Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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| Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
Holy smokes! The internet's greatest feature has somehow managed to hit its senses-shattering 50th-anniversary issue!
It seems like mere weeks since I launched it into space and those dread cosmic rays transformed it into the most hyper-powered feature on the internet! Truly this is the Steve Does Comics Age of letting the people speak.
And speak you must. For, that's the only way in which the discussion can begin. By you - or someone very like you - suggesting today's topic, in the comments section below.
So, tiger, get that keyboard rattling and unleash a veritable smorgasbord of chat upon the World Wide Web, you World Wide Web-Spinner, you.
Okay, i'll take a shot.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that familiarity breeds contempt. However, we all probably have particular favorite ( comics, albums, books, films- you choose) that we revisit again and again. Drawing repeatedly from the same well of entertainment, as it were; with no loss of appeal.
For me, this would include:
The Avengers' "Celestial Madonna" story- Avengers 129 130 and Giant Size Avengers 2. I've lost count of how many times reading it. Yet it carries me away every time. Still my favorite Kang story...
Musically, my most played might be either Thomas Dolby's "Golden Age of Wireless" or Henry Mancini's "Music From Peter Gunn". its fortunate that both my copies are on cd, if they were vinyl they would be worn smooth.
Given the chance, those comics and albums would serve as accompaniment to whatever afterlife awaits a fool like me.
Good question...
ReplyDeleteI'd have to go for Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing' up until issue 50. That's just so rich and varied and wonderful, it never gets tired.
That's kind of a boring and predictable answer from me, though, so I'll also go with Richard Corben's run of horror comics in the last 10 years of his career. 'Ragemoor' in particular.
Musically. 'The Plateaux Of Mirror' by Harold Budd and Brian Eno is a place I never tire of visiting. And the stuff the Art Of Noise did on ZTT records is still evergreen for me. In fact, most of what ZTT put out 1983-1984 hits the spot.
Thanks for the topic, Red.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to comics, I'd go for Fantastic Four #44-67, Avengers #54-71, Incredible Hulk #109-182, Thor #126-166 and Amazing Spider-Man #1-148.
When it comes to albums, I'd go for Revolver, Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road and Venus and Mars.
With movies, it would be Night of the Demon, the Innocents, Quatermass and the Pit, Aliens, Silence of the Lambs, Deadpool 2 and Let the Right One In.
Like Matthew, I'm going to avoid raving about anything by Alan Moore - like Watchmen, From Hell, or Promethea - even though he has a way with narrative and dialogue that stands up to repeated reading which is unusual in comics, because I don't want to be predictable either.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm going to go on about Moebius instead, especially his 70s stuff. Arzach, The Airtight Garage, the Blueberry westerns ...always worth revisiting.
The album that springs to mind for me is 'Not Available' by the Residents.
Mainly because I've been listening to it since the early 80s, and the way it resists becoming familiar baffles me. How can it still sound so strange and genuinely otherworldly, even after decades of industrial noise, thrash, ardkore, drum'n'bass, dubstep, glo-fi, vapourwave, and every self proclaimed weirdo since, from the Butthole Surfers to Merzbow to all the dweebs with a recording program on their laptop (who mostly become dated within a few years)?
-sean
Matthew- ah yes, those Swamp Thing tales were amazing, unlike anything I'd ever read before.
ReplyDelete"Plateaux of Mirror", though, is new to me. Back again to YouTube...
Steve- you name some classic comic runs, and classic albums as well. Glad you mentioned "Venus and Mars"; it's a gem. Better than "Band on the Run"? Aaaaahhhhhhhh, it's a toss up.
Sean- you nailed it. The Residents still sound like nothing else. Nobody went (or could go?) where they did...
Hmmm… Charlie will approach this as quantitatively as possible. Though i have 5 long boxes of favorite comics perhaps the one i have read most over the last 50 years is DC’s Secret Origins #1.
ReplyDeleteThe album I’ve revisited the most is a toss up between The Beatles Revolver and Thomas Dolby’s Golden Age of Wireless.
Cheers All!
I have a recurring soft spot for Zenith, particularly the bonkers phase 3. Along with its inspirations (the he-who-shall-not-be-named Marvelman and Captain Britain stories) I reckon I've re-read these more than anything. Special mention for Eddie Campbell's Graffiti Kitchen, which also remains on high rotation, and is probably my all-time favourite.
ReplyDeleteMy probably-not -picked-by-anyone-else album is This Last Night in Sodom by Soft Cell, which is very much an overdose in slob culture. Honourable mention to Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, in which she, literally, squeezed out her heart.
DW
DW -
DeleteI really liked the art for Zenith Book 3.
Steve Yeowell went from smooth and slick (and quite Alan Davis-y) to inky and blocky, a bit like when Giffen did the same on LoSH a few years earlier. I found it very pleasing.
Zenith will always represent the definitive break in the history of the galaxy's greatest comic for me, when it became undeniable that the galaxy's greatest comic wasn't anymore. I'm not a fan.
ReplyDeleteMatthew, the funny thing about those Eno 'Ambient' records is that they were supposedly designed not to be listened to - in the sense that they were intended as a functional background sound - but generally hold up really well. Much better than most regular albums that came out around the same time.
The Art of Noise didn't do much for me I'm afraid. I preferred Propaganda, and - not on ZTT, but they seemed somehow like they should have been - Yello. But these days I do find both to be a bit 'of their time' - enjoyable, but you probably had to be into the records when they came out, if that makes sense.
Btw, if you're interested and haven't heard it, Alan Moore's Radio 4 interview with Brian Eno has been posted at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAXUCNHVRW4
Unfortunately, he doesn't ask the crucial question - "Coldplay, Brian? Really?"
-sean
Steve's Hulk run ended at Hammer & Anvil. I've often wondered if they were inspired by the film, "The Defiant Ones", in which Poitier & Curtis are chained together. Like the Blood Brothers (c.f. PPOC) aren't Hammer & Anvil's powers curtailed, once they are separated/disconnected?
ReplyDeleteBrian Eno did some good 'space music' in 'For All Mankind' (the original documentary).
Knowing Zenith the Albino partly inspired Elric, I read a Zenith short story a while back, but found it weak.
(Apart from 2020-2023!)I tend to re-read books more than comics. It's also to try to re-experience the time in your life (a more meaningful time), when you first read those authors. For me, Moorcock, Melville, Bellow, Conrad, are regularly revisited.
I'd don't really re-visit albums. But on youtube, I like to re-visit singles, e.g. 'Strange Land', by Clannad, 'To France', by Mike Oldfield, & various others from the mid-80s & late 70s.
As regards movies, my DVD-playing devices aren't playing them successfully, but on youtube I regularly watch clips from 'Night Moves', starring Gene Hackman.
Phillip
Philip, I don't know about later appearances but, in their first one, becoming disconnected drove both Hammer and Anvil insane.
ReplyDeletePhillip!!! Funny tou mention The Defiant Ones!!! As far as “fav songs” Bowling Green Sewing Machine” was an ear worm that has been sung aloud hundreds of times in Charlie’s household for the padt 3 decades!
ReplyDeleteHaving consulted Wikipedia, Leroy Jackson & Johnny Anvil, between them, have the surname & first name of Tony Curtis's character, John "Joker" Jackson. Not very original!
ReplyDelete"Bowling green..."
"...SEWING MACHINE!"
Phillip
I revisit the John Romita Captain America run from time to time as its just core Marvel stuff for me. Also the Trimpe\Severin\Thomas Hulk tales and anything pre 1975 by Neal Adams. For non superhero type stuff Pete Bagges "Hate" and "Love and Rockets"
ReplyDeleteMusic,Well no surprise from me David Bowies Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory,Low etc. The Velvets "Velvet Underground and Nico", Nick Lowe "The Convincer" and Simon and Garfunkles "Bridge over troubled water" to relax to
Movies:Aliens, Some like it hot, Goodbye Mr Chips
Phillip, the Zenith DW and Matthew were discussing was a late 80s super-hero series that appeared in 2000AD, nothing to with Zenith the Albino.
ReplyDeleteAlthough as it happens the latter was a member of Les Hommes Mysterieux - a sort of French League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's 'Black Dossier', and the 2000AD Zenith was somewhat derivative of Moore's earlier super-hero stuff. And yes, I am aware that I probably need to get a life.
Although instead coincidentally enough I am currently reading Fantomas...
-sean
Nice questions Red!
ReplyDeleteComics- That way too short run by Stern/Byrne on Captain America is like catnip to me. Also I like to revisit All Star Comics from'75 till it ended, plain old nostalgic fun.
Movie-Tombstone, no matter where I surf into it I'll watch. Same goes with Buckaroo Bonzai.
Music- I seem to start a listening session with the same 3 groups; The Animals, Cheap Trick or The Romantics.
I've not actually seen 'The Defiant Ones', but I am familiar with early 70s Pam Grier flick 'Black Mama, White Mama' about two escaped women prisoners shackled together. Not very well written or directed imo, yet somehow still quite watchable...
ReplyDelete-sean
Thanks for the responses all!
ReplyDeleteMcScotty- ah, another fan of the unbeatable trio of Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe! Great call. That's been shown at our house many times.
Charlie and Phillip- okay, it's now imperative that I investigate "Bowling green...sewing machine ". If I want to sleep tonight, anyway...
Killraven- That Stern/Byrne Cap run is classic. And yes, all too brief. Incidentally, Mr. Stern is responsible for another comic I've reread extensively: ASM 248, "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man ". Gets me every time.
Bowling Greeen! Sewing machine!
ReplyDeleteSteve-
ReplyDeleteI agree, the film Let the Right One In was brilliant! That was a startling, disturbing movie. What could be less threatening than a little girl. That swimming pool scene...
It's hard to imagine that a vampire movie could be that alarming at this point, but the Swedes pulled it off.
Even the American remake was pretty good, I guess, but not as good as the original.
...Or maybe I just knew what to expect when I saw the remake.
Something about the long darkness and cold of those Scandinavian nights.
Speaking of which, has anybody else seen The Northman? I know it's an American guy, Robert Eggers that made it, but his films have a European feel to them.
If you haven't seen it, check out his movie Witch.
The story "takes the long way around the barn", as we used to say here. And that's exactly what happens in the movie. There's something bad waiting behind the barn...
M.P.
Killraven & Redartz - Have you got "Blood on the Moors", the pocket book that collects Cap's Stern/Byrne run? My brother purchased it for me, a few years ago, reduced to a bargain price!
ReplyDeletePhillip
MP -
ReplyDeleteI saw The Northman and was bitterly disappointed.
I hadn't been all that keen on The Witch, but I really liked The Lighthouse. I thought he conjured up a unique atmosphere and some astonishing images in that one.
So The Northman, from its opening shot CGI flyover to its dodgy Adobe After-Effects animation to its musclebound anti-hero who doesn't actually do any raping or murdering to speak of, left me really cold.
I really liked the US version of Let The Right One In. It streamlined the supporting characters really well, and Matt Reeves is an incredible mainstream visual storyteller [except for The Batman, which I yawned through in IMAX].
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 127-150 and CONAN THE BARBARIAN 33-45 are my two main ‘Comfort Food’ runs of comics. To this day, I still read ‘em fairly often. Not necessarily every single issue (and certainly not every single word), but I flip through them several times a year. Oh, and every issue of MASTER OF KUNG FU drawn by Paul Gulacy.
ReplyDeleteThé first two volumes of LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN are the Alan Moore comics that I return to most often.
For the past few years, I’ve been obsessively listening to various CD collections of Top 40 radio hits from the 70s. The more random the sequencing, the better I like em — Gerry Rafferty followed by Aretha Franklin followed by Miami Sound Machine followed by Cliff Richard followed by Chic followed by Jerry Reed followed by The Fifth Dimension followed by KC and the Sunshine Band, etc etc — bliss! I still listen to Kiss’ DESTROYER album at least two or three times a year.
I’ve seen Brian DePalma’s PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE so many times, I have it practically memorized.
b.t.
Phillip- I've got the War and Remembrance TPB that covers their run
ReplyDeleteOh that was from Killraven
ReplyDeleteNo Throbbing Gristle on any of your 70s comps b.t.?
ReplyDeleteNow that would be random sequencing...
-sean
B.t.- that run in Amazing Spider-Man you mentioned is a great one. It hits home fire me personally as it was the era when I first started that obsession with comic collection.
ReplyDeleteAnd regarding the 70s' compilations- Time/Life has some fine ones, albeit sometimes pricey. Rhino's " Have a Nice Day" Series is also rich with 70's goodness. Also sometimes pricey...