Sorry Dan, Happy Birthday

I was late wishing my brother a happy birthday on my own site...sorry dude. I was supervising this view that day:

And I don't even know how my phone took this picture (it wasn't deliberate...).

Love you brother; the omission wasn't personal.

2000 Apart

The days blur by and I'm wearing a tie. Some days are hot, but most are pleasant and beautiful. Riding a bike through South Central gives you perspective...

While spending a few minutes staring at my computer instead if working on something I found a folder in my photos partition on this laptop. The title made me look through it: "Comic covers". I remembered for various reasons having pulled out various comics and taken their pictures--I think one even showed up here.

As I looked through the six pictures, it looked like two had the same number. Upon closer inspection, they were exactly two thousand photos apart (due to the sequential numbering scheme of my dying camera). 

Specifically, IMG_6962.jpg:

and IMG_8962.jpg:

The first is a classic story starring Batman. It is set in London at the time of Jack the Ripper. The Wayne's here are transplanted to mid-to-late nineteenth-century England, get gunned down, and young Bruce grows up into the Batman in grimy London instead of grimy Gotham decades later. This was one of the early stories that spawned the Elseworlds line of high-brow What-If style stories that DC finally started ripping off from Marvel.

One other cool thing about it is it is a very early piece of work by artist Mike Mignola, right as he was starting to define his own style. He grew to stardom with his Hellboy creation and subsequent films starring the son of Beelzebub.

The second comic is my favorite single issue story for a super-hero comic so far. I've spoken about it before: corrupted Superman destroys all the heroes in the DC Universe, except for Batman, who's about to gun him down with the kryptonite bullets Superman gave him for this very purpose. You'll have to read it to find out how it ends...

Finding time to get to this blog is tough; you guys know. 

Thanks Dan for the list of Bronson movies...let me know what the best obscure one is...