#comics

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast Episode #383 and Like a Hood Ornament #45: Troll, Dave Stevens – Drawn to Perfection, Max Q, Airbrushing Rocketeer Figures, and Cleaning up a Resin Minifigure with Hot Water

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast Episode #383 and Like a Hood Ornament #45: Troll, Dave Stevens – Drawn to Perfection, Max Q, Airbrushing Rocketeer Figures, and Cleaning up a Resin Minifigure with Hot Water

https://archive.org/download/podcast-383/Podcast%20383.mp3

This week, I thought I’d start by sharing a few things I have seen recently.  They all relate to the Rocketeer / previous show guest Billy Campbell in some way, though that was mainly coincidental.  If you get the chance to check out a Norwegian film Billy has a small role in, Troll (it’s on Netflix), I think you’ll definitely enjoy it if you like monster movies in the vein of Godzilla.  Interestingly, Billy plays a paleontologist whose last name is “Secord” … coincidence?  Hmmm …

In addition, a documentary about Dave Stevens also was just released.  If you have any interest in Dave, the Rocketeer, or comic book writers and artists in general, it was really well done.  They do a nice job at capturing the inherent loneliness that sometimes besets almost anyone who engage in a creative disciple (most of whic, in my opinion comes from the fact the artist alone know what is inside and there are always translational errors in making that vision something real in the world bound by time, skill, and other finite resources.  

Interestingly, I happened to see this comic magazine from 1983 on eBay the other day.  It was an impulse buy mainly because it had an interview with Dave Stevens in it.  Thought I would include it here since it just came in the mail and is very much in line with what was discussed in the documentary.  

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Lastly, while I was looking for Dave Stevens stuff, I randomly found a film called Max Q that also has Billy Campbell in it.  He again plays a flier ut this time a shuttle commander.  So far, it has reminded me a bit of Spacecamp, one of my favorite films as a kid, and I’m quite enjoying this look at the space shuttle (which NASA no longer uses) as well as the score of the film.  Not sure where you can watch it, but a kind soul uploaded it on Youtube, which is where I found it to begin with.

Welcome to a special edition of The Thirteenth Hour Podcast with guest Billy Campbell (a.k.a. the Rocketeer)! This was initially done as a thank you for supporters of a series of charity auctions of custom Lego Rocketeers done to benefit the nonprofit Hero Initiative. You may also be watching this if you are a listener of The Thirteenth Hour podcast and unlocked this interview by answering a few trivia questions related to our guest. Or, you are watching this at some future date, probably for a slightly different but related charity project. However you got here, thanks for joining, and thank you to Billy Cambell for a fun, wide-ranging conversation about the Rocketeer, comic books, drawing, Dave Stevens, and more.

Next, I thought we’d wrap up with some more hands on stuff.  I’ve been experimenting with using an airbrush to lay down at least the first few coats on the Rocketeer action figures 

@13thhr

I’ve started painting the #resin #customactionfigures of the #Rocketeer and working on the cases. First time using an #airbrush for this kind of thing #resintoyartist #davestevens

♬ Rocketeer To The Rescue: End Credits from The Rocketeer – Dan Redfeld

Lastly, I record a section where I am using hot water to warm a resin figurine I made of Logan from The Thirteenth Hour to make the cleanup of flashing and other bits that would need to be sanded or filed away a bit easier.  I’m not sure if you can do this with all resin but at least the clear stuff it works for.

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast Exclusive Preview and Like a Hood Ornament #44: A Conversation with Billy Campbell of the Rocketeer!

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast Exclusive Preview and Like a Hood Ornament #44: A Conversation with Billy Campbell of the Rocketeer!

https://archive.org/download/podcast-rocketeer-billy-campbell-preview-for-13th-hr-pod/Podcast%20Rocketeer%20Billy%20Campbell%20preview%20for%2013th%20hr%20pod.mp3

 

The Rocketeer Is Getting A New Movie With A Black Lead And A Brand-New Backstory | Cinemablend

 

Welcome to a special edition of The Thirteenth Hour Podcast with guest Billy Campbell (a.k.a. the Rocketeer)! This was initially done as a thank you for supporters of a series of charity auctions of custom Lego Rocketeers done to benefit the nonprofit Hero Initiative. You may also be watching this if you are a listener of The Thirteenth Hour podcast and unlocked this interview by answering a few trivia questions related to our guest. Or, you are watching this at some future date, probably for a slightly different but related charity project. However you got here, thanks for joining, and thank you to Billy Cambell for a fun, wide-ranging conversation about the Rocketeer, comic books, drawing, Dave Stevens, and more.

Speaking of Dave, none of this would have happened were it not for his many talents (writing, penciling, coloring, etc). Dave Stevens’ high flying hero went on to capture the nostalgia of a bygone era – the sights, speech, and zeitgeist of the golden age of aviation and the promise of the world of tomorrow – much of which eventually ended up on the silver screen in the 1991 movie. Unfortunately, Dave left this world for the next adventure all too soon. In honor of his work (40th years since the Rocketeer comic was first published – 1982), we wrap up the episode by speculating in “what-if” fashion about Cliff’s adventures in the early days of World War 2 in a Choose Your Own Adventure style interactive story.

Now, this episode is just a preview (about 20 minutes), but you can unlock the rest, annotated with pictures and video, by answering these four questions:

1.) In 1991, Billy Campbell played Cliff Secord, Gee Bee pilot, and of course, the Rocketeer. In the late 90s, Billy played another flyer in the film The Brylcreem Boys with Irish actor Gabriel Byrne. While Mr. Byrne wasn’t in The Rocketeer, he was in another Disney film made around the same time. Which one?

a. Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

b. White Fang

c. Shipwrecked

d. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

 

2.) Billy Campbell currently calls Norway home, and Shipwrecked was a Norwegian film directed by Nils Gaup. Earlier, in 1987, Mr. Gaup wrote and directed another adventure film, released in Norway as Ofleas. The US title was:

a. The Neverending Story

b. Time Bandits

c. The Young Magician

d. Pathfinder

 

3.) Speaking of the 80s, Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens penned the comic of the Rocketeer’s first flight in 1982. The Rocketeer comic had some information on Cliff’s background that wasn’t in the film. In the comic, prior to being a stunt pilot, Cliff was:

a. a circus performer

b. a grocery store stockboy

c. a mechanic

d. a short order cook

 

4.) Speaking of the Rocketeer, one of the beloved parts of the film, comic, and cartoon is the Bulldog Diner, modeled after a real Depression era diner shaped like a bulldog. The Great Depression spawned many infamous diner dishes using available resources. Which one of these real dishes was known as SOS (shite on a shingle)?

a. prune pudding

b. Hoover stew

c. peanut butter and mayo sandwich

d. creamed chipped beef on toast 

Put you answers in the password field below, all lowercase, no spaces, to access the rest of the episode (with pictures)! 

 

 

Dave Stevens The Rocketeer Signed Print (c. 1991).... Memorabilia | Lot #13920 | Heritage Auctions

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #124: The Robocop Show (30th Anniversary Tribute with Jeremy and Brent Simon)

Episode #124: The Robocop Show (30th Anniversary Tribute with Jeremy and Brent Simon)

https://archive.org/download/Podcast124RobocopShow/Podcast%20124%20Robocop%20Show.mp3

Last show of the year! Happy holidays! Brent Simon and my brother, Jeremy, came on the show this week to cap off 2017 to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1987 film, Robocop.  We also touch on the recent remake and a number of other things from the era, like some Saturday morning cartoons (there was a trend of making kids’ cartoons out of hyper violent 80s action films, like Conan, Chuck Norris flicks, Rambo, and, of course, Robocop – click on the highlighted links or the pics below for youtube clips of the show intros).

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The original Robocop was an interesting film in many ways since it was sort of aimed at kids … yet not (in that it was over the top violent and barely squeaked by an R rating)! However, robots were all the rage at the time.  Kids, adults, we all loved them.  Remember that this was the age of super robots cartoons (Transformers, Gobots, Robotech, Voltron, M.A.S.K., and a skew of others, mostly from Japan that didn’t get as much exposure here in the US) and ones in films like Star Wars, Short Circuit, and Terminator.

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We also covered a number of Robocop spin offs, like the games and some crossover comics.  Jeremy, who has encyclopedic knowledge of comic books and is behind the Classic Batman Panels Instagram page, contributed a lot of great info on the show about comic crossovers (many of whom were published by Dark Horse), including the Robocop / Terminator miniseries written by Frank Miller.

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Of course, one must check out the AVGN videos on the games spawned by the Robocop franchise.

The originals for the NES looked pretty shite.  In this epsiode the AVG Nerd also comments on the interesting 80s/90s phenomenon of making kids games’ out of R rated movies.

The Robocop v Terminator SNES game looks like it might have been ok to while away a few hours.

I originally intended to purchase a used gas blowback airsoft replica of Robocop’s auto 9 machine pistol on eBay for the show and include a video clip of it letting loose like in the movie but decided against it when I saw the price tag. 🙂   Ganking a clip off youtube was much cheaper!

(The auto 9, as a heavily modified Beretta 93R, doesn’t actually exist in real life, so a replica is the closest you can get if you want to legally own something like in the movie.  Even so, a gas blowback airsoft pistol will still set you back ~200 USD.  If you are in the States, a retailer like Airsoft Atlanta is a good option, and you won’t have to pay international shipping charges.  However, the latter may be worth it in some cases.  The HK retailer Redwolf Airsoft has a good selection and generally reasonable prices.)

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This pixelart animation of Lara Croft for the Tomb Raider game I intended to make once upon a time shows her shooting an auto 9.

Find more Brent Simon here (parts 1 , 2 , and 3 here) or on Jeff Finely‘s channel (below, Brent’s interview and Jeff’s – they were both multipart episodes, and Jeff compiled them into these videos):

A day in the life of Brent Simon, “The Brentumentary,” done by Jeff, and Brent current project, Aerial Focused.

Giveaway:

Nirvana Pilot Yume is a recently release PC game now available on Steam created to answer the question: what happened if the 1993 space racing MS-DOS game, Skyroads, were a visual novel with 80s anime visuals and a synthwave soundtrack?

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The team who created it, Dev9k, came on the show last week (12/18/17) to talk about their influences and have graciously supplied a free copy of the game for a lucky entrant into this contest!  It will go on until next week. 

Happy holidays.  See you in the New Year!

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!  Thanks for coming on the show, Brent!  It was a pleasure!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #117: “Born Again” and The Man Without Fear

Episode #117: “Born Again” and The Man Without Fear

https://ia601509.us.archive.org/30/items/Podcast117_201711/Podcast 117.mp3

When I was a kid, I really wanted to like comic books.  I really did.  But I ended up having about as much luck with them as I did with fantasy novels – meaning that, aside from a few isolated one-shot deals, it was a mostly a miasma of confusion and disappointment.  Of course, I had a few tattered Spiderman and Superman comic books, but for the most part, I didn’t have the fainted idea what was going on in them.  I’d mostly just look at the pictures and sort of guess what was happening since I was usually missing part 1 of whatever story arc it was and probably only had issue 3/7, like how someone who doesn’t understand the language might feel when watching a film without subtitles … one can appreciate the art … but everything else is kind of a gamble.

There were a few notable exceptions, though – Dave Stevens’  The Rocketeer and the only Daredevil comic I had a kid, a collection of stories in an arc dubbed “Born Again.”  Ripe with heavy Christian symbolism (sacrifice, redemption, Armageddon) and rendered in mostly dark primary colors depicting a grim and seedy vision of pre-gentrification NYC, writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli created a world that you didn’t exactly want to inhabit, but like watching a train careen into a mountain, man, oh man, you couldn’t look away from, either.

In today’s episode, I reflect a little on this fine example of storytelling.

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Daredevil, sans costume, takes on one of the Kingpin’s enforcer’s trying to ventilate him.  Nice kick!  Time to visit the dentist …

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I read this story around the time I was starting martial arts and liked that it included some martial arts techniques for Daredevil, here fighting an impostor in his costume).    Another nice side kick above and a variety of spearhands below:

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At the time, when reading this story, I had no idea Daredevil was blind and always marveled at how he managed to not kill himself jumping all over the place.  I guess that is why he is the man without fear.

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I thought this quote was the coolest thing as a teenager.

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At their very core, superhero stories laud the best and worst of humanity.  But while they serve as idealistic examples of wish fulfillment, it can be hard to relate to a superhero. By making him fall to new lows, this comic did a great job making Daredevil into a relatable human being.  It’s symbolic he spends most of the story arc without his trademark costume and that the last page shows him as a regular guy walking down the street.  For those of us who haven’t quite fallen to those gritty depths, there is still hope.  Maybe that means we then have something to lose and thus, something to fear.  But in a world where danger seems to lurk around every corner (if you believe what the news says), feeling no fear may not be realistic or even prudent.  But it doesn’t mean we can’t put our best selves forward, one foot in front of the other, and at the very least, fake being unafraid.  In the end, who can really tell the difference?

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #108: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 2 of 2

Episode #108: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 2 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast108_201709/Podcast%20108.mp3

Today, we conclude our 2 part conversation with author and illustrator Chad Derdowski, who came on the show last week to talk about his book, Fortune Favors the Bold: The Saga of the Scissorwulf.  This episode picks up right after Chad did a short reading from one of the story lines from the book, which if you missed last week’s show, is essentially a tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek R rated Choose Your Own Adventure style with a Conan style hero:

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And if you’d like Chad to do a personal reading for you, perhaps in the same faux-English accent, follow the links below to get a copy of the book for yourself, write a review on Amazon, and send proof to Chad on Instagram.  Just for podcast listeners and until the end of September 2017!

Much of today’s episode touches on Chad’s creative process.  If you’ve ever wanted to create a book (or something similarly creative), but have gotten forestalled along the way, you may find quite a bit of motivation in this week’s show.  Speaking of which, here’s a link to the book, Write or Wrong: A Writer’s Guide to Creating Comics, Chad was referring to by Dirk Manning.

Image result for fortune favors the bold chad derdowski

Get a copy of your own by clicking here or on the cover above: https://www.createspace.com/6289426

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortunefavors_the_bold/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheScissorwulf/?ref=br_rs

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32842665-fortune-favors-the-bold?from_search=true

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wnHPfV

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!  Next week, Brent Simon!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #107: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 1 of 2

Episode #107: Chad Derdowski, Author/Illustrator of Fortune Favors the Bold, Part 1 of 2

https://archive.org/download/Podcast107_201708/Podcast%20107.mp3

In this week’s episode, author and illustrator Chad Derdowski comes on the show for a two part episode to talk about his book, Fortune Favors the Bold: The Saga of the Scissorwulf, a blast to read and even more entertaining to learn about.  It’s basically an R rated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style book  with lots of references that former children of the 80s will well appreciate.  If you want a Cliff’s Notes version of the podcast, the main hero, the Scissorwulf is basically as follows:

 = 1uefrazetta-thebarbarian + Warduke from Dungeons and Dragons by MassimoAtlas + Darkwolf (Fire and Ice)... + 

Scissorwulf = Conan (by Frank Frazetta here) + Warduke (from D and D, redrawn on deviantart by MassimoAtlas) + Darkwolf (From Fire and Ice, drawn by Frank Frazetta) + Jack Burton (from Big Trouble in Little China)

And Fortune Favors the Bold is basically a mix of HP Lovecraft, comedic parody, pulp men’s fiction, comic book, and Choose Your Own Adventure all mixed in one (plus probably a few other references I’m missing):

AstonishingTales25.jpg + GEORGE GROSS - Nightmare in New York (Executioner 7) by Don Pendleton - 1971 Pinnacle Books + Related image + Image result for hp lovecraft + Image result for shaun of the dead + Image result for choose your own adventure

Chad also does a reading of one of the storylines in the book, so you get a preview of the writing and the beginnings of one of the adventures.

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Dark wolf says: stay tuned for more 80s references next week in Part 2!

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Get a copy of your own by clicking here or on the cover above: https://www.createspace.com/6289426

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortunefavors_the_bold/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheScissorwulf/?ref=br_rs

GR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32842665-fortune-favors-the-bold?from_search=true

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2wnHPfV

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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Away is now out for streaming on Bandcamp.  

The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube.   This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.

between 2 worlds EP cover 2

 

Stay tuned.  Follow along on Spotify!  There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.

Check it out!

As always, thanks for listening!  To be continued …

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #86: Worldbuilding in Scifi and Fantasy Audio From Big Apple Con 2017

Episode #86: How Scifi and Fantasy Authors Build The Worlds of Their Books 

https://ia801501.us.archive.org/26/items/Podcast86AriaBigAppleConPanel_201704/Podcast%2086%20Aria%20big%20Apple%20con%20panel.mp3

Ever read a fantasy or science fiction novel immersive enough to make you want to finish it in one sitting?

Ever wonder how the author created something convincing enough to make you sad when it ended?

That’s what today’s show is about.   It’s a Q and A panel from the Big Apple Comic Con a few weeks ago.  Think of it as a behind the scenes window into the minds of six authors who write a variety of styles within scifi and fantasy.  Some of the topics covered:

-What’s your creative process like: outline? freeform?

-Which is more important?  Characters vs. plot?

-How to create full realized characters you want to read about

-How to create characters that are true to themselves and the world you’ve created for them

-How do you find the time to write?

-Writing through writer’s block

-How much time should it ideally take for a reader to get a sense of your world?

Here are the authors on the panel.  Click on their names to go to their Amazon or GR profile pages and the book cover by their name for a representative fantasy work.

Tabitha Lord

86horizon

Heather Rigney

 86mermaid

Mike Squatrito

86overlords

Sean Faye Wolfe

86elementia

Joshua Blum

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Chris Paniccia

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Many thanks to Mike Carbanaro and the staff at the Big Apple Comic Con for inviting us to speak, and thanks to Mike Squatrito for doing the legwork to get us there.

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If you’re a writer or illustrator yourself (or are interested in becoming one) and are interested in the organization we were representing, you can learn more about ARIA, the Association of Rhode Island Authors, here.

The ending track, a synthesizer remixed version of “Reed Pipes That Echo,” is now out for download or streaming off of bandcamp.  (Music has always been both an inspiration and essential part of the stories I’ve created.  So you could say, it’s one of the ways I “world build.”)

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Next week, fantasy author Joshua Robertson comes back on the show.  It was great to catch up after over a year, and we covered a lot – if you liked what was discussed today, it only gets better next week, so stay tuned!

As always, thanks for listening!

(Image at the top of the screen courtesy of lemerg.com)

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  • Listen to Long Ago Not So Far Away, the Thirteenth Hour soundtrack online at: https://joshuablum.bandcamp.com/  Join the mailing list for a digital free copy.  You can also get it on CD or tape.
  • Website: https://13thhr.wordpress.com
  • Book trailer: http://bit.ly/1VhJhXY
  • Interested in reading and reviewing The Thirteenth Hour for a free book?  Just email me at writejoshuablum@gmail.com for more details!

The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #53: Rocketeer Reflections

Episode #53: Reflections on Rewatching The Rocketeer and How it Influenced The Thirteenth Hour 

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/Podcast%2053.mp3

I recently rewatched the 1991 film, The Rocketeer, one of my favorite films from childhood, if not my all-time favorite.  It encapsulated just about everything a kid could hope for – airplanes, jet packs, shootouts between gangsters and Nazi storm troopers – not to mention a great cast of characters with a plucky heroine and a dashing hero that was just enough of an Everyman to be easily relatable.  Sometimes, movies that seemed great as a kid don’t always make for great films for adults.  So although I owned the DVD of The Rocketeer and have rewatched bits through the years, I was always a bit hesitant about watching the film start-to-finish again, I guess out of fear that it would inevitably fall from grace after years had tarnished the nostalgia factor.

Nope.

I’m glad to say that didn’t happen.  Not only did I watch the whole thing, I was glued to my seat and daresay I enjoyed the movie more than I did when I was a kid.

In many ways, it was ahead of its time.  Superhero movies weren’t really as big at the time as they were now, and in this age of global terrorism, it is comforting to think that heroes exists in our midst that can stand tall when they’re needed.  And in many ways, that’s what the Rocketeer (a.k.a. pilot Cliff Secord) was – just an ordinary guy who, though a mixture of good/bad luck (depending on how you look at it) and the serendipity of circumstance, becomes a reluctant hero in an uncertain age (at the dawn of WWII).   Part of me suspects that the original creator of The Rocketeer comics, illustrator Dave Stevens, created Cliff with exactly that I mind – not so much a hero chosen to have superpowers but an average citizen who ends up in the role and has to balance using his rocket pack for the greater good (fighting crime/Nazis, saving innocent people) vs. his own personal agenda (making money, impressing his girlfriend).

While I was watching the film this time, I was struck by how many similarities there are between Cliff Secord and Logan, the protagonist of The Thirteenth Hour. In many ways, it’s not surprising, since The Rocketeer was one of my favorite movies all throughout high school, and The Thirteenth Hour was written the summer after I graduated.  Both have a boyish, child like sense of gee-whiz! wonder about them.  While both are, at heart, good people doing their best, both are getting by on a lot more than special abilities and natural talents.  They’re carried along as much by a combination of pluck, luck, help from others, and just, plain old bumbling incompetence that favors the optimistic, idealistic, and brave … the very image of characters that are holding it together not because they are super prepared or organized but with a combination of chewing gum, spit, and twine.  (In fact, Cliff’s rocketpack is held together by chewing gum at one point.)

So, it’s not surprising that there are some parallels, both in character and appearance.  Here are a few of the latter:

-I think ones of the reasons I drew Logan with the haircut he has was largely due to an the unconscious influence of Dave Stevens.

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This is one of the tamer pictures of Cliff Secord’s do out there.  He usually is a bit more disheveled:

-Cliff also worn a leather button-up jacket that, while looking a real pain to put on and take off, sure looks cool).  I gave the Imperial Rangers in The Thirteenth Hour tunics with a similar aesthetic, though I didn’t opt for the buttons.

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-And then, of course, both characters can fly owning to special machines.  Logan’s flying machine, Lightning, is talked about in episode #45.

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I recently found a little replica of the hoverboard from Back to the Future 2 in a thrift store – that made my day.

If you’re interested in learning more about real-life attempts to create rocketpacks, you can check out the book Jetpack Dreams (an excerpt on The Rocketeer is below):

You can also read more in this magazine article:

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More on the Rocketeer in the future!  Listen for the clip from the soundtrack by James Horner on the podcast as well as more postings on social media.

There are many excellent depictions of the Rocketeer since Dave Stevens’ passing.  This is a fine example by Alexey Mordovets.

As always, thanks for listening!

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The Thirteenth Hour Podcast #18: Comic Books and Illustrations

Episode #18: Comic Books and Illustrations

https://archive.org/download/13thHrEps16On/13th%20hr%2018.mp3

This post refers to the comic books (Bone, Archie) referred to in this post:

https://13thhr.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/influences-behind-the-thirteenth-hour-part-1-books/

The old (more comicky) and new (more ?anime-ish) covers to the novelette prequel to The Thirteenth Hour, A Shadow in the Moonlight are as discussed in this episode are here for comparison:

Dave Stevens, the creator of the comic book hero, The Rocketeer, is discussed here, especially his art style and the storytelling influence on the creation of The Thirteenth Hour.

 

As always, thanks for listening!

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thunderclap 13th hr picture_edited-1

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