NEVER IRON ANYTHING: Warlock

I had a great time talking with Tony Esmond on his Never Iron Anything podcast.

We discussed Jim Starlin's Warlock comics from the 1970s.

Have a listen here.

THAT COMIC SMELL 30: 2 Recommendations

The new episode of That Comic Smell is now online. We present two comics recommendations each.

Have a listen at iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube.

From the web:
"We take a little trip back in time with the power of EDITING!!
Yes, we are digging into the archives for this one, recorded back in June before HQ relocated. David, Mike and Tom get together to talk about 2 comic titles that you would recommend to people that aren’t necessarily comics readers. Surprise, Surprise, it’s a nice eclectic round up of comics hidden gems and greats!
There is also a little shout out section before we get into this episode so make sure to check it out.
This and all the usual comics chat on the only comics podcast to have caught a falling star AND put it in their pocket but didn’t save it for a rainy day…
That Comic Smell!"

ADAM WARLOCK SKETCH by JIM STARLIN

Here's a sketch of Adam Warlock by Jim Starlin drawn at an event I wrote about previously.

Starlin was charming and I was very pleased to get this sketch from a childhood favourite.

THOSE PEOPLE ARE NOT GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

After having given their biggest characters to Fox and Sony in order to avoid going out of business altogether, Marvel Comics made enough money from their share of the success of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Bryan Singer’s X-Men films to firstly stay alive and then later start up their own movie studio. Against the odds, they somehow had a huge mainstream hit with the character Iron Man, and struck gold with the Avengers movie. Now though, Marvel have pretty much ran out of already popular and famous characters. They are aware of this, and quite cleverly, if cynically, factored it in to the first trailer for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy...

“Who are you?” 

“Star Lord” 

“Who?”

Then a roll call of the characters as Peter Serafinowicz is told who they are.

I remember Rocket Raccoon from The Hulk’s 20^th anniversary issue, so that’s 1982. He was a bit of a joke character really, with his name a play on the Beatles song. Hulk even complained about him on the cover...

A bit later, there was a lovely looking 4 issue series drawn by Mike Mignola, prior to Hellboy...

Gamora was a terrific character from Jim Starlin’s Warlock series in the mid 70s...

Groot was another one who guest starred in Hulk; in the 1976 Annual drawn by Sal Buscema, to be exact. Groot was originally drawn by Jack Kirby in the old Marvel monster comics. This story had a bunch of old weirdos reappear so the Hulk could smash them to bits one after another. Quite literally in Groot’s case…

Starlord was a good comic by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in the late 70s. Some visceral violent action, shades of Star Wars – “a sith lord” even turns up...

A bit later I bought black and white Star Lord comics aimed at a slighly older audience, with Carmine Infantino drawing a sexy lady called Caryth. Here is her emotional (and topless) death scene...

Star Lord’s costume is completely different in the trailer, I observe.

And wait, why is Star Lord in this film ? Why are any of these people in this movie?
Because I read Guardians of the Galaxy too, and none of these jokers were in there.

The Guardians of the Galaxy were first featured in Marvel Premiere 18 in 1969. I was lucky enough to pick it up in the late 80s for 10p in a second hand bookshop.

It had intriguing concepts . The characters were from different planets in the solar system and so their bodies had grown differently due to their native atmospheric conditions. As well as being a good sci-fi idea, this also gave scope for the characters being distrustful of other “races”.
Then there was poor old (very old) Vance Astro, who had set off on a thousand year space mission in hibernation to the nearest star system, only to find humanity had developed faster than light travel and arrived there hundreds of years before him. They still gave him a hero’s welcome, but he was tortured by the events. And the Badoon were scary villains (I thought the Judoon from Doctor Who owed something to them).

Beautifully drawn by Gene Colan, as you can see above.

I recall the Guardians reappearing to guest in Avengers comics with a few more characters added. 

At some point Marvel must have completely rebooted the Guardians of the Galaxy comic, ditching the original characters, and the movie is based on that.

I feel like I turned up for a Temptations concert and nobody’s left in the band.

GLASGOW COMIC CON

I've written a report on last weekend's Glasgow Comic Con over at Down the Tubes. Have a look here. I was especially pleased to have a wee chat with Jim Starlin while he sketched Adam Warlock for me. That's always been a favourite series of mine from the 1970s.