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Thursday, November 30

Searching marxists.org

by Mike on Thu 30 Nov 2006 07:05 PM EST

Screen grab of the marxists.org
search tool for Firefox

Attention all you armchair revolutionaries and amateur philosophers! Here’s a tip on a great way to search the Marxists Internet Archive: Visit http://search.marxists.org, click on "Add the Marxists Internet Archive to your Firefox search plugins" and download a search bar for your Firefox browser. Once the search tool is added to your browser, you can use this tool to perform quick searches using all your favorite terms from political economy and dialectical materialism, including gems like "crystallised labour," "commodity fetishism," and "negation of the negation." How cool is that?

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Tuesday, November 28

We heard you, Malachi Ritscher.

by Mike on Tue 28 Nov 2006 08:30 PM EST

from Chicago Indymedia.org

During the Viet Nam War, Buddhist monks in Saigon set themselves on fire to protest the war. The whole world watched as these martyrs for peace went up in flames.

Last Friday, a man approached the "Millenium Flame" sculpture on the Kennedy Expressway near the Ohio Exit, and set himself aflame, leaving a note stating: "Thou Shalt Not Kill." The local media just wrote this off as another unfortunate case of mental illness.

But it wasn't mental illness. It was an anti-war protest. Malachi Ritscher was a martyr for peace. (full story)

Malachi Ritscher (1954 - 2006)

“Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country. I will not participate in your charade — my conscience will not allow me to be a part of your crusade.”

Further reading
Obituary (as written by Malachi Ritscher)
iheardyoumalachi.org
Right on! greeklish.org

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Monday, November 20

Strange comics, part one: "Atlas Theatre Comics"

by Mike on Mon 20 Nov 2006 11:52 PM EST

Atlas Theatre Comics

Whenever I visit a comic shop, I am always sure to check out the big glass display case for exciting new arrivals and other gems each visit. During a visit about a week and a half ago, I spotted a particularly eye-catching comic book in the case. It was a rather old-looking comic called "Atlas Theatre Comics." I didn't know I wanted it until I laid eyes on it. Really. I asked the proprietor what the story was on the book and he got it out of the case so I could have a closer look. He explained that he had picked this up at a recent comic show as part of a larger collection of old stuff. He didn't have a lot of information on the book, adding that it was not listed in the Overstreet price guide. The cover of the comic was an all-black illustration on an off-white background depicting a handful of "knock-offs" of Golden Age characters, including Plastic Man's sidekick Woozy Winks, The Red Tornado, Bucky and a character that looks like either the Sandman or maybe Air Wave. Once the comic was out of its bag, I had a short look-through, noting that there were ads for local businesses on the insides of the front and back covers and on the back as well. Curiously, the cover itself was more like card stock than paper and it reached just past the pages all around the book. It was an odd sight...My first glance didn't yield any big-name characters and at the top of each page, the words "Triple Threat Comics" appeared. So, I thought it was kind of cool, but I passed on it for the moment. But a few hours after I left the shop, I decided it was too cool to pass up and I called and asked them to hold it for me so I could pick it up early the following week.

Over the course of the next few days, I did a few Internet searches using different combinations of the phrase "Atlas Theatre Comics" and I was surprised that I couldn't find one lick of information about the book I had seen. I remembered the shop owner telling me that he had basically decided on a price for the issue after talking to some "old timers" at a comics show, so I really didn't have much to go on. Last Tuesday night, I picked up the issue and took it home for a closer inspection.

The book is a great collection of obscure Golden Age material. I was especially surprised to see a tale featuring a character called The Duke of Darkness that I recognized from another Golden Age gem, Top Spot Comics #1. I got a copy of Top Spot #1 about ten years ago at a now defunct Dayton-area comic shop called The Bookie Parlor (In fact, it might have been longer than ten years ago, as I bought it back when the Bookie Parlor was located on Wayne Avenue). Anyway, the characters and plot lines of the "Atlas Theater" issue were as follows:

King O' Leary saves a wrongly convicted man from the electric chair
The Duke of Darkness battles Mr. Slumber who torment's the city's elite while they sleep
Beau Brummell takes on a gang who threatens the city's big department store, "Simbel's"
The Menace rescues a famous actress from a kidnapper
The Magficient Epod, lone survivor of Atlantis discovers a magic bottle that grants wishes (during which time, Epon's sidekick manages to get the bottle permanently affixed to his nose
Whippet Wilkins gets conned into buying sweets for a bunch of girls at the local soda shop
Interestingly enough, I got out my copy of Top Spot #1 after reading the Atlas Theater book and I found the Top Spot also includes stories featuring Epod and The Menace. I looked up "Triple Threat Comics" in a few places and I think that Triple Threat was probably published by the same outfit (or a closely related one) that published Top Spot and that both comics were "one shots" (single issues) that were published in 1945.

Top Spot Comics #1

A very close inspection of the Atlas Theatre book gave me a few clues as to its origin. As I noted above, the cover pretty unusual – not shoddy, but a low-budget production, for sure. On the inside near the spine, there appeared to be a kind of clear adhesive in some places and a chip of glossy paper that looked like it belonged to the cover of another comic book. All of the ads on the inside of the cover were for local businesses on "Plymouth Road," including businesses like "Blue Bird Department Store" and "Rose's Sweet Shop." But the biggest clue was a business named "Edmondson-Sweeney, Inc. Ford Dealer". A Google search yielded an ad from the 1950's featuring a business with the same name on Plymouth Road in the Detroit area. There was also a movie theater in Detroit called Atlas Theatre that operated from 1939 to 1950. Now, without actually having a copy of Triple Threat Comics #1 in front of me, I can't say for sure...But I am thinking that Atlas Theatre Comics #1 is actually Triple Threat Comics #1 with the original cover removed and a specially printed cover affixed to the book itself. It was probably part of a special promotion by Atlas Theatre and local businesses from Detroit back in the mid to late 1940's. It was probably cheaper for them to buy a bunch of comics that were already printed and attach a custom cover than to have a totally new and special comic book printed solely for their own advertising purposes.

I am pretty enamored with Golden Age material, both for its charm and its simplicity. And when stuff like this is affordable, that's an extra bonus. Best of all, in this case, this book really has a story to tell in more ways than one. All in all, this is really a cool find, combining a Golden Age gem with some regional history. It sure is another great addition to my collection!

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Thursday, November 16

Coingate: The punishment due

by Mike on Thu 16 Nov 2006 09:53 PM EST

Further Reading
Time to punish Noe toledoblade.com November 16, 2006

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Saturday, November 11

(Almost) One night with the king

by Mike on Sat 11 Nov 2006 09:00 PM EST

Last weekend, Thomai and I had a rare evening to ourselves, so we decided to go out for dinner and a movie. After wandering around the Greene for a while, we went up to Beavercreek and had a terrific dinner at Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy. Soon after, we went over to the Regal movie theater to see what was playing. We had originally planned on seeing School for Scoundrels at the cheap theater, but once we finished dinner, we had about 2 hours to kill. There were a handful of movies starting at the Regal, so we looked at all the posters and tried to work out an agreement. We are pretty out of touch with the movies — we haven’t been to anything but children’s movies for something like 2 years — so we weren’t really sure what to see. The Illusionist looked good and we had heard some good things about The Departed, but there was another film listed that we hadn’t heard anything about: One Night with the King. So we got 2 tickets to the film on a complete whim.

We made our way through the building to our theater and settled down for the show. We sat through a couple of previews for a few upcoming major releases. Oddly enough, all of the previews were for "family films." The final preview was for a big, over-the-top production of a film about the Nativity that is supposedly due out around Christmas. I thought it was kind of weird, because I hadn’t heard anything about it but, then again, here we were sitting in a theater getting ready to watch a movie that we hadn’t heard anything about, either. Oh well. Then the film started. As soon as I saw the setting — which looked like the Middle East some centuries ago — I had a kind of unsettling feeling. Then, a narrator spoke and I heard names like "Hadassah" and "Esther" and I turned to Thomai and said, "You know, this might be a religious film." Sure enough, it was. For about three minutes, we whispered back and forth: "What should we do?"..."Should we stay?"..."Do you want to leave?" And then the awful, awful dialogue started. To say we ran out of the theater screaming is an exaggeration, but just a slight one. We were met at the door by a group of very excited and enthusiastic ladies who were obviously running late for the film. As they passed us, they said, "Did it start? Did it start?" We were like, "Ummm...Yeah, it sure did."

We made it out of the theater and to the main corridor where we briefly discussed how stupid we are. We then reviewed our three options:

1) Sneak into another theater and try to catch most of a different film
2) Go back to the lobby and pay full price for more tickets to see another film
3) Explain our situation to a theater employee and see if we could get a refund or some tickets to a different film.

We strongly considered option #1 and for a couple of minutes we actually crept around the corridor trying to see if there were any other films that were even worth sneaking into. No dice. A couple of theaters were playing Saw III (which we had no interest in seeing) and I can’t remember what else was playing in the particular wing of the theater that we were in, but I am pretty sure they were all bad. For a few seconds, we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to have to go all the way out to the main lobby and buy new tickets (it was $19.00 for two people -- ouch!). But at the last minute, we grabbed an usher and explained our predicament to her, making special note of the fact that we had no interest in seeing a religious film. Within a few minutes, we were hooked up with a manager who understood our plight and gave us two new tickets to see The Illusionist, which turned out to be one hell of a great movie.

It’s kind of hard to believe that in this day and age, we could be so ill-informed as to accidentally pay money to see some kind of creepy religious film, but I guess that’s what we get for not doing our homework beforehand. When we got home that evening, I did a little looking on the ‘net in an attempt to find out some more about One Night with the King. The most helpful resource was the IMDb listing for the film, which included one reviewer’s comment that the film was a “great movie for young and old alike,” adding: “Highly recommend taking the wife and kids.” Did I mention that one of the first scenes in the film was a massacre that included scenes of scores of bloodied dead and dying people? Family fun, indeed. And maybe next week I will take the kids to see Reservoir Dogs. I also found out that One Night was produced by by the son of TBN founders Paul & Jan Crouch, which means that had we stayed for the entire film, we might very well have ended up a couple of Bible-beating zombies because I am pretty sure that TBN uses all kinds of subliminal brainwashing technology in their productions. Talk about dodging a bullet. Whew!

Further Reading
The Illusionist official site

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Sunday, November 5

The Greek Resistance in comics

by Mike on Sun 05 Nov 2006 11:49 PM EST

During some down time this afternoon, I read a 1946 issue of Airboy (v3, #4) that I picked up a few months ago at the 2006 Buckeye Comic Con. The issue’s final story is an Iron Ace yarn that features a young Greek orphan named Mike. The tale opens as Captain Britain (a.k.a. The Iron Ace) is flying Mike from a camp in Italy back to his home on the island of Crete. Along the way, Captain Britain learns that Mike is the living reincarnation of Icarus, Iron Ace does battle with the immortal Daedelus, and they all meet up with Pluto, the Prince of Hades. At the end of the story, Mike decides to tell Captain Britain the story of the Greek Resistance forces of Crete:

The rest of Mike’s tale remains a mystery, because the above panels are actually the final panels of the story. I looked around for more information regarding "Captain Alexandropolus" and I was unable to find anything on the Internet. I also checked the books Red Acropolis, Black Terror and the Time-Life World War II volume Partisans and Guerillas and I came up empty. I’m not sure if Captain Alexandropolus was a real figure or some kind of composite, but I sure would like to know more.

Further reading
The Greek Civil War marxists.org

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