My well-documented love for the Marvel Comics Group of 1983 led me to collect all those issues I could find! I started collecting regularly at the end of that year, with Marvel Team-Up #138, then Marvel Tales #170, then Amazing Spider-Man #250 together opening my way into the Marvel Universe of that era! So: the Sandman goes straight, Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. with Klaus Janson bring the Hobgoblin mystery to its fever pitch, and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, from 1965, begin what some call their magnum opus on the title they created together, the Amazing Spider-Man #31---that month's Marvel Tales reprint. (for me: it had really come out in September and might have been the first of these comics I collected at Len's Kwik Shop, two blocks from home.) How cool! Marvel Tales reprinted all fifty of Spider-Man's first issues plus his origin and three annuals. No, the writing didn't feel modern, but I allowed for that: still was I young enough to enjoy the suspense...

“Fictional Girls” Lyrics by Lue Lyron and the Marc Kane Music by Lyron I know a girl named Tiffany Thomas she left me a note and made me a promise to be a pen pal while she's far away Got her postcard in my mail box today She made it herself-- red shirt Star Trek dudes it's Captain Picard –is that Dr. Who? -from cardboard and thread, with googly eyes. Now how could I thank her? She loves a surprise... I love every crazy thing that she does I'm writing this song just becuz.... Fictional girls make the very best girl friends Marcileen, Sailor Moon, & Leia in one You don't have to own her, and you'll never know her Drawn into her pictures, we have lots of fun 2.She makes her name she makes silly faces she makes up her self and then switches places Tattoo 91, she colors her hair She cartoons a creature-is she really there? She finds her cute glasses, her hair is bright blue I'll make her a postcard when I have me some glue I love all thos...

Today we're going to go back to the function of this column as it was for a while in 2012: to show something cool from the realm of science. Post by Siakap Keli . Now what they're saying is that, were you present, the phenomenon wouldn't be apparent...only when you play it back. It's compared to watching wheels seem to spin backwards as you watch them rotate forward. That's because your eyes process information at about 30 frames per second, and you're watching something faster. The shadows I'm seeing suggest you'd detect it, yet the effect seems to require a camera filming at 24 frames per second, slower than the eyes process sight. If it's just a physical oscillation, a mechanical motion causing the effect, we agreed here at Integr8d Soul that it's so uniform that, from our experience, that just doesn't happen. But then, sound is a mechanical effect. We're seeing a change of amplitude rather than frequency. The debate abo...

Super Powered Love by Kirby Krackle I just found these cats via "Ring Capacity" on another blog when you type in "Superhero-themed songs." I have a show July 25th so I checked around for some...er...nerd rock. It's Killer Comics, with an emphasis on visual artists, but we happen to be musicians, too, as Integr8d Soul. Along with some Labyrinth songs, "Ballad of Barry Allen," "Spider-Man" ala the Ramones, "Evangeline" by Matthew Sweet, some Crow soundtrack, some originals, I thought we'd play some comic book/ game-flavored tunes (like "Greatest American Hero"!). If you enjoy that sort of thing...check out Kirby Krackle! They just might be at a convention near you. The rock is occasionally so cool on its own that tunes like "Rainbow Bridge" require no knowledge of Thor to just savor the guitar solos or imagery. My friend Autumn particularly loves this Mario Bros. inspired song above, with quirky lyrics ...

I'm a late-comer to the Pini's fantasy party, but it's my duty as an old-school comics fan to talk to you about Elfquest . I plan to tell you in the next installment about Wendy's Red Sonja show with Frank Thorne, and the original thirty issue run produced by Wendy with her husband Richard. Their independent comic was a tabloid-size magazine in its original guise. Their success at self-distribution (through Bud Plant Comics in New Jersey) was funded by a ten thousand dollar loan from Richard's parents.

There's an over-the-top quality, mixed in with relatable moments of human behavior, that makes the hey day of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's work on Fantastic Four such a delight to read. In fact, a friend hired me to create a comic that relies on those two qualities to make it good. The "rules" of those primary-colored Marvel stories, in the early years of the company as we know it since Fantastic Four #1 and the introduction of the present universe of well-known characters, catch on to the carefree intentions that bond the craft work. Taking itself less-than-seriously while portraying straight-ahead drama, Marvel of 1964 and 1965 has character-driven stories and captivating, simple artwork, planned with an effective, tried-and-true sense of "camera angles" that not only defines much of what originally hooked comics fans (with DC, Archie, and numerous other publishers filling in other flavors of mayhem and joy).  For my purposes, my friend Mike Parsley...