Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
Tuesday once more rings my doorbell, with its demands that I let it in.
For it has a message for me.
That message is that we're in the second half of the month, and that can only herald the return of a feature in which the first person to comment gets to decide what the rest of us should discuss.
But what shall it be?
It might be sport, or art, or films, books, cooks, nooks, rocks, music, mucous, fairy tales, fairy lights, fairy cakes, Eccles cakes, myth, moths, maths, magic, murder, mystery, mayhem, May Day, sofas, sodas, sausages, eggs, whisky, broth, Bath, Garth Marenghi, Garth Brooks, Bruno Brookes, Bruno Mars, Mars Bars, wine bars, flip-flops, flim-flam, flapjacks, see-saws, flowers, flours, bread bins, bin bags, body bags, doggy bags, bean bags, cola, pancakes, pizzas, sci-fi, Wi-Fi, Hi-Fi, horror, sewage, saunas, suet, Silurians, Sontarans, sins, suns, sans or sandcastles.
Then again, it might not.
Only time - and the Reader - will decide.
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45 comments:
This question is borne out of the Farrah Fawcett discussion the past few days.
It's meant to be broad in scope! Only your imagination is the limit!
So, many moms were not keen on the Farrah Fawcett posters and took them off their son's walls... Did you experience the same or similar experience?
Was there something you had that your parents confiscated or disapproved of?
Was there some guilty pleasure you had that you didn't tell your buddies about b/c they would have razzed you?
That's my submittal for your consideration?
OR... assuming its the 60s - 70s. The Big Two Marvel and DC quite the market!
Who do you turn to for your comics fix: Gold Key? Harvey? Charlton? Archie? And what do you read?
No Farrah Fawcett poster but I did have a big topless Linda Lusardi poster when I was at Uni. The guy running our college bar was ordering one from The S*n and offered to get me one too if I wanted to pay for one. It saved us both a bit of postage. And then one day I wander into the bar as normal and Gary says hey DM I have something for you and unrolls the poster in front of me and everyone else on the bar, including loads of women who didn’t talk to me again for weeks.
And in the late 70s, the coming of Dez felt like Marvel quitting the market. Probably because the first Dez era Spider-Man comic I saw was during some sort of strike and featured a reprint of something from years before (I'm thinking ASM #90?) rather than new material.
At that point I told my grandmother she could cancel the Spider-Man comic that she'd been having delivered every week for three or four years. Without Spider-Man, I was left with having to have sneaky reads of my brother's football comics like Scoop and Roy Of The Rovers. Dez would have loved RotR, with about ten strips in it, none of them more than three pages long.
While all of 7 years old I discovered my grandfather's Playboy stashed (literally) in the old coal bin. This is around 1968.
I dutifully smuggled the centerfold home.
A few weeks later I walk in from school to receive a discussion from my mother about how she felt such things were not appropriate but I could keep it if I desired. (She had put it in the garbage can in my bedroom.)
So, I dutifully took it out of the garbage for "further review."
The next day I come home and found the centerfold torn up and in the garbage can.
So, I dutifully found the scotch tape and taped it back together for "further review."
The next day the centerfold had vanished forever. Charlie clearly was not "clear on the concept" lol.
Harvey rocked the house with Sad Sack and Richie Rich. Still have a huge stack of them in the long box!!!
I know Red is going to tell me I'm nuts, that Archie ruled the roost, but... well... there is no accounting for taste.
While Archie's were quite good, Harvey's stories had that additional level of "crazy" (in a way a super hero comic might) that Archie didn't since it tended to stay fairly grounded in reality.
And FWIW none of my nieces / nephews cared two bits about any Marvel / DC comic... but man did they love Archie, Harvey, and DC Thomson!
I didn't list DC Thomson at first b/c I only could get them as annuals here in the USA. Had they been on sale weekly / monthly like in the UK... sigh...
Thanks for the topic, Charlie.
Sadly, I can think of no examples when it comes to the first question.
As for the second, it has to be Charlton because of my love of horror comics. Of the Charlton books, the two I'd most go for are Midnight Tales and E-Man because they both had a tongue-in-cheek appeal.
As long as I can remember, Marvel Comics pretty much WERE Comics to me. When I first began actively buying and collecting comics, I’d say probably 90% of them were Marvels. SWAMP THING, ADVENTURE (The Spectre), the occasional KAMANDI or BRAVE AND BOLD, that was about it for my Non-Marvel purchases. If Marvel and DC had both gone bankrupt before 1973, it’s entirely possible I might NEVER have gotten into comics as an art form.
Actually, no, i take that back. Before I became addicted to four-color floppies, I had been buying MAD regularly, for about a year. So maybe MAD would have been my substitute. MAYBE.
Warren’s b/w horror mags (and THE SPIRIT) would DEFINITELY have been a solid go-to for a comics fix. Horror movies and comics were two of my favorite things growing up, so mash em together and it’s like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups — two great things that taste great together. Throw in another of my favorite things — semi- or un-clad ladies — and mags like EERIE and VAMPIRELLA represent an almost unbeatable trifecta. Would Horror Comics (even with exposed boobies) be a PERFECT substitute for FF, Spidey, Deathlok, Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hulk, The Avengers, Conan, Killraven, etc etc? Well, no.
As for the first question: Mom found a NATIONAL LAMPOON in my dresser once and gave me a talking-to about the salacious content. I don’t recall if she threw it away or just registered her disapproval — it might have been the latter. Same thing happened once with my dad, but over an issue of SGT. ROCK, of all things. He was a Korean War vet, but he was stationed in Greenland the whole time, never saw active combat himself. Still, he was appalled by the unrealistic battle scenes : Machine guns and hand grenades and bayonets in close quarters and only the bad guys got killed. He was normally pretty chill, but this one comic really offended him. ‘You KNOW this isn’t really what armed combat is like, don’t you?’ I was like, ‘Ummm….yeah….I guess?’ He didn’t confiscate the comic (I still have that very copy) and never brought the issue up again. But obviously he made his point, since I remember it all these years later.
b.t.
"Was there some guilty pleasure you had that you had...?"
What kind of question is that? I don't believe in the concept of the guilty pleasure Charlie, but I do appreciate the legal protection of silence.
-sean
*you had that you had...?
Ok, I'll admit to typos and repeating myself occasionally. Duh.
-sean
Sean - That guilty pleasure didn't have to be comics or literature!
Maybe you snuck a Twinkie before dinner?
A PIMs before Church?
Listened to that rogue rock station in the UK that would broadcast outside the 3 mile limit?
Liked to kiss the Blarney Stone? (I heard Irish folks like to do that)
There has to be something you did that you can tell us about but you would not have copped to 40 years ago?
Here’s an interesting Thought Experiment:
Say Marvel and DC go belly-up sometime in the late 60s, early 70s. Suddenly Kirby, Adams, Kane, Smith, Kubert, Heath, Romita, Colan, Buscema, et al are out on the street, looking for work. Do they all go back to advertising (which pays well but everyone seems to hate with the fire of a billion suns) or do Gold Key and Charlton comics suddenly look a thousand times more exciting than when they were being drawn by the likes of Dan Spiegle, Pat Boyette, Sam Glanzman and Frank Bolle?
b.t.
I had a Debbie Harry poster when I was a teenager, my parents didn't mind as I suppose it wasn't a revealing picture. I think that was my lot.
I would have chosen Charlton and Warren to read ( as I did anyway) if DC and Marvel went belly up. Charlton had some nice titles like Doomsday plus 1, E-Man, the horror titles etc. And of course in the mid 1970s we had Atlas comics which had some nice strips in among the less interesting stuff.
My guilty pleasure was reading comics in my late teens early 20s. Non of my pals read them at that age so I didn't mention it.
What about those DC and Marvel artists and writers doing a decent job on Atlas comics if they were looking for work after any imagined DC\Marvel implosion.Although some artists some work for them it was just the odd strip or cover but they could have done some decent work of they put some effort in. I think Adams and Roy Thomas on Iron Jaw, Wulf or Romita on the Cougar, Gene Colan on the Atlas horror strips, John Severin on war and western strips etc
b.t., I think with the hypotheticals realistically you either don't have much of an American comic biz at all - let's say it never recovered from the late 50s slump - or you have one that was not too different from the one that actually existed, irrespective of the companies.
Maybe even the earlier slump never happened, and instead of superheroes we had other genres like, say, pirate comics (no ho) instead...?
Basically I find hard to picture a situation where it was either Charlton, Atlas, etc as we know them or nothing. But perhaps I'm taking it all too literally?
Anyway, in Charlie's scenario... I read Battle, Action, 2000AD etc and Asterix anyway, so I probably just wouldn't have read many American comics. Til I was old enough to get away with buying underground and Warrens.
-sean
Charlie, I ain't copping to nothing.
-sean
*that should be "ho ho" above, not "no ho"
Sorry, I'm using a notebook that's a real pain in the arse to type with.
-sean
b.t.
Hypothetically I could imagine -
Probably the "big winner" in a non-DC-Marvel world would have been Gold Key?
-Doctor Solar Man of the Atom
-Flash Gordon
-Magnus, Robot Fighter
-Mighty Samson
-Turok, Son of Stone
-Phantom
Any of Marvel's 1960s artists, except Kirby and Heck, could have done a wonderful job on those titles. I just don't know which title those two could have done that would have allowed their talents to be unleashed.
I could see Kirby on Magnus given the crazy sci-fi stuff he came up with the FF.
My guilty pleasure I don't talk about much today is I like watching Ed Sullivan and Dick Cavett re-runs on the "Decades" channel.
If I tell folks I watched that stuff I'm sure I'd be labeled a nut.
But what the hell...
As I type I am digging watching Chubby Checker sing "Limbo Rock" as he is limboing (?) under a stick while singing on Ed Sullivan.
Now I'm watching the UK's Georgia Brown sing! What a voice! Supposedly she is going to be singing with Davey Jones of the Monkee's in a minute!
Well, supposedly Atlas only came into being in order to destroy Marvel, so if Marvel were already kaput, maybe Martin Goodman would have just said ‘screw it’ and retired. Or, maybe he would have bought Marvel for a rock-bottom bargain price and re-started the company with his hapless son installed as Publisher, which was apparently what he wanted in the first place?
Now, if both Marvel and DC failed at the same time, SOMEONE would surely have the bright idea to snap up all the assets of BOTH companies, and create a multi-media money-making machine Monopoly — all the DC and Marvel characters under one roof! AVENGERS VS JUSTICE LEAGUE could be an on-going monthly book! I’m half-swooning just thinking about it….
Of course, if we went with my original scenario, you could have Gene Colan drawing DARK SHADOWS, Barry Smith on MIGHTY SAMSON, Neal Adams on MAGNUS, ROBOT-FIGHTER, Berni Wrightson on MANY GHOSTS OF DR. GRAVES, Nestor Redondo on MIDNIGHT TALES, Ross Andru on E-MAN….
b.t.
Things don't really work like that though b.t. Consider these two examples:
1. In the early 80s Warner offered to licence DC IPs to Marvel, so the characters WERE all nearly under one roof, but I don't see how it's anything to swoon about. I mean, if you think about it, we wouldn't have got the revived Swamp Thing or Watchmen - Shooter had very particular ideas about comics, which didn't include using people like Moore, Gibbons and that lot - and probably not Dark Knight Returns either.
And as it was creators moved between companies, so we got stuff like a Doug Moench/Gene Colan Barman and John Byrne Superman anyway, even if they're not the specific scenarios you mentioned.
2. Jim Shooter later tried reviving those Gold Key characters like Magnus and Turok as part of the Valiant line, and they failed all over again. And that was even with him using artists like Barry Windsor-Smith (what was he thinking?)
-sean
Sean - Did Valiant "fail?"
I certainly enjoyed reading their books in the 1990s and I think they are back on the spinners today. At least, they were a few months ago, and seemingly going strong.
Granted there were a lot of new companies that popped up in the early 90s and many came / went but I thought (I don't have data) that Valiant was like next in line after Image?
Dare I say that I actually intend to plow through the Valiant works of Solar and Magnus Robot Fighter and X-O Man of War from the 90s one of these days? I still have a handful in the long boxes, even.
WOuld that also be a guilty pleasure I should keep to myself, lol?
I was opposite & more of a DC guy (we all have our favorites) -- but I enjoyed many titles with other publishers: a mentioned Eagle Comics / Judge Dredd previously, but also Mike Grell's Jon Sable Freelance & Starslayer, Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer, Miracleman, Neil Adams' Ms. Mystic, & even Berni Wrighton Master of The Macabre short series
Well, Valiant weren't my cup of tea Charlie. They failed in the 90s, but to be fair so did most comic publishers - even Marvel filed for bankruptcy - and having just looked them up, you're right, apparently there is an attempted revival.
Mind you, not long ago there was even talk of an Atlas/Seaboard comeback. Raiding the cultural past is all the rage these days - with Polka-Dot Man being worth money in movies now, who knows what will be popular?
Maybe Moorlock 2001 or Planet of Vampires could make millions?
-sean
Yeah, American Flagg was great Matt. back when publishers actually put out new stuff regularly, owned by the people that created it...
-sean
Good topics Charlie!
First question: my parents frowned upon superhero comics when I first began reading comics at age 7. I started off with Harvey Comics (I liked em too, Charlie), and Disney. But I kept pestering my Mom as my neighbor was showing me his Marvels and DCs. They finally let me graduate to the Heroes, starting with Superman 203. A few years later they also disapproved of " Mad" magazine and "Laugh-In" on tv. But they relented and let me get my humorous kicks.
As for my alternative 'guilty pleasures': yes, Charlie, "Archie" tops my list. Well, actually tied with 'kids comics'. "Sugar and Spike", "Little Lulu", "Uncle Scrooge ". All of which, honestly, I'm buying more now than Marvels or DCs. I must be regressing in my aging...
Sean:
My suggestion of Marvel and DC merging was made with tongue planted firmly in cheek. I enjoyed the first Superman vs Spider-Man Treasury but beyond that, the whole DC / Marvel crossover thing never really set my fannish heart a-flutter. I don’t think merging the two companies would ever really happen anyways, the government would be all over it with Anti-Trust lawsuits and such.
b.t.
Sean, I though Planet of the Vampires was a pretty decent idea worthy of a comeback.
Matthew, Yeah Toyah does seem to be a pretty decent person ( a rich punk) have you seen her and ( her hubby) Robert Fripps covers of various songs on YouTube? Weird stuff but fun.
If it's still up on Youtube, you fan also catch their appearance on 'Mr and Mrs', Paul. Robert Fripp on a daytime tv quiz show isn't something I ever expected to see. It's a funny old world.
-sean
* can
Grrrr! This predictive text thing is really annoying. Why would it change 'can' to 'fan'? That's not a spelling mistake... And it doesn't even make sense!
-sean
Sean. I feel your pain regarding predictive text my new tablet is a nightmare for that. Toyah and Fripp on Mr & Mrs it's like punk never happened 😁
The idea that Paramount thinks they can turn the Atlas properties into an MCU-style inter-connected Comic Book Movieverse is mind-boggling. The odds of anyone making even a single successful movie from the source material aren’t great, much less turning it into an on-going franchise. But boy, I sure wish them well — I’d be the first in line to see a big AVENGERS ENDGAME style climactic free-for-all incorporating the entire Atlas Universe, with everyone from Kid Cody to Tippy Teen, Vampire Planet Rebels Jim Brown and Angry Grey-Streaked Mullet Guy, and The Tarantula and The Brute and Morlock 2000, and Devilina and Lomax and Targitt and and Bog Beast…
b.t.
I really think there is something wrong with society when Marvel Universe seems to be dominating Movies and TV. But don't quote me on that.
Here's some "news of the weird" Per the link below old music is increasingly a share of the music market place and it seems like new music is disappearing? This is a crude synopsis... the article is worth a read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/
I agree Charlie but if anyone asked me what was wrong with society, the Marvel Universe dominating films and tv probably wouldn't be the first thing that sprang to mind.
The old music piece was interesting, but it's worth pointing out that most modern music is consumed for free, and sales are mainly to specialist punters like djs. Actually buying stuff yourself is a habit old people like us - well, some of us - haven't shaken off yet.
And of course we live in an ageing society, so perhaps its inevitable the recent past will play a bigger part in popular culture than it did 40, 50 years ago (as it happens, most of the current music I've been listening to is from places with younger populations, like Africa).
Btw, hope you're getting over the covid hoax. In future, keep away from the phone masts!
-sean
Thanks Sean!
Yep - only geezers our age would be silly enough to pop $35 for Revolver on vinyl, lol. (Hopeful to land a nice Francoise Hardy on vinyl but that would be after-market sales which won't distort the gloomy stats.)
Covid - I'm over it. It was like a bad cold for 2 -3 days is all.
B.t.w how is your book (?) coming?
Cheers!
Well, I can safely say I've never even had the urge to buy a copy of Revolver (although I do have some old Francoise Hardy records).
Ah the book... it ended up in limbo for a while after lockdown finished, as I had to spend a bit of time earning since freelance self-employed types didn't qualify for any government money during the pandemic. And yet Boris Johnson's lot could write off £4 billion in fraud! (I wish I'd known that when covid first hit!)
Er, anyway... time passes surprisingly quickly when you're uh, mature but I finally started getting back to it over Xmas. Apologies for not getting in touch, but I will at some point soon (honest) if you're still interested.
-sean
Being born in '62, I believe that while the time period I grew up in was tumultuous, I still had the innocence to enjoy & wonder at the changes around our world.
Viet Nam, Civil Rights Protests, assassinated Kennedys, Watergate, etc,etc. That's what was playing on our 3 channels of news everyday.
Then there was GLORIOUS TIMES for music,sci-fi, comics, horror kids! First moon landing (outside of conspiracy)! Beatles & Stones(heh, the Monkees)! Fantasy /scifi tv like Star Trek, Lost In Space, Bewitched, I Dream Of Jeannie (both Elizabeth Montgomery & Barbra Eden wet dream material), Hammer Films, To go Godzilla output, Marvel climbing the publishing charts yet Filmation producing DC cartoons, Spidey & FF cartoons, Adam West, and on and on.
Tons of nostalgia to be had, Steve, Oh my brother.
Plenty of stuff to discuss/debate over, Steve.
Especially when I'm trying to make a comeback. Heh.
By the way, guys, I have both appearances of Farrah in Playboy, plus her PLAYBOY video.
You could've hanged a hat on her nipples.
Charlie, I've just forwarded an email to you, from Sean. If you've not received it, let me know and I'll try again.
Killdumpster...
I was watching the Decades channel two nights ago... there is a show called "This day in history" and it goes over what happened on "January 25" but there had to be film, you know, not like 1052 AD or something.
Well, brother, you left off something from your list of the nuttiness we lived through in our youth. At 60 years old, I swear I was looking at the devil himself and his hand maidens. Absolute, categorical USA insanity... roughly 1969 - 70 ish.
Wonder if you can guess..
Killdumpster - your observation of Farrah Fawcett is spot on. However, I am afraid to encourage you, lol.
That said, I always thought the Lance Skiboots poster, with Ringo's wife (Barbara Bach) was quite cool.
Charlie, I’m guessing you’re referring to Manson and his followers. The murders happened in August ‘69, so was January of ‘70 when the first arrests started happening and getting massive media attention?
I have only vague memories of when the murders happened and when the Manson Family themselves became front page news. We lived in the northern tip of the San Fernando Valley, less than ten miles away from the Spahn Ranch as the crow flies, but I had no real idea at the time of how close we were to the Hippie Commune From Hell. The murders weren’t discussed in detail by kids my age (8, almost 9). At some point Charlie Manson became almost a Freddie Kreuger-like boogeyman — we just knew that he and a group of hippies had killed some people in their homes. Which seemed pretty horrible, and scary in a way that the make-believe Monsters that we liked, like Frankenstein and Co., weren’t. When the ‘Helter Skeler’ TV movie came out a few years later, it was the first time the actual horror of it all began to sink in.
For years I only knew Sharon Tate as a Famous Victim. And Roman Polanski was the guy who made ROSEMARY’S BABY and whose wife was killed by the Manson Family. Over time, as I learned more of the details of the case and saw Ms Tate in some of her too few movies, I began to truly understand the horrific scope of what Manson and his band did.
b.t.
b.t. - you are spot on amigo!
Watching them on the Decades channel, recorded live... the 3 women holding hands, singing songs, as they are escorted presumably in/out of court.
Then Charlie apparently jumping out of his chair to attack the judge.
Honestly, besides goofy ass nazis and trump supporters, I don't think I've ever seen such an unvarnished presentation of insanity.
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