Cover Issues: Batman & Robin on German & English Starlogs

This post is really just for magazine geeks like me, though Batman geeks might also enjoy it. Below are three magazine covers.

The English-language Starlog #239 from June 1997 features the stars of Batman & Robin.

The same basic cover is used on the German edition of Starlog, though it was released as a special edition ("Starlog feiert Batman & Robin" – "Starlog celebrates Batman & Robin") in Germany. The German Starlogs were put together by the New York headquarters of Starlog Group, with the involvement of some German language translators and consultants.

And, finally, there's a special one-shot English-language Starlog Presents Batman & Other Comics Heroes magazine that utilizes a different cover photo but clearly the designers were enamored of the lettering used on the German magazine title.

All of this plus $3 will get you a cup of coffee, of course, but it's fun to contemplate magazine designs sometimes. Again, for geeks.

Filmfax #45: Your Weekend Cool Magazine Cover

It's Buster Crabbe and the original film Flash Gordon. Enjoy.

NMA Animation's Pox on BART & Anonymous

Cover News: Fangoria Does Its First-Ever Split Run

For the first time in its 9,000-year history (something like that, at least), horror film magazine Fangoria has produced a split run of its next issue, #307, due out in September. See the two covers below.

This'll give buyers a chance to vote, in essence, on the widened "lifestyle" content in Fangoria, including the greater presence of music. Which will be more popular: Music or classic Howling?

Kill Da Wabbit, Indeed

I'm in the process of editing a speech Hans Rudolf Vaget gave at The Commonwealth Club about the controversies surrounding German composer Richard Wagner. Women, money, anti-semitism, Hitler. Fascinating article. The speech will appear in a special digital edition of the Club's magazine, The Commonwealth, this fall.

And yes, I kept thinking, "Kill da Wabbit!" One of the best cartoons ever.

Watch it on YouTube. Better yet, buy the video.

The Murdoch Touch: My Latest Northside SF Column

My Common Knowledge column in the latest issue of Northside San Francisco magazine:

COMMON KNOWLEDGE 

Les Hinton (photo by Sonya Abrams)

The Murdoch Touch 

By John Zipperer 

People like me, who grew up not only in newspaper-reading households but also in families of newspaper editors, almost instinctively mourn the death of any paper. Even weak papers or politically obnoxious papers still earn our respect when they expire. 

But I don’t think many people outside Britain mourned the News of the World when owner Rupert Murdoch’s son, James, announced in July that the U.K. paper would abruptly cease publication. The paper was sacrificed in the wake of a massive and ongoing scandal that has engulfed Murdoch’s media empire, the rest of the British news media, and Britain’s leaders – who have for decades looked for the support of Murdoch’s conservative papers.

read the complete article

Google+ Reviewed – and Liked

My latest article in Northside San Francisco magazine:

TECH TALK 

It's All Over, Zuckerberg

By John Zipperer 

Something funny happened on the way to Facebook accumulating almost as many users as McDonald’s has sold hamburgers. People began to regard Facebook with all of the wariness they usually reserve for the IRS or an angry dentist.

read the complete article

Google Buys Motorola Mobility: It's All about the Patents

Don't spend too much time trying to figure out how a cloud software giant like Google is going to use a hardware manufacturer. The purchase ain't about the hardware. It's all about the patents, and Google's need to undo the screwup it made in the recent auction of wireless patents.

I told friends at the time that Google would find someway to mitigate the damage, and it's nice when events bear me out.

Give Me a Sign

Real sign seen off Ocean Avenue in San Francisco.

Um, if you're a psychic, shouldn't you have at least one spirit from the netherworld who can correct your spelling?

J-Pop Summit San Francisco

While passing through a street fair in San Francisco's Japantown this afternoon, I picked up a flyer reproduced here. It announces the J-Pop Summit Festival, which will be held in Japantown on August 27 and 28, 2011.

The back of the flyer shows some of the events and offerings of the event. So if you're in the Bay Area and looking for your J-pop fix, you know where to be in late August.