The Dragons of "The Huntsman: Winter's War"

Freya's winter palace in "The Huntsman: Winter's War" sports some notable dragon imagery. The first thing the casual visitor will notice is the asian-style entry gates into the courtyard (like those behind me at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida). Extending outward from the top of each bent beam is the carved head of a dragon. The dragon lover would feel right at home there, if it were not so cold, and Freya was a more loving person. 

If you look closely, you can see a dragon poking out of the roof of the winter palace in the courtyard where Freya's army performs their weapons play. (It's right above the man on the left). This dragon is one of many that protrudes from the corners of buildings, and overlooks the alleys between buildings. You'll find dragons guarding every area of Freya's stronghold. But she's best protected when sitting on her throne.

Even if Freya could not create walls of ice around herself, or hurl lethal darts of ice at her attackers, she is amply protected by the dragons who adorn her throne. She revels in their presence, and rests her hands atop them when she sits in her seat of power. 

When you are surrounded by dragons like Freya is, you have nothing to fear. Well, except for the power of love...

Dragon Dave

Starsky & Hutch Versus The Dragon: Part 2

In the first season episode "Terror On The Docks," Starsky and Hutch enter an old Victorian mansion. They find themselves surrounded by occult objects, a regal dragon, and ultimately, a fearsome minotaur. Who could this minotaur be, they wonder. And more importantly, will it charge them?

Then the minotaur lifts off his head, and Starsky and Hutch see it is merely their informer Ezra in costume. 

Ezra welcomes the two detectives to his unholy house of occult worship, where he now teaches people to be witches and sorcerers. Starsky and Hutch ask him to use his contacts to learn who might be operating as a fence to sell the stolen goods for the theft ring operating at the docks. 

Starsky can't get over Ezra's new career, nor the paraphernalia of his occult practices. He's particularly intrigued by a gargoyle adorning this knife. Then he lifts a human skull, and eerie music fills the room. It's enough to hurry our two heroes back outside, where they can breathe a little easier, and concentrate on capturing the criminals.

Eventually, the clues they uncover lead them back to this strange, old house, where once again, they must confront the dragon. 

As it turns out, Ezra isn't so reformed after all. His new career as a master of the occult is merely a front. He's helping the criminals at the docks sell their stolen merchandise. Or he was, until our two heroes arrest him.

Bad Ezra! Evil Ezra!! How dare you try to fool Starsky and Hutch!!!

Sadly, one of the thieves was the fiancé of a young lady whom Hutch was to give away at her wedding. When Starsky refuses to step up and marry the girl, her mother demonstrates her displeasure.

Starsky, incensed at Hutch's laughter, decides to share this honor with his partner.

Thus, we are reminded of one of life's great teachings regarding confrontations with dragons. Even if you win, you can't help but emerge with a little cake on your face.

"Terror On The Docks" was written by Fred Frieberger, who produced many TV classics, including The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Gerry Anderson's live action series Space 1999. With such an extensive sci-fi resume, he must have known a lot about dragons.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
One fan's extensive notes on "Terror on the Docks"

Starsky & Hutch Versus The Dragon: Part 1

In the first season episode "Terror On The Docks," a series of robberies, and the slaying of a fellow police officer, lead Starsky and Hutch to question Ezra, a former fence.

Inside this grand, Victorian mansion, the two detectives find themselves surrounded by a collection of occult objects and images.

Chief among these is a dragon, perched on his mighty pedestal, beside a flaming torch. 

Watch out, Starsky! Behind you!

Suddenly a minotaur appears, clad in solemn black robes. Perhaps the famous Greek historian Plutarch got his facts wrong, and Theseus did not kill the dreaded Minotaur of Crete? Or perhaps it is Dario Agger, C.E.O. of the Roxxon Energy Corporation, who seals a nefarious pact with the dark elf Malekith of Svartalfheim in THOR Issue 6? Could it be the minotaur from Atlantis who guarded the Crystal of Kronos in the Doctor Who story "The Time Monster"?

All the two detectives know is that they'd rather be back in their red-and-white Gran Torino, than facing down a dragon and a minotaur! But then, wouldn't you?

Dragon Dave

The Cybercraft Orbiting Laboratory

Not all that many years ago, space missions were the exclusive purview of the government.  Recently, businesses have begun venturing into space.  Virgin Galactic’s SpaceshipTwo rocket plane has completed several test flights, and is scheduled to launch later this year.  Last month, SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship transported necessary supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), and returned to Earth successfully.  The Anteries rocket, the biggest private-sector rocket ever produced, blasted into orbit early this week.  Using its Cygnus cargo carrier, Anteries should start supplying the ISS soon. 

Ordinary people like you and me are even pursuing their own space ventures.  Take, for example, Sarah Thee Campagna of Cybercraft Robots.  She scours through the “detris of daily life,” searching for “fragments of diassembled Robots, Rayguns, and Spaceships.”  She attempts to reconstruct these extraterrestrial relics, much like archeologists attempt to reconstruct earlier human civilizations through the artifacts they unearth, so that she can study the history and culture of the cosmos. 

This little fellow is negotiating for a starring role
in the sequel to the film, "Batteries Not Included."

While most Robots are peaceful,
they often carry Rayguns for their own protection.

Although she visits Earth often, she spends most of her time aboard her orbiting laboratory, where she regularly meets robots from other civilizations.  Just as a Martian might pause in his working day to study our rovers, she hails passing spacecraft, and attempts to communicate with their occupants.  After they leave, she constructs models of the robots she’s met, as a record of those encounters.

According to Sarah:
"The Spiderborg enjoyed a long career
starring in nightmares all over the Milky Way.
Now that he is semi-retired, he restricts his terrifying appearances
to private parties and dark alleys."

At the Cybercraft website, you can see photographs of these amazing robots.  You can also watch a short video, shot aboard her private space station, and see how she makes her reconstructions.  You can even support her research by “sponsoring” a robot.  To thank you for your one-time "donation," Sarah will "give" you a model of one of these interesting visitors to our world.  

Remember, while space may be open to everyone, it still costs a lot to operate a space station.  And that's before you consider all her rocket trips up into orbit.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Cybercraft Robots

The Anteres' maiden flight

The SpaceX Dragon’s last mission

SpaceshipTwo’s recent test flight

Comics for Education & Self-Improvement

In September 1974, Issue 42 of “Conan The Barbarian” announced that Marvel had just teamed up with the Children’s Television Workshop (which produced TV shows “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company”) to publish a new magazine featuring Spider-Man.  The new magazine, “SPIDEY,” was intended to help children improve their reading skills.  In his column, Stan Lee also announced that Bowling Green University had just produced a TV documentary entitled “Comics: Birth of An American Art Form,” which approached comics “as a legitimate intellectual activity.”

In "Conan The Barbarian" Issue 43, reader Jean Daniel Breque from France wrote “I can write this letter because of your comics, ‘Conan’ in particular.  Comics are perfect as educational material, as some American teachers have already proven in your columns.”  The staff thanked Jean for “brightening” their day, and mentioned that, a few years previously, the author of The Godfather, Mario Puzo, had also thanked Marvel Comics for teaching his son to read “when the public schools failed.” 

Not only were Marvel's comic books helping children to read, and helping young adults to learn foreign languages, but these simple stories helped them reflect on their lives, and their own place in the world.  Jean congratulates Roy Thomas for writing atypical, non-formulaic stories, in which he tries “to build a coherent universe, with all its different people, each with their different customs, behaviors, and speech-patterns.  In the background of your stories, a whole new world is revealed to us, and this is why ‘Conan’ is one of the most realistic magazines: it does not reproduce reality, but creates it instead.” 

Another reader, Bill Blyberg of Massachusetts, complemented the writing of Issue 39, which contained the story “The Dragon of the Inland Sea” (see “Rare Conan Coins: Part 2” for a synopsis).  He discussed Conan’s role in the story, as well as which characters faced the most difficult moral decisions.  While “it looks like a battle against a religious cult, with a weak ruler deciding to fight for his city…actually, it is a man trying to decide whether or not to strike back against his brother, who must be mad.”  Again and again, letters reprinted in “Conan The Barbarian” demonstrate readers who evaluate the quandaries of various character’s moral choices, and the merits of the stories they cherish. 

Our favorite stories can help us make our daily decisions, form long-term plans, and structure our reality.  Like any tool, their use is only limited by our imagination.  Jean’s love of comic books helped him learn a second language.  How might you use your favorite stories to improve yourself, and benefit your world?

For more on Stan Lee's career, how he elevated the art of comics, and his view on the importance of his characters' morals, follow the related Internet link to read an interview with the man they call Mr. Marvel.  Excelsior!

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

Rare Conan Coins: Part 2

Related Internet Links
The National Endowment of the Arts presents "Artworks" with Stan Lee

Mike Bocianowski’s Passion

"Where in the world is Mike Bocianowski?"

The first thing I realized about Mike Bocianowski was that he loved to draw.  He simply couldn’t sit still and talk.  From the moment he began his guest-of-honor presentation at this year’s Condor, he was fidgeting with his marker.  Soon he had risen and moved to his easel.  Then he was drawing creatures that looked like dragons (but he insisted they’re called Yets), and others characters from his stories.  After a while, he was teaching us how to draw.

Mike Bocianowski doesn’t delineate between the arts.  His motto is that one type of art can influence another.  If you’re a writer, for example, and you get stuck in your story, he suggests that you shift to drawing or painting.  Instead of awaiting inspiration at his easel, he’ll sometimes move to his notepad, where he’ll brainstorm on his characters’ history, mythology, and culture.  Fleshing out his characters in this way gives him new ideas.  But writing isn’t his only fallback position: painting and photography also help get him back on track.  He’s even taken classes in particular styles of dancing when he feels his creative well running dry.  Dance, he says, is art in motion, and moving the body in such practiced, yet artful ways, spurs his mind into looking at his subjects from a new perspective.  That, in turn, gets him back to his easel.

While he’s received numerous job offers over the years, he’s declined to become an employee of the giant corporations that dominate the comic book industry.  Going it alone may limit his success, and cost him in terms of income and lifestyle, but it’s more important to him to follow his muse, rather than pursue subjects and projects selected for him by others.  Being his own man means he can draw and write his books according to his tastes.  As he dislikes the current emphasis on antiheroes and violence, he’s able to craft lighter fare, and has found an audience who appreciates the types of stories he creates.

While the Disney animators and Jim Henson have inspired his drawing, he takes story cues from “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “The Lord of the Rings.”  What he admires most about C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien is how their beliefs informed their stories without hammering specific messages into their readers.  While his books may be vastly different from theirs, he aims to create similarly compelling stories.

Portrait of a compulsive artist.

It’s been several months now since I saw Mike at Condor.  I’ve held off in writing this entry because I wanted to be able to report that I’ve taken up Mike’s challenge and started to draw regularly.  Unfortunately, I’ve yet to draw a single sketch.  Still, his assertion that anyone can draw, if he or she wants to, is something I hold onto, in the hopes that sometime soon I will take up a pencil and start drawing.  But whether I start tomorrow, or a year from now, his assurance that anyone can pursue any type of art empowers my daily writing.  Whatever you do, he says, whether you’re interested in writing, drawing, photography, or anything else, pursue it.  If you have a dream, follow your heart.  For in doing so, you’ll do it differently from anyone else.  And if you do it regularly, and always seek to improve your efforts, you can achieve the success you desire.

I don’t know about you, but Mike Bocianowski’s passion for drawing inspires me to keep pursuing my own dreams.

Grateful for the encouragement,

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Mike Bocianowski’s blog