2012 Banners Made from Book Covers

Comicbook banners aren't the only kind of banners I've been making. I also make banners for the Classic Science Fiction Message Board and I use the same ones on Facebook. These banners are usually pretty simple. When I first started making them I'd take four of my own books off the shelf and snap a picture of them. That's why on a lot of these you can see a tan border. That's the wall to wall carpet in my apartment! But eventually I grew out of using my own books and started to arrange images I'd find online.








  








 

These are the first theme banners I did rather than author banners. as I run out of authors I'll probably start doing more and more of these theme banners.







Just the other dad my dad gave me a bunch of Heinlein paperbacks with this style art. I've got to figure out if I have all of these covers now. Thanks Dad! 








 
 
 

I've still have even more banners to share. When I get a chance I'll post all of the comedic banners I've made in the last year.

Seinfeld Missed his Chance with Supergirl...

“The Good Samaritan” is remembered today as a middle of the road episode of Seinfeld, if it’s remembered at all. Probably the most memorable plotline is George saying “God bless you” to a married woman when she sneezes, which pisses off her husband for some reason. But, what surprised me about the episode when I re-watched it the other day, was that they missed a major opportunity to exploit a guest appearance by Helen Slater, best known for her role in “Supergirl” (1984).

I mean this is the show that many people have claimed contains a reference to Superman in every single episode. I don’t think that’s true, but both Jerry Seinfeld the character and the real guy have a love for all things comicbooks, especially Superman. So he must have been familiar with Slater and the role that made her famous.

As a side note look at the episode “the Race” which does have a lot of comicbook references. In that episode Jerry is dating a girl named Lois and just her name makes him feel as if he is Superman, saying lines like “Excuse me, Lois. Stand back, Lois. Jimmy’s in trouble, Lois.” At the climax of the episode Jerry and an old school rival have a rematch of a legendary race that they had in High School and as they run the John William’s “Superman” theme is played. And at the end of the episode Jerry tells Lois, “Maybe I will Lois, maybe I will” and he winks at the camera like George Reeves did in “Adventures of Superman.” And all of that was for no reason but that his girlfriend happened to be named Lois.

And yet in an episode where one of the guest stars played Supergirl the only reference to Superman is a poster of the JLA hanging over George’s bed in one scene.

Jerry says he’s had a crush on Slater’s blue sweatpants wearing character, Becky Gelke for a year because “she looks like she belongs on one of those hallmark cards.” But what he should have said is, “I don’t know there is just something about her that is so super. She just makes be want to leap tall building at a single bound.” I mean, if they wanted to keep it subtle they could have had her wear a tee-shirt with a superman logo. Surely that wouldn’t have clashed with the sweatpants look.

Jerry’s plotline involved him following someone that hit a parked car and didn't even stop. Jerry is determined to confront him. But when the driver turns out to be a beautiful woman Angela, Jerry switches tactics and flirts with her and ends up dating her. However later in the episode he finds out from Krammer that it was Becky’s car that Angela had hit and Jerry decides he’d rather make a play for Becky who he’s had a crush on for two years, but hasn’t ever talked to. Jerry confronts Angela and she turns into a femme fatale like Ann Savage in “Detour” only worse if that’s possible. She tells him, “You tell anybody anything and I will carve my initials on your brain tissue. I'll bash your skull into a vegematic like a bad cabbage, and I'll have a party on your head.” Since Angela had refused to pay. Jerry decides to pay to fix Becky’s car, but she is convinced that it must have been Jerry that hit her car and that he’s not man enough to admit it so she rejects Jerry when he asks her out.

Then at the end of the episode we find out that Krammer has a date with Becky. But the date doesn’t go well because Krammer has a seizure when he goes to pick her up because he hears Mary Hart’s (“Entertainment Tonight”) voice (Don’t ask).

Now with Becky the victim of a hit and run and Jerry determined to give her justice, doesn’t that sound like a job for Superman? They could have played up the damsel in distress angle of this episode and had Jerry feel like he was rescuing her. Call me crazy but I think this is one time Seinfeld really whiffed it!

Short Story of the Week (March 2013)

Each week at the Classic Science Fiction Message Board we read a short science fiction piece (short story, novelette or novella). These stories are always available for FREE online so that anyone can participate in the discussion. The stories are chosen by a different member every month, so that we get to read a variety of stories. March's stories are being picked by Rusty.

Rusty shared a biography with us the last time he picked the stories last June. Here is what he said about his short fiction picks this month, "Becky did a wonderful job picking some great classic stories last month, so I thought I would go the other direction and choose some very recent modern stories for this month. With all the science fiction awards coming up this year, several of the nominees have their stories freely available online, so I figured we could take a look at some of those."

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Week #1-  Immersion by Aliette de Bodard.

We'll start off this week with a story that has been nominated for both the Nebula and the British Science Fiction Association award. It is about 2 women in the far future who use technological devices to alter their appearances. A review by Rusty can be found here.

Week #2- Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest by Bruce Boston.

  

This week I thought we could read a SF contender for the Bram Stoker Award - a yearly award for superior achievement presented by the Horror Writer's Association and named after the famed author of Dracula.  I know this isn't a horror reading group, but this short story is from a science fiction zine - so I figured we could give it a try.

Week #3- "Five Ways to Fall In Love on Planet Porcelain" by Cat Rambo.

John's Thoughts- Read this story on my lunch today and was blown away! It packs the emotion punch of a 16 ton weight in the gut! Cat Rambo, I hope this wasn't from the heart because if it was somebody hurt you really bad. Great story A+.

Rusty- I also liked the porcelain people, and thought that a world populated with them was a very cool idea! I thought it was a good story told well - and I hope it does well in the Nebula Awards.

Week # 4- Robot by Helena Bell.

Rusty- At first I was kind of turned off that it was one long monologue, but as it went on I realized that we were being given glimpses of this woman's life and thought processes.  That part was cool, but I still would have liked more action and explanations in the story.

John's thoughts- What a bizarre and yet fantastic story! I have no concept of what disease this woman has, but that doesn't detract from the story, if anything it just enhances the overall wonderful weirdness. The woman is such an unreliable narrator due to what appears to be dementia and therefore I feel like we know almost nothing for sure.

Week #5 Nanny's Day by Leah Cypess.

John's Thoughts- You work hard at your job so that you can put food on your family's table. You regret that your nanny sees your children more than you do. What if that Nanny decides she wanted to take your children away from you? And what if the courts sided with her? 

I found this to be the weakest of the stories this month.  

 

A Year's Worth of Comic Book Banners

Last May I started making banners for a comic book message board that I'm a member of the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages Message Board. I'm a co-moderator there. :)

Anyway, as you will see, at first I didn't know what I was doing and could barely use Photoshop. But I am slowly learning.

The message board displays two banners each week, but because a number of other folks make banners too, I usually only get one banner up every other week. And, I tend to make a lot of banners so there is sometime a long gap in-between me making a banner and having it be seen.

Oh, the other thing that needs to be understood is that I post under the nickname of Paste Pot Pete. Why? I don't know. I've posted on comic book message board with that name for more than 12 years. If you know Marvel comics, Paste Pot Pete is a Fantastic Four villain from the early days so he invokes some of that Silver Age magic. And it's a silly name because well it sounds silly, but also because poor Pete, who changed his name to The Trapster, just got to be a lamer and a lamer villain until he hit rock bottom and became the only super-villain in history to be defeated by the Baxter Buildings security systems when the FF was out of town.



This is one of the first banners I made. Of course I would start with my own namesake. And this is sort of an important banner because I was so proud of the fact that the text from the cover had the second meaning of serving as a signature. And I haven’t been able to stop signing ever since!





I’ve always wondered if this joke was too mean. I’m sure Gernot has no problems with the ladies. :) Gernot is my co-moderator and the guy who decides which banners go up each week.
 

Shane, a fellow banner maker, did a better take on the same image. My joke kind of falls flat. And I hate that font I was using on these early banners. I should pull a George Lucas and do special editions of the banners with a better font.



I really like this one, but again every time I look at it I want to change the font.
 

I think this is the first of my dialogue change banners so it’s a little primitive. I always love it when I can leave in some original dialogue. I think that makes it better somehow.



This one I did when the Avengers movie came out but unfortunately it didn't make it onto the message board until the movie was old news.



I think the first thing I had them saying was Avengers Assemble! And then I was like “but they aren’t all Avengers?” so I changed it to Avengers and Defenders Assemble. But then I was like “But I don’t think they really ever call themselves the Defenders” And Avengers and No-Team Members Assemble was definitely not going to work so I just went with the name of the message board. Gernot yells at me if I send him a banner without GSBAMB on it and makes me redo it.



This is a Special Edition of this banner. Originally it didn't have the cool green background, but I couldn't resist doing a little tweaking on some of the older banners as my skills improve. This banner has a mate that still hasn't been put on the message board.



I still think this one is hilarious, but I might be the only one who does.



Splish Splash was written as a challenge. Murray the K said there was no way Bobby Darin could write a hit song that started “Splish Splash I was taking a bath,” so I couldn’t resist the challenge of getting the song on these panels. In the last panel I originally had Flash saying they were drunk but I toned it down to dizzy.



I don’t know if they come across but I put a couple of in jokes in this one. Ben talks about turning 50 that’s partially about the FF’s 50th birthday but also a dig against “Marvel Time” which keeps the heroes from aging. Then Spiderman claims he was under a rock for weeks. This is a reference to something I heard one time about if Spiderman’s powers were scientifically accurate one of his only powers would be to be able to go for weeks without eating.



This one is definitely my favorite. (And it ended up being voted the GSBAMB 2012 Banner of the Year) I think this one’s got it all! And I even incorporated some of the original dialogue.



This banner is part of a set. Maybe Gernot will use it’s mate one of these weeks. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more!




The first of my commentary banners, it’s fun to riff on the current goings on in comic books



I learned how to use the clone tool, but other than hurting my neck when I crane it to look at this thing vertically, it also drives me nuts that I didn’t completely blend the yellows together better on this one.

There are about another 20 banners I've made since then but a lot of them haven't hit the message board yet. So it might be a while before I have enough to make another post about them.

But never fear, I've also been making banners for The Classic Science Fiction Message Board, its Facebook page, and my own Facebook page. Sounds like a lot, but I always use the same banners in all three places. So I'll be putting those up on the blog too.

Mr. Independent

Henry is getting more and more independent. He doesn't like to be fed anymore he likes to feed himself and he gets the food all over his face and clothes. We got him smocks the we use instead of bibs we call them "Straight-jackets." 

Henry is still just starting to talk, but he understands a lot. I can tell him to go get Ralph his stuffed animal or go get a puzzle piece or go get your blocks, or go get a book and he'll do it. 

Part of his morning routine is to watch Sesame Street while we get ready for work. We put him in his bouncer so he can't get into any trouble and now he doesn't want to watch TV unless he's in his bouncer. In the evening one time, Carol asked him if he wanted to see Murray (one of the characters from the show) and he went right over to his bouncer and started dragging it over to the TV.  Like I said, he seems to understand everything.

Here's some of the best pictures I took of Henry this month. 

That's the sticker off of a banana, it says "Place sticker on forehead and smile." There's also some pictures of me with the sticker on my forehead. Back when I was a kid my brother would put those stickers on my forehead or his forehead. We were trendsetters. 

Two toys are always better than one, right?

It looks like he's doing some sort of "little stinker" face but what he's really doing is smelling. We play a game with him where we stiff his neck like we were dogs and so he goes to school and does that and probably confuses the heck out of his teachers.

 

Henry has his very first fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookie all over his face. I found chocolate around the apartment for the rest of the day, he seemed to have touched everything with those chocolate fingers before we got a chance to clean him up. Never giving him a cookie like that again unless he's in his high chair

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This is the cheese from raviolis all over his face in these last two shots. In the second one it looks like he's about to pay some of our bills. How long is it before he can get a job?