Things that went over your head...

[Skullmo]

I often wondered if his brother Gary was just playing along with the joke, or whether the name Gary Pleece was a clever pun or reference I didn't understand.

I first saw Quitely's work on The Greens in Electric Soup, where the allusions to classic cartoonist of old made it seem much more obvious he was working under a pen name (the initials reminded me of Fred Quimby too). I'm not sure I would have twigged so readily if I'd been introduced to him in the world of action-adventure comics, where pseudonyms are much more rare. Shaky Kane and Smudge spring to mind, but I'm not sure Chris Halls/Cunningham or the occasional, temporary LJ Silver or Q Twerk count. Anyone want to inform me that Todd Macfarlane is actually Chaim Abrahamovitch?

Not forgetting Jock of course!

[Bubba Zebill]

Not sure I would have caught it 'Quite Frankly'...a mate of mine, a big fan of The Greens (as was I), pointed it out to me. Always liked it as a pseudonym.

[Frank]

I remember Frank Quitely in Electric Soup; clearly a big fish in a small pond.  I seriously doubt if the Rocky McBlaw artist ever made it to DC

I bet Electric Soup sold more copies in the nineties than most DC comics do now.

[ming]

Not something that went over my head but rather went into my head and stayed there... Rather than start a thread for 'Ways that 2000AD warped your brain' (actually, not such a bad idea) I'll dump it here:

I find it impossible to hear Kenny Everett's voice without picturing him as drawn by Kevin O'Neill in Terror Tube.

[A.Cow]

Using Kenny Everett to make a tenuous (non-2000 AD) link to Top of the Pops, I've only just realised that TOTP dancers Lipps, Inc. is a pun on "lip-sync".

How the hell did I miss that for 35 years?

[M.I.K.]

Probably the same way you've managed to confuse Legs & Co. with the folk who performed Funky Town.

[A.Cow]

Probably the same way you've managed to confuse Legs & Co. with the folk who performed Funky Town.

D'Oh!  I'll get me coat...

[TordelBack]

Just think, after a long roller-coaster of a career which included hosting daytime quiz shows, breakfast TV and helming some fondly-remembered but loss-making slapstick comedy films based on his old characters, Kenny would by now have a knighthood and a much-loved late night radio slot where he mixed his esoteric record collection with surreal links in a slower version of his clipped delivery, with regular guest appearances on Graham Norton where he would mortify Hollywood types like an old pro.   

[Frank]

Prog 1226 features a Dredd story (Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser's Something Over My Shoulder Is Drooling ...) about a psychic kid called Kelvin who kills folk with his powers. Prog 1227 features Wagner and Duncan Fegredo's The Bad Juve ... which is about a psychic kid called Kelvin who uses his abilities to murder people. They're not clearly not supposed to be the same character either.

 

[Steve Green]

I can't remember the second one, but I do remember the first Calvin and Hobbes homage.

[Frank]

I can't remember the second one, but I do remember the first Calvin and Hobbes homage.

The kid in the Wagner story's called Kelvin, but his nickname is Spook.

[Steve Green]

Ah, yeah I remember that now. Was more along the lines of Primo(?) the Pyrokinetic.

I seem to remember the Robbie Morrison one was explicitly Calvin and Hobbes with a psychically manifested mutant tiger?

[Frank]

I seem to remember the Robbie Morrison one was explicitly Calvin and Hobbes with a psychically manifested mutant tiger?

It's exactly as great as that premise suggests!

[Frank]

Wagner and Will Simpson's Chief Judge's Man (1244-1248) - The Public Deception Unit is a throwaway line someone should have gotten an entire series out of. Chief Judge's Man isn't a story I remember particularly fondly, but it contains another great line illustrating the cynicism and artifice of MC1, where a talk show host describes his guest's inflammatory rhetoric as having drawn gasps of astonishment from the show's audience simulator.

[Frank]

You make a great point, Sauchie. Prog 1874, the Terror Tale by Alec Worley and Mark Harrison features a spooky abandoned amusement park being explored by Daphne and Velma. The park is called Kitsuneland, presumably after its founder, 2000ad art genius Edmund Bagwell (nee Kitsune):