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It can sometimes seem like the human race expends most of its time, energy and enthusiasm on trying to make the world a worse place but it can, sometimes, actually try to make it a better one.
May 1986 saw one such occasion, as it witnessed an event called Hands Across America in which over five million people formed a human chain which stretched from New York City to Long Beach, California, in order to to raise money for the fight against hunger and homelessness.
For those who preferred to do their hand-holding in the cinema, there was not a bucketful of great films to be found. However, May did at least see the release of Short Circuit, Top Gun and Poltergeist II. None of which I would regard as classics but they were generally memorable.
Over on the UK singles chart, the month kicked off with Falco's Rock Me, Amadeus sitting pretty at the summit before it suffered the indignity of being dethroned by Spitting Image's The Chicken Song, a deliberately annoying spoof of a deliberately annoying comedy song the world had known as Agadoo.
When it came to the album chart, that listing too was dominated by just two records, with the month beginning with Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music's Street Life - 20 Great Hits on top before that was replaced by Peter Gabriel's So.
As always, it was giving us Tharg's Future Shocks, Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and Ace Trucking Co. And, as sometimes, it was giving us plenty of Judge Anderson: PSI Division.
But what's this? It was also providing us with what appear to be two brand new strips: Bad City Blue by Alan Grant and Robin Smith; and Sooner or Later, the handiwork of Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy.
Sadly, I've never read either of those strips and, so, can shed no light upon their natures or merits. However, after what feels like a lengthy period of stagnation for the book, it's good to see it, once more, dipping its toes into the water of innovation.
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28 comments:
I kinda like Ewin’s cover for Prog 468 — not so much for the central Judge Anderson image, which is fairly basic, but the figures and faces on either side have a pleasantly down-market “Pre-Code Horror” feel.
I know I saw TOP GUN in the theatre and I guess I liked it well enough back then but have just the vaguest memories of it now.
b.t.
I've never seen Short Circuit. I think if I'd been a couple of years younger I might have, as I watched any old SF-related cobblers.
I have never seen Top Gun either. I've started it a couple of times over the years, but never got more than 10 or 15 minutes in without getting incredibly bored and switching off. I quite liked the sequel though.
Am I am very fond of Poltergeist II. It's not really very good, but it has a nice Jerry Goldsmith score and pretty good ILM effects; the family are still super-likeable; and it has two astonishing, standout scenes - one of suggestive horror, and one of right-in-your-face grotesquery. If you've seen it you'll know what I mean.
So. 2000AD. Some new 'thrills', but even as a McCarthy fan [sort of] I can't remember 'Sooner Or Later'. Just had a look at a few pages in their Dark Horse reprint hardcover and it looks like a precursor to the flippant 'cool' bollocks you'd get in Deadline a couple of years later.
There's a lot of Robin Smith still going on here.
This was the point where Brett Ewins was phoning it in a bit on Anderson. I'd liked his Rogue Trooper stuff, and I liked Bad Company when someone else inked him with a bit more care, but this was choppy scrappy stuff.
Apart from Bad Company & Zenith, is there anything else to look forward to in 2000AD from this point on? Have we had the revived ABC Warriors yet?
BTW, Matthew — after you and sean raved about the European Cut of ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA last week, I decided to give it a try. Apparently it’s one of those polarizing “Love It Or Hate It” movies — I loathed practically every minute of it :D Oh well!
b.t.
“Am I am”…?
Greetings to all at SDC! And Happy Father's Day to all the dads.
Steve- you referenced "Hands Across America"; I actually participated in it. My oldest son and I were somewhere near Indianapolis; I don't remember much about it other than seeing an endless chain of people who would part to add a couple more individuals. Wish now that I'd gotten photos...
The music charts over here in June '86 offered a few songs I really liked: Peter Gabriels' "Sledgehammer", Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" and Howard Jones' "No One is to Blame". Truth be told, I wasn't paying quite as much attention to music at the time as I was about one month away from getting married. Which does call to mind one more song- Thompson Twins' "King for a Day". My wife and I married the weekend right after the royal wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. There was a morning news feature about the event on US television, and the T Twins were on playing their latest hit. Hearing it while busily preparing for our own nuptials, I have ever since associated that song with our big day...
I never heard of it being a love it or loathe it film! Or of anyone loathing it. Interesting! Was it because the characters were all scumbags, or something else?
Matthew—
Going only by the Wikipedia article on ONCE ETC, you definitely get the impression it’s almost universally well regarded. After watching it, I searched for “ONCE ETC overrated” and got a zillion hits ! Turns out there are tons of people out there whose reactions to it were almost identical to mine.
Jeez, where do I start— yeah, the main characters being scumbags has something to do with it, I’m sure, but y’know, that didn’t bother me so much in THE GODFATHER or GOODFELLAS. So it’s that, plus a bunch of other things .
The score. I’m a Morricone fan but that score is so relentlessly romantic and saccharine and schmaltzy that it’s off-putting.
The glacial pacing. I’m so not a fan!
I thought the acting in the “childhood “ sections (from pretty much the entire cast) was loud, grating, and phoney. Almost cartoonish. From the kids and adults alike. It sounded like the actors filmed their parts in a foreign language and were then dubbed into English (badly) in post. The costumes, sets and locations were great but the writing and acting never felt authentic to me (in those sections).
I wasn’t feeling the ‘bromance’ chemistry between the James Woods and Robert DeNiro characters, in the writing or the acting. DeNiro especially seemed to be half-asleep or bored much of the time.
The rampant misogyny was, I’m sure, true to the period, but holy cow it’s hard to take.
The twist at the end didn’t make much sense to me, and I thought James Woods’ ultimate fate was pretty silly.
Anyhow — didn’t dig it. Like I said before: oh well :D
b.t.
I remember Sooner or Later as being the back page, and therefore in colour, over a number of weeks. Being Brendan McCarthy it looked good and was reasonably well-coloured for 2000AD. That said, it made no real sense and I’d pretty much forgotten it before this post’s mention.
I quite like the Judge Anderson ‘Zip it creep!’ cover, which was reprinted a few times (and may even have been used on a T-shirt??).
Matthew, you’re probably right that we really only now have Zenith to look forwards to, but I recall a few issues around prog 520, were quite nice. Wasn’t that when the comics changed shape, paper stock and had increased colour? There was a nice Barry Kitson Anderson run, O’Neil back on Nemesis, and Delano and Davis colour DR & Quinch pack pages.
DW
DW, I'm pretty sure the first episode of 'Sooner or Later' was a regular five or six pages - in black and white - and then after that became a single page feature on the back cover.
Steve, 'Sooner or Later' was ok for what it was, and not unlike the 'Summer of Love' strip Peter Milligan & Brendan McCarthy did for the short-lived News on Sunday - anyone remember that, the lefty newspaper that started up early(ish) in '87? It had a comic page that also included Pat Mills & Glenn Fabry's 'Scatha'. To refresh memories -
https://patmills.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/scatha-a-female-slaine/
Anyway, I liked the series well enough, but it seemed fairly slight compared to the stuff Milligan & McCarthy had done in Strange Days a couple of years or so earlier - 'Freakwave' and 'Paradax' - which I absolutely loved at the time.
Actually, I first really noticed McCarthy's work when 'Freakwave' originally appeared in Pacific Comics' Vanguard #1. Which came out the month before Saga of the Swamp Thing #20, meaning Peter Milligan beat Alan Moore to being the first of the British writers to appear in American comics! And yes, I know I've mentioned that here before, but it's such a counter-intuitively unlikely factoid I can't resist any opportunity to repeat it.
Milligan was ok for second-tier 2000AD stuff - eg The Dead and Bad Company, both of which are still to come here - but he's never really made that much of an impression on me as a writer outside of his work with McCarthy. Maybe they were particularly sympatico and bought out the best in each other, but frankly the artist seemed to be the real talent in that partnership.
As for 'Bad City Blue'... It was set in a domed city of the future on an asteroid, which was mostly a decaying ghetto apart from the top of it where the elite 10% minority who maintained law and order lived - oh, the social commentary! - and used tough enforcers like series protagonist the hard-boiled titular Blue. And frankly he was a bit of a tit.
Actually, his main problem was that he was completely generic, like a futuristic version of Bill Savage from some long lost dystopian John Carpenter flick. Although even so, the series might still have worked if it hadn't been drawn by Robin Smith.
But it was, so it didn't.
-sean
b.t., I think the main characters in Once Upon As Time In America being scumbags is part of the point. Sure the gangsters in, say, The Godfather or Goodfellas aren't nice people, but they still come across as kinda cool.
Thats why people are fond of quoting dialogue from those films. But no-one thinks any of the guys from Once Upon A Time are cool.
Unlike Coppola or Scorcese, Leone doesn't try to have it both ways, at all. Although I accept that makes it a hard watch in places (I saw it in the cinema, and during one particular scene decided it was probably a good time to pop out for a cigarette... even though you could still smoke in the back rows in those days!)
-sean
*Once Upon As Time...?
@#*€ing predictive text!
Sean
Yeah I reckon McCarthy got the job and Milligan came with him. I haven’t read too much of his work but none is memorable or suggests its worth checking out more.
I first saw Once Upon a Time in America on sky (I’m guessing late 80s), where it was advertised as the ‘special extended edition’ (wow!). I thought the non linear aspect worked ok and I did buy it on DVD (2 disc edition - wow!) back when I was going through a gangster movie stage. Probably wouldn’t watch it again. However, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is fabulous.
DW
Sean - As regards quoting supposedly "cool" dialogue, are you thinking of: "It's the decision we made" ?
Phillip
Sorry - Maybe it was "It's the business we've chosen" !
Phillip
I've just noticed that Kevin Brophy has died. As a kid, I loved watching 'Lucan'.
Phillip
Any dialogue you like, Phillip - "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse", "I'm funny, I amuse you?", "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"... there's loads of quotes from gangster flicks that get repeated.
Because hey, everyone likes a gangster. Although in real life they're the kind of people you want to avoid.
DW, I find Quentin Tarantino a bit hit and miss. Can't say Once Upon A Time In Hollywood did it for me. Not saying it was bad - he's too good at dialogue for that - but the main characters, the actor and stuntman, left me thinking so what?
And whats Tarantino got against Bruce Lee anyway?
-sean
Greetings to you too, Red!
And, of course, to everyone else.
BT -
Fair enough. I can't say I found the pacing glacial - it's the kind of pacing I'd expect from Leone, especially after 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. I do agree De Niro's 'Noodles' isn't an especially endearing character. I didn't see what it was that made the other characters love and idolise him so much: he wasn't charming or endearing in any way.
Thinking about it a bit harder, there were scattered gems to come from 2000AD. There were quite a few McCarthy episodes of Dredd in his newly-minted blocky, inky style. Bad Company. Zenith. A bit more Nemesis etc with O'Neill [though story-wise it was definitely treading water]. The ABC Warriors with Bisley and SMS [I liked SMS more than Bisley].
Sean -
You could go back further and argue that Steve Parkhouse got in there first writing an issue of Nick Fury in the early 70s. I mean it's a technicality but still...
Pete Milligan... I don't know. I like a few of his things. Skin. Skreemer. The Extremist. But other stuff just feels bland to me - the praise Enigma got seemed baffling. I couldn't be bothered with any of his runs on established characters
Sean & DW -
I kind of liked things about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood: the recreation of the time, just hanging out etc. But knowing it was eventually going to turn into a fantasy bloodbath doesn't help. In the end, it just felt like assembled kit parts for A N Other Tarantino movie.
I’m generally very ambivalent about Tarantino’s movies myself. JACKIE BROWN may be my favorite, but it’s in many way the least like a typical QT movie. It’s just a very solid, almost conventional Elmore Leonard crime story. I like huge chunks of ONCE…etc…HOLLYWOOD, pretty much along the lines Matthew lays out. The re-creation of the era is awesome, the radio sound-checks etc. Cliff’s visit to the Spahn Ranch is super-creepy. I find the “alternate reality” ending kinda cheap but I don’t actually hate it.
b.t.
Jackie Brown is my fave Tarantino film too, b.t.
I suspect in part that is because he was adapting someone else's work. Tarantino's really good at the detail - especially dialogue, and putting together really effective individual scenes - but somehow the whole often doesn't quite hang together. Broadly agree that a tighter focus would have helped Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and probably most of his other films too.
Having said that though, I do like what must be his most indulgent project, Kill Bill. And it's a shame his Star Trek flick didn't happen, as that seems like it could have been pretty good.
Matthew, you're quite right that I forgot about Barry Smith's mate Steve Parkhouse, who I believe also wrote a Ka-Zar comic in 1970. I should have specified first of the 80s British Comic Book Writers.
Especially as I've just remembered London born Christopher S. Claremont...
-sean
I like KILL BILL vol. better than vol. 2– it’s basically just a string of well-executed crazy-ass action set-pieces. KB vol.2 is too slow and talky for me. I can hear QT himself saying all of Bill’s pompous dialogue.
b.t.
I like the way the second Kill Bill is different to the first, b.t., but that's a fair point about some of the dialogue. I can definitely imagine Tarantino coming out with theories about Clark Kent and Superman ;)
-sean
Another Jackie Brown fan here too. Head & shoulders above his other films.
I agree as well, Matthew.
Not to take anything away from the others, but it's certainly aged better.
On another note, Sean, I wonder it that scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood wasn't more about Steven Seagal than Bruce lee.
I've read Seagal once got choked out by a stuntman on set.
Dunno if it's true but I'd like to think so. Jesus, that guy's a scumbag.
M.P.
I think the main point of the Bruce Lee scene in OUATIH was simply to demonstrate how much of a badass mofo Stuntman Cliff is. It’s like the ‘Worf Effect’ — ‘holy crap, he traded blows with BRUCE EFFING LEE and actually threw him into a car, he MUST be amazing!’ If the scene was just meant to illustrate the animosity real-world stuntmen had toward obnoxiously macho action stars, QT should have had Cliff beat the crap out of Robert Conrad on the set of WILD WILD WEST.
I think the scene was a bit disrespectful and condescending toward Bruce (and his hair was all wrong!) but it WAS entertaining.
b.t.
M.P. — but yes, I’ve heard that story about Seagal getting choked out by a stuntman too, and wouldn’t be surprised if that particular Hollywood Urban Legend inspired he OUATIH scene to some degree.
Fun fact: Frank Frazetta was a big Seagal fan. Seriously.
b.t.
It wouldn't surprise me either if Steven Seagal is a bit dodgy, M.P. But in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood it seems fairly clear that Bruce Lee is meant to be, er... Bruce Lee.
Lee's daughter had a public go at Tarantino for portraying her dad as an arsehole, and he defended the film saying that all his research indicated that thats what the man was like. Which sounds to me like another way of saying he just repeated some gossip he read about a famous dead person.
It seems a bit weird to me that a writer/director would add an extra scene - fairly gratuitously - to a film to do that. Why can't Tarantino just leave an anonymous internet comment somewhere, like any other disappointed obsessive fan?
-sean
Like most fans, QT has his own personal heroes and villains, and also seems to champion “underdogs”. He’s not a Hitchcock fan but loves DePalma, prefers THE OUTFIT to POINT BLANK, etc. I can easily imagine him thinking Bruce was over-rated and fannishly jealous that Bruce’s posthumous legend unfairly eclipses the Sonny Chibas of the world.
b.t.
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