It was 56 years ago this month that The Incredible Hulk #1 hit the newsstands of the day, though cover-dated May, which was the practice in those days. The year before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had started the Marvel Comics revolution with the publication of Fantastic Four #1, and now they added The Incredible Hulk to the Marvel cast of characters.
Lee and Kirby used “Gamma radiation” around the planet earth to give the Fantastic Four their powers when they rocketed into space, and they used the same radiation to transform mild-mannered Doctor Bruce Banner into The Incredible Hulk when he was caught in a Gamma Bomb blast by accident.
Lee combined the mild-mannered doctor/rampaging beast trope of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the look of Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein. Here’s what he had to say about creating The Incredible Hulk:
“I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Frankenstein monster. No one could ever convince me that he was the bad guy, the villain, or the menace. It was he who was sinned against by those who feared him, by those whose first instinct was to strike out blindly at whatever they couldn’t comprehend. He never wanted to hurt anyone; he merely groped his tortuous way through a second life trying to defend himself, trying to come to terms with those who sought to destroy him.
“I suppose you can guess where we’re heading. Think of the challenge it would be to make a hero out of a monster. We would have a protagonist with superhuman strength, but he wouldn’t be all-wise, all-noble, all-infallible. (How’s that for a rollicking redundancy?) We would use the concept of the Frankenstein monster but update it. Our hero would be a scientist, transformed into a raging behemoth by a nuclear accident. And – since I was willing to borrow from Frankenstein, I decided I might was well borrow from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well – our protagonist would constantly change from his normal identity to his superhuman alter ego and back again.”
You’re probably more used to seeing The Incredible Hulk as the Jade Giant (green) so you may be confused by the gray color of Hulk on this cover. Lee thought that the gray color would result in him appearing “intensely dramatic looking and somber”, but the cheap paper of comic books in those days resulted in coloring inside being “way off from what we wanted.” and so by issue #2 the Hulk became green.
The Incredible Hulk lasted only 6 issues before being canceled. But it returned in 1968 and continued for more than 30 years after that.
Happy 56th Birthday to The Incredible Hulk!
So, a Facebook friend of mine posted a couple of days ago that she was trying out the 
When I clicked on the link I found one of my brother’s old sites and 
Netflix just announced that they would be releasing their 
So, when I came across a group of cosplayers at the convention that uses their enjoyment of cosplaying to make appearances and visits to children who are in hospitals or recuperating at home from illness or disease or are developmentally disabled, I had to stop and talk to them at their table outside the entrance. They were selling this book, which gives short bios of some of their cosplayers so you can see the different “day” jobs each one has, as well as a look at the characters they like to portray. The best part is that all the profits from this book 
Barnes and Noble Going Under? I know, I know, we keep hearing it more and more over the past few years 
The Germiest Spot in the Airport? If you travel by air a lot as I do (and are as old as I am) then 
But it turns out THE germiest spot is in the airport at the touchscreen ticket kiosk. Those machines have never been my first choice because I still like knowing a professional at the ticket counter is handling my arrangements, but more and more airlines are moving to them and having your only interaction at the counter be to drop off your bag(s). The last 4 times I’ve flown I’ve had to use the kiosk to print my own baggage tags, attach them, acknowledge that I’m not flying with dangerous substances, and drop them at the counter where a person looks everything over and, if I haven’t messed anything up, sends me off to my gate.
Have You Ever Heard a Skyquake? And no, I’m not talking about the Transformer toy. 
That’s right, one of the tech giants in the world can’t figure out a better way to prove you are who you say you are and have an address in the U.S. than to send you an old-school paper postcard. I was discussing this with two co-workers (both much younger than myself and more tech-savvy as well) and they both laughed and the first words out of their mouths were, “So, if I’m not in the U.S. and I’m a bad actor, I just get someone to let me use their address, right?”
First up was a book and autograph from artist Michael Golden. I first became aware of Mr. Golden back in 1977 when he did some pencilling on the Mister Miracle comic book, but his big claim to fame came when the first Micronauts comic book was published by Marvel Comics in 1979 with him as the artist. He pencilled a variety of Marvel Comics titles throughout the 1980’s, became an editor at DC Comics in the early 1990’s and returned to Marvel Comics as Art Director in the late 1990’s. In the 2000’s he drew covers for several DC Comics titles such as Superman, Nightwing, and Man of Steel.
So, the day before I had looked over several books he had for sale, trying to decide which one I would buy to have him autograph. I settled on “
As luck would have it (I’m being sarcastic, it was great product placement) there was a dealer right across from Mr. Starlin’s table selling “
So, if you follow me on 
Which brings me to an even more interesting twist. The other day, while reading the book, I got to wondering how Mr. DiCaprio came be named Leonardo and if there was any connection to Mr. da Vinci. According to Book Riot, Mr. DiCaprio “got his first name because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when the future star kicked for the first time.”