My new episode of Cocktail Nation radio is up! Apologies for the late announcement. Earlier this month my segment featured an intro to the 1950s detective series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, which starred David Jansen (and Mary Tyler Moore as his leggy answering service operator). The character was created by Blake Edwards (Peter Gunn, Mr. Lucky, Pink Panther) and first saw life as a radio series for Dick Powell. The television adaptation began in 1957, and like the cultural shift happening at the time, the style of the show moved from the noir influence toward the more swanky, Hefner ..read more

New release: Four restored RKO Dick Tracy films coming to Blu-ray from VCI! From the press release below. More info at Blu-ray.   Dick Tracy (1945) Tough sleuth Dick Tracy (Morgan Conway) has to crack a case when a series of murder victims starts turning up. Ultimately, he determines that they are linked to escaped convict Splitface (Mike Mazurki). Seeking vengeance, Splitface is hunting down those who have wronged him. When Tracy and his partner, Pat Patton (Lyle Latell), foil the criminal, Splitface kidnaps Tracy's girlfriend, Tess (Anne Jeffreys), holding her hostage to keep the ace de ..read more

New release: Wandering Planet launched a new Kickstarter today for their Wave 2 Prisoner figures! If you missed out on Wave 1, don't miss this chance to order new action figures from the classic Patrick McGoohan series, The Prisoner! What I love about the company's approach is that they highlight specific episodes, characters, and costuming. As far as I know there is only one Wave 1 figure still available, which can be ordered through the Prisoner shop in Portmeirion. I recommend that Spy Vibers who want the new releases place orders through Kickstarter right away. If Wandering Planet's W ..read more

New release: The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) is heading to Blu-ray on April 30th from Warner Archive. From the press release: "Boris Karloff takes one his most celebrated cinematics turn as the diabolical fiend Dr. Fu Manchu, and Myrna Loy plays his exotic daughter in this 1932 cult horror classic. This time, the evil Fu Manchu patiently awaits the discovery of Genghis Khan's tomb. For he is certain that possession of Khan's mask and sword will enable him to rule the East and lead it to victory over the hated Western world. When British scientists in the Gobi Desert discover the tomb, Fu captures ..read more

New release: exciting news this week from Imprint Australia, who will releasing a new limited-edition Blu-ray edition of The Prisoner in June! Not only will this set include most of the features from previous sets by Network, it will also include new bonus content, a 120-page booklet- plus- some episodes of Danger Man in hi-definition! As far as we know, the 2K transfers from the original negatives will be the same files as the anniversary set from Network (stunning!) and the Imprint sets tend to be region-free, which means viewers in the US will be able to view the discs. I still recommend an ..read more

Internationally acclaimed pianist Byron Janis passed away yesterday at the age of 95. In the 1940s at the age of 14, Janis became the pupil of Vladimir Horowitz and quickly began a long career playing around the globe as a cultural ambassador. Of interest to Spy Vibers, Janis also played an important role soothing tensions between the west and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (as did Canadian pianist, Van Cliburn). Together with his wife (the daughter of Gary Cooper), he wrote an auto-biography called Chopin and Beyond: My Extraordinary Life in Music and the Paranormal, and appar ..read more

My new episode of Cocktail Nation radio is up! Every month I contribute a short segment to the show, where I introduce vintage pop-culture spies, private detectives, evil masterminds, spy-adjacent heroes, and feature cuts from soundtracks. This month my theme was the great Belgian comic classic, Blake and Mortimer. Created in the 1940s in the pages of Tintin magazine, the series centered around an MI5 man and his scientist pal, whose adventures involved everything from espionage and diabolical villains to aliens and time travel. New stories continue to be published! It's a great mix of intrigu ..read more

Podcast alert: The Swinging Christies. Greetings, Spy Vibers! Before I started reading Ian Fleming as a young teen, I really enjoyed exploring works by Agatha Christie. One of the first adult-level novels I ever tackled was And Then There Were None, and I can still remember how thrilling it felt to have the veiled lifted at the end of the story when Christie revealed who done it. As a kid, her twist ending was right up there with The Twilight Zone as a mind-bending revelation. A few years ago I was lucky to spend some time at the author's home in Devon, which can be accessed by steam train or ..read more

Event alert: Stand By For Action!2: Gerry Anderson concert coming this summer. Greetings, Spy Vibers! Life here has been busy as usual, with the start of a new semester for my art students and trying to make time in the Spy Vibe Lair to work on projects. My immersion into the world of Herge over the holidays continues to bring joy and I've even started studying French for the first time in hopes of someday reading comic albums in their original language. Just a few things have crossed my radar recently to pass along, one being a return concert planned for July to celebrate the adventurous ..read more

Happy New Year, Spy Vibers! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. I usually catch something at school and spend the breaks convalescing, but I seemed to have dodged the germs this time and had a relaxing vacation in the Spy Vibe lair. Apart from the daily walks, I think the main adventure on my radar has been a fun deep dive into Tintin and the art of Herge. We often talk about Charles Schulz and Mort Walker in the context of American comics modernizing their style for the shrinking newspaper space during the jet age, but Herge was pioneering his "clean line" approach way back in Tintin i ..read more