Friday, July 15, 2016

Paul Ryan Flash Friday : Pray for the Dawn

Since I got as many votes for continuing where we last left of with Wally´s adventures as for going back to the first issue drawn by Paul Ryan I chose the latter because I already had the complete issue 119 of THE FLASH.


Now as you might have noticed this post got a little bit delayed because as usual I was doing one thing for the entertainment block and the another thing and then the laptop got slower and slower and while I tried to soldier on it just didn´t work anymore so I had to take a break anyway.

Which was beneficial to the post in that I was ready to do the animated GIF of Martina Hill as it was but since I had to start from scratch anyway I decided to cut the pictures so you can actually see more of her. Okay, this has delayed the post some more but in the end I think the quality counts and when people come across theses posts a few years down the line they don´t care if it took one more day to post it. They just care how it looks.

Now coming back to THE FLASH 119, this is a FINAL NIGHT tie in which to me was one of the better company wide crossovers DC did. Back then there were not that many trades being produced so I bought the main series and tie in issues like PARALLAX : EMERALD NIGHT 1 and GREEN LANTERN 81 as part of a GREEN LANTERN COLLECTORS SET. Which was what they would do with successful story lines and which is how I bought the Supergirl Saga ( which I still plan to cover in an upcoming post ) which was basically all the issues from one story between two thick card board in a little card box package. I love all the aspects of it because it shows humanity at its worst AND at its best at the same time, it has beautiful art by Stuart Immomen and it is the introduction of Ferro Lad into the Legion of Super - Heroes. In fact, non Legion fans may not know it but this whole story is basically a retooling of the Death of Ferro Lad as it brings the Suneater into the DC universe. It´s a great story which you should seek out and I must have re - read it at least two dozen times.


Now the reason why I choose this issue - besides that I didn´t need to look for all the parts which saved me a lot of time - is that besides being a FINAL NIGHT tie in it´s about Wally and Linda and what makes her character so great. In the new tv series she played a really minor role but in the comic books she was really somebody and you can see why Wally finally decided to marry her. Man, am I the only one who misses that some of the DC superheroes were married pre NEW 52 ? Okay, on with the story.


Since I didn´t write a post Yesterday there is quite a long list of celebrity birthdays we have to cover. We start with Martina Hill who turned 42 and she displayed incredible skills ( AND comedic talent ) on Knallerfrauen.


She later joined the cast of Switch Reloaded where she became the impersonator of Heidi Klum, Daniela Katzenberger, Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Bones tv series but her best role is the Jessica Rabbit of tv news sexbomb Tatjana Ohn, who is in a constant battle with Daniela Elger for the title of biggest boobs on german tv. Martina is almost better than the real thing and while Switch Reloaded is a matter of personal taste I have to thank Martina for bringing Tatjana Ohm to my attention.


You might think that Alley Baggett who celebrated her 43rd birthday is not worth mentioning except for her appearance on Unhappily Ever After but besides her over a dozen covers for Playboy special Editions there was an iMAGE comic book series based on a ficticious crime fighting alter ego.


Speaking about women who can triple the circulation numbers of adult magazines, Jeff Jarrett turend 49 and he won most of his matches due to two things - well, really three things - El Kawong and Debra Michaels´ big puppies. When he wasn´t busy sending her back for showing too much skin. Debra always pulled off the look of the big titted boss you could never nail / the slutty secretary you wish your wife would let you have.


I have just started to get back into wrestling on german tv and I don´t even know if there still is Impact Wrestling. It surely is not on german tv and I haven´t had time to check out the interwebs. Here´s hoping it still is out there in some way, shape or form because I really miss Gail Kim.

In my last post we had Michelle Rodriguez who was on Lost and we have cast members Matthew Fox who celebrated his 50th birthday Yesterday and Terry O´Quinn who celebrates his 64th Today. Terry was also on the cast of Hawaii Five O, Alias, The X - Files and JAG with Catherine Bell.


Jackie Earle Haley turned 55 who was Guerrero in Human Target and Rohrschach in Zack Snyder´s Watchmen. He also had an appearance in the new version of Robocop and he´s the reason why I will probably watch the new version of Nightmare On Elm Street ( although I will have to wait with that until I can see the uncut spanish version ) and the new Preacher tv series. His upcoming films are The Dark Tower and The Tick tv movie.


Yesterday was also the 58th birthday of Leon Boden who also was on the wildly successful Hinter Gittern - Der Frauenknast but for me he was Johnny Roland on Die Rote Meile. Fabian Harloff was also on the show which thankfully ruined the Teletubbis for me because he did the voice of the speaker of that series and I always got the felling he must be up to something being the villain from Die Rote Meile. The series was named after the red light district of St. Pauli in Hamburg and was a sequel to The King of St. Pauli. It followed the lives of strippers, prostitutes and their pimps but they were all portrayed like regular people not like in american tv series where people from this walk of life are always portrayed as bad people. I remember an episode of this series about beach cops on bikes ( that sounds as action packed as it was ) where there were people from the porn industry and they also made them killers because all people in the adult entertainment industry are horrible people. Anyway, I watched every episode of Die Rote Meile because they had a very easy concept : one strip in every episode which was not interrupted by commercials. I don´t know if they could do that Today as they put them into everything.


Even if they did not go totally topless - sometimes they had pasties on - I was glued to the tv watching such hot sexbombs like Yasmina Filali above. Daimn, that girl really has the prototype of the heart shaped ass. Now longtime readers know that one of my pet peeves is giving credit to the unsung actresses who upgrade movies and tv shows by getting naked in camera and there were sure some among them on Die Rote Meile as I found out when I tried to find the names of my favorite strippers. Yes, only the " real " actors are mentioned in the cast meaning those with a speaking part which tells you which place some women still occupy in Today´s society. So if anybody out there knows the name of the living blow up sex doll with the huge melons below put it in the comments.


Anyway, one of the best strippers of the regular cast is Sylvia Leifheit who has a secret identity in the series as she plays the typical devoted wife by day, secret stripper by night. Sylvia made me realize two things : firstly, while I usually don´t go for skinny chicks she is just oozing so much sex appeal that I would do her in a minute. And second, hair color can really make a difference because her character in the series is actually a blonde and despite having the same figure as a blonde she´s kind of - meh - looking while as Luna with the black wig she´s a real firecracker !  


Coming back to Leon Boden, he kind of gave himself competition because he was on Die Rote Meile and Hinter Gittern which was in the same time slot. Which should have not been a competition because let´s face it, one is a show about strippers and prostitutes with really hot women in the cast and one full strip in every episode. Okay, it was not Shakespeare but compared to other televison series it wasn´t that bad and the soap opera elements were kind of entertaining. On the other hand we have a women behind bars series which doesn´t deliver on all the reasons why people watch these kind of movies and instead gave us all the stuff you used to fast forward to get to the good stuff. Like I said, this should not have been any kind of competition but because in Germany guys cannot admit what they like to watch or more women watch tv about that time slot then men - or maybe just the fact that women control what men watch in this country - Die Rote Meile only got two seasons ( the second one wasn´t as good as the first one which might have something to do with the fact that they killed off Leon Boden´s character who was the main lead ) while Hinter Gittern had a mindboggling sixteen seasons. Yep, the worse a german tv series is the more seasons it gets. In any case, a few years back I got the complete first season of Die Rote Meile on DVD at amazon at a pretty decent price and I´m really glad I seized the opportunity because it really goes for ridiculous prices now. I can really recommend this show and Sylvia Leifheit alone is worth the price of admission. 


Our next celebrity birthday also ties in to series I watched on german tv as czech Schlager singer Karel Gott turns 77. He had a few really big hits in Germany like Weisst du wohin, Schicksalsmelodie, Einmal um die ganze Welt or Babicka but he is still famous for his rendition of the german title song for the animated Maya The Bee series from Japan.  



Coming from favorite tv series to favorite comics I just have to mention the 82nd birthday of french comic artist Marcel Gotlib who was always my favorite part in the pages of the original U - Comix series. Gotlib co - founded such cult comics like L' Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial where he did Hamster Jovial which was all about a really crazy group of boy scouts ( and one girl scout ) and the super hero spoof Superdupont.


But my favorite series by him is actually not an adult series but one he developed for kids called Gai - Luron in France and which was translated to german as Witzbold. None of my brothers really gets the series but I think it had a great influence on my own brand of deadpan humor as that is one of its main tropes as well as repeating a running gag beyond any limits of good taste. I´m not sure if I have all the single issues as I was buying it as it came out but I also have the collected edition which you can easily find at good comic shops or any german comic convention.


Harry Dean Stanton turned 90 and he has been in a gazillion movies like Alien, Escape From New York, The Green Mile, The Avengers or Cool Hand Luke with the famous car wash scene by cult siren Joy Harmon.
 

Combining movies and french comics we have Lino Ventura who was the guy with the bulldog face in all those classic french crime movies. The italian born was one of France´s most beloved actors and the lead in the original version of Buddy Buddy. His iconic face appeared in Asterix and EVERYTHING ASTERIX has The 24 Best Caricatures and Cameos in Asterix.


I also want to mention austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt whose anniversary would have been Today and he is best known for his golden phase which brought him critical and financial success and you might have seen art influenced by his paintings like The Kiss without knowing it.


We start Today´s birthdays with venezuelan tv personality, model, actress Aida Maria Yespica Jaime or Aida Yespica in short who turns 34. She´s not very well known in America or Germany but she is pretty famous in Spain through Supervivientes, the spanish version of Survivor. She began her career at beauty contests where she became the press favorite despite loosing the competition thanks to the fact that despite her average 5`8`` height she possessed a 36D - 24 - 36 figure. She went on to appear on italian tv as a model and showgirl where she quickly rose to fame. 


Aida appeared on magazines like Maxim and CQ, did four nude calendars in Italy and tv commercials for Braun, Campari and RAS with Sean Connery. She became a tv star, a movie star and was involved in a few scandals one of them with Sylvio Berlusconi to whom we will return later.

Speaking of models Kitana Baker celebrates her 39th birthday which you may know from her Miller Lite catfight commercials, appearances on the Howard Stern Show, in the WWE, PLAYBOY pics or VAMPIRELLA covers.


More comic related celebs as Brian Austin Green has his 43rd anniversary and he played Metallo on Smallville. He was on Desperate Housewives with Teri Hatcher who played Lois on Lois & Clark - The New Adventures of Superman, Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Saved By The Bell : The College Years with Tiffani Amber Thiessen with whom he was later romantically involved - on and off screen - in Beverly Hills 90210.


Boy, I would have schtupped her too and she was like a real life blow up sex doll back in those days. Besides taming Tiffany he also dated Tori Spelling who did a freaking fertility dance in one of the episodes. They said it was to shoot a music video in the plot line but maybe it was just foreplay and Brian plowed Tori´s brains out in the trailer afterwards.


Brian also got a few voice acting notches on his belt as Johny Storm on the Fantastic Four cartoon from the 1990s and Rimfire on Biker Mice From Mars, a cartoon show which I admittedly haven´t seen yet. I wanted to post the first episode but the embedding on that was again disabled.



80s sex symbol Brigitte Nielsen turns 53 Today and I already mentioned her in a post about italian pop sensation Sabrina Salerno as she was one of the busty centerfolds who tried to turn her notoriety into vinyl gold.


As we all know Brigitte starred in Red Sonya which was even worse than the second Conan movie but she almost got the role of She Hulk as New Line Cinema had her pose for pictures. The movie never came to pass which was probably for the best as was a tv pilot where they cast Gabrielle Reece as She Hulk and Mitzi Kapture as Jennifer Walters.


Forest Whitaker celebrates his 55th birthday and normally I might not mention him but just the other day I watched the episode Spring Break from season 4 of The Fall Guy and he´s in it. Even back then Hollywood studios casted people who obviously were much older as college students.



We really cover a lot of my favorite tv series in this post ( I´m almost tempted to give the video section its own post because it just keeps getting longer and longer ) and we couldn´t forget Airwolf which really should be part of the english vocabulary. The main lead was Jan - Michael Vincent who must have had one of the most incredible tv names ever as Stringfellow Hawke. He played opposite the late Ernest Borgnine as Dominic Santini and turns 72. Earlier I spoke about actresses who don´t get enough credit so I want to give a shout out to Helene Phillips, who played the exotic dancer who gets killed so Belinda Bauer is brought in ( she´s an exotic dancer, not a stripper because she doesn´t take her clothes of ). Now some people take the fact that Helene´s character gets offed as reinforcement that women with big breasts only get roles where they get killed off quickly while the flatchested girls have larger roles but Belinda´s character also gets killed. Okay, she has more screen time than Helene. Anyway, props go out to my Stringfellow but mostly to Helene. 


Today´s last birthday is another comic related one, the anniversary of italian fumetti artist Guido Crepax. I can´t really say much about his work because most of it landed on the german comic book index so you could not buy his stuff in comic shops. I DO know that he did adult series like Valentina or Justine, not only erotic but a lot of leather and whip stuff.


Now I already posted a video about Guido Crepax from the Fumo D´Inchiostro series that has been deleted in the meantime and which I will have to re - post some day but some readers may recall that I wrote about watching a Valentina series a few years back in Spain. At that time I couldn´t find anything about it so I wasn´t sure if I had really seen it or if I had seen another series and mixed it up with Guido Crepax´ work. Well, the series really existed and here is the opening sequence. It was produced by Sylvio Berlusconi´s production company so that´s something else he gave the world besides Bunga Bunga parties. Well, knowing him the lead actress probably had to audition on his personal casting couch.



Well, that was a really long entertainment block but I couldn´t end this post without a Flash video. There are a few tv related videos I could post but since we didn´t talk about the tv show - and I don´t want to spoil certain things - I am posting this one to give those flash newbies more background knowledge on all of the different Flashes. Of course there are a few things here which spoil stuff that I plan on covering in future posts but with my luck you have already forgotten them when we got to them.



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