Thursday 12 March 2015

Strange Tales #120. Is there a doctor in the house?

Strange Tales #120, Dr Strange and the House of Shadows

Here it comes - hot off the chopping board - my latest video review.

This time, I tackle the first Dr Strange story I ever read, as the psychic surgeon makes a house call and battles his least likely foe yet.

It was originally published in Strange Tales #120 but, as those who've encountered the first ever post on this blog will know, I originally read it in somewhat more British circumstances.

Now, at last, after over forty years, I revisit the tale I shall always associate with an electricity meter.

Don't ask me why I always associate it with an electricity meter. Even after forty years, some tales are too dread to tell.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another great review, Steve - I loved this story too and I first read it in a Dr. Strange "pocket book" that I bought in late 1978 featuring all the early 'Strange Tales' stories in colour. When Dr. Strange banishes the house to another dimension all the onlookers think it's a stunt for the cameras and the house was folded up under cover of the smoke - the house looks absolutely tiny so I can see they might think that :) I'm afraid I was one of the nitwits who was fooled by 'Ghostwatch' but I didn't complain to the BBC - and did you know it's never been available on DVD ? I remember those public information films from the '70s about what to do in a nuclear war (I think they were called Protect And Survive) and according to them we had to whitewash the windows to deflect the glare from a nuclear bomb and hide under a table. And if somebody died we had to wrap them in a sheet and leave them outside to be collected - yes, society had totally collapsed in a post-apocalyptic nightmare but the council would still collect the dead bodies !

Steve W. said...

The whole body-disposal thing shows how things have changed, Colin. If you left your dead out now after a nuclear attack, the council would insist you put the bodies in the right coloured bin and leave it by the kerbside in a way that doesn't inconvenience pedestrians. "Remember. the green bin is for recyclables, the black bin is for general refuse, the green bin is for garden waste and the purple bin is for corpses. If corpses are left in the wrong bin, they can't be collected."

Steve W. said...

Actually, the main thing I remember from those old Protect and Survive films was that, in the event of a nuclear attack, you were supposed to take a door off its hinges, dig a trench in your garden and lie in it, with the door covering you. Call me a cynic but that sounded suspiciously like they were trying to get us to dig our own graves and bury ourselves, by pretending they were giving us advice on how to survive.

Steve W. said...

That reminds me. It was always rumoured there was a nuclear bunker under Sheffield's Town Hall extension. There's now a hotel and some office blocks on the site. I wonder if the bunker's still down there, beneath them?

John Pitt said...

I'm with you on door-MAM-u.
I saw through Ghostwatch about halfway through and treated the rest as a comedy.Did you spy Mr. Pipes?
Threads was pretty shocking, but I think there ought to have been a deafening "crack" before the mushroom cloud.

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John Pitt said...

I'm just so relieved that Judge Dredd sorted those pesky Sovs out in the Apocalypse Wars!

Anonymous said...

Very, very funny and I found your observations pertinent to rubbish collection particularly poignant, given your familial connection to rubbish. Very good, very much enjoyed watching you.

Your cyst

Steve W. said...

Thanks, Cyst. :)