Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Who knows what lurks at the bottom of the ocean?
In September 1985, Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel shed at least a little light upon that subject when they discovered the wreck of the Titanic, thanks to the technology of side-scan sonar.
While they were doing that; far above the surface, the cinemas of the world were serving up such treats as After Hours, Death of a Salesman, Agnes of God and Invasion USA.
As far as I can recall, After Hours is the only one of those films I've seen. Therefore, I shall vote for it as my favourite of that pick.
Not necessarily a favourite of mine was David Bowie and Mick Jagger's Live Aid cover of Dancing in the Street.
But, clearly, I was alone in my doubts as, that very September, it soared to the top of the UK singles chart where it remained for most of the month. Once there, it seemed to spend all its time fending off the challenge of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For a Hero. Tragically, Bonnie's track never did make it to Number One and when that duet was finally conquered, it was felled, instead, by Midge Ure's rather less intense If I Was.
Over on the British album chart, the month kicked off with Now That's What I Call Music 5 in top slot before that was usurped by Madonna's Like a Virgin. But then even Madge herself had to make way for the dramatic entry, at Number One, of Kate Bush's comeback LP that the world - and Kate Bush - knew as Hounds of Love.
When it came to the galaxy's greatest comic, that publication was giving us, as it so often did, Sláine, Tharg's Future-Shocks, Strontium Dog, Judge Dredd and Ace Trucking Co.
But it also saw the returns of Nemesis the Warlock and Sam Slade: Robo-Hunter, with Prog 436 even including a two-part feature dedicated to Satanus the dinosaur.
And, what was this? Prog 437 featured a brand new strip starring The Mean Team who, judging by that cover, look like very determined characters.
And there was even more to get excited about because Prog 435 was giving away walkie talkies, which meant that, at last, we could communicate at great distances!
Truly, the future was well and truly here.
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17 comments:
In 1985, regarding Midge's song, does anyone else vaguely remember some media debate about "If I was" being a bad example to kids because, being the subjective, it ought to be "If I were"?
Also, my memory connects Bonnie Tyler's song with the US TV show, "Cover Up". Was it the theme tune? I forget...
Phillip
Well, I'm not going to leave my usual comment about how boring 2000AD was at the time and how crap the covers were. Instead I have a few questions...
1) Do you think that for Prog 435 they forgot to commission a cover from a professional artist, and instead rummaged around amongst the artwork juvenile readers would send in and printed this Earthlet's image of Dredd?
[I do quite like the 'boxes on a white background' look, though: it reminds me of how the comic used to look in 1977].
2) Was this Nemesis Book 4, with the first couple of chapters by O'Neill and the rest by Talbot? Or are we fully into Talbot now?
I loved those first two older O'Neill chapters.
3) Did anyone enjoy Robo-Hunter once we'd gotten past the second adventure 'Day Of The Droids'? I remember loathing it.
4) Did anyone enjoy the Robo-Hunter musical adventure? I have to say, songs in comics are a massive turn-off for me. Even when Alan Moore or John Wagner do it it just doesn't land.
Bonnie Tyler? Huh. The only tune of hers I can ever recall (generally unwillingly) is 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', and only yesterday I saw part of a clip on Youtube of William Shatner performing it with what looks like some X Factor-type talent show kid.
Synchronicity or what?
Matthew, the Nemesis run is 'The Vengeance of Thoth', which is all Talbot. The cover to prog 435, the Dredd is by... Robin Smith? So you probably weren't too far off.
Yeah, 2000AD was definitely in one of its periodic uninteresting phases in mid-late '85; not exactly bad, but there was no real reason to read it regularly either. You'd think having killed off Ace Garp in prog 433 things would be looking up this month, but unfortunately the returning Robo-Hunter and Nemesis were both a bit past their sell-by date.
And as for new thrill Mean Team...
I liked Inferno well enough years earlier - and Death Game 1999 in Action - but even if I'd still been 10, 11 years old diminishing returns had definitely set in with the violent futuristic sport thing at the House of Tharg by this point. Like, 2000AD did Mean Arena a few years earlier - even if the basic plot and characters were the same (as they were with all those series) could they not at least have made both words in the title different?
Obviously the big problem for the progs was the brain-drain across the Atlantic, with a number of droids obviously now part of DC's A-list, as they were working on Superman this month -
Action Comics #571 has a Brian Bolland cover, Alan Moore wrote the Swamp Things/Supes crossover in DC Presents #85 - as well as ST #40 - and the brilliant Superman Annual #11 drawn by Dave Gibbons. The latter being the best Superman comic ever (certainly up to that point anyway).
And from Eclipse this month: Johnny Nemo #2. You knew things were going to be difficult for Tharg over the long term when even Brett Ewins was being head hunted by the Americans.
Also, for a bit of context, its worth mentioning that the previous month they put out a certain comic called Miracleman #1 (I didn't comment under the 2000AD post last time, and you lot all discussed pork pies instead...?!?)
-sean
Songs don't work in comics, Matthew?
But what about Marvel's Xanadu adaptation? "A place where nobody dared to go/ A love that we came to know/ They call it Xanadu-ooo-oo..."
Or P Craig Russell doing Wagner, Debussy, and whatnot?
I'm not sure you've completely thought that though...
Actually, you might have come up with a Speak Your Brain topic there.
On the subject of music, Miles Davis' 'You're Under Arrest' album came out in September '85, which including his fantastic version of 'Time After Time' -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3fzPUG9R_Y
-sean
*included
Duh.
PHILLIP! What a stitch mentioning the subjunctive! If you can find 1 in 1000 here in the USA who’ve heard of it, I’d be shocked!
PHILLIP! What a stitch mentioning the subjunctive! If you can find 1 in 1000 here in the USA who’ve heard of it, I’d be shocked!
A quick scan through these prog confirmed zero recollection and so I was obviously on a 2000AD break. They're pretty forgettable and I agree that former ok characters (Nemesis, Robo-Hunter etc) seem to barely be going through the motions. I assume Ian Gibson was busy thinking about Halo book three, and I never cared much for Bryan Talbot, either way. The future shocks feature art by John Higgins and Jeff Anderson) who became competent, but not so much in these early stories. David Pugh also finished the current Slaine storyline with a whimper. I agree about the talent drain to DC. Alan Davis was now on Batman and the Outsiders, by this time, as well as Captain Britain monthly.
I also vaguely recall some faux-offence, in the media, over Midge Ure's grammar.
DW
Phillip, I'd completely forgotten that 'Holding Out For A Hero' was a TV theme tune. I agree with Steve that it should have been #1 instead of that Bowie/Jagger bilge.
The "if I was/if I were" debate is reminiscent of "to boldly go/to go boldly" in Star Trek.
On the subject of The Titanic - in the '70s my father used to get 'Reader's Digest' every month and we'd also order books published exclusively by RD. One such book was called 'Strange Stories, Amazing Facts' which included an entry about the sinking of The Titanic. One of the survivors had claimed that The Titanic had split in half before sinking and he had even drawn a diagram of the event which was reproduced in the book but no other survivors had mentioned The Titanic splitting so it was completely forgotten about. When the wreck was finally discovered, it was lying in two separate pieces hundreds of feet apart - The Titanic had indeed split in half before sinking just like I'd read years earlier!
Sean, Bonnie Tyler also had a Top 10 hit called 'Lost In France' in 1976.
I recently heard somebody in the Labour Party say that the Tories were "shifting the deckchairs on a sinking ship" and I thought huh? the expression is "shifting the deckchairs on The Titanic" but then I remembered about those billionaire thrill-seekers (oops, I mean explorers) who were killed during a dive to the wreck of The Titanic in June so it's probably too early to mention The Titanic in a flippant way!
Sean / DW -
I've never seen 'Xanadu' the film, much less the comic. I should though, as the title song is wonderful. I picked up the soundtrack CD for £1 in a charity shop in Peckham earlier this year.
Yeah - this was definitely where 2000AD was feeling the strain of losing ALL its most exciting talent [though Halo Jones Bk3 was in 1986, wasn't it?] and being left with the old hands who were by now phoning it in most of the time [Ezquerra, Belardinelli, Emberton / Q Twerk / Gibson etc]. It took until '87 before they started getting new people onboard to sort-of liven it up.
Nemesis just went on and on and on. I quite like the Talbot art now - I have the Titan reprints - but I still can't sit and read a story all the way through without drifting off. Mills had great ideas and concepts, but he just ground them into the earth by dragging them on for years past their natural lifespan.*
Songs: every time a writer starts filling a page with 'amusing' spoof lyrics I just immediately switch off. The most recent example being Moore's LOEG: Century 1910 where he was doing Brecht/Weill.
I was standing the the queue outside Gosh comics reading that on the day it was released, at a signing by the great men themselves. My heart sank a bit because I wasn't really enjoying it but I'd queued an hour or so by then, so I thought I might as well hang about and meet them [again].
I hadn't heard that Miles Davis version of 'Time After Time', but I have heard his version of 'Perfect Way' [Scritti Politti] and that's bad enough.
I remember that ST/Superman crossover! I knew one other person who read comics at that point in my life and we used to meet in town to scour the shelves of the newsagents in 1984/1985. He got to that one first but later in the day graciously gave it to me as I was the big Moore fan and he wasn't really. Very kind. I didn't even know the Superman annual existed until it was reprinted years later.
OK, that's enough from me. I need to save my energy as I will have SO MUCH to say about the upcoming Marvel UK Monthlies post, featuring DDs 10.
*I have recently been reading some more recent Dread [well, from over 10 years ago] that friend has lent me. By contrast to Mills, Wagner's writing on a character he's been doing for decades is excellent. It's a revelation - he's given the character depth and nuance, and created genuinely gripping long-form story arcs. Really strong stuff.
Charlie - A quote from Raymond Chandler, in 'Farewell My Lovely':
The voice grew icicles. "I should not have called you if it were not." A Harvard boy. Nice use of the subjunctive mood.
However, I don't know if Chandler counts as fully American, him growing up in the UK - he was a Dulwich college boy, I seem to remember. Often, it happens the other way around, with several famous US writers decamping to the UK - e.g. T.S.Eliot, Henry James, Stephen Crane, etc!
DW - Thanks for confirming Midge's 1985 song receiving stich from grammar mavens. I was half suspecting I'd imagined it!
Colin - Yes, Kirk declaring, "To go boldly", just wouldn't have the same ring to it! I found Cover Up's theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQqH0dqHqKg
The opening scene looks very dated, by today's standards, but the characters going under cove, every week - with lots of role-playing - would its dated nature survive a modern viewing? Probably not. The lead actor died in an on-stage gun accident, meaning he was replaced, by an Australian character, named 'Jack Stryker'.
Sean - My favourite song from Xanadu was 'Magic' ( not Xanadu), albeit an instrumental version, which I played from an early 80s compilation album, named 'Themes & Dreams'.
Matthew - I look forward to reading your comments on the Daredevils.
Phillip
cover - not cove (we've had enough Cockney, lately!)
Phillip
I wasn't being serious about Xanadu, Phillip. If I'd known the music was so popular round these parts I wouldn't have bought it up!
Matthew, yes the final Halo Jones is still to come. In the '87 2000AD 10th anniversary doc (its on YouTube) theres a bit where Moore discusses why Tharg needed to change if he wanted to hang on to his droids, and goes on about how well DC were treating him.Oh the irony!
The Brecht/Weill stuff in 1910 sprung to my mind straight away when I read your original comment. It definitely didn't work for me either, but a less theatrical approach to songs can be ok. See for instance the opening to V for Vendetta book 2; or the 1983 Sinister Ducks single, whích came with a Garry Leach comic strip of the lyrics on the b-side, where Alan Moore invented gangsta rap.
-sean
Vicious Cabaret, in V for Vendetta, was the first example I thought of. I think that worked because (I believe) David J wrote actual music and Moore (at that time) wrote very lyrically. Obviously supported by the the fact it was released as a single. By the time he was riffing Brecht I think he massively over-estimated his readerships's interest in the source material. I guess what was originally an interesting extra layer in comics, became a bit cliche. Much like a lot of things... ;-)
Moving swiftly towards a tangent, what did everyone think of the recent musical Star Trek episode. I really liked it, but wouldn't want one every season.
DW
Not seen The Star Trek musical episode, DW, although if it helps I did enjoy the Buffy one when it was on tv here, ages ago. That is - or should be - one of the pluses of serialized entertainment imo, the opportunity to try something different occasionally (I think My fave off beat Trek is the DS9 one with Tribbles).
And then there's the Planet of the Apes musical. "Dr Zaius, Dr Zaius, Ohhhh Dr Zaius..." (;
Re: This Vicious Cabaret, I can see how working on an actual song might have given a writer focus, but I found the single itself disappointing so don't think it really added anything to the strip (although the b-side - VTV Broadcast - was ok, creating a nice bit of atmosphere to go with reading the pirate tv episode).
The Brecht stuff would have worked better in 1910 if maybe it had been quoted in captions, rather than 'sung' in word balloons etc. I guess that wouldn't make much difference to anyone not interested in the source material... but isn't that basically the reason some people are down on the later LOEG (after the War of the Worlds stuff) generally?
I mean, if you're not particularly interested in the source material, would it matter how it was done?
-sean
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