Millie the Model in London, Night #2

Panel from Millie the Model #140 (August 1966), script by Denny O'Neil, pencils and inks by Stan Goldberg

Same Story, Different [UK] Cover: In Britain, Hawkeye is a big superstar with his very own magazine

L: Avengers #36 (Marvel US, January 1967), art by Don Heck
R: Fantastic [and Terrific] #74 (IPC/Odhams UK, 1968), artist unknown (Don Heck?)

(Click picture to Big Ben-size)

In the United Kingdom, Fantastic and Teriffic reprinted Thor, Hulk, Avengers, X-Men and Iron Man comics. Fantastic, like most British comics, came out weekly and had black-and-white interiors. Still, for ninepence, that's a heckuva lotta Hawkeye.

And, just for comparison's sake, the shamelessly recolored Marvel Triple Action (March 1976):

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 71

Panel from Captain Marvel v.4 #7 (May 2003), script by Peter David, pencils by Kyle Hotz, colors by Chris Sotomayor, letters by Cory Petit

Millie the Model in London, Day #2

Panel from Millie the Model #153 (September 1967), script by Gary Friedrich, pencils and inks by Bill Williams

Millie the Model in London, The Covers! #1

Cover of Millie the Model #141 (September 1966), art by Stan Goldberg

Millie the Model in London, Night #1

Panel from Millie the Model #140 (August 1966), script by Denny O'Neil, pencils and inks by Stan Goldberg

An American Bull in London

Hi hi hi everybody! Or p'raps I should say, hullo hullo hullo, as I have returned to one of my favorite places in the world...the American Airlines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport! Naw, i'm just kidding. (That's not even in the top ten.) Nosiree (and nomissees), I am actually in London!



Naw, that's kinda cheating, because that's a photo from one of my previous trips to London. See that stuff in the backgrpund? That's London stuff.

What I really did today is arrive at beautiful and busy Heathrow Airport, which is neither a heath nor is in a row. I took a car (I had to give it back, the police constable said) to my lovely and comfortable hotel by the strangely twenty-first century moniker of base2stay. It is known as one of the greenest hotels in London! Funny, looks white to me. Maybe they must not have painted it green yet.



Upon entering the base2stay and entering my spaciously furbished room (big screen TV! Kitchenette! Lots of extra rolls of toilet tissue, or as I call it while i'm here, bog paper)! But the best part of it all was the big soft comfortable bed, where I slept for some of the afternoon...okay, most of the afternoon...to wear off my jet lag. Darn you, jet lag! I'm in London and there's time-a-wastin', or, as the famous French painter of the Folies Bergere was known, No Time Toulouse!

One of the best things about being in the UK and at a hotel, or, as I now like to call it, a base, is the free wireless internet, which certainly beats all those motor lodges with hand-cranked AOL access or the internet which runs on slices of American processed cheese. Here: all the free internet you can eat. Plus, thanks to base2stay's handy UK ISP...free access to the BBC iPlayer! And what's more, legal access to iPlayer for once! There are many, many fine episodes of Doctor Who that I have only watched sixteen or seventeen times before, so I'm looking forward to catching up while basing out here where I have come 2 stay.

After my mid-afternoon nap, I was as hungry as one of those furry animals they train to sit on top of a Royal Guardsman's head, so I headed down to Earl's Court Road for my usual and traditional first night dinner at Pizza Express! Pizza Express: the restaurant where you can order a pizza as big as their logo.



There are so many fine menu items at Pizza Express it took me quite some time to read them all! (And me without my reading glasses.) I don't think the waiter minded that it took me about forty-five minutes to read the menu...but it may have been a mistake to stop halfway through to finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Boy, that book's long!



I was so hungry I coulda ate a horse! Sadly, the pizza d'cheval was off the menu, so I settled for some of my favorite Pizza Express menu items. First, a brisk refreshing salad:



(Well, how was I s'posed to know it was just there for decoration?)

Then, for second starts, a proper salad of rocket (funny, they don't look at all like the toy rockets I have at home) and grileld chicken. Yum! Even better when drizzled with the dressing, as shown on left, which turned out to be delicious Hershey's Chocolate Sauce. Two great sensations that taste great together!



Then, to follow my flower and salad, why not a lovely salad? Me 'n' the waiter had a little trouble when I ordered this one, because he kept telling me that they didn't have tomatoes. But they did have something he called "to-mahhh-toes." They were pretty good too, especially sandwiched with delicious cheese, but it's really not the same as a good old fashioned American tomato and mozzarella salad.



Of course, when in Pizza Express, do try the pizza...I highly recommend the spicy hot Diavolo, which is brought straight to my table by Lucifer himself before he disappears in a puff of flame and smoke while cackling sinisterly. With its hot peppers, hot sausage, hot ground beef and hot Tabasco sauce topping, I thought it was pretty good. Coulda been a little more spicy for my tastes, tho'.



And after that, eight or ten cold Coca-Colas are often nice. or necessary.



But by far the most exciting discovery of the night? The Pizza Express's rest room loo has one of those new-fangled Dyson hoof dryers! Wow, my hoofs were dry in ten seconds! And I barely even washed them!

Happy and burping from my exceptional first-night meal, I went up Earl's Court Road to wander briefly along my old stomping grounds of Kensington High Street, only to find that stomping is no longer allowed as it keeps the residents awake. Whoops, sorry, folks. I tip-hooved into the Tesco Express to pick up snacks and the week's Time Out London, and headed back home2base 2have a midnight snack before retiring. Nothing like a fresh Tesco toffee ice cream knickerbocker and an ice-cold bottle of the best soda pop in the world, Lilt!



Suitably stuffed, I am now crawling into bed...I'm sorry, in2bed to have happy dreams and 2wake up 2morrow 2see what I can go look4 in London. They are playing one of my favorite tunes: "Sailing By," on Radio 4, which always means it's time to go to bed whether you're a little stuffed bull or indeed even the Queen.

(But I bet the Queen didn't have a nice toffee sundae before bedtime!)

Good night and cheers, folks! See you 2morrow!

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 70

Panels from Silver Surfer #4 (February 1969), script by Stan Lee, pencils by John Buscema, inks by Sal Buscema, letters by Art Simek

Millie the Model in London, Day #1

Panel from Millie the Model #140 (August 1966), script by Denny O'Neil, pencils and inks by Stan Goldberg

I'm leaving...on a jet plane...don't know...what a jet plane is...

Cover of Millie the Model #88 (January 1959), art by Dan DeCarlo

Just like Millie, I'm packing for a holiday starting tomorrow. (Not bringing my bird, tho'.) I'm heading for a special-super-secret location from which I'll be attempting to blog, wifi permitting, for the next week. But even if I can't blog atcha, there'll be special content all this coming week with the usual 365 Days with the Warriors Three; Same Story, Different Cover; and Ten of a Kind features!

Where am I goin'? Hmmm, here's a little hint.


Cover of Batman and Robin #7 (March 2010)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 69

Panel from What If? #25 (February 1981), script by Peter Gillis; breakdowns by Rich Buckler, finishes by Dave Simons, Al Milgrom, and Jon D'Agostino; colors by Carl Gafford; letters by Tom Orzechowski

Little Cool Things: I hanker for a hunk of meat

Superhero comic books focus on the big: the boistrous, the loud, the bombastic. But don't forget to focus past the action to check out the background details: the elements that aren't integral to the plot but which is a delightful little bit of stage dressing. In other words: keep your eyes peeled for the little cool things.

Here's a page from X-Factor #18, in which Madrox and Rictor pick up a sandwich tray from a deli for Layla "I know pastrami" Miller.


Page from X-Factor v.3 #18 (June 2007), script by Peter David, pencils by Khoi Pham, inks by Sandu Florea, colors by Brian Reber, letters by Cory Petit

Just another ordinary day in the life of Peter David's mutant detectives, huh? (Well, a little light on the awful puns, perhaps.) But did you detect the Little Cool Thing on this page? Perhaps we oughta start that scene from the beginning again. Take it away, David and Pham!



As a native New Yorker, let me tell you what' missing from this panel: big stacks of newspapers on a rack outside (The New York Daily News, The New York Post, The Daily Bugle) and a dog tied up outside because he can't come inside. (Substitute baby stroller if in Park Slope, Brooklyn). But are you missing the forest for the trees? Are you seeing what made me giggle out loud? Are you getting straight to the meat of the matter?



Wow! Well, I'm sold! Sign me up for a basket full of meat, Mister Deli Guy!

Seriously: if any deli or bodega in New York or the other fifty-three boroughs of Manhattan (Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Westchester, Newark, Shadowland, etc.) put up a sign like this, their business would quintuple overnight.

YAY 4 MEAT! Yum yum.

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 68

Cover of Giant-Size Thor #1 (1975), art by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott

Fighting for your rights / In her satin MAC taupe eyeshadow

I don't have a real post for tonight, so here's a photo of a poster advertisement for the new MAC Wonder Woman cosmetic line! Hey, I just noticed she's got her old uniform bodice with the eagle on it. What happened to the WW?



(Sorry, next time I'll try to get a close-up so you can read what she's talking about. I'm pretty sure it's about defeating Nazis through the power of elegant beauty.)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 67

Panel from Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe one-shot (July 1989), script and pencils by Fred Hembeck, inks by Vince Colletta, colors by Steve Mellor, letters by Janice Chiang

I will show you fear in an animated gif

(Created from these two Wizard special edition covers:

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 66

Panel from Thor: Blood Oath #6 (February 2006), script by Michael Avon Oeming, pencils and inks by Scott Kolins, colors by Wil Quintana, letters by Dave Lanphear

Ten of a Kind: From the wastepaper basket of Howard Roark

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

365 Days with the Warriors Three, Day 65

Panels from Power Pack #15 (October 1985), script by Louise Simonson, pencils by June Brigman, inks by Bob Wiacek, colors by Glynis Oliver, letters by Joe Rosen