FOR THE RECORD, WIP: Radio repeats

When I first started listening to the radio, I never understood why the same songs would be repeated all day long, considering there must be millions upon millions of songs in existence.

I am working on a comic book called "For the Record" about my love of music over the years, and posting weekly updates of progress.

THAT COMIC SMELL: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars

The latest episode was a chance to expose my inner mid-1980s Marvel Zombie self, with all my enthusiasm for Secret Wars; celebrating how it was published in Britain as a weekly comic, as a tie-in with Spider-Man Weekly, and the concurrent Secret Wars Panini Sticker Album. I lapped it all up!

From the website:

"It’s been a long time coming folks, we have hinted at it over the years and shouted it time and time again. We go head first into SECRET WARS!!
Get ready to find out if everyone enjoyed it and if the series stands up all these years later.
This and all the usual comics chat on…
That Comic Smell!"

Have a listen here.

THAT COMIC SMELL: Comics Chat/Reviews MK III

"In this episode the TCS crew conclude their review/comics chat from episodes 96 & 98. We dig a little more into the recent Europe Comics title sent to us and just have a good old fashioned, chin wag about what’s been wetting our appetites this time around.

Just as a warning, we didn’t catch that a bowl was slightly too close to the microphone so there may be a couple of loud points. Just to make you aware going in.

This and all the usual comics chat on…

That Comic Smell!"

Listen here.

STAN LEE - Founder of the Comic Revolution!

Stan Lee was the first famous person I ever wondered about.

“I wonder what Stan Lee is doing right now?” I used to think.

As a wee boy in Dundee, the best I could envisage was him in the Marvel Comics office talking with writers and artists, or typing away writing stories.

The truth is that by the time I was reading Marvel Comics in the late 1970s, Stan Lee had moved on and was no longer part of the comics company. Each comic had “Stan Lee Presents” at the very beginning. He wrote “Stan's Soapbox” in each issue. He was still a figurehead, and remained so until today.

In Christmas 1979, I was lucky to get the Spider-Man Annual published in the UK, and in it was a three page article on Stan Lee.

Stan's reputation has changed over the years, but this article lionised him, and formed a basis for what I thought about him. I'm sad that he's died. It does feel like the end of an era.

Decades later, Stan appeared at a con in London, announcing that it was to be his last show there. I considered going, with the idea in my mind that when I was stood in his vicinity, I would at last know what he was doing right now.

STEVE DITKO

Steve Ditko has died. A real comics legend. Great storyteller, imagination, and very individual and dynamic art style.

I looked through my Ditko comics yesterday to scan and post in tribute. Click images for larger views.

I'm not sure when I first saw his art. He was always around.

In the late 1970s a paperback book was released with the first six Hulk comics reprinted therein. Maybe that was the first thing for me:

(That's sellotape holding together this well thumbed copy).

There were many 1960s Marvel comics being reprinted in the UK and the US as the 1970s went into the 1980s, so I was exposed to both eras of work from Ditko.

Here's another Hulk story from the 1980 Hulk Annual:

The British Spider-Man Summer Special was a black and white reprint of the 1960s Sinister Six story. This remains a favourite of mine:

Also in the UK, Alan Class was reprinting 1950s work from Ditko. In Sinister Tales, I read Grulla:

A fascinating story was presented in Marvel Spotlight, Dragon Lord:

Marvel US were also reprinting Ditko Spider-Man in their Marvel Tales series:

In 1984, Marvel UK started their Transformers comic. The back up story was Machine Man:

Ditko drew a good few Indiana Jones comics:

And was regular artist on Rom; comics based on a robot toy:

Here's Daredevil from 1986:

Ditko drew a new superhero comic for Marvel in 1988, Speedball:

The same year, a new number 1 issue of "What If?":

So as you can see, Ditko was still very much a current artist at Marvel.

In 1993, he did a one-off comic at Dark Horse, "The Safest Place":

It was the late 1980s before I started frequenting comic shops. The search for back issues was given a considerable boost by this. Here are some of the Ditko goodies I've picked up over the years.

Ditko's Doctor Strange is wonderful:

Destructor from Atlas Comics, 1975:

Not often you see Ditko draw Batman. Here he is in Man-Bat, 1975:

I liked the Micronauts comics by Michael Golden, and the annuals drawn by Ditko were a nice variation on the characters:

Charlton were good about aiming their comics at fans. They'd label them, "All Ditko Art" on the covers. This is from "Giant from the Unknown" in Monster Hunters, 1978:

Another landmark character from Ditko was The Question. This is from a 2000 reprint edition:

The Missing Man, from Pacific Presents, 1982:

A Black Lightning solo story from The Outsiders, 1986:

Static, from Eclipse Monthly, 1983:

An older one from 1967. Captain Atom:

The Ditko comic I bought most recently was last month. An issue of Jack Kirby's Secret City Saga from 1993:

I saw the news of his death Friday night as it was first announced, and involuntarily let out an audible "no".
It was the Hollywood Reporter article ("published 2 minutes ago"). I went to his wiki page to see his birth date listed as if he was still with us.
Refreshed a minute or two later and there was his date of passing added. Gone.

R.I.P. Steve Ditko.

THAT COMIC SMELL 21: Love

The new episode of That Comic Smell is now online.
Have a listen at iTunes, Soundcloud and YouTube.
From the website:
"Welcome! to a brand new episode of That Comic Smell. You're gonna LOVE this one... I'm sorry.
In this episode the folks here dive head first into the real heart of comics. They discuss different kinds of love in comics, what some of their favourite picks are with love as a theme and even some in the title and really pump through some amazing books (ok, the puns are done. Hand on heart, I promise)
We then wrap things up by having a little talk on some books we were very kindly sent by Centrala publishing. Have a little listen and pick out a good one to grab for yourself http://centrala.org.uk/
All of this and much much more on the only podcast that comes to you in 4D!! (Not guaranteed to actually come in 4D)
That Comic Smell!!
Here are the titles we discussed:
Le Scorpion (Stephen Desberg, Enrico Marini)
Raptors (Jean Dufaux, Enrico Marini)
The Far Side (Gary Larson)
Modern Slorance [Torts and Tinder] (Neil Slorance)
Blue is the Warmest Colour (Julie Maroh)
Love & Rockets (Los Bros Hernandez)
The Sculptor (Scott McCloud)
The Story of Sex [From Apes to Robots] (Laetitia Coryn, Philippe Brenot)
Ethel & Ernest (Raymond Briggs)
The Lovely Horrible Stuff (Eddie Campbell)
Weird Love (Various)
Boy in my Pocket [Billy Dogma] (Dean Haspiel)
X-men [Scott and Jean] (John Byrne)
Spider-man Annual
Drawn Together (Aline & R.Crumb)
Batman [Mad Love] (Paul Dini, Bruce Timm)
Samurai Executioner (Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima)
Silver Surfer [Rebirth of Thanos] (Jim Starlin)
Slaine [The King] (Pat Mills, Glenn Fabry)
The Mighty Thor (Walt Simonson)
Hellblazer (Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette)
Liberty Meadows (Frank Cho)
Blankets (Craig Thompson)
Saga (Brian K Vaughan)
Archie
Calvin & Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
Moscow (Øystein Runde, Ida Neverdahl)
Erik the Red (Søren Mosdal)
Comics Cookbook (Various)
Staring from the Hill (Norbert Rybarczyk)
Chernobyl [The Zone] (Francisco Sánchez, Natacha Bustos)
Forest Beekeeper and the Treasure of Pushcha (Tomasz Samojlik)
The Awesome Comics Anthology Volume 1 (Vince Hunt, Dan Butcher, Tony Esmond, Daniel Marchant, Nick Prolix)
Comichaus [App] (https://www.comichaus.com/)"

CHRISTMAS COMICS: Spider-Man Annual

What a difficult time Christmas 1979 was for Martha Connors. It was all going so well, getting ready for Christmas with her husband Curt and son Billy. In these pages she explains her predicament to Spider-Man...

I read this in the 1980 Spider-Man UK Annual. Two issues (# 165, 166) of the US comics originally published in 1977, and here presented together. No credits are given in the UK edition, but a bit of digging has told me that Len Wein wrote both parts, with Ross Andru drawing the first, and John Romita the second.

This is a great Lizard versus Stegron Christmas story. I read it over and over as a kid and am still very fond of it.

Merry Christmas!

SUPER-HEROES TALK PPT

An enjoyable job I decided to do recently was give a talk to a book group of 8-11 year olds on the subject of super-heroes. I like to use the wider interest in the movies to lead them back to the comics.

I thought I'd post the powerpoint I used. It might be helpful to anyone out there wanting to do a similar thing.

They're in alphabetical order. The text was also cut back to bullet words when I gave the talk.

Fortuitously, the first one up - Ant-Man - was also the most recent. The kids were on board right away. The format is comic image on the left; movie image on the right.

The Avengers covered a lot of the Marvel heroes they had heard of. Another thing I wanted to get across to them was how old these characters are. Between 50 - 80 odd years. Long enough for adults; an unthinkable eternity for these youngsters.

Why 'Batman: Year One'? The comics images were chosen by the criteria that they were titles that were available to loan in the library.

The movie images were chosen in the main to be the most recent iteration of the characters. I told the group I hadn't seen the most recent Fantastic Four movie. 'It's not good' opined one kid. Oh dear.

I like the similarity between the Flash comic and TV show images here. And I couldn't resist putting that groan-worthy comment at the end.

I made sure to point out the distinction of The Incredibles not being from a comic.
One of the children at this point put his hand up to tell me that he had a DVD of The Incredibles and the first disc was very good but the second was boring. It just has people talking on it. I enjoyed that interjection.

During discussion of Spider-Man, the laptop shut down altogether for an update. Thank you, Microsoft.
It allowed me to steal more time with the group and answer their questions though.

Always got to reference the mountains of cash a few comics like the first Superman appearance sell for. It gets an 'oo' and an 'ah' from the adults too.

The photo above (chosen for its dramatic qualities) caused some immediate intrigue, and the question 'Wait, has Wonder Woman been in a movie?'
I mentioned the possible connection between the lie detector machine and Wonder Woman's lasso of truth.

X-Men were the last characters chosen by me, then I wanted to give the kids a chance to mention their favourites with this:

Many suggestions followed, including Firestorm, Doctor Who and Jedi Knights. Some lateral thinking there. Why not? They have super-powers.

An enjoyable talk for me, and the group were very engaged and appeared to like it.

MARVEL MONEY

I joined a Facebook group called "Marvel UK Comics" today. I'm already in one called "Make Mine Marvel UK". I'm not yet sure what the difference between them is, if any. They are both nostalgic for comics I grew up reading.

I recognised the banner used on the Marvel UK Comics Facebook group, as it is on a cheque I was very excited to receive back in the 80s when I had a drawing published in Transformers...

As I mentioned on the group, that Spider-Man and Hulk cheque got a funny look in the bank. It was like trying to use Monopoly money in the real world.

SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS

I just enjoyed a blog article by Steve Goble on Spider-Man and Zoids. I enjoyed it as I read that Marvel UK comic every week back in 86, so Steve's piece was a nostaglic trip. He goes into detail about the differences between the original US comics and the British reprints throughout the entire 51 issue series. Except he wrote that he didn't have issue 51, and so missed the end of the series. I felt his pain, and leapt to his rescue. If you can stomach two grown men waxing lyrical about mid 80s Marvel comics, have a look here.