the emperor. The man begs for his life but it appears that the emperor is not granting and grace.

Mei Ling, in the harem, sneaks out to rendezvous with Jonah.

Jonah leaps down from the palace wall and runs across the courtyard to the door that Ling is supposed to open. He notes that this has been way too easy. Mei Ling opens the door to allow Jonah in. Jonah states that he is gonna go back on their plan and just head for the hills but a roaming group of guards forces Jonah and Mei Ling to go back into the palace. Inside they are discovered by another group of guards and Jonah starts shooting it out with them while telling Mei Ling to run for it.

She refuses to leave, but finally relents, heading down a hallway and narrowly avoiding more guards by ducking into the secret tunnel to the harem.

Jonah, has problems of his own as he runs out of bullets and resorts to pushing over a huge Buddha statue to give him some time to run away. He makes a couple of turns down a couple of halls and finds himself in a dead end!

Jonah spins around and is faced with seven guards drawing a bead on him with their rifles!!!!!!

Statistics for this Issue
Men Killed by Jonah - I put it at 7 palace guards that I can visually verify
Running Total - 358
Jonah's Injuries - Karate Chopped once, rifle butt to the head twice.
Timeline - Well, this once covers 21 days. Jonah was kidnapped, traveled to California for 21 days, was on board a ship of 60 days, recovering from shipwreck for 28 days, add 10 days for Mei Ling's trip to Peking and 10 days for Jonah's trip to Peking we are looking at 129 days since Jonah was kidnapped. I'll take May 1st as the Abduction Date, so we are now at Sept 6th (give or take) of 1876.

Another good chapter in the China saga, but through all of this, I find myself wondering how this would be portrayed today? I know that Palmiotti & Gray's Hex would be a lot less talky and the whole thing would probably be told from the aspect of a history book or a diary. And it would a whole helluva lot bloodier. Hmmmm, I wonder if we could get them to redo this one?

Next Issue: "Who let the cats out?" For real this time!

Pitchman-A-Go-Go #45

I lived near Chicago and was always peeved that I could never cash in my coupons

On lonely nights, when the moon is dark and the wind is still I can swear that The Fifth Avenue Cuddle Up calls my name.

And then I realize it's my wife trying to get me out of the 'library'.

Weekly Wonderous Moment in Comics #38

How important is it to exercise your right to vote? Well, I'll just let Batman demonstrate what won't stop him from voting.


Yup, Batman will carry Robin one-handed over his head whilst dragging Madame (of Waylon Flowers & Madame) across a lake in the middle of the night. One can only hope that Gotham City is in a swing state.

We Interrupt This Blog.... #16

...to bail out the world economy....


Of course, that is $15,000,000 in 1965. Hmm, let's see, back then gold was $35.12 an ounce so that means they could pull out 26,694 pounds or 13 tons. Today, that would be worth...
$375,854,214. That keeps ahead of inflation which would have only made that worth $97.6 million.

With my luck I would be the guy at the end of the line... the line that contained everyone in the entire world.

Anything for the sake of the kids

Since I can't get JLA 199 scanned in time, I thought I would just give everyone a good laugh. I have been working puppets at our church and here is a photo over at my other blog

Jonah Hex #60 "The Domain of the Warlord!"

Jonah Hex #60 May 1982
"The Domain of the Warlord!"

Michael Fleisher, story - Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga, art - Tony DeZuniga, cover

Jonah Hex awakens in a very small room that contains only a cot and a headache like no other. Not knowing where he is or how he got there, Jonah ha no plan for escape until he hears someone outside the door. He jumps onto the cot, feigning sleep and when the door opens, he trashes the Chinese man and runs down the hall. Hex's head is still groggy as the hallway appears to rock beneath his feet. He finds a ladder and drags himself up, openeing a hatch to discover...

He has been Shanghied aboard a Chinese sailing ship. The crew is just as startled and rush Hex, trying to subdue him. Jonah gives it his all, knocking one crewman overboard before he finally falls beneath the weight of his four attackers. The crewmen drag Jonah into the captain's quarters where he is confronted with Wu Bong Phat.

Phat tells Jonah that they are far out to sea and since Jonah killed one of the crewmen, Hex will be taking the crewman's place. If Jonah refuses, he will be killed.

"Days stretch into weeks, and the weeks, months as the Chinese trading ship plies its way slowly across the wide Pacific, then threads its way southward into the East China Sea.

"For Jonah, they are months of arduous physical labor, working alongside men he cannot even talk to. They are months of boredom and solitude... They are months of staring wistfully out at the great salt sea, longing to be home again."

QUIZ TIME!!!!! How long has Jonah Hex been on this ship?

1. 2 months
2. 3 months
3. Months & months & months
4. 1875
   

Then one evening, the lookout sees another ship approaching. Phat tells Jonah that it is a pirate ship and that he should get below deck. Jonah refuses, saying that whatever happens, he will have a hand in it. Just then the pirate ship fires and a cannonball drops the main mast of Jonah's ship. This, in turn, causes a fire (?!?!?!) and while Jonah takes note that the last military conflict he took part in was one in which he was on the losing side, another cannonball slams into the ship, knocking Jonah overboard.

Jonah decides that swimming is better that drowning on a burning ship and takes off swimming into the approaching darkness.

For one whole night, Jonah floats in the sea and when dawn breaks, he finds himself near a beach. He barely makes it to land before passing out from exhaustion. Some time passes and a Chinese couple find Jonah and take him back to their home. In bed, Jonah is suffering from delusions, screaming out that he will save Mei Ling. For nearly a week, Jonah fights the feveer as the Chinese couple nurse him back to health.

Three weeks after that (four weeks since landfall), a Chinese soldier bursts into the house and kills the homeowner. Jonah leaps up and knocks the soldier into the street, administering a good old fashioned beatdown. However, the soldier's buddies are nearby and they subdue Jonah and take him into custody, riding off towards the mountains with Jonah in tow.

Hours later, the group of soldiers arrive at a large mountain castle and push Jonah into a room where he encounters...

Wu Bong Phat!!!!! Also in the room is Yan Hsi-Shen, priestly warlord of the secret society known as the White Lotus. Phat explains that he escaped the burning ship via lifeboat and that he shall interpret the wishes on Hsi-Shen.

Shen asks if Jonah Hex would be willing to perform a service for the White Lotus for which he will be paid a generous fee. Jonah tells Phat that he doesn't know how to say "Cram it!" in Chinese. Phat states that he had foreseen that Jonah may be disagreeable, therefore he took the liberty of following certain steps to insure that Jonah would reconsider the proposal.

At Phat's direction a curtain parts and a large Chinese guard drags in ....

Mei Ling!!!!!

Statistics for this Issue
Men Killed by Jonah - 1
Running Total - 351
Jonah's Injuries - Shipwreck Fever & knocked out.
Timeline - This obviously takes place in the ongoing continuity (1875? 1874? 1878?) but more importantly is the passage of time. Let's say that he was on the ship for two months (taking the plural at it's lowest value) and add 4 weeks in the home of the Chinese couple and you have about 3 months! Last issue, we saw Jonah being kidnapped over a span of 3 weeks and being taken through the Nevada mountains to San Francisco. I would think that for the mountain passes to be clear we would be talking end of April/first of May for the kidnapping. Add 3 3/4 months and we are now in middle of August/first of September timeframe on this. Whatever year we're in, it is running out fast!! UPDATE: 05/5/09 I settled on 1876.

This story was a great read, taking Jonah completely out of his element and showing that he can cope with whatever comes up. Of course, God keeps Jonah alive (in Hex's viewpoint, merely to play with Hex some more and make his life pure hell) through some of it. Nowadays folks just don't know what a wide range plots Jonah Hex covered, they think it was all gunfights and hangings and have no idea about the trip to Brazil or China (both of them accomplished outside of the will of Hex). Anyway, this one keeps rollicking along for several more issues, so don't miss a one of them.

Oh, there was also an El Diablo backup. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Next Issue: "Who let the cats out?" (whoot whoot) or "Harem-Scare-em!" (I miss Rocky & Bullwinkle)

Pitchman-A-Go-Go #44

Manomanoman, does this make me want to spring for a big slotcar set

and then go buy a red coat and snazy black tie.
All the hep-cats got 'em