"Ills & Thrills"

Had to finally go to the dentist today. For the past week, my jaw and gum had been sore and a front tooth very sensitive. He confirmed my worst fears of an infection. This was particular bad because it was the only tooth on one side that held my lower partial plate. How well now I'll be able to eat is yet to be known since it'll be while before this medicine gets out of my system and all the feeling comes back into my mouth, but it looks like I may have to be forced to start using a little bit of dential stick 'em of some sort. But...I knew this was coming and maybe now I won't be as ill as I've been for days.

Not a whole lot new this week, save that my Network Card finally went out on this ancient pc and it'll cost me around $50. to have that replaced, forcing me to currently use a Dial Up connection. Since this computer's old anyway, that works just as well.

I did get in a full run of the 1970's DC title, Black Lightning the other day and have re-read same. Pretty dated stuff there of course, but none the less enjoyable; some of Trevor Von Eden's earliest artork.


And...speaking of Von Eden, I'd like to give you my own little review of a 1980's DC title that I'm certain "Johnny Bacardi" will take interest in, as I give my opinions on the 12 issue series of Thriller. And, I won't go into the book's history, description of characters, etc., because "Johnny" (aka: David A. Jones) has done this much more elaborately than I could hope to. (For an in-depth study on this title, simply click onto the Thriller link I've posted above.)

Now I'm not personally the big fan of this series, but I'm sure that many are. However, I did always like the work of both Robert Loren Fleming, and Trevor Von Eden. And when this team was actually involved with the title, I found it to be pretty original and many interesting concepts and ground-breaking designs (particularly with the panel layouts).

But unfortunately, I also felt that this was one of those unfinished projects; what with the loss of Fleming by issue #7, and Von Eden by #8, and the final 4 issues to be completed by Bill Dubay and Alex Nino.

Normally, I like either of these two fine talants. I'd seen Dubay's work in the "old days" of fanzines, and I was always a tremendous fan of Nino's artwork from his time at Warren Publications, and those esquisite "Capt. Fear" stories for DC Comics (circa 1973).

But Bill Dubay just didn't seem to fully grasp the concepts set forth by Fleming, and , sadly, this art by Alex Nino was some of his worst, with panels looking hurried, half-finished and lacking detail. In fact, the only time I saw Nino really cut loose was in a couple of double-page spreads (that were excellant); not enough to carry the whole issue, tho'.

To myself, this project should have been completed by the original team, say, in a Graphic Novel format.

So...my own opion of this series is, that the first 6 issues of Thriller were great! The second half was very disapointing...but with reason.