The return of Garth - and Shako?

Strangely non-trumpted by The Mirror, this month saw the long awaited revival of Garth.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/fun-games/cartoons/garth/

Hmmmm... what to think?

Pro: Of course its brilliant that the big fella's back,

Con: but kinda wish it was in the actual paper than only online.

Pro: Reads very well and the character's captured nicely,

Con: would've preferred the 4 panel strip rather than a whole page.

Pro: Nice that they've gone back to the pre-WW2 origin

Con: but personally, i'd prefer the barrel-chested time traveller meeting melon chested damsels in distress.

The above makes me out to be rather ungrateful, but really i'm not. I'm pleased as punch he's back, it reads well, the art is very good (IS that Shako's great great grandfather?) and i hope its a success - and i look forward to the inevitable graphic novel.

But part of me that's reading it is the me that grew up on the Bellamy/Asbury version, cutting each strip out daily and pasting it in scrapbooks and therefore is always comparing.

I know there's no comparison - unless it does into the paper in strip format and the artist becomes a B/A clone.

Nice interview here over on Down The Tubes:

http://www.downthetubes.net/features/comics_characters/garth/new_garth2008.html

Action - 11th Sept 1976

First up, massive HUGE apols for anyone popping back here to look for an update but finding nowt.

Been real busy with my modelling hobby, as a look over there will attest.

Anyway, kinda modelled out today so i picked a back issue out at random for a bit of a change.

And here we are back with Action.

Only just a month away from the ban - and you can see portents already.

First strip inside from the fab, groovy cover is the first episode of "Kids Rule Ok". Its infamous now for its ultraviolence, as you can see here from the very first page, but even though i was a 14 year-old it didn't appeal to me at all. Just found it a nasty, shoddy tale.

Still think that today.

Moving through, we come to "Dredger", who's art has improved immeasurably compared to previous issues. Classic moment here - Dredger and Breed are trapped on a train and their hostage has copped it. They need to get out, bluffing it with Breed impersonating the stiff. When he points out to Dredger he doesn't look anything like him, this is the Man's response.

Classic!

Final thing of note. Hookjaw's good guy finally goes up against the beastie and loses in the most graphic way. Strong stuff, despite the shoddy art. If this was an issue looked at while debating the whole "has it gone too far?" issue, it was sure presenting a stong case in favour.

Look In

Bit of a diversion here - and also a ponder:

Just HOW much pocket money was i getting???????????????

Aside from the titles already covered, i was also regularly getting Mighty World Of Marvel, Dracula Lives, Planet Of The Apes, Spectacular Spiderman (and all the other Marvel variants that followed) a lot of humour titles, Plop!, Mad, Dez Skinn's horror mags and Look In.

Look In was great.

Could've done without all the Gary Glitter, Sweet, Bay City Rollers stuff, ditto the How? and Magpie features.

No, the sole reason for getting was the extra adventures of my then TV heroes, be it the Six Million Dollar Man, Tomorrow People, Catweazle, Space 1999 etc.

Seemingly always drawn by John Burns, an artist that has always left me cold.

But it didn't matter - here were further adventures, long after the shows had stopped and very often with plotlines far more ambitous than the show that spawned the strip could've hoped to attempt.

Posted a pic here of Kung Fu here not because i liked it or the show but even now, 34 years after the event, i can still feel the deep misery of getting the issue with the free medallion only losing it on the way to school and having to stand there in the playground while everyone else ran around with theirs.

Smash annual 1973

Thought i'd have a re-read of this this morning.

Along with The Swots And The Blots, the highlight for me are the two Janus Stark strips.

The first is odd in that its in colour. Its a nice tale - but colour REALLY doesn't suit the strip - part of the strips appeal is the moody b/w artwork, evocative of its Victorian setting. Doing away with it takes something away from the strip i feel.

Much better is the second strip, back to black and white and set in India.

And here we have a couple of classic Janus moments, squeezing through gaps far too narrow for a human to fit though.

I remember from my childhood the oft-uttered phrase "... the pain..." as he underwent his trial, but its only now as an adult that its occured to me that he gets through the gaps with his hat on. Ha!

Vulcan 13th March 1976

Two strips of note in this issue.

First, a Spider tale i've not read before. And a silly one it is too. A shape changing alien comes to Earth because he enjoys imitating criminals of the past (!). When the Spider tries to stop him, the alien fires "Peril-Bubbles" (!!) which turn the Spider into a giant and his slave (!!!). The Spider disposes of his friends by chucking them and the Helicar into the sea, where they're captured by Mermen Warriors (!!!!). And this issue has the Spider regaining his will, defeating the alien by turning him into a handsome prince charming lookalike (!!!!!). And then goes down to the sea bed to take on the Sea God (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

As i say, silly.

The other strip is Mytek the Mighty. Not a character or strip i really care for, especially with this awful colouring. But thought this idea here is really neat - to round up and detain hostages, he picks up sheds, ties them upside-down round his waist and drops the people in. Brilliant idea.

Sorry for the absence.

Indeed. Been real busy at work, plus i've got the modelling bug again, as seen on me other Blog:

http://2000admodelling.blogspot.com/

The brilliance of the Lion and Thunder 1971 Christmas issue.

I got this as i needed to fill in the gaps in my collection and had never read it before.

Cor! What a treat. Not only do you get an excellent cover with most of the characters sitting down to a Christmas meal (no Black Max though. Couldn't he have been "bah! Humbag"ing in though a window?) but MOST OF THE STRIPS ARE SET ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

Can't figure out if that was the intention all year long and the writers were giving the spec in advance to do something for this issue, or the setting was shoehorned in.

Think it must be the former as none are too jarring.

Not all the strips went along with it, but this is how the one's that did went abut it:

"Carson's Cubs" - The team are spending Christmas at the eerie Troll Manor.

"Black Max" - See's the possible end of the giant King Bat by the end of page two. Page three is devoted to Wilson and the rest of 12th Squadron celebrating, with Black max slinking past to look for the remains of his pet.

"Fury's Family" - Set at Christmas. Grateful for this strip as i now know that animal speak for "lion and tiger - pull this cracker" is "Tharrga moorka throol! grikka Marrgg!" Which they then do. Dunno if you can make it out, but the tiger is actually wearing the party hat. Genius!

"Spellbinder" - Jolly japes on Christmas Eve.

"The Spooks Of St Luke's" - A Christmas mail story.

"The Can-Do Kids" - Trouble with Father Christmases.

"Steel Commando" - Set on Christmas day

"Zip Nolan" - A Christmas Eve crime

"Adam Eterno" - My favourite of these. Adam's adventure in 18th century England ends half way into page three. The rest of the tale is given over to him being rewarded with a brilliant Christmas day and it ends with him leaving, as he says, "like a Christmas Spirit". And very Christmas Carol it reads too. And so nice to see the old fella laughing and enjoying himself. Bless.

"Mowser" - Jolly japes on the big day.

Major Eazy & Rat Pack go Sci Fi?

Guess they must've been running out of ideas at this point.

Eazy and Rat Pack are up against a German scientist who's created a device that can turn any living thing into a vicious killer.

After surviving last weeks attack by wolves and deer they ended up having Turk turned against them. With yet another example of insane logic, rather than let Turk finish the job, the Germans turn off the device, take them all back to their base then turn it on Weasel to demonstrate how it works (huh??????).

Anyway, their plans come to nowt when Weazel pulls a Doctor Who stunt and "reverses the polarity" of the device so the animals turn on the Germans.

An odd and rather crappy story.

Johnny Red

Very pleased to get this 12th Feb 1977 issue.

Not only because its the proper start of Eazy being in charge of Rat Pack, but mainly Johnny Red.

"Aieee!" Count: 0

Now, i got all these issues when the first came out but only started keeping them from about '79 onwards. That means my strongest memories are of the John Cooper later episodes. While there was nothing wrong with the artwork, i did find the whole "paint the hurricane red and bung a skull on it to scare the Nazis" a bit silly.

So, nice to see again after 31 years some Coloquon-era action. And brilliant it is too. He was a master of the use of black and his hardware always looked spot on. Why can't we have a tribute book along the lines of the Brian Bolland one a coupla years back?

Also significant here is Johnny's introduction to The Falcons.

"Aieeee!" Count: Possible Russian alternative with "Haaaieeeeee!"

Starlord

Juuuust about scraping in at the end of my remit for this Blog, Starlord was following IPC's tried and tested of "launch a title, launch a similar-themed sister title, run them alongside each other for a while, then merge the least selling of the two with the other."

So, this stablemate of 2000AD had the SF theme, a figurehead in Starlord (a nice design by Ian Gibson, but prefer the ape mask of Tharg), and the hook that each strip was created to train the "Star Troopers" (that was us lot) in all manner of future warfare/life.

Everyone knows of the "Strontium Dog" and "Ro-Busters" strips, and they were very good, but i really rated Planet Of The Damned and Timequake - especially the latter when drawn by the crimingly over-looked Ian Kennedy.

The free badge give-away was much nicer than usual and i've still got my one - the best in my opinion, the robot squad.

What also made it stand out were the back page photo features, with modelwork by my good friend Martin Bower (model maker for Space 1999, Alien, Blake's 7, Dr Who, Flash Gordon etc). And for which he didn't get paid incidentally...

Black Max landmark

Issue 26th December 1970 of Thunder and episode 12 of Black Max. Significant in that its here that anyone other than Wilson comes across the Bats and lives - two Allied airmen find Max's plane with the hidden compartment and release the King Bat but manage to flee.

Also have to add the latest "what're the odds eh?" moment from Adam Eterno - he's in the thick of it in WW1 and up against a German officer in hand to hand combat, which shouldn't be a problem but - oh NO! What's this? He's got a solid gold ceremonial sword!

I know i keep harking on about the amount of gold that seems to be everywhere Adam goes (maybe he's in alternative universe where's its as common as steel is in ours) but don't get me wrong - i love the character, the concept and the art (but not in these issues for that last one here).

"Aieeee!" Count: 0

Major Eazy barminess

1 January 1977. the new year is seen in with this frankly mental bit of logic. Eazy's captured and refuses to talk. What does the Captain do? Shoot him? Torture?

Nope. He ties him upside down to the bonnet of his car and drives headlong towards a wall.

Haven't got the next issue and SO want to know how he gets out of it (monies on Tewfik blowing out the tyres).

"Aieeee!" count: 0

Thunder - 21 November 1970 - uber-barminess from Black Max and Adam Eterno.

Still slack jawed from the madness of this issue.

"Black Max" continues the dog fight between him and Wilson. Wilson is shot down and scrambles out of his plane. What does Max do? Open fire? Land and persue? Get the rest of his squadron to do it for him? No, he signals them all to back off, flies back to his airbase, gets in his bat-carrying palne, flies to his secret base, loads up his King Bat, goes back to where Wilson crashed, Wilson is still there, and sets his Bat on him. Who chases him into a mud filled crater. Thinking if Peter Jackson had made a film of this strip, this plot detail wouldn't feature.

Not quite as barmy as the above is "Adam Eterno". Here he's in the Wild West, up against The Yellowstone Kid, the most ruthless gunslinger around. Adam's cacking it as the Kid just so happens to have solid gold revolvers but - phew - they fire regular bullets. I mean, what're the chances of that eh?

"Aieeee!" Count: 0 for both

Battle & Valiant - "Wanted by readers who like their action DARING, DANGEROUS and DEADLY"

Postie's just delivered a few back issues of this title, so lets have a look at the earliest - 13 November 1976.

Strips that i don't bother with much: "The Bootneck Boy", "The Black Crow", "D-Day Dawson", "Panzer G-Men" and "One Eyed Jack".

"Darkies Mob" i'm gonna leave for another time and a section to itself.

That leaves two to peruse.

"Major Eazy". A welcome start of a 3-parter. SO much better than the self-contained 3-pager - by the time you've established the hook of the character, there's a limit what you can do in such a short amount of space. Here though its quite a nice set-up: Eazy and his unit lie in wait for a Panzer division that never arrives. Going to find it, they find whole unit wiped out. Eazy sets off alone to find the attackers, finds them to be arab bandits at a secret oasis and is abandoned in the desert to die. Odd that he doesn't take Tewfik with him, but guessing it'd keep it simple to not have an arab sidekick with him when he's going up against arabs. Aieeee! Count: just the derivitive "aaiee"

"Soldier Sharp". Love the fact that the "hero" of this strip is such a cowardly, treacherous weazel. And Joe Colquhoun's art is delight as usual, very very similar to "Charley's War" and the tone is too. This time, Arnie's going to be executed by the Russians. Tied to a cartwheel, his stomach is cut and a wooden cage of rats is tied to his belly. The idea being the rats'll knaw through the wood and into his entrails. Luvverly. "Aieeee!" Count: 0

New version Billy The Cat

Thought you might like to see another example i have of the new generation of artists taking on classic characters.

This one is by the brilliant Dylan Teague, who did this with no advance warning and with no reference material at all

Censorship in "The Black Max"?

Been reading this later tale of the fella, the one where he has an army of Bat People.

And its curious - whenever there's a full shot of the these naked new baddies, there's always a convienent black shadow in the nether regions.

I've included a pic to show what i mean.

Thing is, i figure if Font was drawing in a European style and including "bits", wouldn't the Editor have told him to pack it in?

In which case, the shadowy areas wouldn't be needed anymore.

But week in week out they're there.

So, what's the story?

All the art was done upfront before publication and they noticed it to late? They were happy just to cover it up? There wasn't actually anything there and Font's drawing just a lot of hair?

2000AD - Prog 44

Thought i'd dig a back issue out at random to have a read and came up with this very dog-eared Christmas issue from 1977.

Highlights?

Nice tale and nicer art from Ian Gibson on Dredd. This was an interesting time in Dredd's evolution, as his world was expanded and here we have the Lunar Base and Judges. Note the pathetic attempt to be a colourist.

Lovely moody B&W from Mike Dorey on Invasion.

Huge Star Wars influence starting up on Dan Dare, with a feral version of Ming The Merciless as the chief baddie.

And the usual top notch work from Belardinelli on Invasion. Again, note crappy colouring - plus felt tip gore.

What a muppet.

June 1968

Lovely informative piece by Lew Stringer over on his Blog about what comics were out this week 40 years ago.
Take a look:


http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/06/flashback-this-week-in-june-1968.html

Strips i wrote now available in Forbidden Planet!

Yes indeed, colour me one chuffed Fanboy.

Been writing Strontium Dog strips for "Dogbreath" this last year and, blow me down, the latest issue is now being stocked by FP.

Cor! Well done Dave and co.

Want to get along there and see it for meself.

Available direct as well:

http://www.futurequake.co.uk/fq/shop.php

Aieeee!

So, had to come up with a name for this Blog.
What better than my favourite sound effect from my kiddie reading (and still in use now). Having a bit of a research it seems that the most common is one "A", one "I" and four "E"'s followed by any number of exclamation marks.
Thought for a bit of fun i'd make of just how often i come across it during my reading.
So, to kick off, lets take a look at the very first issue that Battle merged with Valiant - 23 October 1976:
"One Eyed Jack" - a slightly derivitive "Naieeeeee!" Showing off a bit i feel, what with starting with a "n" and a massive six "e"'s. But the guy's just been blown up by his phone so i guess we can excuse him.
"Darkie's Mob" - a truncated "Aieee!" from a Japanese grunt.
"Panzer G Man" - an elongated "Aieeeeee!" followed by an "Aieeeee!"
"Soldier Sharp" - first sighting of the four "E"'s.
"The Black Crow" - "Aieeeee!"" from a little girl shot in the hand while playing piano (yes really)