EL BUNCHO ON CNN-UPDATE

From my friend at CNN; I'll update further if I hear more, but use this for now:

We edit tomorrow morning. The piece is scheduled to run on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I can't give you a set time aside from saying that the show's on from 6am to 10am. I'm betting it'll run in the 7am hour, then run again in the 9am hour. Can't be sure though. If I find out anymore, I'll let you know so you can pass it along to your adoring fans.

LA COSA NAUSEA: THE SOPRANOS - SEASON SIX

Well, I recently sat through the first twelve episodes of the supposedly final season of HBO's THE SOPRANOS, and I have to say that I think the show has officially "jumped the shark." There have been previous seasons that caused others to make the same statement, but I still stayed loyal despite the varying highs and lows of each season that followed the entirely superb first year. Sadly, this year was a catalog of bad creative decisions with only the occasional return to form, adding up to a big fucking yawner that pretty much went nowhere. So what, exactly, am I bitching about? Let me break it down for you, both the good and the bad, and keep in mind that all of this stuff is contained in twelve hours worth of episodes.

SPOILER WARNING-READ NO FURTHER IF YOU ARE A REGULAR WATCHER AND HAVE NOT SEEN THE TWELVE EPISODES IN QUESTION!!!

WHAT ROCKED

- In the only plotline that I really gave a shit about, secretly gay mob captain Vito being accidentally discovered in a Manhattan leather bar — in perhaps the most stereotypical leatherman gear depicted on screen since CRUISING — lead to all manner of truly heart-wrenching, suspenseful stuff. Once Tony's crew get wind of his extracurricular activities, there is much back and forth on how to deal with Vito's lavender lasagna, with most of popular opinion definitely leaning toward having him whacked to protect both the honor of the Family and erase the "shame" brought on by Vito marrying Phil Leotardo's sister,even though Tony publicly states that he's willing to let the whole thing slide. In previous seasons we had seen Vito as a minor background figure whose homosexuality was rather graphically dicovered by Meadow's cipher/dental school student boyfriend, a revalation that spurred Vito to hit on the guy in an act of blatant lust and intimidation. The boring boyfriend avoided becoming a human pincushion by proposing to Meadow, thereby rendering himself immune from all harm by becoming Tony Soprano's soon-to-be son-in-law. Anyway, once he's outed Vito leaves his wife and kids and hightails it to Vermont in hopes of finding a cousin up there that he can hole up with. Unexpectedly, Vito finds a love that he can openly express for the first time in his life and he comes to terms with himself, but his newfound happiness doesn't have the same "oomph" that his mob existence provided, to say nothing of him feeling heartfelt agony over abandoning his wife and kids. Poor Vito loves his family very much, and his wife is less concerned about his homosexuality than she is with having him come home; yes, the gay thing is an issue, but she really loves the guy and is willing to work things out. Unfortunately, Phil just can't stand the idea of his sister and her kids being "disgraced" by Vito's double life, so when Vito finally gets up the courage to return home and face the music, hateful tragedy ensues...

- The wedding of Johnny Sack's daughter is the total polar opposite of Connie Corleone's nuptials in THE GODFATHER, thanks to the theoretical happiest day of her life having a slowly mounting sense of ominous tension that pays off in spades, breaks the audience's heart, and loses Johnny the respect of the majority of the crew. Yeah, the mob dudes are highly emotionally volatile, but Sack's all-too-understandable meltdown is a classic that will actually make you nauseous; sure, the guy's a crook, but that sequence is a real punch to the kidneys.

- Hal Holbrook's turn as a terminally-ill rocket scientist who befriends Tony during his post-shot-to-the-gut hospital stay was a series highlight, especially his unexpected effect on Tony's outlook. See it and judge for yourself.

- Once out of the hospital, Tony realizes that he may be perceived as weak due to his physical condition and his kinder/gentler attitude, so he reasserts his dominance by kicking the motherfucking shit out of his young steroid-casualty-to-be driver. A savage return to form that reminds of the fact that these guys are a bunch of fucking sociopaths.

WHAT SUCKED

- All that tedious bullshit about Carmella's spec house and Tony's endless "forgetting" to talk to the proper people who can force the construction forward. This material seemed endless, and I just did not give a fuck.

- Meadow the mob princess working in a law frim that represents downtrodden immigrants is just too obvious of a plot device that allows her to do good despite her background, and if I had to hear her go off one more time on the violation of people's civil rights, I swear to the gods that I would have put my boot through the TV screen.

- I know that Tony's sister, Janice, is supposed to be a walking irritant, but they really amped up her annoyance factor this season, almost to the point of being torturous.

- The double whammy of Paulie Walnuts discovering the truth about his mother and coming down with prostate cancer seemed like a case of tragedy overkill, and as a result I felt that neither plot amounted to very much.

- Last season's uber-long dream sequence got on my nerves, and this year they stretched out Tony's perceptions while in a coma for a few episodes, thereby trying my patience. One of my closest friends spent time in a coma, so I know that waiting for someone to come out of it is an excercise in anticipation, but this plot line ended up simply being excrutiating.

- The attempt at a comedy subplot involving Bobby and the rap guy goes absolutely nowhere.

- Carmella finally starting to figure out that Adrianna most likely did not run away struck me as false; Carmella is no dummy, and since she's aware of what goes on in the life that her husband leads, I refuse to believe that the thought that Adrianna was whacked never even entered her mind.

- While I understand that a near-death experience can change a guy, I really didn't buy the kinder/gentler Tony Soprano, especially when contrasted with his philosophizing while still engaging in animalistic brutality. Maybe that was meant to point out his hypocrisy, but it didn't work for me.

- Tony and Christopher hijacking several cases of wine from two hapless bikers goes nowhere.

- Christopher returns to heroin...AGAIN. *YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN*

- Every story revolving around A.J. failed to catch my interest, and he's such a stupid, useless, spoiled little fuck that I just want to knock his teeth down his fucking throat.

And now the series goes on hiatus again, with eight final episodes promised in early '07, and while I will watch to see how it all turns out I have pretty much lost interest in THE SOPRANOS. In many ways I feel that it has taken a nosedive just like HBO's OZ, although not as quickly, but that saddens me greatly since THE SOPRANOS once ruled the airwaves as probably the best serial drama to come along in a very long time. Now, it just sleeps with the fishes.

WHAT I DONE BEEN READIN'

Stealing a page from a few other bloggers I know, from now on I’ll report each week on the comics that I have read, and any other interesting reading recommendations. So here we go, and thank the gods that I get a lot of this stuff for free, or else I would go broke!

ALIAS OMNIBUS EDITION


Having nothing whatsoever to do with the TV series of the same name, this volume collects the complete twenty-eight-issue run of the inaugural title in Marvel’s adult-oriented MAX line. The series follows the daily goings-on in the life of private investigator Jessica Jones, a former super-hero who got out of the heroics-in-tights biz because she realized she didn’t have the right stuff to make in the Marvel Universe. Occasional displays of her rather meager super-powers (flight, super strength) aside, this detective series is really about getting into the head of the protagonist, and Jessica is the most realistically written neurotic female character that I have had the pleasure to read in quite some time. As the series unfolds, the reader sees the world through Jessica’s eyes, and she is one sad critter indeed; the chick is a borderline alcoholic, saltily profane, indiscriminately promiscuous — the series practically opens with a shocking scene of a very drunk Jessica getting boned up the ass by none other than Luke Cage, Hero For Hire — and harbors a deep-seated guilt that forms the core of her self-destructiveness. Yet what could be an utterly unappealing character becomes an individual that the reader gets quite involved with, and I enjoyed this book so much that I went out and picked up the first two collected volumes of the non-adult followup series, THE PULSE, in which Jessica joins the staff of the Daily Bugle. The one drawback to the whole thing is that a lot of what makes this book fun depends on a pretty thorough working knowledge of the Marvel Universe from roughly 1961 through the present; there’s a great scene involving Daredevil in his civilian identity using his hyper-senses, and if the reader doesn’t know who he is the gag is totally lost. That one caveat aside — and the fact that the book is a pricey seventy bucks — , I strongly urge you to check it out.

CRYING FREEMAN Vols. 1 & 2- Thundering back into print and aggressively showing up much of contemporary manga for the pedestrian horseshit that it is, this ultra-violent and semi-pornographic classic from the nineteen-eighties has lost none if its edge twenty years on. This over-the-top crime thriller from co-creator of the landmark LONE WOLF AND CUB, Kazuo Koike, and illustrator Ryuichi Ikegami details the adventures of Yo Hinomura, a potter mind-controlled by the 108 Dragons, the all-powerful Chinese mafia, into becoming the world’s deadliest assassin. When his conditioning is activated by a code phrase, Yo executes his targets in a spectacle of martial arts and gunplay mayhem, finally shedding tears for the victims he is forced to kill. But Yo’s world turns upside down when beautiful painter/heiress Emu Hino witnesses one of his assassinations, leaving him no choice but to silence her for good. Upon meeting her again with murder intended, unforeseen romance blossoms as vengeance-bent Yakuza killers close in. The series then follows their love story, with corrupt cops, Yakuza thugs, and a surfeit of very graphic sex and violence, actually upping the ante with each subsequent volume. The whole thing is screamingly ridiculous, with villains whose images are occasionally dead-on likenesses of well-known film stars and a four-hundred pound, totally nude comic-relief woman who frequently masturbates after she kills people… This comic is pretty much a textbook of every sordid manga cliché imaginable — minus phallic tentacle/rapist monsters and giant robots — and as such is a total hoot.

GREEN LANTERN: RECHARGE and GREEN LANTERN CORPS

I have been a huge Green Lantern fan since childhood, but I never gave a shit about Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern of Earth. I mean, how could I care about such a bland, white-bread hero when the Green Lanterns of myriad worlds were his colleagues, a conglomeration of BEM’s of all descriptions and then some? Well, DC Comics has finally twigged to the fact that there are a lot of readers who feel the way I do on this subject, and they wisely tapped Dave “WATCHMEN” Gibbons to scribe an ongoing series about the Green Lantern Corps, largely relegating Hal Jordan to the sidelines. The whole thing is kick-started in the five-issue RECHARGE mini-series, which shows the reformation of the intergalactic police force and focuses on several new recruits. The ongoing GREEN LANTERN CORPS just started, and it is every bit as fun as its predecessor, so check ‘em out. Oh, and RECHARGE will be available in a collected edition at the end of the month.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON

Reviving cult characters from the 1970’s can be a real crapshoot (see the MAX version of CAGE for a very sad case-in-point, Richard Corben's art notwithstanding), but this six-issue treat succeeds for me because the love that went into it is dripping from every panel. Misty Knight and Colleen Wing were frequent guest stars in several Marvel books back in the days — most notably IRON FIST and a spectacular two-parter in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU by Chris Claremont and Marshall Rogers — , and both were direct fallout from the kung fu/blaxploitation zeitgeist of the time; Misty was an obvious nod to Pam Grier, only accessorized with a bionic arm (a gimmick that I have always hated since Misty is so badassed that a cyborg arm comes off as pointless overkill; I mean, the sistah nearly fucks Iron Fist to death, fer fuck’s sake!), but Colleen is a bit harder to pin down since at first glance she’s every contemporary sword-slinger chick of the type prevalent in many Japanese martial arts/gangster pieces, but her extremely confusing family tree kind of fudges her identity. From what I recall, she thinks of herself as Japanese, but she has a Chinese surname, red hair from what I think was an Irish ancestor, and she claims to have been raised in a family that adhered strictly to the ways of her samurai heritage… Hunh?!? Well, anyway, the girls are back in a fun story that shows off their strengths to great advantage, deftly combining gobs of old school action with a subtle and very funny sense of humor. Written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, the series is a brisk read, and over all too soon by the end of each installment, but the real revelation here is Khari Evans handling the art chores; as far as I know, he’s a newcomer, and if this is what he’s capable of coming out of the gate I can hardly wait to see what he does next. Colleen and Misty have never before been depicted with as much personality and unique visual interpretation as witnessed here, particular points going to Colleen’s lithe, rather gymnastic physicality and quizzical “little girl” face, and Misty’s perpetual scowl and out-of-control mushroom cloud afro. This may not be for all tastes, but I am certainly enjoying it.

CIVIL WAR- I’m guessing that this series was green-lighted in response to DC’s waste of trees, INFINITE CRISIS, and as badly as that outright clusterfuck sucked a leper’s dick, this Marvel “event” could go either way. From the beginnings of what came to be known as the Marvel Universe, there has been ambivalence in the general public as to the merits/legitimacy of super-heroes and whether or not they pose a grave threat to society, an opinion most frequently given voice by J. Jonah Jameson’s rabid screeds against Spider-Man. As far back as Avengers # 181 nearly thirty years ago, the US government has attempted to exercise some control over certain heroes, and the X-Men constantly face persecution and attacks from assorted shady government powers-that-be, so this storyline that has to do with the government finally cracking down on the heroes and demanding them be registered and regulated was a loooooooong time coming and not unexpected. After horribly botching the apprehension of a bunch of criminals — on live television, no less — the New Warriors are killed (no great loss), along with several hundred children and innocent bystanders, an incident that sours public opinion on super-heroes in general and prompts the idea of superhero registration (read: “public unmasking”) to finally be taken seriously. Various “supers” think the registration act would be a good way of engendering faith and trust from the public, but others balk at the idea, citing the ancient rationale for maintaining a secret identity, namely staying masked so that the heroes’ friends and loved ones could not be targeted by the bad guys. So Captain America goes rogue, Spider-Man agonizes over what unmasking could mean for his family, and Iron Man publicly reveals that he is Tony Stark and always has been, despite the eleventy-jillion times that he’s been unmasked and figured out a variety of idiotic ways of covering it all up again. Also, Spider-Man has ended up with one of the most godawful new costumes that I have ever seen, right up there with that retina-melting, armored redesign for Daredevil during the mid-1990’s. The whole shebang runs through many of Marvel’s titles, as well as its own series that contains the real “meat” of the tale, and I can tell you right now that I will only pick up the main book and the one or two regular Marvel titles that I read, because if there’s one standard policy for crossover books that I absolutely fucking hate it’s the tactic of forcing readers to pick up every single possible connecting comic, most of which the average consumer probably has zero interest in unless they are a total Marvel Junkie. This one bears watching, and I will keep you posted.

AS SEEN ON CNN: EL BUNCHO ON THE ALLEGED FAGGOTRY OF THE NEW SUPERMAN FLICK

Yesterday, while taking a load of ribs out of the smoker, I received a phone call from a friend who works at CNN. Apparently, the famed news network was going to do a feature on the idiotic rumors that Superman is portrayed with a “gay” sensibility in the new SUPERMAN RETURNS flick, and his producer needed to interview someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Superman mythology who could also talk about other pop culture subjects in relation to the proposed piece. When this list of requirements was voiced during the pitch meeting, my friend simply said, “Hand me the phone.”

And so it came to pass that yours truly was booked to be interviewed for a “man on the street” segment for CNN.

Since the interview was scheduled for the next day, just before the barbecue joint opened, I had to consider what I would wear. For a brief instant I seriously considered going the ultra-geeky route by sporting a 1938 old school Superman “S” shield t-shirt, but an inner voice put the kibosh on that stupidity by telling me, “No, dude. Don’t be that guy.” Instead I opted for a black t-shirt with the barbecue joint’s logo on it, thereby guaranteeing a plug for the business that would be seen by a gazillion people.

When the interviewers arrived, I was hooked up with a concealed mic and given a briefing on how the segment would work, namely that the anchor — a hottie who resides in Fairfield, the burg right next to my much-loathed hometown of Westport, CT — would throw me a variety of questions and would answer in my own inimitable style, only within the boundaries of FCC approval.

We ended up shooting outside, even staging shots of the two of us walking down the street, and the queries posed by the anchor allowed me to riff for extended periods on such things as whether the gay rumors would hurt the Superman franchise, other pop culture characters being seen in the media as gay (such as Spongebob Squarepants and Tinky-Winky the Tellytubbie, who was interpreted by some schmuck as being a fruit because of his purple handbag. So, the guy can accessorize! Fuck you!), the subculture of fan-generated fiction that specializes in explicitly gay/erotic depictions of the sex lives of famous characters such as Captain Kirk and Mister Spock, and the possible interpretation of Spider-Man as being gay since he is devoted to an ageing female family member, was a nervous dork who was constantly bullied and was awkward with girls, how he was a loser until he put on his fabulous costume, and has the rather anti-butch ability to pretty much shoot doilies from his wrists.

The whole thing went well and was a very pleasant experience, and I will post the airdates as soon as I get them.

6/6/06-THE MOST SATANIC DAY EVER!!!

Hey, kiddies! It's the Day of the Beast, the only date in our lifetimes that matches those old devilish digits of 666, so get off your ass and rent HAXAN (WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES), break out those Venom and Mercyful Fate albums and rock out with your horns out!!! Now, everybody sing!

"In League With Satan" by Venom -from the album "Welcome To Hell" (1981)

I'm in league with Satan/I was raised in hell
I walk the streets of Salem/Amongst the living dead
I need no one to tell me/What's wrong or right
I drink the blood of children/Stalk my prey at night

(Chorus)
Look out! Beware!
When the full moon's high and bright
In every way, I'm there
In every shadow in the night
'Cause I'm evil/In league with Satan
Evil! In league with Satan

I'm in league with Satan/I obey his commands
With the goat of Mendes/Sitting at his left hand
I'm in league with Satan/I love the dead
No one prayed for Sodom/As the people fled

(Chorus)

I'm in league with Satan/I am the master's own
I drink the juice of women/As they lie alone
I'm in league with Satan/I bear the devil's mark
I kill the newborn baby/Tear the infant's flesh

Hooray! Take THAT, "You Light Up My Life!"

Note: the version of this song by the Meatmen (available on "War of the Superbikes") is considerably more upbeat, but I'll take the original every time!

JETT LAGGED

How's this for a real life Catch 22: one of my favorite live acts, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, are playing tonight at a venue only six blocks from where I live, and it's one of my days off. However, the club, Southpaw, is tiny as hell and gets crowded as all get-out, and what with my neighborhood being affectionately nicknamed "Dyke Slope," it's a given that tonight's show will be wall-to-wall with the Sisterhood. The point of all this is that the older I get, the less I can tolerate crowds.

So I was just out buying groceries and strolled past Southpaw, and said to myself,"Aah, fuck the crowd phobia! Go see Joan, you pussy!" As I crossed the street to buy a ticket I noticed that the show was — SURPRISE!!! — sold out.

I am a dumbass.

THE MYSTICAL SHELF OF IDIOTIC SHIT

When the barbecue joint first opened my boss put up a shelf of assorted homey tchochkes that would hopefully evoke the feel of an authentic barbecue eatery, only one situated right here in Brooklyn; no pretentious bullshit for us, we’s just simple folk!

The initial items on display included a few carved wooden livestock, namely a couple of roosters and a fairly hefty pig, a couple of beer signs, and a pig in a chef’s outfit holding a chalkboard sign that reads, “EAT.” All well and good, but when your restaurant employs such a diverse assortment of balls-out fucking wackos — myself and the lovely Tracey leading the very warped pack — it’s only a matter of time before all manner of hideous, ungodly and just plain downright stupid shit begins to wend its inscrutable way onto the display area with the intent of boggling the innocent onlooker’s mind like some scurvy, flea-infested boardwalk freak show of the lowest order.

Recent addition to the kitchen staff, Scott, contributed the hardcover edition of the most important tome in recorded history, country music star and breakfast sausage maven Jimmy Dean’s autobiography, “Jimmy Dean’s Own Story,” which proudly bears the banner, “Thirty years of sausage, fifty years of ham.” Hey, it’s no “Chuck Norris: My Story,” but what is? Next to my treasured copy of the poetry of Suzanne “Three’s Company” Somers (no, I am not kidding), this may be the single most useless book ever published.

The brick with the newspaper item attached to it is a souvenir from the night of the crazed brick-throwing guy.

This assortment of Lilliputian piss poor protoplasm is part of the “Trailer Park” collection, a series of fifty cent figurines that you can get at the local supermarket in a shameless move to rip off/cash in on the hugely successful Hispanic pioneer of the genre, “Homies.” My favorites from the set are the retard with banjo, the redneck serving himself a party cup from a keg, the fisherman who looks suspiciously like the aquatic specimen that he’s proudly holding up, and the fat biker-looking dude scarfing down a bucket of chicken.

The previously mentioned Tracey recently got married in Thailand, and as if that wasn’t cool enough she illegally sneaked into Laos — fucking LAOS!!! — and obtained a bottle of “medicinal” snake whisky. And just what, you may ask, is snake whisky? It’s an elixir that allegedly cures many common ailments such as rheumatism, lumbago, and “sweat of limbs” (?), but what gives this stuff that extra little “zetz” is the fact that it contains not only an actual cobra, but a cobra with another snake in its mouth. Now, THAT’S fucking hard core!

My old buddy, Amanda, knows of my love for ludicrous “negrobilia,” and her contribution is this stunningly cheap and tawdry black Minnie Mouse. Although, I must admit to being somewhat disappointed that she doesn’t have the huge white lips of minstrelsy.

The Barbecue Bash Barbie is wholly appropriate because not only is it gleefully stupid, but it is also a K-Mart special edition, and we all know just how special that is, right, kids?

Last, but definitely not least, is this stunning painting that was one of several that I found outside on the sidewalk, presumably abandoned by the tortured artist who crafted them. This one was the more displayable of my two favorites — the other being a crudely depicted woman in lingerie being simultaneously impaled on a picket fence and having her throat slashed by what looks like an especially unsavory and drunken Vampire Lestat — and I really don’t know what it is meant to represent. To me it looks like an irate Alistair Crowley/Winston Churchill brandishing a staff or cane over the burning body of one of his enemies. Merely seeing a jpeg image of this work just cannot get across the crawling disturbingness of the piece and the possible mental illness of its author. Every time I behold this wonder I instantly hear Mercyful Fate’s “Black Funeral” screeching inside my head.

So, what strange artifact will next grace the Mystical Shelf of Idiotic Shit? Only time and the odd zeitgeist of the barbecue joint will tell...

R.I.P. ALEX TOTH, 1928-2006

Over the weekend the comics world lost one of its all-time greats when the legendary Alex Toth passed away, at his drawing board no less. I never met the guy, but his impact on all of us fans and comics biz grunts, both current and former, was massive and he will not be forgotten. My love for his work stems first from his work desgning cartoons, and only later did I get into his comic book work; if you've ever seen episodes of SPACE GHOST (the 1960's original), MIGHTY MIGHTOR, SUPER FRIENDS, one particularly memorable episode of JONNY QUEST, YOUNG SAMSON AND GOLIATH, THE GALAXY TRIO, and my much-beloved THE HERCULOIDS, you know this guy's work.

There's too much about him for me to even begin to cover here, so I suggest you check out the entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Toth at Wikipedia.

Rest well, old man.

KIDS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS

The adorable little fellow you see in the picture came to the barbecue joint today with his dad, and had a great time. He happily trotted out what little vocabulary he had in his beginner level attempts at conversation, and with a chicken leg in one hand and a huge grin on his face he sunnily blurted out, “SHIT!”

Ah, childhood…

DAY OFF ADVENTURES: DE-EVOLUTION IN TOYLAND

During my weekly trip into Manhattan I stopped by the current location of the once mighty Forbidden Planet, a comics/sci-fi/general geekery emporium, in search of a comic book that I have been having difficulty getting my hands on. Sadly, the Planet was the third store I went to that didn't have what I was after, so I was about to leave when I decided to check out the new collectible toys that infested the shelves. A plethora of Japanese monsters, superheroes, giant robots and STAR WARS characters assaulted my eyes and for the most part didn't catch my interest, so I made a beeline for the door. Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks, my attention riveted by a sight glimpsed peripherally. There, all by its lonesome on a shelf, partially wedged behind a toy from the upcoming Superman flick, was a beautifully sculpted Devo figure.

Yes, you read that right. An honest to God, motherfucking Devo figure!



My love of most things Devo is well-documented so I won't go into that again, but when I saw that toy the first thing to come out of my mouth was, "No WAY am I leaving this place without you." I grabbed the doll, plunked down the cash and headed home.

Now, I thought it was nuts about ten years ago when the Ozzy Osbourne figure came out, but the existence of a Devo toy just goes to show that if you wait long enough someone will manufacture a replica of just about anyone.

The figure is ostensibly of Mark Mothersbaugh, bespectacled frontman of the group, but it also comes with replaceable heads for the other four members of the original lineup — the likenesses are merely so-so — but since Mark is inarguably the face that most people associate with Devo, his head is definitely the one to go with.



And adding to the kitsch value, the manufacturers kindly provide a bullwhip and one of those red flower pot helmets — and "energy dome" to those in the know — as accessories.

The figure stands about nine inches in height, and the bright yellow of the jumpsuit makes it eyecatching no matter where you have it on display. I'll be putting mine on display next to the Ultraman toy that I have adorning the sill of the kitchen at the barbecue joint. Now all I need is an equally well-made GG Allin doll...