The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones

As many of you probably know I have been on a bit of an Indy kick lately. Ever since the announcement of the new film, I've been positively buzzing with excitement. It has become a common occurrence in the Jozic household to have members of family and friends passing through be subjected to an array of on-set videos, images and trivia regarding Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They know my intentions are good so they mostly tolerate the fanboy behaviour.

As a result fo this so-called kick, I've been indulging in several Indy related things and eyeing several others to work it out of my system. For example, I'll probably dust off the first three films soon and give them a once over, and I'm thinking of going back and rereading some of my Indy novels that cover the period between 1920 and 1935, written by Rob McGregor, Martin Caidin and Max McCoy, respectively.

For the time being, however, I've been getting my kicks from a couple of different sources. The first is the Young Indiana Jones DVDs that I mentioned in a previous post. I've really been enjoying revisiting the old show, particularly since I haven't seen every episode (surprise of all surprises) so there's still that spark of newness to it despite being 10+ years old. I've also been delving into the Indy comics published by Marvel called, The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. In the past I read a handful of these issues but pretty much dismissed them, mostly for not being official Lucasfilm canon. Looking back on the series, though, there's a lot of interesting talent on hand in this series and I think it's probably worth a second look.

The likes of Howard Chaykin, John Byrne, Denny O'Neil, Gene Day, Steve Ditko, Herb Trimpe, Michael Golden and others make it a worthwhile effort to go back and explore these stories, and since I'm a lot less fussy about what is and what isn't official Indy canon, it might be a lot of fun, too.

After making the decision to rearead the old series I also made the decision to read and review/profile each issue as I go along here on the blog. Worst case scenario, I cave and stop after doing a handful of issues. Best case scenario, I manage to fill the time between now and the May 2008 release date of the 4th film and generate some worthwhile content for the blog.

I'll try and get the first two issues by Byrne and O'Neil up by tomorrow, and then try and do one a week from there on in. We'll see how it goes.

To quote the man in the hat, "I'm just making this up as I go along."

Onwards and upwards!

mike