I'm running a sort of blog team-up with myself today: over on my writing blog, I'm taking a look at 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie for my weekly Movie Monday column. I had never seen the movie, always wanted to, so when I saw it was available on Netflix WI I figured this Christmas was the perfect time.
Not too long after that, it also occurred to me that I could also take a look at Marvel's improbable comic book adaptation for All in Black and White For 75 Cents, which has been dormant for too long (more on that in a moment). You can take a look at my MM column to get a recap of the movie's plot and my general thoughts on it, so here I'm going to concentrate more on the comic book aspect of it. I mean, what an odd movie to try and adapt into comic book form!
Behind a handsome painted cover by Tom Palmer (which works better as a movie poster than any of the actual ones used to sell the movie), the Marvel adaptation is written by Sid Jacobsen, drawn by Frank Springer, and colored by Petra Scotese:
I can't imagine this was a big seller--Marvel Super Special, as a magazine, was only two issues away from being cancelled at this point--after all, the movie was a giant flop, and it's hard for me to picture comics fans, enthralled as they were with the X-Men and The Punisher, buying a comic book about Santa Claus.
Nevertheless, this adaptation is one of the examples of Marvel actually exceeding the source material, and making the movie work on it's own as a comic book. Don't get me wrong--this is still a pretty wonky story, there's was only so much Marvel and Sid Jacobsen could do with what they were handed--but this issue does show that Santa Claus: The Movie wasn't entirely a lost cause. Ho ho ho!
As I mentioned above, it's been ages since I updated this blog--almost a year, in fact. I have no idea how that happened, exactly, since my intention was to put up more content, a lot more. But before I knew it, dust started to gather on the Red Sonja post, and I never came back to clear it off. Google Analytics tells me that the last post before this one has had way more hits than almost any other in the last few years--which, I assume, means that people kept checking back every so often, to see if I had put up anything new.
So while I'm not going to promise that I'm going to pick back up regularly--my other projects, like Ace Kilroy, The Aquaman Shrine, and The Fire and Water Podcast, not to mention my illustration and writing work, eat up almost all of my time--I am going to make an effort to put something new up every so often. I still love doing this blog, talking about obscure old magazines, and I hope you come back soon!
