Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
I'll have a, "P," please, Bob.
It's true. Those legendary words were first uttered (possibly) exactly forty years ago, as August 1983 saw the launch of ITV's legendary quiz show Blockbusters, hosted by none other than Bob Holness.
Holness, of course, had two previous and unlikely claims to celebrity. One was that he was the first person in Britain to ever play James Bond. And the other was that he played sax on Gerry Rafferty's classic Baker Street.
Of course, as all true music lovers know, that second claim is a popular urban myth and has no truth to it at all.
It was, in fact, Hazel O'Connor's Will You? that he played sax on.
And Foreigner's Urgent.
And The Logical Song.
Sadly, Blockbusting Bob was nowhere to be seen on that month's UK singles chart, where the top spot was initially held by KC and the Sunshine Band's Give It Up before that was supplanted by UB40's cover of Neil Diamond's Red Red Wine.
Bob Holness had, of course, previously played sax on UB40's breakthrough hit Food for Thought.
And Dexys Midnight Runners' Geno.
Over on the accompanying album chart, August kicked off with The Very Best of The Beach Boys at Number One before that was dethroned by Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five's 18 Greatest Hits.
The observant reader will, no doubt, spot that Star Wars Monthly is no more.
Fear not. It has not suffered a shock demise at the peak of Return of the Jedi Fever. It's merely reverted to its original weekly format. A fact that means it now falls outside the purview of this feature, what with it no longer being a monthly.
However, The Daredevils is still going strong and, in Captain Britain's strip, the Fury's made it to our Earth and has already started killing people.
Elsewhere, Night-Raven finds himself involved in an adventure called The Snow-Queen.
And Daredevil tries to figure out why the Mauler's out to bump off his old boss. I assume that's the Mauler's old boss. Not Daredevil's old boss.
My knowledge of this one's limited but, from the cover, it's clear it's a convention special and reports on said convention's guests, monsters, motor cars and panels.
Elsewhere, the Vision and Scarlet Witch are having trouble with the Grim Reaper.
But what's this madness? Just why is Wanda blonde on that cover when, in the original comic, she appears to possess her normal hair colour?
I can't find a single copy of it on eBay. So, I'm going to suspect that not that many people actually collected it.
Sadly, I can't say anything much about the contents, other than that it contains a five-page picture strip called The Omen.
Blake's 7 may have shuffled off this mortal coil but Marvel UK's oldest monthly's still going strong - now reaching its 70th issue.
And it does so with a tale featuring Andrax the Last.
Presumably, not to be confused with Andrex the Cylindrical.
Britain's favourite sci-fi mag gives us its own special take on the Oscars.
But it also interviews director Richard Lester about the Superman movies.
We have the chance to win a book about the life and times of Steven Spielberg.
And there's a celebration of Doctor Who.
You know, if the trademarked name of daredevil was truly worth something, I would speculate Marvel opened themselves up to a potential pandora’s box of problems with the name Daredevils on that magazine, and never featuring the actual red-garbed daredevil in the cover. Seriously! I write this as a profound fan of the original daredevil from the 1940s, published by Lev Gleason publishing and all the bullshit the guys who brought back the original daredevil, have had to go through with the name in the last 10 years. The old daredevil, in his new incarnation, must be referred to as the red tailed devil.
ReplyDeleteCharlie
'Daredevils' wasn't a good title because it placed the emphasis on DD, whereas - because of the kind of mag they put together - readers would probably have been more interested in Frank Miller than the character. A general anthology-type title would have made more sense.
ReplyDeleteBut Charlie, I really don't understand why you think it could have caused a problem with the DD trademark for Marvel. It was a Marvel mag, and DD was in it. And even if he wasn't, so what? They were still publishing a DD monthly in the US.
I get that you like the LG Daredevil and you're a bit pissed off about Marvel taking over and trademarking the name, but the title of a magazine in another, secondary territory wouldn't make any difference to that.
Steve, Daredevils #8 also includes the short Dourdevil strip by Alan Moore and Mike Collins, featuring the man without a sense of humour. And Erektra: "Didn't you see that enigmatic look I gave you? That meant even though I can never get over my love for you, I'm just going to kick you in the ribs for no particular reason"
Its been posted at
https://tombrevoort.com/2020/12/30/forgotten-masterpiece-the-daredevils-8/
-sean
I am curious about Starburst's take on the Oscars, Steve, in a year that 'Gandhi' won most of the major ones, and best actress went to 'Sophie's Choice'.
ReplyDeleteDid Meryl Streep somehow get into the 'Fantasy Females' feature?
-sean
The video for 'Red Red Wine' is mostly set in a pub and I remember my father saying "It's called Red Red Wine but they're all drinking beer" which is very true!
ReplyDeleteFUN FACT: UB40's Red Red Wine reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in the autumn of 1988, a whopping five years after its' UK success.
Charlie yields, lol! Fair enough Sean.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Hartnell appears on the cover of Dr Who Monthly and by coincidence BBC Radio 4-Extra is currently celebrating the 65th anniversary of the first Carry On film which was 'Carry On Sergeant' starring...William Hartnell. Later today (Bank Holiday Monday) Radio 4-Extra will be broadcasting such items as 'Carry On Britain' (a documentary about the Carry On phenomenon), Desert Island Discs from 1990 featuring Barbara Windsor and a Christmas-themed play from 1977 starring Kenneth Williams in a rare non-comedy role - oooh, matron!
ReplyDeleteBlockbusters featured the unique gimmick of a team of one vs a team of two. This was meant to prove that two heads are not necessarily better than one and Blockbusters often showed this to be true!
ReplyDeleteDD8: ‘shi-zik’!
ReplyDeleteAlan Davis was getting really good. He draws a curious cat in this issue with actual character and expression. Is that cover a frame from a previous story page? It makes it look like CB is doing a paper round.
That Dourdevil story is quite funny, but there’s a letter published in issue 10 (I think… my copy is in the loft so it’s difficult to check) where an irate 13-year old reader accuses Alan Moore of being a racist for satirising Miller’s frequent background action of big black guys with radios. It’s a very funny letter. I hope the writer still squirms.
So Blake’s 7 finally ceases its bizarre afterlife. RIP. I guess it provided some comfort and solace for fans still in shock from the BBC’s budget-Peckinpah ending, but it’s time to move on now.
Starburst…
Oh god, I’d forgotten about Superman III.
I’d been a huge huge fan of the first two as a little boy. I think I went to see Superman II four times (though I’ve cooled on that one considerably since). But from the crappy slapstick sequence under the opening credits on, III was a bitter, bitter disappointment. That Richard Lester, who made three of my favourite films in the 60s, could knock out this bilge is very dispiriting.
William Kotzwinkle’s novelisation is very very funny though. I’m currently reading his sequel to ET for the first time, and it’s quite charming.
Nothing illustrates the general level of utter crap fantasy film-making of 1983 better than that cover, though. Poor Starburst. What a chore when you depend on whatever comes down the pike, and Hollywood hits a bad patch.
Colin - thanks for the heads-up on the Williams play. My wife is a big Kenneth Williams fan (though not a Carry On fan, which makes it a bit of a niche interest) so that’ll be a treat.
MM
ReplyDeleteI remember that letter. It got quite a response in MWOM monthly (as Daredevils had ceased by then) and on the Fantasy Advertiser letters page, which was very pro-Moore at the time. I'm not sure Grit has held up as well as the material it was spoofing. I did get an Elektra head sketch from Mike Collins at one of the Westminster cons, which may have pre-dated this because I remember Collins commenting that she's dead, when I requested it (possibly placing it the prior year).
I remember the Superman III plot line where Richard Pryor transferred all of the rounded currency into his own account seeming quite clever at the time. Not sure if it was an original idea, given the rest of the script.
DW
Was that cover for Mighty World of Marvel taken from an original US Avengers cover, if so it's pretty poor (imho of course). I had that issue and in my copy the colour printing was off (hope that's not to technical)so perhaps that explains Wanda's blonde hair.
ReplyDeleteDW, I wouldn't call Dourdevil a 'forgotten masterpiece' myself - and Alan Moore in Mad/Harvey Kurtzman mode isn't my favourite Alan Moore (not even just of the humorous variety) - but for a four page throwaway piss-take I think it holds up reasonably well after 40 years.
ReplyDeleteSteve, never mind UB40 or any of the hits this month - the big single of August '83 was obviously 'March of the Sinister Ducks' by the Sinister Ducks.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGL8Fx6SOjg
-sean
Geeze - Charlie turns on Talksport and learns the venerable duo of Hawksbee and Jacobs have the day off b/c it's a "bank holiday?!"
ReplyDeleteIs that a general holiday in the UK? All you gents are chilling at home?
And does this particular bank holiday signify the "end of summer" for you guys like the coming weekend does for us in the USA?
We will be celebrating Labor Day which, as I've blathered before, we celebrate in September and not in May like the rest of the world so as to not draw attention to the murder of strikers in Chicago that took place at the Hay Market massacre in Chicago on May 4, 1886.
What is interesting is that flyers I've seen promoting the original Hay Maker gathering are written in both English and German.
ACHTUNG ARBEITER!!!
Why a Chicago massacre drew international condemnation in 1886 I have no idea? I mean the brutality in eastern europe surely dwarfed this?
Charlie vaguely recalls that someone did pull the Richard Pryor Superman stunt of stealing the "rounding errors" at a bank or credit card company or something.
ReplyDeleteI mean, when you think about it, the interest you receive or pay is generally not going to be exact to the penny. All that "spare change" is floating around somewhere assuming that these interest calculations have a limited number of significant digits after the decimal, no?
Danger Mash - maybe you encountered this being an accountant?
DW - are you enjoying seeing West Ham in first?
ReplyDeleteLiving near Chicago, I had an Uncle who was a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan.
Every now and then the Cubs (aka "the lovable losers") would be in first, usually at the beginning of the season and only for a few days.
My Uncle would dutifully clip the "standings" from the sports page and tape it to the kitchen wall for all to see, LOL. It was actually funny.
Seriously... who would want to follow a team known as "the lovable losers?" Sounds like a Marvel Comics gimmick.
Charlie, a bank holiday is indeed a general holiday. I don't know if it's seen as signifying the end of summer but it is the last holiday before Christmas and, therefore, tends to be the most depressing one of the year.
ReplyDeleteSean, how could I have ever overlooked The March of the Sinister Ducks?
McScotty, the MWOM cover came from The Vision and the Scarlet Witch #3.
DW, the rounding down of decimals seemed clever to me too. I think I liked Superman III when I first saw it but its appeal has paled hugely with the passage of time.
Matthew and Sean, the Starburst Oscar coverage seems to have consisted mostly of Anna Maria Crowcroft's account of mixing with the stars at the ceremony, and John Brosnan complaining about Gandhi winning things.
Colin, I remember the team of two had to get five in a row, and the team of one only had to get four in a row. One can only speculate upon how this affected the final outcomes.
Accountant? I'm an actuary, Charlie not an accountant. For another month or so, anyway, when my subscription expires and I see no need to renew it, being retired.
ReplyDeleteBut rounding errors have been a pain at times. Imagine there's some guy wanting sales numbers but only to the nearest million. And he wants them split onto North and South, again to the nearest million. And it turns out that sales are 2.6 million in the North and 2.6 in the south, 5.2 in total.
So what numbers to report?
– South 3, North 2, Total 5?
– South 2, North 3, Total 5?
– South 3, North 3, Total 6?
– South 3, North 3, Total 5? Which doesn't add up
– Total 5, tell him I don't know the split but I think it's about even?
– South 2.5, North 2.5, Total 5.2? End user can round them himself if he wants to.
– South 3, North 3, Rounding differences –1, Total 5?
I had problems like this so often. I tended to go for the solutions in the last two bullets because I wanted numbers to add up and didn't want to lie. But I've seen others go for the first two bullets just to avoid tricky questions.
Oh, and I don't know whether it's an urban myth but I heard that there was once a question on Blockbusters about wha5 L is made in the dark. The answer Bob was after was leap but that's not what the contestant came up with.
ReplyDeleteThat would have been a wrong answer though, dangermash. Or were people still doing that with the lights off in the 80s...?
ReplyDelete-sean
I was listening to Martyn Ware's electronically yours podcast recently during which he interviewed Stuart Maconie. Maconie admitted he started the Bob Holness playing sax on Baker Street rumour during his time writing a humour column for the NME. He was (quite rightfully) chuffed at how widespread that became.
ReplyDeleteCharlie, I remain grounded with all things West Ham. Unless I'm winding up other fans on comics-related blogs ;-)
McScotty, the Kirby crackle on the original cover to Vision & Scarlet Witch #3 wasn't white/gold and so perhaps that's what changed Scarlet Witch's hair on the cover of MWOM monthly. I had a few of these monthlies and the internal colour printing was terrible (presumably due to moving plates). I was glad that Captain Britain remained in glorious black and white.
DW