Happy Birthday: Frank Bolle
Born in 1924 in New York City, Frank Bolle grew up doodling. He went to the High School of Music and Art and then served in the Air Force from 1943 to 1946.
After the war Bolle attended Pratt Institute and began looking for work—his first job in comics was in 1948 and he has been working in the industry ever since. He illustrated westerns like Black Phantom, Tim Holt, and Redmask for Magazine Enterprises; worked on Sherlock Holmes, The Lone Ranger, and other adventure stories for Western Publishing; drew several strips and covers for Boys’ Life; and did Doctor Solar, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and others for Gold Key Comics.
In 1982 Bolle joined Stan Drake on The Heart of Juliet Jones comic strip, which he drew for seventeen years—Bolle also drew the Winnie Winkle comic for twenty. He is still drawing Apartment 3-G, which he took over in 1999.
Bolle has won three Graumbacher Gold Medallion Awards for his oils and watercolors. In 2003 he was awarded the Inkpot Award for lifetime achievement.
Born in 1930, Frank Thorne got his comic book start penciling romance comics for Standard Comics in 1948. He then went on to draw the Perry Mason newspaper strip for King Features and to work on several comic books for Dell, including Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and The Green Hornet.
Artist Paul Norris died yesterday at the age of 93.
Spoiler Alert: This week I’m discussing the three Jason Bourne movies and I may wind up revealing plot points, especially of the most recent film out, The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’re planning to see the movie, go see it first. More fun that way.
Twenty-three years ago today, Hasbro brought the Autobots and Decepticons to store shelves all across America. Initially reusing previously-released toys from the Japanese Takara toylines 
Okay, I’ll get this over with real fast. Sci-Fi Channel’s new Flash Gordon show really sucks. I sat through the 90-minute pilot, and I sat through the next episode. No more. Life is too short.
creator Alex Raymond is not in the opening credits. Hell, he got better (far better) treatment in that campy movie from 1980. Say what you will about that movie, compared to this waste of time that movie was [[[Citizen Kane in Outer Space]]].
A pretty big outcome for the second day of the 2007 Licensing Show. Lots of movie pushes, of course with this being one of the biggest franchise summers in film history. Warner Bros was there in the same form as last year, showing off some of the new cars from their new flicks. We got the first peak at the The Dark Knight’s brand new BatPod (and no, you can’t play music on it, its just a cooler name than Bat-Cycle) also we got an up-close look at the new Mach 5 from next summer’s Speed Racer.
Also in the movie department, we got a bit of a tease over at Marvel’s booth for both The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man slated to come out next summer as well. Nothing too exciting over there, but the New Line booth was surprisingly pretty popular. To promote next year’s Golden Compass, there was a nine-foot armored bear, and despite popular belief, not only do I like girls, but I am also really looking forward to this film. Based of the series of His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman, this is the first of the series, and looks to be even better than last year’s underachiever in The Chronicles of Narnia. 
They also were promoting a film that I have heard absolutely no buzz about up until today entitled Inkheart starring Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, and Helen Mirren, based on the book by Carnelia Funke of the same title.
The BBC booth was also there promoting the hell out of Doctor Who, which I had absolutely no qualms with. This big push was due to the American release of series three to the Sci-Fi Network next month. Also coming to Sci-Fi in August, and came to me as a huge surprise was a remake of Flash Gordon. Now before I dusted off my Queen soundtrack and started to dance, I did a little bit of research, and the creative team consists of some of the minds that brought us Relic Hunter, Beastmaster, Young Blades, Andromeda, and oh, yes: Painkiller Jane. So before we all get excited and break out the champagne, I’d bet on this show being off the air before the bottle runs dry.
Finally, and by far my favorite part of today’s show was the news about Xip3, a new jacket company buying the rights to Transformers to release a “Transforming Jacket” that will be released with the DVD in November. I got to see first hand how this works, and it’s pretty cool. The jacket is black with silver accents, and can “transform” from a sports jacket to a backpack to a pillow in seconds. The unisex jackets will all be numbered and in sizes extra small to extra large. You can reserve your copy starting in July over at the 
Gina Holden will be starring with Eric Johnson in the SciFi Channel’s new Flash Gordon series, debuting this August. No stranger to heroic fantasy projects, the Canadian actress previously appeared in Fantastic Four, The Butterfly Effect 2 and the upcoming Alien vs. Predator 2.
The second season of Stan Lee’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? arrives on July 25 at 9 p.m. And if that isn’t enough to make you Face Front, True Believers, then be astounded at 10 p.m. when the untitled Derren Brown show debuts. Brown is a British mentalist – imagine the Amazing Kreskin with an accent.
