Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Judging from my in-depth research, I'm not sure there was much reason to enter a cinema in February 1987.
As far as I can see, the only films I've ever even heard of which came out that month were Black Widow, 84 Charing Cross Road, Mannequin and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3. To be honest, the lure of none of them would be sufficient to get me to hand over my money for a ticket.
But what of music? Could it impress me more than that, as February progressed?
Well, let's see. The month ushered itself in with George Michael and Aretha Franklin's I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) lording it over the UK singles chart before being dethroned by Ben E King's Stand by Me.
Oddly, that latter single achieved its top spot by fending off a strong challenge from Percy Sledge's almost as elderly When a Man Loves a Woman.
Clearly, nostalgia was very much in vogue at the time.
The original cast of what?
It didn't say.
I can only assume it was the original cast of The Phantom of the Opera.
Otherwise it would have been a major disappointment.
And what of the galaxy's greatest comic?
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23 comments:
'84 Charing Cross Road' is OK. It's possibly my Dad's favourite film. Certainly in his top 5. He loves the book and the whole thing. I'm quite fond of it too.
I'm not a George Michael fan, and especially not a fan of that single with Aretha Franklin. It was so beige.
'Elm Street 3' didn't make it to my local cinema until October of 1987.
I remember it as being quite good - or having good things in it. A score by Angelo Badalamenti. A fight with a stop-motion skeleton. Laurence Fishburne and Patricia Arquette. I went to see it on a date with a really nice girl. 1987 was a really good year for me - expect to hear about it in excruciating detail over the next few months.
I don't think I was really reading 2000AD properly at this stage. I still got it every week, I had a standing order at the newsagent I was now working in. I remember Belardinelli making a return to form on 'The Dead', but I haven't looked at the strip for decades. I had it reprinted in a 'Best Of 2000AD' - probably still got it somewhere.
So Grant Morrison and Peter Milligan arrived to plug the gap left by the DC exodus. I don't remember Morrison's strip at all. Google search results don't make it look much cop.
That Dredd cover is halfway there. I like the white background, it reminds me of really early progs where there was some eye-catching graphic design going on. But Dredd looks like he's been on speed for a few months - way too sinewy. The rest of the covers are a bit dull and soupy.
Steve - Change 'Febraury' before anyone notices, then delete this comment!
Phillip
Well spotted, Phillip. I have now made the necessary adjustment.
Matthew, it sounds like those films were better than I'd thought.
Steve - Your typos are notable, when they happen, because they're so rare! In my Defenders # 24, I realized I'd cut & pasted one of the same paragraphs twice - plus some typos! I wish I'd got your tidy mind!
Matthew - Yes, 1987 (& 88) seemed positive, the media no longer talking about 3M unemployed all the time (as in the previous few years.) Also, Australia was massively in vogue, with Neighbours & Home & Away broadcast twice every day ( plus omnibus editions at the weekend? - I forget...) With everyone a good bloke...a positive message, even if unreal!
Phillip
I’m struggling to think of Pop Culture stuff that I was into in 1987. Movie-wise, I enjoyed ROBOCOP, RAISING ARIZONA, EVIL DEAD 2, THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS and THE UNTOUCHABLES. Music-wise, I’m drawing a complete blank! Maybe I’d stopped listening to the radio by then?
b.t.
I take it back. Just peeked at the 1987 Hot 100 list, there’s plenty of good tunes. Guess I just don’t associate them as “1987 Songs” the way I do with songs from my teen years.
Anyhoo!
b.t.
The most important culture thing for Charlie culturally in 1987 was he bought his first “Now That’s What I Call Music” CD by the group “NOW THATS WHAT I CALL MUSIC!”
I recall George Michael being annoyed at getting knocked off the No.1 spot by a song that was first released before he was even born (Stand By Me was first released in 1961 and George Michael was born in 1963).
At the time Stand By Me seemed ancient but it was only 26 years old - equivalent to a song from 1999 being released today.
Actually Steve, Ulysses Sweet - a sort of poor man's Axel Pressbutton - first appeared in a Future Shock called 'Maniac For Hire' in prog 507.
Also, the story that started in 508 - 'Fruitcake and Veg' - ended in 509, so I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to call it a new series. I'm not sure what was going on there really... probably Tharg was checking to see if Grant Morrison MBE was capable of developing an idea, and trying out new art droids at the same time.
Colin MacNeil obviously passed the test, becoming a regular by the era of the Judge Dredd Megazine, and whoever it was that drew 'Maniac For Hire' didn't. As for Morrison... well, thats a subject that deserves a thread of its own, and its a bit late in the evening for me to get into it now.
But I haven't forgotten about reporting back on the Great M.P. Challenge of 2024, honest! Its not easy getting to a Speak Your Brain post first you know...
-sean
PS I liked The Dead. Mainly because it gave Massimo Belardinelli the space to just go off on one, which - along with the absence of regular people-type characters - played to his strengths as an artist. Its the last thing he drew that I recall really liking.
It also helped that it didn't last long as a series - it was probably only intended to fill in space up to the tenth anniversary relaunch with prog 520? - so Peter Milligan had to keep it reasonably tight. As a writer I found his work to be fairly enjoyable in 2000AD (and other anthology titles) but tedious in regular full length US comics.
-sean
Musically, what we were all into at the time, were tracks used in Levi 501 ads. ‘When a man loves a woman’ was the one in which the soldier is leaving for war, and gives his girlfriend a package, as his train departs. She opens it at home and it’s a pair of his Levi 501s. She slips into them and the ad tells us 501s are now occassionally worn by women. The girl was very easy on the eye, but turned out to be only 14, or so, when she made the ad. An accident by the ad company, no doubt. ‘Stand by me’ was the one with Eddie Kidd (remember him?) duping a night club bouncer into letting him in with jeans. The tag being ‘501s now available in black’. I’d mostly forgotten that you often struggled to get into nightclubs, in the 80s, wearing jeans or trainers. Beefy bouncers high on steroids and violence, telling you ‘It’s not your night, son’. Oh how we laughed.
‘Stand by me’ was also the theme from the soon to be released movie ‘Stand by me’ with a new video featuring Ben E King performing alongside cast member River Phoenix and (Next Gen’s) Will Wheaton. Stephen King’s The Body, on which the film is adapted, was a favourite of mine and I remember being intrigued that the movie clips closely resembled the Body plot. A few weeks a later it became apparent that the movie was based upon the novella, with a different title. I remember buying the movie soundtrack, which was a nice collection of oldies.
Back to 2000AD, I definitely was buying weekly, at this time, but can’t really remember anything beyond Slaine.
DW
And further to this, a lot of those 501 ads are still on YouTube. A lot of them have aged quite well. Sort of.
DW
Musically we were all into old stuff back then, DW? Speak for yourself!
The first Public Enemy album - 'Yo! Bum Rush the Show' - came out this month, as well as Eric B & Rakim's 'Move the Crowd' 12". And at the same time Frankie Knuckles put out the 12" of 'Baby Wants to Ride' (and moved from Chicago to London just after, which would have had an impact on the rise of House here).
So besides nostalgia, there was also quite a bit going on that was beginning to dramatically reshape popular music. And by '87 that was overdue.
Admittedly though my fave record of the month was actually an oldie - The Slits 'Peel Sessions'. Originally recorded for broadcast in 1977, it still sounds fantastic now...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_BWde7iXn0
Agree on Sláine being by far the best thing in the progs at this point.
But while not classics, most of the Dredd episodes in this run of progs were pretty good - 'The Taxidermist' was a better than average storyline - and I liked The Dead and Bad Company well enough.
So if 2 decent stories in a prog = a win, thats not bad going.
-sean
Sean
I was replying to Steve’s observation that nostalgia was then in vogue. My point is that the nostalgia was as filtered through those (admittedly pretty good) Levi 501 ads. I think every new 501 ad took its song to number 1. Plus, as Colin notes, that late 50s/early 60s nostalgia was only then two and a half decades old.
The site on which I used to view 2000 progs seems to have closed (probably shut down) and so I’m solely relying on memory for the individual stories. I didn’t stop buying weekly for a few years and so assume there was at least a couple of decent stories each week (including the excellent Fabry Slaine).
DW
DW - Genesis's "I can't dance" was a dig at advertising ( in particular, Levi's 501 models! )
Phillip
It's ironic that George Michael was annoyed at being knocked off the No.1 spot in 1987 by an old song because now every December a modern song is knocked off the UK No.1 spot by Last Christmas - and just think how ancient Last Christmas must seem to today's teenagers.
Was that Readallcomics, DW, or another one? Either way, it is annoying not bring able to check out old comics easily. Ffs we might have to start paying for them!
Apologies if that first remark about old stuff came across the wrong way (I wasn't trying to have a go).
-sean
*not being able...
Why does spellcheck change actual words that are spelt correctly? Grrrr.
-sean
Oh lordy… COLIN invokes xmas tunes in March! Love it! CH
But Charlie, IS “Last Christmas” really a Christmas song? ;D
b.t.
Sweet sassafras!!! BT you raise an excellent point!!! COLIN is perhaps playfully and artfully taking is down a path from which we will never return!!!
Sean, no it was a Wordpress site that provided cbr files for thousands of British comics. I think the DC Thomson titles were removed a few years back and the owner now appears to have closed the site. There wasn’t anything recent but I guess Marvel and Rebellion etc. still see value in their titles, and became accordingly threatening. Pure guesswork on my behalf, however.
DW
Sean-
You guys were reading Readallcomics too?
That was a wonderful website. But apparently, it has gone tits up.
I am despondent, but may I suggest BatCave.biz?
It's pretty good.
You can get your fix there.
As always, I'm only here to help (which is what people in my country say just before they are escorted out of the building).
M.P.
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