Tag Archives: comic book

Bizarre Baseball Culture: A Cal Ripken Bio-Comic

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

There is a special type of baseball culture that I haven’t really covered yet… the baseball biography comic. Whether authorized or unauthorized, the baseball bio-comic is it’s own small subgenre of weird.

Take Baseball Superstars Comics‘ bio-comic on Cal Ripken, Jr. from 1992. A black-and-white comic from the now long-defunct “Revolutionary Comics” and seventh in a series of baseball bio-comics, it’s like a fever-dream of a look into the life and times of the Orioles great up through the 1991 season. The art is disturbing, the writing wooden, and the facts sometimes feel wrong.

That said, it’s not all bad. It’s got a so-bad-it’s-good quality at times, and any comic that features two pages devoted to the longest game ever is going to get my attention.

So, on his 54th birthday, here’s a look at the Baseball Superstars comic on Cal Ripken Jr…. after the jump:

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: The Detroit Tigers, A Talking Tiger, and the Power of SHAZAM!

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Nothing is going to beat Mr. Go. It just can’t be done. But, I’ll give it my best shot by bringing to you a comic from 1977 in which DC’s Captain Marvel and his talking anthropomorphic tiger mascot Tawky Tawny join the Detroit Tigers to defeat a team of alien All-Stars.

It’ll have to do.

SHAZAM1977COVERSCAN

So, here’s Shazam! number 32, from late 1977. I covered most of Captain Marvel’s complicated history (and why most people think he’s called Shazam) way back in May 2012, so if you want to know that, go there. However, an update is in order: DC has more or less given up calling him “Captain Marvel” and now is referring to him as “Shazam”. This is partly because everyone who doesn’t read comic books calls him that anyway, and also partly because Marvel has recently given the title of “Captain Marvel” to a character named Carol Danvers (who appeared as “Ms. Marvel” back in one of the AAA baseball comics) to great success, to the point where it’s thought they might make a movie starring her, likely with the name “Captain Marvel”.

Personally, the Shazam Captain Marvel will always be the real Captain Marvel to me, but, hey, you can’t beat copyright/trademark law, I guess.

(Incidentally, the Hero-Formerly-Known-As-Captain-Marvel-And-Now-Officially-Known-As-Shazam will reportedly be played by The Rock in a future movie.)

(Also, all characters, images and panels from the comic are trademarked and copyrighted to their owners and rights holders, all pictures here are are being used under fair use doctrine and are meant merely to support and enhance the opinions and facts stated in this post.)

But enough Captain Marvel background, go below the jump for an analysis/review of this comic!

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: Green Arrow and Elongated Man in a tale with Baseball

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Earlier this week, the season finale of the second year of Arrow aired. And, to belatedly honor that, here’s a look at the time that Green Arrow and the Elongated Man fought a guy dressed as a calculator during the World Series.

Yes, really.

JUMP for the rest:

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: Mariners Mojo, in which a baseball team fights a Sasquatch Invasion

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Robinson Cano is now a Mariner. I did NOT see that coming. And they paid a ridiculous 240 million dollars for him, which is absurd, especially given the long length of the deal and the fact Cano is already in his thirties.

However, that, along with the fact that the Mariners are apparently not going in hard to get David Price (amongst others), means there is perhaps no better time than now to be remembering how back in 2002 the Mariners saved humanity from a grand Sasquatch Invasion, which is easily one of the ten worst types of invasions to deal with. And they did it in TWO issues! Yeah, some teams would stop with just one issue, but the Mariners released TWO in 2002. That is true devotion to giving the fans what they…. want? And, what’s more, They were available outside of the stadium too, available at local McDonald’s! That way, you wouldn’t even have had to go to the park to get your hands on these comics!

Oh, and yes, it was done by Ultimate Sports Entertainment/Ultimate Sports Force, why do you ask?

Both comics were written by David B. Schwartz, who’s Twitter account calls him a “entertainment lawyer by day, comic book writer by night.” He’s recently been doing things for independent comic companies like Aspen, where he most recently wrote a title called Idolized, if my research is correct. Since he’s a lawyer, I’m going to be extra-careful not to say anything that might cause him to sue me. Thankfully, he does a pretty good job with these comics, given the circumstances that surround comics like this.

Doing the art for the first issue- and the covers of both issues- was Brian Kong. Kong has done a ton of stuff over the years, from comics to cards to recently illustrating a children’s book about how baseball teams got their names. In part two, the art was done by Dennis Calero, a prolific artist who co-created Cowboys and Aliens, which was later very-loosely adapted into a movie, as well as work with DC and Marvel. Like with Schwartz, they do okay given the circumstances.

Anyway….

Go below the jump and let’s get started on the stories themselves:

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Bizarre Baseball Culture THANKSGIVING WEEKEND DOUBLEHEADER (Starring Dick Blaze and Franklin Richards)

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

So, for the first time ever, we have a very special DOUBLEHEADER in Bizarre Baseball Culture, as we belatedly celebrate Thanksgiving with TWO comics. The reason behind this is because both of them are kind of short- one of them is only 3 pages! We’ll open up with the aforementioned 3 page story, a public-domain tale starring “Dick Blaze” (seriously, that’s the name), and then move on to celebrating the family time we have at Thanksgiving with a look at a short comic starring Franklin Richard, son of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards (AKA Mr. Fantastic) and Susan Storm Richards (AKA The Invisible Woman).

So, let’s get started:

First off, the 3-page story of “Dick Blaze, Four Letter Man at Yardley” can be found in Whirlwind Comics #2, viewable here on page 45. I can find basically nothing about this character, at least partially because I’m not going to be putting “Dick Blaze” into Google because I’m afraid of what might come up (shivers). The GCD doesn’t know a thing either. However, this came out in July 1940, published by Nita Publishing, which would later become part of Holyoke Publishing. Holyoke was one of the various comic companies that existed back during the “Golden Age” and then disappeared.

Anyway… the story.

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 3.55.08 PMWe begin near the end, which isn’t a surprise, given that this story is just three freaking pages. As the little info-box on the page says, it’s the final game of what seems to be the College World Series, and Dick Blaze’s (STOP LAUGHING, YOU JUVENILE) Yardley team is down by one but with two men on. Also, Yardley has very, very blue uniforms. It’s obvious, based on the situation, that Dick (STOP IT) is the best hitter, something that the Wentworth battery confirms as they deviously scheme:

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 4.03.36 PMThis is a rather suspect strategy. I mean, for one, it’s mean and unsportsmanlike, unless Dick has broken some unwritten rules earlier in the game. And for another, it’s dumb. There are two men on. You are going to load the bases to send a message, and, what’s more, your going to do it with a intentional HBP that could well go to the backstop if you miss the guy’s head?

On the other hand, Old Hoss Radbourn (or at least his Twitter incarnation)  would be pleased.

The first attempt to bean Dick in the head (you’re probably the same type of people who laugh when you read “Uranus”, aren’t you?) fails. But the second one succeeds, and he’s shaken up. Everyone is trying to tell him to get out of the game, but Dick doesn’t care, he says he’s FINE:

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 4.09.51 PMDick succeeds in convincing his coach and teammates that he can stay in the game, which isn’t really a surprise, since this is the Golden Age: When Men were Men and concussions weren’t considered a major threat to an athlete’s future physical well-being and mental health. After all, nobody who suffered from concussions back then became erratic and violent…. right?

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 4.13.26 PM(Jeez, this is up there with Dash Dartwell in ironically-uncomfortable-in-retrospect comics)

Anyway, you can probably guess how the rest of this comic (which has about… a page and a line left in it) goes: Dick comes up in the 9th inning despite still being dizzy and socks a walk-off homer….

and then goes to the opponent locker room and beats up the pitcher:

Screen Shot 2013-11-30 at 4.22.31 PMSo, remember kids: if you get a serious injury from having a fastball hit you in the head, ignore the pleas of your teammates and stay in the game no matter how dizzy you are. And then, make sure to take revenge against the pitcher who hit you by storming into his locker room and knocking him out.

…

Man, that’s dark. Let’s go to something a bit more happy: Franklin Richards. A look at his story can be FOUND UNDER THE JUMP:

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: McGwire, Sosa and Friends fight Tree Monsters in “Cosmic Slam”

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

I’m coming to you from the Auxiliary Headquarters of the Continuum… AKA a Living Room instead of my usual Family Room or Bedroom writing area, due to the great Wi-Fi Crisis of 2013. The reason I have braved such perils is simple: Cosmic Slam. The sequel to Shortstop Squad, and another great epic from the folks at Ultimate Sports Entertainment (AKA “Ultimate Sports Force”). Just as Shortstop Squad brought us late-90s shortstops fighting monsters and aliens, Cosmic Slam does the same with late 1990s sluggers. Jeff Bagwell, Sammy Sosa, David Justice and Mark McGwire all grace the cover, and Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla and Frank Thomas all show up in the story as well.

It also involves Bagwell complaining about missing a fishing trip, Sosa making a corked bat joke, Greg Maddux‘s fastball being insulted, and of course, the making of a baseball bat out of the body of your defeated foes.

No, I’m not joking about the last one. Seriously, that really happens.

So, place your tongue firmly in cheek and go below the jump for Cosmic Slam.

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: SHORTSTOP SQUAD (AKA “Ripken, Larkin, Jeter and A-Rod fight Faux-Godzilla”)

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

In the last years of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st, there existed a company called “Ultimate Sports Force”. It is gone now, existing only in old websites and undeleted news items, but in it’s day, it was a staple advertisement in things like Sports Illustrated for Kids.

What was “Ultimate Sports Force”, you ask?

Ultimate Sports Force was a comic company that made books in which professional athletes were superheroes, that’s what! They had licenses with MLB, NBA, NFL and others, and they made comics that involved them saving the world. And then, like a shooting star across the sky, they were gone.

But, oh, man, the stuff they left behind. I’ve come into possession of many of their great products, and while their quality varies from “surprisingly good” to “OH-DEAR-GOD-KILL-IT-WITH-FIRE”, they all represent a special point in our history, a time when we could think of our sports heroes as actual superheroes, and not individuals who got into arguments, used PEDs, had tumultuous love lives, politics we disagree with or other flaws. No, Ultimate Sports Force was the last Golden Age before we all became so jaded.

Perhaps the crown jewel of Ultimate Sports Force’s non-team-affiliated content was Shortstop Squad. Truly a marvel of the Bizarre Baseball Culture arts, it paid tribute to those that went before and followed in their traditions, as Cal Ripken led his team of Barry Larkin, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez against a fish-monster that basically is meant to be fish-Godzilla.

You may think I’m being sarcastic, and you are probably right, but, well, this is SHORTSTOP SQUAD, so your logic is irrelevant.

After all, just LOOK at this cover:

SHORTSTOPSQUADcover

Your mind is now blown.

So, let’s get started with Shortstop Squad #1 from 1999… after the jump, of course:

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Bizarre Baseball Culture: Dash Dartwell’s PED use for justice

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Steroids and other performance-enhancers are, to sports, a plague. They provide some players an unfair advantage, threaten the integrity of records, and could also endanger the long-term health of the user. The great struggle of 21st century sports has, in many ways, been the struggle against PEDs.

But, as today’s installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture shows, the the view that PEDs are bad goes against human nature and human fantasy. The human experience, the human dream, has always been about becoming better. It is one reason why, for example, that larger-than-life heroes have been popular since ancient times.

So it is perhaps not surprising that fictional superhumans (who by their nature are better than human) have often gone hand-in-hand with PEDs (which by their very nature make the user better than the average human). Steve Rogers, for example, became Captain America after being given a Super-Soldier Serum by the American government. Bane, the villain who once broke Batman’s back and appeared in less-steroidy form in The Dark Knight Rises, got his great strength from a drug known simply as “Venom”. Even Popeye, with his spinach, could be said to be using some type of performance enhancers.

But few stories actually have an athlete using a PED… but I have found at least one, featuring the obscure hero Dash Dartwell (sometimes called “The Human Meteor”), a college athlete who has gotten “Metabo-tablets” from a biochemistry professor that make him superhuman until the pill’s effect wears off.

Amazing Man Comics #22, the issue from May 1941 which contains this story (it starts on page 41), can be found here. Go below the jump for the rest of this installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture.

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