Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Some seekers of global unity may dream of hands across the water but, in January 1986, it was a case of hands beneath the sea, as the UK and France announced plans to construct a tunnel beneath the English Channel. One which would allow people to get on a train in one of those countries and ride it all the way to the heart of the other.
And it wasn't the only display of European partnership underway at the time. It was, after all, the month in which Spain and Portugal joined the European Community which would go on to become the European Union.
Not so happily for the human race, January also saw disaster when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up only 73 seconds after launch, killing its entire crew of seven astronauts.
Over on the UK singles chart, the month was dominated by just two songs. Firstly, the Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls and then a-ha's The Sun Always Shines on TV.
The album chart, meanwhile, was initially topped by Now That's What I Call Music! 6 before even that had to make way for the unstoppable behemoth that was Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms which had already been on the chart for 35 weeks at that point.
But what of the Galaxy's greatest comic? What was it up to as that year began its long hard trek towards the following Christmas?
It was up to The Ballad of Halo Jones, Sláine, Ace Trucking Co, Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. The observant witness will have noticed that no new strips seem to have appeared during that period.
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20 comments:
That first A-Ha album was battle-tested! Nearly every song was great! I think they still tour a bit; hope they hit. Chicago!
In the meantime did you gents ever hear the story that sting made a fortune by doing a few seconds of back up vocals on Dire Straits “money for nothing, chicks for free “?
Halo Jones Book 3 is a new strip, no? It’s certainly a breath of fresh air. The one where it all comes together (I like the first two books but his one knocks them out of the park).
So: Gibson (RIP), Kennedy, Gibson and Ewins (RIP) seemingly channelling Kennedy. Not great covers. Halo Jones looks a bit lippy.
There’s something weirdly flat and undynamic about this era of covers - maybe it’s the murky colouring…?
Can’t argue with West End Girls and The Sun Always Shines On TV!
My Dad didn’t buy many records at that point but he bought Brothers In Arms and played it. A lot. The only thing positive I can say about that LP is you can get a good techno sample off the intro to Money For Nothing. The bit where the guitar kicks in.
Sting's voice - Obviously, "I want my..." - high pitched bit, near the end!
The video for 'The Sun Always Shines on TV' features the same girl who also stars in the earlier video for 'Take On Me'. Similarly, the video for 'Summer of '69', by Bryan Adams, features Lysette Ant(h?)ony, who also stars in the earlier video for 'Run To You'.
I bought 'Brothers in Arms' (the album), at a bargain price, at a fire-sale at Asda. As regards the songs, it's more the memories attached to the music.
b.t. discussed 'If I could save time in a bottle'. I associate that with one of the Muppet Show tapes I had, as a kid!
Phillip
Anyone watch the Miners strike documentary on BBC2? It was quite powerful.
Phillip
I bought Brothers In Arms on vinyl when it first came out years ago and it never really grabbed me.
When I sold all my records and replaced the with CDs, I replaced all the first four Dire Straits studio albums and the criminally underrated Alchemy but didn’t bother with BIA. Never regretted that decision.
Charlie (I presume that was you)- regarding Sting's contribution to "Money for Nothing ", I read that Sting wanted no credit for it. It was his record company//rights holder that didn't want to miss out, thus pushing for his songwriting credit.
Great album, incidentally.
Charlie bought a bootleg cassette of Brothers in Arms at a bazaar in Belikeshir or Bandirma, Turkey. Cost $1.50 IIRC. We were on manuevers for a month with our Ch-47s in Turkey…. What a mess that was…
You're a bit early and under the wrong feature with the miners strike, Phillip - it all kicked off next month, 40 years ago, in South Yorkshire...
Seriously though, I noticed there was a documentary on earlier but was a bit dubious what with it being the BBC. Still, if you think it was reasonably fair and recommend it, I'll give it a go on the iPlayer at some point.
Matthew, I suspect Steve might not consider a returning series to be a new one...? Whatever, it doesn't matter, as either way Halo Jones - taken as a whole - was the best thing the progs ever published, and you're right that 'book 3' was the high point.
Its a great example of a series that was creatively ambitious, before comics started taking themselves really seriously. Although I suppose that was about to happen with Dark Knight Returns #1 imminent, at roughly the halfway point between Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Superman Annual #11 and the first issue of a whole series they put together for DC called Watchmen...
-sean
PS It's just as well we got Halo Jones in all the progs this month, as none of the Sláine episodes were drawn by Glenn Fabry ):
On the plus side though, I guess leaving it to the other fella meant he could spend ages drawing the multi-dimensional dark god Grimnismal rising from his tomb for the finale.
-sean
I recall that cover to Prog #451 was printed in black and white in Titan's collected Halo book 3, and did look a lot better. I agree these covers are a bit pedestrian but, as mentioned, Halo book 3 was the title's high point.
This months also saw Miller return to Daredevil (#226, and soon to commence his creative zenith, Born Again), Moore's Swamp Thing #44 and Miracle man #5 (almost the end of the Warrior material) and Love & Rockets #15 (also going through a particularly good period).
Whether comics took themselves too seriously, or not, 1986 has some real gems on the way.
DW
Not knocking Fearless Frank's awesome Dark Knight Returns, DW, but think of it in terms of the difference between picking up a comic at your local corner shop for 24p Earth money, and an import from a specialist retailer for... what, £2 or whatever it was?
Obviously theres something to be said for the latter - DKR was definitely worth it (Green Arrow by Mike Grell in the same format... not so much!) - but I kinda miss the old skool comic biz. Not that it didn't put out a lot of crap too. But at least it was cheap crap.
-sean
Oh, before I forget, Public Image Ltd put out their album 'Album' this month. Which was... ok I guess, but it did include the single 'Rise' which was probably the only really good thing they did with a line up that didn't include Jah Wobble and/or Keith Levene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idK21oWjkl4
After that it was a steady downhill for the artist formerly known as Johnny Rotten - stadium rock, reforming the Sex Pistols, margarine ads, Eurovision, and talking up Trump.
-sean
Sean -
I had no idea who PiL were when 'Album' came out, but I really liked 'Rise' Still do.
My own particulate late-Lydon-low point was him turning up on The Word moaning about dance music and how it's not real music and the kids should be listening to guitar bands. And then within a year doing guest vocals on 'Open Up' for Leftfield. Serious integrity there, John.
DW -
I remember reading DD 226 and thinking, 'that was grim'. That last line, 'my knuckles are bleeding'. Oof.
And then spotting Miller's by-line and thinking 'ah that makes sense'. Shame Mazzucchelli's art was inked by someone else.
I actually sort of missed the first two proper chapters of Born Again: I visited a comic shop not long after I'd got 226 [only an annual occurrence for me] and picked up 229 and was literally blown away by the contents. Immediately, on first glance at the art [and the lettering, oddly enough] I knew Miller was involved.
But I had to wait for 227 and 228 to turn up monthly at the newsagents back home, as Forbidden Planet had sold out of them. It was nail-biting.
I just got done watching DREDD (the Karl Urban one). I haven’t read enough of the comics to really compare (except that I feel the movie could probably use a bit more satirical comedy) but I thought it was really good. What do regular 2000 AD readers think of it?
Also, I like “Rise” too.
b.t.
I liked that movie too.
Yeah, there coulda been a little more satire in it, like the original Robocop. But then, I don't know much about the comic either.
M.P.
Sean
I was referring to Born Again (not Dark Knight). I agree and I think the first six months, or so, of 1986 (given the cover date's are Jan 86, more likely around November 1985) saw Swamp Thing and Daredevil arrive as regular monthlies. These included the bulk of Moore's American Gothic storyline and the whole of Born Again. Plus roughly three months of Halo book 3.
Matthew
I had access to a number of specialty stores and picked up Daredevil #226 upon release. However I couldn't find #227 for a month or so and faced the drama of picking up #228 but holding off reading until I tracked down #227. I think Previews didn't mention Miller's return (or the stores weren't paying attention) and #227 was significantly under ordered. #226 to #233 are sitting on my shelf at work as rare examples of comics that survived the great DW down-sizing purge of 2023. Whereas Dark Knight #1 to #4 didn't survive the move to Aus., 30 years ago.
b.t. , M.P.
The Karl Urban Dread was ok, and a significant improvement upon the Stallone turkey. I'm awaiting the upcoming Dredd/Boys cross over...
;-)
DW
M.P., despite not being as futuristic, Robocop actually got closer to the feel of Dredd than either of the Dredd flicks that have been made imo.
I think one of the problems for any Dredd film is the varied tone of the 2000ad original, which regularly shifted in style as it moved between straight ahead action, and stories in which Dredd himself took on a cameo role in his own series (in that sense it was a bit like Will Eisner's Spirit - sure, you could say that it was about a guy in a mask fighting crime, but if you just filmed that, even in suitably noirish style you'd be missing a lot of what was great about it).
The different types of Dredd story often related to the level of humour, but not always. There were different takes on Dredd himself too - sometimes he was heroic, unambiguously doing the right thing, and at others clearly a fascist; he could be the hero, a walking warning about the danger of authoritarianism (or maybe he was saving the people from democracy) and sometimes simply the butt of a joke. The character was seemingly as contradictory as the art styles of Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon...
Yet somehow the writers - John Wagner and Alan Grant and occasionally Pat Mills (lets not get into the Garth Ennis Dredd, eh?) - made it all hang together. Thats my old skool take anyway.
Hard to pull that off in a film.
-sean
DW, funnily enough, I missed DD #227 as a direct market import too.
I remember scouring newsagents a few months after missing comics in specialist shops as a regular thing back then. Come to think of it, that's how I got most of the Miller/Mazzucchelli DD run. See also: the early Simonson Thors, and Swamp Thing #20.
The difficulty of matching available disposable income with the arrival of the latest imports before they sold out...
-sean
Hey, this is apropos of nothing, but I saw recently saw this documentary on Public Television about the fossils these paleontologists are finding down at a Columbian coal field, where they're strip-mining.
Bad news for the environment no doubt, but those guys are finding fossils sticking right out of the ground.
From (if I got this right) the Cenozoic period, which happened after the meteor hit 65 MYA and the non-avian dinosaurs died out.
They found the fossil of a turtle about the size of an average car. There were bite-marks in its shell. What bit it?
Well, long story short, they found fossils of crocodiles well over 30 ft. long. and snakes over 40 ft. long.
From around 50+ MYA. There weren't supposed to be reptiles that big around back then.
But apparently there were.
I tried to imagine a snake 40-45 feet long, and immediately thought of Satha, the Old One, from the REH story the Scarlet Citadel.
I reread the story and Satha was around 60 ft. long, I guess.
Still, forty feet is plenty big enough to swallow a guy whole, I figure.
Yikes.
M.P.
For what it's worth, I think the Stallone Dredd movie nailed a lot of the design aspects of the comics [Mega City 1, Hammerstein, Mean Machine], but was such complete bilge otherwise that who cares...?
And the Urban Dredd movie nailed pretty much everything else [it was pretty low-key funny], but was disappointingly tame in its production design. Their MC1 isn't place I can imagine Otto Sump or The Dark Judges making an appearance.
DW - I still have my original copies of DD BA boxed up in the loft. Though I have just recently splashed out on the new Gallery Edition which has a very distracting red stripe down the side of every page. I justified the expense by selling off my DD Miller Omnibus Companion.
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