The long Khan: AFOS September 2009 segment playlists

Starting today at 8am, these September '09 playlists (intro'd by yours truly, of course) will air all through the month on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel. Until September 29, they'll be repeated every Tuesday and Thursday at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm and every Saturday and Sunday at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.

"Eelmatic":
1. James Horner, "The Eels of Ceti Alpha V/Kirk in Space Shuttle," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly
2. James Horner, "Captain Terrell's Death," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly

"Promises, Promises":
3. Tom Jones, "Promise Her Anything" (from Promise Her Anything), Their Greatest Hits: Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, Rebound
4. Klaus Badelt, "The Promise," The Promise, Superb

"Chase Those Crazy Beatheads Out of Town":
5. Barry De Vorzon, "Baseball Furies Chase," The Warriors, Spectrum
6. J.J. Johnson, "Willie Chase," Willie Dynamite, Hip-O Select/Geffen

"Harkness, Everybody, Harkness":
7. Ben Foster, "Here Comes Torchwood," Torchwood: Children of Earth, Silva Screen
8. Ben Foster, "Judgement Day," Torchwood: Children of Earth, Silva Screen

"Tarantino Raided My Soundtrack Cabinets":
9. Ennio Morricone, "Algiers November 1, 1954" (from Battle of Algiers), The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music, Rhino
10. Giorgio Moroder & David Bowie, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)," Cat People, MCA
11. Lalo Schifrin, "Tiger Tank," Kelly's Heroes, Film Score Monthly

"The Hottie and the Ostinati":
12. The Paramount Studio Orchestra, "Prelude and Rooftop," Vertigo, Varèse Sarabande
13. The Paramount Studio Orchestra, "The Streets," Vertigo, Varèse Sarabande

"Schnapps for Breakfast":
14. Bernard Herrmann, "Thank God for the Rain," Taxi Driver, Arista
15. Bernard Herrmann, "Getting Into Shape/Listen You Screwheads/Gun Play/Dear Father & Mother/The Card/Soap Opera," Taxi Driver, Arista

"R.I.P. Erich Kunzel":
16. Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, "Overture" (from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad), The Great Fantasy Adventure Album, Telarc

"I Guess This Means That Alias/Alias Crossover's a Possibility Now":
17. Michael Giacchino, "On the Train," Alias: Season Two, Varèse Sarabande
18. Eric Rogers, "Spider-Woman," Sci-Fi's Greatest Hits Vol. 4: Defenders of Justice, TVT

"English as Language Second":
19. Ennio Morricone with Maurizio Graf, "Il Ritorno Di Ringo" (from The Return of Ringo), The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music, Rhino
20. Guido & Maurizio De Angelis featuring Susi & Guy, "Driving All Around" (from Il Cittadino Si Rebella), Beretta 70: Roaring Themes from Thrilling Italian Policefilms 1971-80, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
21. Seatbelts featuring Masayoshi Furukawa, "You Make Me Cool" (from the "Mushroom Samba" episode), Cowboy Bebop: No Disc, Victor
22. Seatbelts featuring Mai Yamane, "Want It All Back" (from the "Asteroid Blues," "Stray Dog Strut" and "Speak Like a Child" episodes), Cowboy Bebop: No Disc, Victor

"Westlake Ho":
23. Johnny Mandel, "Trackdown" (from Point Blank), Point Blank/The Outfit, Film Score Monthly
24. Quincy Jones, "Kifka Car Caper," The Split, Film Score Monthly
25. Quincy Jones, "Main Title," The Hot Rock, Prophecy
26. Jerry Fielding, "Office Scuffle/Kenilworth Heist/Casino Heist" (from The Outfit), Point Blank/The Outfit, Film Score Monthly

"Say Si, Not Oui":
27. La-33, "La Pantera Mambo," La-33, Walboomers
28. The Wondermints, "The Party," Shots in the Dark, Donna

"Alley OOP":
29. Elliot Goldenthal, "Obligatory Car Chase," Demolition Man: The Original Orchestral Score, Varèse Sarabande
30. Hans Zimmer, "Show Me Your Firetruck" (from Backdraft), Passions & Achievements, Milan
31. Royal Scottish National Orchestra, "End Credits" (from First Knight), Hollywood '95, Varèse Sarabande

"There Are Never Possibilities":
32. James Horner, "Epilogue (original version)/End Title," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly

Extra mozzarella: Do the Right Thing concept art and behind-the-scenes photos from Spike Lee's companion book

After posting a bunch of interesting Batman concept drawings and set photos from the 20-year-old blockbuster's official movie souvenir magazine, I'm doing the same thing with a similar tie-in for summer 1989's other landmark film, Do the Right Thing. But instead of an official movie mag, the Spike Lee Joint spawned a now-out-of-print Fireside/Simon & Schuster companion book that Lee wrote with the assistance of ex-girlfriend Lisa Jones. The director has done several companion books for his films. Each of these books contain behind-the-scenes photos, the film's script and Lee's own production journal (some of the Do the Right Thing journal passages are like tweets with better spelling: "Haven't written in a couple of days. I've been busy trying to save School Daze from being dogged.").

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Yes, there are people out there who still haven't watched Do the Right Thing yet. They're like people who never saw Ghostbusters. They're weirdos.)


I've discussed before why Do the Right Thing is one of my favorite films and why writers of color like myself cite it as an influence. One aspect of the film that I don't think gets enough props is the terrific production design by Wynn Thomas, who drew this sketch of the We Love Radio and Sal's Famous Pizzeria set exteriors. Using an old Coney Island pizzeria as the basis for Sal's, the film's crew built it from scratch on an empty Bed-Stuy lot. "The ultimate compliment was when real people would walk off the street and try and buy a slice," said Thomas in an L.A. Times oral history about the movie. Thomas later created nifty-looking sets for Mars Attacks! and brought CONTROL Headquarters into the 21st century for Steve Carell's Get Smart.

Production design porn from the Topps Batman Official Movie Souvenir Magazine

Long before movie studios promoted their tentpole releases through elaborate sites or postings of HD trailers on Apple's trailer site ("Watch the Avatar trailer a day before its premiere in theaters or James Cameron will shoot a puppy!"), there were these things called official movie souvenir magazines that were exactly like the studio sites promotional material-hungry film geeks can click to nowadays. When I was a kid, either Starlog Press or Topps would devote an entire one-shot mag to an upcoming blockbuster and fill the mag with a spoilerrific photo summary of the movie, fluffy cast interviews, slightly less fluffy crew interviews and the only part of the mag I liked, behind-the-scenes pictures and concept art. Starlog Press did tie-in mags for the Star Trek, Rocky and James Bond franchises, while Topps focused on blockbusters that it produced trading cards for, like Tim Burton's Batman and Touchstone Pictures' wannabe Batman, the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy reboot.

Do mag publishers still put out official movie souvenir mags? I wouldn't be surprised if High School Musical: The Musical or whatever it's called recently had one.

In 1989, Batman was my favorite movie. Twenty summers later, uh... not so much. But both score music-wise and production design-wise, the film remains one of the most impressive from that decade. Production designer Anton Furst's bleak vision of Gotham City won him an Oscar and was so pitch-perfect for this incarnation of Batman that DC incorporated the late Furst's architectural designs into the early '90s comics.

Here are several interesting photos and drawings from my well-preserved copy of the 1989 Batman Official Movie Souvenir Magazine, which I still like to occasionally leaf through even though the Pop Art-colored backgrounds and frothy late '80s fonts are a poor match with the photos from this darker-toned Batman movie--the mag looks like it was designed by the Saved by the Bell opening titles designer.


A visual effects crew member inspects the miniature Gotham set that was built for the Batwing attack sequence.


Was this where the Gotham Central police headquarters name and comic book series title came from?

The Hunter gets captured by the geeks: The books I picked up at Comic-Con, part 2

Previously: The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse, Adrenaline and Bumperboy and the Loud, Loud Mountain.

My rundown of the graphic novels and TPBs I bought at Comic-Con concludes with two recent projects from IDW, which quickly became the comics publisher whose releases I've been looking forward to the most because of its ambitious reprints and high-quality revivals of properties like Star Trek and Doctor Who.

I picked up Classic G.I. Joe Volume 1 at the IDW booth because I was looking for a comic that veteran Marvel and DC letterer (and friend and mentor to several of us Secret Identities creators) Janice Chiang worked on and could sign for me at Comic-Con, and the TPB happened to contain an issue lettered by Janice. She then brought me over to another former Marvel letterer, Rick Parker, to have him sign the TPB because his work appeared in the collection too.

I never was an avid reader of Marvel's G.I. Joe comics, although I bought some issues of the mothership and a couple of its spinoffs when I was a kid. I was more familiar with the Sunbow animated series, which hasn't exactly aged well. Even when I watched G.I. Joe and Transformers back-to-back after school, I thought the animation on both those Sunbow shows sucked. The constantly choppy character movements made the crappy made-for-TV Popeye shorts from the '60s look like Richard Williams cartoons. Because the Sunbow series was essentially a 29-minute toy commercial (subtract one minute for the "Knowing is half the battle" PSA, which was devoted to giving safety tips or warnings about creepy guys in white vans instead of selling toys), most of G.I. Joe's episodes were forgettable and silly, except for one: the Steve Gerber-penned "There's No Place Like Springfield," an eerie two-part ep about Jack Nicholson's Shipwreck's awakening from a seven-year coma that was inspired by The Prisoner (Shipwreck's home address at "Number Six Village Drive" was a shout-out to that famously surreal show). The downbeat tone of the ep and the images of Shipwreck's wife, daughter and friends melting into grey goo blew my mind when I was a kid and scarred other kid viewers for life.

The Marvel comics were intended to sell toys too, but the writing in those comics tended to be much better than the writing on the cartoon, thanks to regular scripter and G.I. Joe action figure dossier writer Larry Hama, a real American hero, especially to Secret Identities contributors who dug that an Asian American was at the helm of Marvel's finest-written toy-based title (also the first comic ever advertised on TV). The Vietnam vet-turned-comics scripter's military expertise added authenticity and grit to the comics and kept them more grounded than the cartoon, where nobody died, Star Wars-style lasers replaced bullets and Cobra was about as dangerous and menacing as Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz. That's why the late Gerber's despair-filled "Springfield" was such a stunner back in 1985--the cartoon ditched its usually campy tone for once, added some much-needed menace to Cobra and incorporated a storyline from the comics, the Joes' discovery of a Cobra base disguised as an idyllic, all-American suburb called Springfield.

The standout 1983 G.I. Joe issue that introduced Hama's Springfield--a town that's as rotten-at-the-core as Matt Groening's Springfield--is included in Classic G.I. Joe Volume 1, which collects the first 10 issues of the original 1982-1994 Marvel comic, most of them drawn by '70s Incredible Hulk artist Herb Trimpe in the classic '60s/'70s Marvel style. My tastes in espionage comics lean towards the more adult Queen & Country and Sleeper, so I found the dialogue in these early '80s G.I. Joe issues to be on the hokey side. Despite the hokey one-liners, as the Topless Robot blog noted last year, the original comic still kicks its cartoon counterpart's ass. Scarlett--the lone female Joe in these earlier issues, before Hasbro added Cover Girl and Lady Jaye to the cast--gets a bunch of thrilling take-charge moments in the 1983 issue that Janice lettered, a Mike Vosburg-drawn story in which Scarlett is assigned to protect a diplomat who's being targeted by Cobra (another highlight of the TPB, as well as one of the few issues in the collection that didn't involve either Hama or Trimpe).

A shot of Adrenaline: The books I picked up at Comic-Con, part 1

I finally finished reading all the books I bought during my one-day trip to Comic-Con. In an August 6 post, I discussed the first book I grabbed there that day, The Middleman: The Doomsday Armageddon Apocalypse, Javier Grillo-Marxuach's adaptation of the unproduced final episode of his prematurely cancelled TV series version of The Middleman.

I also picked up a TPB of Tyler Chin-Tanner's self-published miniseries Adrenaline, Debbie Huey's Bumperboy and the Loud, Loud Mountain, IDW's Classic G.I. Joe Volume 1 and an exclusive Comic-Con edition of Darwyn Cooke's eagerly anticipated IDW adaptation of The Hunter, the first Parker novel by Richard Stark, a.k.a. the late Donald E. Westlake. My tastes in comics aren't usually this wide-ranging--I stick to a steady diet of mature crime or espionage titles--but this list of books I grabbed in San Diego was an exception.

I first met Tyler at the Asian American ComiCon, where we had Artists Alley tables, and I ran into him again at the SDCC, where the AACC was still on our minds (the much smaller AACC was a far more enjoyable experience than SDCC, despite the occasional moments of insensitive Artists Alley behavior). Tyler is currently at work on American Terrorist, a comic about ordinary citizens who go on the lam after they're branded as terrorists for criticizing the government (the first issue is available to iPhone and Google Android users).

Like American Terrorist, Adrenaline is ripped from the headlines, and it centers on Dr. Saida Nri, a young Nigerian physician who gets roped into competing for a $4 million grand prize on a sensationalistic, globetrotting reality show of the same title--think a sleazier version of The Amazing Race. This enjoyable actioner, which Tyler wrote and drew layouts for (with epic-looking artwork provided by penciller/colorist James Boyle and inker/letterer Fabio Redivo), is a gentle sendup of reality TV and its frequent co-opting of the extreme sports craze. Alex Lowder, the Adrenaline show's wealthy host/creator (and he's not only the host, but he's also a contestant), is a mash-up of the douchey, culturally clueless Jeff Probst and an extreme sports nut.