As its Iron Man 2 weekend, here’s a quick look at some Marvel comics takes on ninja throughout the decades. The b&w magazine era for Marvel Comics (ala the Curtis imprint) was soooooooo f’n cool! Deadly Hands was part B&W … Continued
This kid’s book-and-record (flexi-disc that is) Sarutobi Sasuke: Ninja Shugyou (Ninja Training?) is from 1973, and I know little more than that. The art throughout its 10 cardboard pages is no great shakes – and is actually quite stiff at … Continued
The much-missed masters of cheap toy lines Remco released a He-Man-sized line of martial arts action figures from 1984-86 called Secret of the Ninja. Three sets were done in ’86 that included VHS tapes to ‘play along to’ – and … Continued
I think these still from the other Red Shadow, Akai Kageboshi, almost look better in B&W. The details of these astounding costumes are brought out better in higher contrast than they were in their decaying sepia-toned originals, which made up … Continued
The cambara Lone Ranger looks pretty damn cool in B&W, too, like something off a Saturday matinee serial reel. Although the color originals of these images, first seen here in August of 2009, are absolutely stunning. Kurotokagi has a great … Continued
In looking at repurposing color images for B&W print ads, I tried to look for zones of photos that weren’t necessarily the original focus. Blowing up some of these areas produced a lot more grain, which when thrown into B&W … Continued
Couple weeks ago I was poking around with some B&W print ads using imagery from my Thai press kit collection – converting the decaying colors into more contrasty greyscale, exploring new crops, bringing out the grain and textures of the … Continued
So Five Element Ninjas… is this martial arts alchemy experiment the nexus of one craze on the outs and another on the rise, or is it just an embarrassing oddity shunned like a red-headed stepchild by snobs of two different … Continued
BACK IN BLACK! Gold, brown, blue, red and beige schemes aside, FEN also has a damn nifty commando raid where a platoon of black-clad ninja adeptly bypass the kung-fu compound’s ample defenses and lay waste to the remaining students. It … Continued
By day three, most of you should be rushing out to some store to buy FEN, and won’t be reading this. However, for you stalwarts still clinging to obsolete concepts like credibility and logic in your movies, let me assault … Continued