WEIRD FANTASY

WEIRD FANTASY

That’s right, folks, there is nothing wrong with your monitor screen. We are controlling the feed! So this is everybody’s buddy, Oddcube, here to say hi and welcome to the column!

I’m sure you already know how this goes, but to pad the word count a little, I shall explain it anyway. Being the utterly great and wonderful person that I am, I have magnanimously taken it upon myself to research various cool things from yesterday and today, subjects that either used up their fifteen minutes of fame or are just too wacky to get the mainstream notoriety that they deserve. Then, I tell you about it, and why I think it is or isn’t worth your time. It’s a vital public service, I tell ya, and I’m sure I’ll get a commendation for it sooner or later!

This time around I’m going to talk about an anthology comic book called “Weird Fantasy”, which was originally published by EC Comics back in the early Fifties. Now you probably know EC Comics, cuz they’re the guys who gained notoriety and infamy with their horror-themed comics like “Tales From the Crypt”, and are the originators of “MAD Magazine”.

In the beginning, EC stood for “Educational Comics” and was owned by Max Gaines, who wanted to make comics about science, history, and the Bible and market them to schools and churches. I don’t know how well that worked out for him, but eventually he died and the business was inherited by his son, William “Bill” Gaines.

It was Bill Gaines who restructured the business plan, and turned it into Entertaining Comics. Apparently, in this early stage, EC tried to chase various comic trends, transforming books from superheroes, to westerns, to romances, to horror, etc. until they finally found what would become their signature “shock” style. “Weird Fantasy” is a perfect example of this transformation process: it started off as a superhero comic called “Moon Girl”, which eventually was changed into the romance comic “A Moon, A Girl…Romance”, and then changed into “Weird Fantasy”. To confuse matters, and apparently to save on postal costs, they tried to continue the numbering. So, “A Moon, A Girl…Romance” number 12was followed by “Weird Fantasy” number 13. After only a few months, the post office caught on to the scam, and they continued the numbering as though issue 13 had been labeled issue 1. Just to make it tricky for collectors!

Apparently staff artists Harry Harrison (creator of the “Stainless Steel Rat”!) and Wally Wood were both really into science fiction and urged Gaines to try a sci-fi comic. They succeeded, and EC began publishing “Weird Science” and its companion title, “Weird Fantasy”! Well, I haven’t tracked read any “Weird Science”, but I can tell you a little about “Weird Fantasy”.

There seem to be no official credits listed in the comics, but from some half-hearted internet research I’ve learned that Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein were the main writers. They would read all manner of sci-fi stories in search of ideas and concepts that would inspire a story of their own, complete with the EC trademark twist ending.

Persons more well-read than myself could tell you more about what stories by what authors could have inspired the stories in the comic. But I can tell you that this method got them in a little trouble. One story that they published, called “Home To Stay”, was a sort of combination of two different stories by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury somehow found out about it and sent them a letter commending them on their interpretation of his stories and informing them that someone must have forgotten to send him his check. It all turned out for the best, though, because they managed to work out a deal with Bradbury to officially adapt several of his stories in their comics.

There were many recurring themes throughout the run of “Weird Fantasy”. Some of these were a product of the times, like the ever-present fear of atomic warfare and the fear of America or all of Earth becoming a Communist Totalitarian society. Other themes were tried-and-true EC standard from their crime and horror titles, usually somebody wanting to kill their wife so they could run off with their mistress, but in “Weird Fantasy” they needed some weird scientific machine to help establish an alibi (it usually backfired, of course). It’s hard to find an issue that doesn’t have an either an alien or a mutant, and many stories take trips out into space or even to other moons or planets, usually either in Flash Gordon-type rocket ships or some variation of the standard flying saucer.

The only bad thing about it is that after reading an issue or two, you kinda get used to their formula, and can make an educated guess about how the twist ending is going to turn out. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t guess exactly right every time, and even when I did, it was still entertaining. Plus, the illustrations are really neat, cuz they had a bunch of top-notch artists. Guys like Joe Orlando, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and John Severin to name only a few.

Despite all this good stuff, both of EC’s sci-fi titles were constantly loosing money, and were financed by their more lucrative horror titles. To cut back, “Weird Science” and “Weird Fantasy” were combined into the single title: “Weird Science-Fantasy”. This title ran for only seven issues before rules made up by the Comics Code Authority banned words like “Weird” from being used in the titles of comics. The title was then renamed “Incredible Science-Fantasy” and ran for four more issues.

Unfortunately, “Incredible Science-Fantasy” now had to deal with the rules and regulations of the Comics Code Authority. One of the stories for what became the final issue was contested and dropped. So Gaines and Feldstein decided to fill the space by reprinting a story called “Judgment Day”, about racial tolerance but using robots instead of people. The incident resulted in Bill Gaines telling the Comics Code Authority representative to do something to himself that is anatomically impossible and which is totally impossible to slip past my Beloved Editor™, so I won’t be repeating it here. But that’s ok, cuz it’s kinda fun to have to talk my way around it. Anyway, this incident caused Gaines to close down EC Comics and concentrate on “MAD”, which, as a magazine, was not subject to the rules and regs of the CCA.

But the legacy lives on! The complete “Weird Fantasy” was reprinted in 1980 as part of Russ Cochran’s Complete EC Library, and again in the 90’s by Gemstone Publishing, who combined all 22 issues of “Weird Fantasy” in five full-color annuals (these are what I have). Plus, thanks to the success of the “Tales From the Crypt” TV show, HBO made a second show called “Perversions of Science”, inspired by the EC title “Weird Science”. It didn’t catch on, and only ran for ten episodes, but one of those episodes, “Planely Possible”, but based on a story that appeared in “Weird Fantasy”.

So, the stories are fun, but short and consequently not too involved. The pics are nicely done, and I do totally dig the 1950’s vision of the future! Of course, the science is comic book science, when it’s explained at all. All in all, any fan of science-fiction or of EC Comics should totally dig ‘em, too. But I can’t just say that, cuz that’s not how we do things around here. Nosirree-bob! Around here we establish the rating of a subject with the help of percentage dice!

In case you’re new around here, I shall explain that percentage dice are a pair of ten-sided dice used to randomly determine a number between zero-one (which is EVEN WORSE than a world with NO mint-chocolate-chip ice cream!) to double-zero, which actually means one hundred (which is even better than having your cake, eating it, too, and THEN having another piece!). So I give my handy-dandy dice a roll like this…

…and end up with a seventy-one! Seventy-one? ONLY seventy-one? I think one of those notorious EC aliens have sabotaged my dice! Oh well, I think it deserves a higher rating, but that’s just one idiot’s opinion, and you don’t have to take it! Negatory, Pig-Pen, you could form your very own opinions by checking it out yourself! You should be able to find “Weird Fantasy” and other EC titles, in single issues, collections, and archived editions. These should be more-or-less easily found in the usual places, Amazon and eBay, and the ever-popular Other Places, Too! I managed to find all five annuals—the complete run of all 22 issues—on eBay for a really good price. How good? So good that I had to brag about it right here, that’s how good!

Anyway, I guess that pretty much brings us to the end of another Odd Review, so be sure to tune in again next time to see what I’m talking about, cuz it’s gonna be something extra special! …Well, ok, maybe it won’t, but I gotta say some grand teaser line to try and entice you to come back next time! Anyway, see ya next month, folks, be there and be square!

-----Your Buddy, Oddcube



Buy books. Mention this post when ordering any book from a Cyberwizard Productions imprint, and receive 10% off your next order.

MR. DESTINY

MR. DESTINY

Guess what folks? If you guessed that its time once again for everybody’s favorite online idiot to expound upon his incredibly unqualified opinions for your entertainment and enjoyment…then you are absolutely right! …And if you guessed something else entirely…I guess you feel like a real twit just about now!

That’s right; this is everybody’s buddy, Oddcube, here to say: Hello! And welcome to the column! As you already know it is my mission, since I chose to accept it, to look for cool and unusual stuff from the present and the past which you may or may not be aware of and put you in the know! And if you didn’t already know that, you know it now, so I’m already doing a good job so far! Then, I sorta slap on a cockamamie rating, and pass the whole thing off as a legitimate review (so don’t tell the editors the truth, they’d be totally heartbroken!).

This time around I’m talking about a movie from 1990 called “Mr. Destiny”. It was directed by James Orr, and written by James Orr and Jim Cruickshank. But that won’t be the reason you remember it, if you remember it at all. You’ll remember it because Jim Belushi was in it, and so was Michael Caine, back before he got knighted.

Hey, did you know that only two actors in the whole wide world have been nominated for an Academy Award for Acting (either lead or supporting) in EVERY decade from the 1960’s to the 2000s, and one of them is Michael Caine? The other one is Jack Nicholson, but he’s got nothing to do with “Mr. Destiny”.

But there are tons of other recognizable faces in this movie, too! There’s Rene Russo from “Lethal Weapon 3 & 4”. There’s Linda Hamilton from “Terminator 1 & 2”. Jon Lovitz from “Saturday Night Live”. Bill McCutcheon from “Murphy Brown”. Courtney Cox from “Friends” (in a VERY UN-friendly role! …I felt obligated to say that.). Maury Chaykin from “Nero Wolf”. And Hart Bochner who turns out to be the guy in “Die Hard” who got shot for lying to Alan Rickman about knowing Bruce Willis…but you might know him from “The Starter Wife”.

So, Jim Belushi plays Larry Burrows, a fairly unremarkable, average person. He’s got a good heart, a loving wife, and an unremarkable office-cubicle type job. Now, before we go into the real story, we have to flash back to a high school memory of “The Big Game”. Larry played baseball in high school, and he was the make-it-or-break-it hitter during The Big Game. Well, he was psyched up and ready to hit the pitch when there was this weird flash—that apparently only he saw—which caused him to miss the ball and strike out and lose The Big Game. Twenty years later, he still dwells on it.

It’s Larry’s 35th birthday, and everything seems to be going wrong. The contractor working on his house still isn’t done AND asked for more money. He ran out of his favorite breakfast cereal. There was no coffee when he got to work. He ends up looking very foolish in front of the President of the company (the jock who married the Boss’ daughter) and then in front of the Boss’ daughter. Everyone seems to have forgotten his birthday. And while nosing around into some suspicious business dealings, he finds out that the VP of the company is secretly buying up company stock so he can make a fortune by pressuring the owner to sell the company. He gets caught finding this out…and fired. And then, on his way home, his car breaks down.

This movie is a comedy, in case ya can’t tell.

Anyway, he breaks down in front of a bar that at first appears to be closed up, but then the neon sign magically turns on to catch his eye. Larry goes inside and finds the place empty except for Mike the Barman, to whom he tells his troubles to. Larry speculates that his life would have turned out a whole lot different—and better—if he had only hit that baseball back in The Big Game in high school.

So Mike the Bartender fixes him a “special” drink of his own concoction, which he calls “Spilled Milk, the one drink there’s no use crying over”. And when Larry drinks it…SHAZAM! The past is altered! Larry hit that ball and won The Big Game! His life has gone in a completely different direction!

This disorients him more than just a little bit. He doesn’t live at his former address anymore. Instead, he lives in a great big mansion…and he’s married to the Boss’ daughter and has two kids with her!

So Mike, who is some sort of “conscience” or something, explains that Larry hit the ball, so the girl he married never came to comfort him for striking out and they never met. Instead he married the prom queen, and became the president in her father’s company (where he was only a cubicle jockey before).

Apparently he’s had other experiences in this alternate life that drastically changed who he is, because he’s cheating on his wife with his psychotic secretary and apparently in cahoots (that’s a fun word “cahoots”!) with the VP who’s trying to make a fortune by destroying the company. However, our Larry is too preoccupied with finding his former wife…I mean, the wife he never really married…in the other life…or whatever. I can dig it, I just can’t explain it.

He’s terribly disappointed to find out that she’s married to another man, but kinda happy to find their having marital problems. She also works for the same company he does (in fact, everyone he knows and is related to seems to), and she is the steward of the local union, who is upset about the many layoffs and extra workloads that are part of the VP’s money-making scheme. So Larry, as the President of the company, states that he’s willing to give in to the union’s demands if she’ll go out on a date with him.

This, of course, ticks off the VP, who calls Larry’s new wife, the Boss’ daughter, and tells her about the dinner date. Like an idiot, Larry had his psychotic secretary/mistress make the reservations, so now both the women in his new life know that he’s hooking up with some other woman.

His wife, the Boss’ daughter, kicks him out of the house, then calls her father and gets him to fire Larry. The Boss writes a note and plans to leave it in Larry’s office, but he walks in on the VP, who is trashing Larry’s office cuz he plans to kill Larry and make it look like a robbery. The VP accidently kills the Boss and frames Larry for the murder. As the cops are taking Larry out of the office building, his psychotic secretary/mistress shows up and stars shooting at him! Fortunately, she’s a lousy shot, and hits lots of tires and windows and radiators on cop cars, creating a nice distraction for him to get away.

Larry goes directly to the home of the wife from his old life, hoping she’ll run away with him. But instead, his date with her inspired her to try to reconcile with her husband. Before Larry can argue further, the cops start catching up to him.

So he takes off in his fancy sports car for the obligatory (but short) chase scene, which ends with him crashing his car and killing the little dog he had saved from the streets in his other life. …This movie really IS a comedy; I swear it, just a little sadistic here and there!

Anyway, he darts down this alley and just HAPPENS to come out right next to the bar where he first met Mike. So he goes in, but nobody’s there. So he tries to mix some more “Spilled Milk” and is magically brought back to his original life. He thanks Mike profusely “for everything” and gets the tow truck guy to rush him to the board meeting so he can stop the evil VP from ruining the company.

Having saved the day, he goes home where there is a surprise birthday party awaiting him, because nobody forgot his birthday. Meanwhile the President of the company and his wife, Boss’ daughter, show up to thank him for saving the company and to make him the new VP! And since it’s a wonderful life, he presumably lives happily ever after.

Now, I saw this movie back when it first came out on video, and rented it again so I could write this review. I thought it was pretty funny then, and I still do. However, I find that I have a few problems with it nowadays.

In the alternate timeline, Larry Burrows obviously grew into a completely different person. He was cheating on his wife and scamming the company he worked for, both of which our Larry would never do. Except that he did, because he had no emotional connection to the Boss’ daughter and wanted his other wife back. But from his alternate universe perspective it wasn’t cheating, and I can sorta see his point, but at the same time, it’s just wrong. But that doesn’t matter; I don’t have a problem with that part.

My problem is that Larry’s an idiot. See, he’s married to the Boss’ daughter, played by the beautiful Rene Russo. This wife loves him completely. She is beautiful, faithful, attentive, and rich (let’s NOT deny it). Now, not only does he cheat on her, but he stupidly cheats on her with his secretary, who is a complete psycho! In the first 90 seconds that her character is onscreen, you KNOW she’s a wacko to be avoided at all costs!

Further stupidity: When he asks his psychotic secretary/mistress if his original reality wife works there, the secretary cannot find a record of her because we don’t know her new married name yet. But the secretary is mad that he didn’t spend his birthday with her, and threatens him rather plainly if he should get involved with her or any other woman. And yet, he gets this same psychotic secretary/mistress to make the dinner reservations! What a moron!

He is SO obviously in cahoots with the evil VP trying to bust the company, and already KNOWS that’s what the VP is trying to do. But he doesn’t seem to pick up on it in any of the conversations!

I also have a problem with the psychotic secretary/mistress coming to shoot him while the cops are trying to take him away. I mean, I know that there are people like that in real life, but it seems really dumb to me! But it seems really dumb to me when people do that sort of thing in real life, too. You don’t know if they arrested her or not, because she served her purpose by inadvertently causing a distraction so he could get away.

But my biggest problem with the whole thing is that he didn’t make the choice. Usually in stories like this, somebody says “Hey drink this, and your wish will come true.” Or sign this, or eat this, or rub this lamp, or whatever. That way you have to make the bad choice, suffer the consequences, and then overcome them. But Larry Burrows didn’t get to make the choice; Mike just sorta slipped him a mickey.

But it is a neat little movie, pretty funny in places, decent story as long as you don’t sit around thinking about it too much. Also kinda deep in a way, with the whole spiel about little things making a big influence on how your life can turn out. Sort of a metaphysical Butterfly Effect. Sort of a double moral, too, I guess. Partly reassuring you that some things happen for a reason, but also that you can’t just blindly follow Fate; sometimes you have to take an active part in shaping your own destiny. And if that’s too deep for ya, you can just back the movie up and re-watch that pan-shot of Rene Russo in the sexy lingerie for Larry’s birthday. Cuz, hey! At times like that, I don’t mind being shallow!

And now, the time has come, my little friends, to talk of ratings and things. Of course, being the fair-minded and un-biased sort of person that I am, I’m gonna randomly determine a rating by using my handy-dandy D&D percentage dice! Percentage dice, in case ya aren’t in the know, are a pair of ten-sided dice. One die represents the tens place and the other represents the ones place, and together they randomly roll a number anywhere between 01 (think of the worst thing EVER, and this is worse than that), to double-zero which actually means 100 (Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee)!

So I just give the dice a nice, fair roll like that…

… and end up with a 74! Hey, that was a good year!

But that’s just one idiot’s opinion and you don’t have to take it! You could watch the movie yourself and form you very own opinions. Go ahead, it won’t hurt or nothin’! You can rent it from Netflix, I know cuz I did. And you can probably find it in other places for sale or rent, if you are so inclined. And if you not so inclined…it’s probably still available for sale or rent in those places!

However, that seems to bring me to the end of this article. So make sure to come on back next month to find out what I talk about then! I know I can’t wait to find out what it’s gonna be! So be there and be square, cuz this is your buddy Oddcube, signing off!


-----Your Buddy Oddcube



Buy books. Mention this post when ordering any book from a Cyberwizard Productions imprint, and receive 10% off your next order.