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Underground > Comic Books >

Ditko, Jonathan Ross & BBC 4's Comics Brittania season

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18:41 / 18.09.07

Yes, I was going to say "sadism" and not a sentimental urge to cry struck me as the driving force behind Tammy's appeal.

18:43 / 18.09.07

well mills and wagner were on the staff, pre-action, weren't they? wasn't that footage of them in that show last night? that'll be your deranged right there.

and sure, i reed/red the broons. still get the book every (other) christmas from one family member or other. my maternal grandmother is a braveheart you know.

this is her in her eighties heyday

and this is her

on a weird bike.

have you seen the mel gibson one where they knock the shit out of jesus? it's fucking brilliant that one. they properly muller him for about an hour and a half and he's still alive. i'd love to watch him have a crack at terminator, i think it would be a really close run thing.

18:53 / 18.09.07

Mel Gibson should star as The Orphan Girl in Tammy the Movie.

Haus of Mystery

19:35 / 18.09.07

It's strange to think of my exposure to 'Tammy' being my window into the world of girls though...

I do remember a strip in 'Battle' called 'The Nightmare' which took a similar structure, that of an innocent young lad and his faithful labrador caught up in the awfulness of WWII. It was a very punishing, arduous affair that went on so long you lost sight of exactly who or what was responsible for his terrible predicament. Kind of 'Oliver Twist' with added Nazis. It started out relatively realistically, before spiralling into exceptionally lurid melodrama. Not really one of my favourites (give me Johnny Red any day), and certainly not the norm for War comics.

20:52 / 18.09.07

that rings a bell actually.

my favourite fucked up seventies/eighties brit strip is 'walk or die' (from the eagle, which by the time i was reading it had strayed somewhat from its original cubscout image), where a bunch of kids crash in a plane in the rockies and, well, have to 'walk or die'. there's one scene (which i remember both as being drawn and photostory so it's possible my memory has gone a bit wrong) where they hold down the gn's omega kid, who's got smelly feet and, in the absence of water, scrub his feet with gravel so as to save him from foot-rot(!), because if you get foot rot you can't walk, and if you can't walk, you die. definite impression the rest of the gang were doing it for reasons other than strict hygiene though.

while we're taking a saunter down the gritty byways of memory lane, please allow me to draw your attention to this:

that's a new collection of the complete 13th floor, put out by the chap who did the smashing doomlord collection a couple years ago. nasty, retributive fun and the unique claustrophobic horror you can only get when an entire tower block is yelling at you. seem to remember at the time it was an influence on the recent manhattan guardian series. six quid all in uk, ten euro seventyfive us. worth it for the cover alone. pm me if you want the guy's contact. that's not too spammy, is it?

Haus of Mystery

21:23 / 18.09.07

I want it. Sort it out.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:30 / 19.09.07

certainly not the norm for War comics

Weirdly, I remember Charley's War as being a lot like that though - he starts off relatively fresh-faced and idealistic, and things just get worse and worse and worse and worse...

I have really vivid memories that on certain afternoons at school when I was about 9 or 10 - often for reasons such as "there was thunder and lightning so no outdoor games", just for added atmosphere - everyone would be dumped in the assembly hall and the teachers would break out these boxes of black and white comics - all of which seemed to be either horror comics or war comics, and all of which were traumatic in some way. It were great! And yes, The 13th Floor definitely made a huge impression.

10:37 / 19.09.07

I used to order scream.

Send me details, Bitch.

Haus of Mystery

12:10 / 19.09.07

Flyboy - fuck yes! Rainy days = tatty comics. Thinking about it, that rag-tag collection of titles was probably where I got a lot of my initial comics experience, and would certainly explain why I would heve read 'Tammy' and 'Jackie' etc. Plus nearly ran titles like 'Beezer' (ugh) and 'Topper'.
A few thoughts on 'Comics Britannia':
-some of the girl's comics' artwork was beautiful - willowy, stylish euro brushwork. Amazing really, and typical of the absurdly high quality of British weekly comics. Someone should collect some of the more lurid, experimental stuff, although I suspect there's not a huge market for it.
- Armando Ianucci is an excellent choice as the 'Voice of God' for this show. He sounds like he knows, and cares for the subject matter, and his soft Scot brogue is unobtrusive. They could have gone for a 'wacky' voice which would have been entirely grating and shit.
- Pat Mills had a very high and squeaky voice which I wasn't expecting. I always imagined a booming giant.

lord nuneaton savage

13:40 / 19.09.07

I'm sure I warned you about Pat Mill's squeeky voice recently. I also warned you about his propensity for using the phrase 'Politically correct' as a swear word.

Uh...look out!

Still, the general quality of these progs has been just great. Particularly enjoyed Uncle Alan reading the excerpts from US horror comics. Terrifoying!

Haus of Mystery

13:42 / 19.09.07

Particulary didn't enjoy Moore reading out his Ditko-ode lyrics though...

13:45 / 19.09.07

Particularly did enjoy Alan recounting Marv Wolfman's tale. I want Alan to read me stories as I go to sleep.

lord nuneaton savage

13:50 / 19.09.07

Didn't see the Ditko doc due to my telly deciding to detune itself just as it was starting. Does anyone know when it'll be repeated?

And, um, Moore's Ditko lyrics? As in, perchance, an ode or lay?

Roll the dice!!

19:02 / 19.09.07

when was he reading from the old horror comics? did i miss a show, or is it more fish oils for me?

ditko is being repeated on bbc4 tonight (weds) at 12.30 in the morning if you're still up.

another highlight of this season is, of course, the batman repeats. is it the greatest show ever? the tone (both the humour and, more importantly, the vibrancy ofthe production design) are, as far as my knowledge stretches, utterly unique and absoutely compulsive. it looks brave and knowingly, no-budgetingly goddamn futuristic, forty years after the event. the performances are hilarious, pitch-perfectly stilted and everyone involved clearly had the time of their lives. i gather copyright wrangles are keeping it off DVD, and torrents seem to be non-existent, so it's great to get another look at it on the beeb. i hope they continue it past the comics season in the avengers' retro slot.

19:23 / 19.09.07

Ack, I haven't got to watch any of that yet. Ellen and her bloody "the news".

lord nuneaton savage

11:55 / 20.09.07

Huzzah! A 50 minute doc concerning Moebius! Sunday, 10pm, BBC4.

I believe that the term is PUMPED.

12:18 / 20.09.07

PUMP PRIME!

lord nuneaton savage

13:35 / 20.09.07

PUMPAPALOOZA!

I'll stop now.

01:32 / 23.09.07

Finally up on youtube, In Search of Steve Ditko.

22:31 / 23.09.07

Wow, thanks SK!

lord nuneaton savage

08:48 / 24.09.07

Well, hats off to the team behind the Moebius doc. Although I missed the first five minutes due to my cocking telly deciding to fuck up when I tried to turn it on, what I caught was as fascinating as the man himself: pretentious, electro-scored, and with lots of boobs. Moebius in a nutshell.

There seemed to be some glossing over his relaionship with Stan Lee and Marvel though. I got the feeling that things might not have ended too well, but very little detail was given. Anyone got any more info?

09:02 / 24.09.07

I'm gonna have to find a torrent. Was in bed by ten.

09:55 / 24.09.07

AAAARGH, I forgot about Moebiusdoc!

Lemme know if you do find such a torrent, Boboss, and I will likewise.

10:14 / 24.09.07

I'll be looking on UK Nova

19:28 / 24.09.07

Moebius was rather good, it has to be said. I thought it was going to be pretty cheap and nasty when the titles appeared and the music started up like some sort of secondary-school science ed video, but then we swooped down into a 3D Moebius cityscape and fears were assuaged.

It was good, but you could point a camera at people and have them talk about what he had for breakfast and it'd probably be pretty good as long as there was plenty of his artwork on display. The Stan bit was a little odd, and seemed to serve as a coda of sorts to his spot on the Ditko show, where he's flicking through the comic, kind of bigging it up while not really seeming particularly impressed with the work of one of the all-time comic masters. Was interesting to hear Mignola and Jordowsky's takes on the American comic market too.

I might have preferred it with a narrative voice tying the thing together structurally over just the succession of talking heads, but having plenty of interview time with the man himself is not time badly spent.

08:45 / 25.09.07

The final Comics Britannia last night was possibly the worst of the lot - strange really given that all the major players are still alive and there for the talking to. It covered basically the UK scene from Viz to Alice in Sunderland and Lost Girls, covering all the expected bases like Action, Dredd, Deadline, the US invasion etc. ... having trouble putting my finger on why it didn't work as well as i'd hoped. A few random randoms:

Where was John Wagner? Surely not excluded because he's american? they had melinda gebbie in there after all...

No mention of Hewlett's bound into mainstream pop art ligger luvviedom.

Some of the script was repeated almost word-for-word from the 2000AD radio 4 piece that phil jupitus did on saturday (available on radio 4 website to listen again until Saturday at least, but probably nothing new there for any barbebrits already reading this)

It was annoying the way they only referred to 2000AD in the past tense - mills and wagner are still there, thirty years later, and still turning in very good work indeed, more often than not...

Alan, please, you've got to stop reading out your own work like you reckon it's shakespeare. the baby jesus and the snake god glucose or whatever are both deeply deeply embarrassed. him doing his rorschach
voice was really unbearable, proper nails on the chalkboard time - I had to turn over.

No mention of the fact that the US superhero comic is now, and has been for twenty years, dominated by UK-bred voices. This is basically the only creative industry/genre where this is the case, and the success of gaiman, millar, ellis, hitch, molly etc deserved a bit of a mention over yet another reading from watchmen. (oh how i hated those bits.)

The otherwise superb stewart lee stumbling and looking rather uncomfortable while trying desperately not to say 'there's some pretty fucked up paedo shit in lost girls, but it's cool because mel and alan are just harmless hippies really...'

on the plus side, Viz, carlos ezquerra, lots of nice use of the art, suitably lugubrious voice over from ianucci, moore fleshing out his thoughts about v for vendetta further than i'd seen before, melinda gebbie... what did anyone else think? am i being too negative?

Janean Patience

08:59 / 25.09.07

It was on too late for me last night. I'll watch the repeat on Sunday at 10pm, just after a repeat of the Ditko show and an Arena documentary about Superman.

12:01 / 25.09.07

Superman you say? Oooh,

18:29 / 25.09.07

dammit! "video removed [from youtube] due to terms of violation!" ah well. give it a week or so...

lord nuneaton savage

10:37 / 26.09.07

Agreed, it was, unfortunately, the worst of the bunch.

Have to admit that what pissed me off the most was the constant playing of bloody obvious punk classics over everything, as if to say "Y'see? Mature British comics? Punk? The Seventies? They happened AT THE SAME TIME!"

11:05 / 26.09.07

Radio 4 aired a show on 2000AD the other day. From what I heard of it it seemed a lot more interesting, but it was fronted by Phil Jupitus so I was forced to turn it off.

Listen to it here

11:06 / 26.09.07

I see Gumbitch got there first

12:54 / 26.09.07

despite jupitus being another person who i can never forgive for being such an arse on never mind the buzzcocks the prgramme was really alright i thought, despite using that dreadful madness side project 'mutants in mega city 1' a few too many times

mills and wagner were fairly interesting and though it covered a LOT of ground too quickly it did give a decent overview of the phenomena of 2000ad

best bit was the reading of the alan moore future shock which 'inspired' times arrow by amis and the suggestion it was far better written

14:05 / 26.09.07

Presumably it was felt to be in keeping with the 'Brit comics are transgressive' theme but there was a bit much on 'Lost Girls' I thought. I haven't read it, but on the strength of what was shown here it does seem like a fairly ridiculous project.

Similarly, I'm not sure how important Deadline ever really was (those Carter USM covers don't exactly help the case for it's ongoing cultural relevance); it felt like it had been shoe-horned in thanks to a slightly spurious acid house connection. There appeared to be an attempt to make the material fit the theme, rather than the other way round.

And on a personal level, I rather keenly felt the George and Neil-shaped holes in this show.

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