Saturday, August 26, 2017

Bucky O'Hare issue 05

Ahhh Continuity Comics....higher prices,better paper and colors. Sometimes amazing art...but always late as fuck. Seriously most titles from Continuity came out less often than Archie's current horror titles.

Anyways time to check out Continuity's biggest licensed title. They only had 2....Captain Power and the big,lol,hit Bucky O'Hare.

The 5th and so far final issue of Bucky was published around spring 1992. I love the Michael Golden cover. Bucky was created in the very late 70s by Mr Golden and famous GI Joe writer Larry Hama. In 1984,sometime in the spring, Bucky first appeared in one of Continuity's comics, Echo of Futurepast. Which was a anthology title. Sometime in the early 90s, I am betting it was 91,Continuity gave Bucky his own title.

In 1991 Bucky was being positioned to be the next Ninja Turtle breakout kids franchise. There was a syndicated cartoon,that I have been told was huge in the UK. Speaking of the cartoon,let us check out the inside front cover of Bucky issue 05.

There is a ad for 3 VHS tapes of Bucky cartoons. Priced at only 12.95 each. Seems like these VHS are the only US releases of the cartoon in any form of home media. Some kind of rights issue is preventing a Region 1 DVD releases.

One thing I have notice about Continuity Comics is outside of their 2 licensed titles  you do not see outside ads. Every ad is for Continuity Comics and Neal Adams. So after acquiring a large stack of Continuity issues I saw the following ads many many many times.
Yep make sure to subscribe to Continuity. With most of the titles a 6 issue subscription would last you 3 years. Also love that there is a Bucky subscription in the final issue of Bucky.

   
The hero above is Megalith,no need to worry no one remembers Megalith. Every Continuity Comic I have seen has this ad. Look at home whoever wrote the ad copy stresses all the few good parts of Continuity. 

Ok now it is time to show why I have kept this comic. I have been Michael  Golden fan since his Micronaughts run. 
Sorry for the glare,  I was not using my good camera.  But look at that gorgeous double page spread. And the art in the rest of the book is just as good.
I guess when this was published they didn't know it was the final issue. Mostly since... well... here is the final two pages.
Got a to be continued box on that final page. From what I kind find it seems Larry Hama has wrote another multi issue long Bucky story. It just so far hasn't been drawn.


This is a old ad. By the time this comic came out the cartoon was over and the toys were starting to disappear from the toy store pegs.

The  final page in the comic is an a ad for the Bucky graphic novel. That comes in 3 editions. A limited to 200 copies slipcovered signed and numbered hardcover. The above minus the slip covet and not limited to 200 copies hardcover. And your standard soft cover. 

It would have been great if Bucky would have become the huge hit it was trying to be. The story is pretty good. And the art in the comic is amazing. The pieces of the cartoon I have seen is fun and well made. The 2 or so of the action figures I have owned were high quality. Plus I keep hearing that the Bucky O'Hare NES game is a classic.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Tour of Duty The Complete Series DVD review

TITLE-Tour of Duty The Complete Series
PUBLISHER-Mill Creek Entertainment

Months ago I found this 11 disc set for around 10 bucks new. Having seen what I thought was the full series back when  it originally aired I grabbed the set ready to revisit a show I had enjoyed years ago in my youth

Airing weeking on CBS starting  in  the fall of 1987,Tour of Duty is as far as I know the first US weekly drama about the Vietnam War. At the time this was a hot topic again  thanks  to the success of films like First Blood and more so Platoon. Being made for broadcast TV of course the show had to be toned down some. But the writers and other people working on  the creative end managed to work in  a few neat ways of the restrictions of being aired over the public airwaves.

Now of course not long after buying this set I found out that GETTV is airing the show Mon thru Fri. Not that big a deal since I got the set cheap.Speaking of cheap....
The case is a really thin and cheap feeling cardboard. You remove the Tour of Duty top half and get a generic bottom half,covered with logos of the various TV show Mill Creek Entertainment has the rights too.Inside the case is sleeves,most of which have a dvd on each side. Sure it was only 10 bucks but this set even with  me taking extra care handling it looks like it could fall apart at any minute. I wish Mill Creek would have used their normal big plastic case full of dvds that I have on  sets like Married with Children.

After watching all 3 seasons of 58 episodes I discovered that I never saw the third season and don't think I saw the last half of the second season. Maybe the show changed nights and was on against another show I watched,I really don't know. After the first few episodes I realized that I am guessing thanks to music rights a lot of the songs in this release have been changed. Back when it was airing I clearly remember lots of hits songs of the era the show happens in  being used. In this release it is changed to very generic rock  music,that in quite a few scenes takes away for the show.

Even will all the  negatives,the cheap packaging and changed music,I still really am happy I found this set. Sure I could just watch it every day on GETTV,but then I would have to sit thru commercials and  only see 1 episode a day. I watched all 58 episodes of this series in a bit over 2 weeks and had fun revisiting a sadly kind of forgotten  80s drama.


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