Tag Archives: 1996

1996 photo of vintage diecast zinc toy Vauxhall Velox car

Photo credit: Auckland Museum, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Rest easy, Gene Hackman.

I probably saw Gene Hackman for the first time in his hilarious turn as Lex Luthor in 1978’s “Superman.”  (Yes, I do realize that I am past the point of self-parody with my preoccupation with comics.)  Then again, 1972’s “The Poseidon Adventure” got plenty of television airtime later in the decade … so I might have seen him there first; I’m not sure.  (This was a very long time ago, people.)

Later in life, it was films like “The Firm” (1993), “Wyatt Earp” (1995) and “Crimson Tide” (1996) that made me truly appreciate Hackman’s talent.

I would rather not comment on the questions surrounding his death; I don’t think my uninformed speculation adds to that conversation.  Suffice to say here that he was a truly superb actor.

[Update — apologies for posting the wrong hyperlink yesterday!]



Cover to “Carnage: It’s a Wonderful Life” #1, Kyle Hotz, 1996

Marvel Comics.

Cover to “Detective Comics” #697, Graham Nolan, 1996

 DC Comics.

Cover to “Grendel Tales: The Devil May Care” #4, Peter Doherty, 1996

Dark Horse Comics.

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Cover to “Batman/Grendel: Devil’s Bones,” Matt Wagner, 1996

DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics.

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Croatian cover to “Grendel Tales: Devils and Deaths,” Matt Wagner, 1996

Dark Horse Comics.

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Throwback Thursday: Action Park!

I never actually went to Action Park — the infamously dangerous 80’s-era  amusement park in Vernon Township, New Jersey.  But the name alone conjures childhood memories because it was a perennial source of rumors and urban legends for kids at the time.  (And we all lived a few hours away in Eastern Long Island.)  I remember the commercials too.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name mentioned since that time.  (The park closed in 1996, in part because of the same recession that was giving my generation so much anxiety in our first  post-college job searches.)

So I was surprised when a friend in Britain, of all places, sent me the first video below.  Not only does Action Park’s infamy live on, it extends across the Atlantic.

Anyway, it turns out that the park was one dangerous place.  There was even a 2020 documentary about it on HBO Max.

Wild.



This is an honor.

I discovered something incredibly cool this afternoon — it turns out that the good people over at Dark Horse Comics quoted me in their 2019 promotion of Matt Wagner’s superb Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey.  The eight-issue limited series marked the return of the iconic Grendel Prime, who I last followed as a zealous young fan in the pages Grendel Tales (1993-1997), Batman/Grendel II (1996) and Grendel: Past Prime (2000).

Dark Horse quoted a review I wrote of Wagner’s Grendel: Omnibus Volume 1 (2012), which was a compilation of the writer-artist’s brilliant early work on the title.

I’m thrilled.  Wagner’s a genius — and while Grendel’s dark, violent content is not for everyone, it’s always been a seminal title for the medium of comics.  I remember greedily snapping up back issues when I was a college student in 1992 — I never thought the day would arrive when a review of mine would be referenced to attract new fans.



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Cover to “The Flash” #118, Mike Wieringo, 1996

DC Comics.

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