Space Spinner 2000AD

[sheridan]

Thanks for today's bit of eduction - I had no idea 'oxters' meant armpit in the Scotch language

[sheridan]

Great episode guys - fun* fact (for next episode, even though it's all been recorded and everything) - at the time that Twister ran I'd only ever seen the Wizard of Oz on a black and white TV**, so the reference was lost on me.

* definitions of 'fun' may vary
** showing my age here...

[sheridan]

Thanks for today's bit of eduction - I had no idea 'oxters' meant armpit in the Scotch language

And for tomorrow's piece of eduction, I'll learn how to spell eduction.

[Frank]

Sunday drop works for me.

Now coverage of Bad Company II is finished, I'd like to unhelpfully point out that 'Derancine' is called De Racine, which, at the time, I assumed was a reference to a French poet I was unaware of, but which I've since realised is probably just a contraction of the word deracinated.

'Rackam' is called Rackman, a play on the name of the infamous London slum landlord. Neither name seems appropriate to the nature of the characters, so I assume Milligan was just using words he liked the sound of as the jumping-off point for creating a character.

[sheridan]

Sunday drop works for me.

Works better for me too - if I have my timings right, that'd leave Mondays for Mega-City Book Club...

[Leigh S]

Interesting how Tribal Memories as an (at the time) total 80s Liberal "woke" political story feels as wrong to you as all the unreconstructed "Ay Caramba!" that the new creators were quick to either parody (I hope with Morrison/Millar), embrace (Ennis) or resist (Milligan, here).  Be interesting in how Crisis dealings with race come across as clunky from a modern perspective - I recall Pat brought in Alan Mitchell as co-writer in order to avoid condescending race tropes?

Also, Glenn Medeiros!  Jesus, 1988, just...Jesus!

[Andy B]

Neither name seems appropriate to the nature of the characters

He died on the rack, man

[Frank]

Interesting how Tribal Memories as an (at the time) total 80s Liberal "woke" political story feels as wrong to you as all the unreconstructed "Ay Caramba!" that the new creators were quick to either parody (I hope with Morrison/Millar), embrace (Ennis) or resist (Milligan, here).

Aside from unsubtle writing, the charge here seems to be that a couple of white guys shouldn't have created this story. Which is a point of view.

The broader, more general idea that outdated attitudes make any work difficult to enjoy on its own merits is problematic, to me, since - as you point out - what's woke today is hate speech tomorrow, and Rey is doomed to burn on the same bonfire as N***** Jim.


Andy B - No, mate I mean the origin name, Rachman, a slum landlord, doesn't have any thematic resonance for a pain junkie

[Tjm86]

.....  in the Scotch language

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Can open ..... worms .... everywhere ......

[Leigh S]

Yeah, I'm not defending Tribal Memories as I can see it as a Rick from the Young Ones attempt to be "right on" with all the cringe that entails, especially at a distance - like Dr Who's Ace from the same Era,  a middle class idea of what "street" is.

To be fair to Milligan it is more that time has not necessarily been kind to it's attempts at political correctness, rather than it being dodgy at the time.

[SpaceSpinner2000]

Tribal Memories has a lot going on. It's a mix of "noble savage" and "magical negro" combined with a some holocaust allusions. I think it's coming from a well intentioned place, I'm sure the creators are ernest in their efforts, but I think it's definitely a story that hasn't aged gracefully in the last 31 years. The next time we talk about it I compare it to the music video African Child from the movie "Get Him to the Greek" in a good-hearted attempt that falls flat with any kind of distance to the work. For the record I do think it's unfair to come down to hard on these stories decades after they were published, and I'd much rather see stuff like this than more "Blakee Pentax" or various MACH 1 villains from the earlier days of the comic (Or even the slightly more recent stuff in the Warlord story). I'm a big fan of Peter Milligan and enjoy Tony Wright's work, I wish I had a better vocabulary for explaining why this story hits me so badly, but it really really does.

.....  in the Scotch language

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Can open ..... worms .... everywhere ......

See, I've read ahead to the upcoming Zenith story, where we learn the correct nomenclature

[Frank]

The next time we talk about it I compare it to the music video African Child from the movie "Get Him to the Greek"

It's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

[SpaceSpinner2000]

The next time we talk about it I compare it to the music video African Child from the movie "Get Him to the Greek"

It's Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

I'm the first to admit that my sci-fi lit knowledge is extremely patchy, so sometimes I come at things from crappy directions! It's always different when it's not just Fox and I screwing around late at night, talking out our butts about these stories.

[Andy B]

Conrad - your summary of 'Bloodline' was masterful: it really comes across how much you appreciated it.

Reading along with you guys is the closest we'll ever get to experiencing this stuff for the first time: can't wait for you to get to the rest of this story.

I'm as much of a Trump-hating liberal as the next guy, but (apart from not being very good), I don't see 'Tribal Memories' as problematic. Seems to be a laudable attempt for the time  to do non-white characters without the Wagner/Grant comedy stereotypes (back soon! Me so sorry). Not sure I agree that white creators should only write about white characters: that's a slippery slope. (That said, I have no idea about Tony Wright's ethnicity)

[Steve Green]

Reading along with you guys is the closest we'll ever get to experiencing this stuff for the first time: can't wait for you to get to the rest of this story.

Well put.

I've said it before, I'd forgotten how much of the flavour of the strips is missed once you remove the context, like the ads, reader letters and art, even music. You don't get that in a collection.