Saturday, August 14, 2010

What Comic is Stefanie Powers Reading?


Stefanie Powers knows a thing or two about being cooped up. She was kept in a small room in Die Die My Darling and on Hart to Hart she was kidnapped every other episode at least. In the "classic" seventies sci-fi movie The Astral Factor, also known as The Invisible Strangler, she's the girlfriend of cop Robert Foxworth, and seems to be cooped up by choice, high on something for the entire movie and seemingly never leaving his apartment. What does one do when cooped up? Why, read comics, of course! She is seen reading a comic book at one point, and, nerd-o that I am, I tried to identify this one but couldn't. It certainly, by the lettering, appears to be Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes. The Superboy part is especially clear. But I could not find a cover that matches. Doesn't help that the movie is grainy. It, the cover, looks as if someone is sitting on the left and looking at people captured on giant white slabs, or something. My hypothesis is that this comic doesn't actually exist, but was whipped up by the props department, which is what sometimes happens. It was possibly made by cutting up pre-existing comics and making a collage so it could not be identified. Which means some defenseless seventies comics were destroyed. Oh, the humanity!

Later in the movie Stefanie gets off her butt and starts earning her keep with a job selling GRIT. Okay, not really.

7 comments:

LissBirds said...

There was someone on Etsy who was cutting up old Spiderman comics and making collages and selling them. I can barely stand writing in a book with a pencil let alone cutting one apart.

There was an episode of The Big Bang Theory where one of the guys came home with a Flash comic and I was trying to figure out which one it was. I think it was Rebirth. I really should watch that show more, especially since it moved to Thursdays...

Aaron said...

Yeesh...maybe the issues were already semi-destroyed so it was the only way to get some value out of them...I'd like to think that.

I love BBT, it's always fun to see what DC stuff the guys have on their shelves and so forth, and Sheldon always has boss t-shirts.

Blaze Morgan said...

When I was a young sprog off to Art College, my professors encouraged us to personalize our portfolio cases. Both for ease of identification and just so we'd be individuals instead of a troop of students all with black cases under our arms.

I decided to go with a collage of comic book art, that being near and dear to me. I had various duplicate copies of various issues, and went and bought a couple more off the twirly rack. I snipped panels and covers and glued them all down. Very happy with the result.

Every year that passes from when comics were sold on twirly racks and cost 15¢, the higher the risk of some comic fan having a screaming brain aneurism when he sees that old portfolio. It's getting so I cannot bring it out of storage without signed waivers and a defibulator handy.

Aaron said...

Oh, I've made collages before, for sure...gotta do what you gotta do...

rob! said...

Wow, what a find!! I've never even heard of this movie.

rob! said...

Btw, I think the comic she's reading is this one:

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?comicid=7967

...I can't be sure, but it looks pretty darn close!

Ron said...

That's DC Super-Stars Vol 1 #3.