Just in case anyone is remotely interested...
http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/ (http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/)
There is and will be, 2000 AD related stuff.
(http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n148/robocook/RGBHeader2.png)
It'll have to wait until I'm at a proper PC, Steve. It's not displaying properly on my Android. The images aren't resizing, so all I can see is Doom's toe!
Yeah, it does that on my Nokia too. Don't know why. I set it to show on mobiles.
Damn you sir, damn you.
Your blog is great but there's like 24 posts already, so far managed four and I'm wondering how I'm going to look busy at work while trying to read the other 20...
love the Spragg! story.
Lovely stuff! I saw some of the images (Bolland FP advert, Biz Joe P, etc.) linked to on DJ Food's blog (he also pointed me at the Alternity video a while back) but it's great to see this stuff in context.
Can we have a Pabba Vane post, please?
:)
Bookmarked!
Great to see that stuff about FOOM. I am a FOOMER. That logo with Thor helmet looks as cool as it did back in the 70s. I had that Steranko poster on my wall for years.
Been meaning to suggest that we start up an unofficial 2000AD fan club. Just for the sake of it so we can get a member's wallet and badge and stuff. You know, like the Dennis the Menace fan club. Well, an official fanclub would be even better.
Oh bloody hell, just saw the Dark They Were and Golden Eyed post. Is my life flashing before me?
Thanks, folks,
Good to know it's acceptable as a blog. Never really got round to doing a proper one 'til now. Please spread the word! ;)
Steve
p.s. How the %$@! do you decipher these verification 'letters'?!?
Quote from: robocook on 10 November, 2011, 02:14:59 PM
Thanks, folks,
Good to know it's acceptable as a blog. Never really got round to doing a proper one 'til now. Please spread the word! ;)
Steve
p.s. How the %$@! do you decipher these verification 'letters'?!?
I think a mod will be able to fast-track you past the troll/spam detector verification procedures - and promote you to a five-star "2000ad Creator" rather than a humble "mek quake's leftovers"
Nice blog BTW - some cool FOOM memories there. Excelsior!
Thanks! That does sound somewhat more appealing, I have to agree.
Quote from: Dandontdare on 10 November, 2011, 02:40:24 PMI think a mod will be able to fast-track you past the troll/spam detector verification procedures - and promote you to a five-star "2000ad Creator" rather than a humble "mek quake's leftovers"
Tis done.
Steve if you are having problems with anything feel free to PM a mod or admin and someone will be able to help.
Oh and welcome.
If anyone wants to see what Steve has been up to most recently then:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/28/steve-cook-recreates-mary-jane-watson/
And his Wikipedia page gives an overview of past work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Cook
I love this blog. There's some crackers knocking about around here isn't there? I love the future shock, cellar of dredd, covers, ECTB blogs and now this. All of them are fab.
Love the Jack Kirby at his drawing board pic Steve.
Thanks, Scurvy!
And thanks, Emperor!
Thanks too, for fighting my corner with that MJ pic. Much appreciated. I found the whole debate about her nose ring really amusing. I can't remember if it was on BC or another one, but someone had said "Even wholesome girls have nose rings these days". Where do these people live!?!?
Steve
Quote from: robocook on 10 November, 2011, 05:43:21 PMThanks too, for fighting my corner with that MJ pic. Much appreciated.
I think if it had been flagged as an homage from the get-go it would have been smooth sailing. So it was Rich that accidentally queered your pitch on that one ;)
Got any more in the pipeline?
Quote from: robocook on 10 November, 2011, 05:43:21 PMI found the whole debate about her nose ring really amusing. I can't remember if it was on BC or another one, but someone had said "Even wholesome girls have nose rings these days". Where do these people live!?!?
19th Century Bavaria, by all the best estimates. I assume they also make jokes about not walking too close to magnets (if they don't believe magentism to be the work of the Devil) and ask general sneezing/drinking questions to folks with nose/facial piercings.
heheh! Yeah, you're not wrong on that!
As for more in the series... It wasn't my intention, but I am considering it. There is just something about that one particular panel that is so iconic. I've had a blow-up of the original on my wall for about 25 years.
Incidentally, I still seem to get the verification malarkey on here. Does it go away at any point? I wouldn't mind if it was actually easy to decipher. I feel like I'm trying to outsmart an enigma machine!
Great blog Steve! It's the second best covers blog in the world!!!
Ha! Thanks, Pete!
I think yours is far more focused!
I'm going to take this one on a little journey, methinks...
Steve
Quote from: robocook on 10 November, 2011, 06:10:36 PMIncidentally, I still seem to get the verification malarkey on here. Does it go away at any point? I wouldn't mind if it was actually easy to decipher. I feel like I'm trying to outsmart an enigma machine!
Well, history tells us it can be done, if only we had one of Britain's leading collections of oddballs and misfits... Hmmmm.
Anyway, this shouldn't be happening, so I'd suggest logging out, deleting the 2000AD cookie and logging back in again (you can reboot before logging in too to doubly ensure the forum session has been killed off). It is the equivalent of turnitoffandonagain but works in most cases.
Okey Doke - will do.
Ta for the info.
Excellent! Your love of comics and their design shines through. I loved the Kirby and Romita self portraits. Bisley and Joe P - a combination hard to beat.
It brought back a lot of memories for me; Fantastic Four digests (Kirby again) arriving through the post every Thursday, going to the local train station as it was the only place (then) that sold american comics, Rampage...
Wasn't the suscription dept at Marvel UK called Dangerous Visions? I found an old newsletter years later and discovered that Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys had written it.
(Sorry for the 'jumpers for goalposts' reminiscences guys)
Cool stuff.
Quote from: Emperor on 10 November, 2011, 04:54:00 PM
If anyone wants to see what Steve has been up to most recently then:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/10/28/steve-cook-recreates-mary-jane-watson/
Blimey! He's quite different to how I'd imagined.
Here you go (it was the posting with the best "hook"):
www.bleedingcool.com/2011/11/10/and-fianlly-when-dan-didio-was-a-friend-of-ol-marvel/
Pity Rich missed out the actual link to your blog...
Nearly missed that!
Thanks for the heads up! and for posting the link in the comments. Someone else mentioned how he doesn't add links to things. Oh, well, the modus operandi is probably to stop people navigating away from his site.
Cheers!
Steve
Billy Whisper - The Unseen Millar & Ewins page, here...
http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/2011/11/never-before-seen.html
Quote from: robocook on 12 November, 2011, 11:29:42 AM
Billy Whisper - The Unseen Millar & Ewins page, here...
http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/2011/11/never-before-seen.html
What is you connection to Earthside 8? I ask as Grant Goggans gave Billy Whsper a quick mention and the name came up Alternity, something that is connected to you these days:
QuoteAccording to David Bishop's Thrill Power Overload, other strips planned for Earthside 8, which was briefly renamed Alternity, included work by creators such as Mark Eyles, Brett Ewins and Roger Langridge. The one I actually want to see, just because of the train-wreck factor, was Billy Whisper, a story about a teenage US president, as imagined by Mark Millar. The same concept had been used in an incredibly entertaining and goofy DC title called Prez in the early '70s. The Joe Simon comic has been a cult classic for years, and inspired my favorite episode of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Somehow, I cannot for the life of me imagine a comic worse than a Mark Millar take on Prez.
http://thrillpoweredthursday.blogspot.com/2008/06/21-i-cannot-imagine-comic-worse-than.html
Earthside 8 was a comic that Fleetway were to publish as a sort of younger 2000 AD. Steve MacManus hired me to design the look of the comic and Jamie Hewlett to design the characters that would helm it, in the way that Tharg helms 2000 AD. Steve and Glenn Rice were the editors. The comics were printed and handed out to kids for research feedback. They had to sign for them and return them when they'd read them. They were then pulped. Taking on board some of the research feedback, the comic was then reconfigured as Alternity.
I then redesigned the whole thing but kept Jamie's characters. This was then printed, signed for by kids and again, pulped on their return. These comics are extremely rare, especially Alternity. DJ Food has a copy of E8 in his archive here http://www.djfood.org/djfood/artifacts-3 (http://www.djfood.org/djfood/artifacts-3). Long after the whole project was shelved we used the Alternity name for a 2000 AD special while John Tomlinson was editing 2000 AD.
Latterly I decided to use it for my art project, but first consulted Steve MacManus who told me that the term "Alternity, aka "alternate reality" had originally been coined by a guy called John C.Lilly a widely known practicing neuroscientist, now deceased.
I found all my original designs and other paraphernalia for both comics last week and was considering putting them up on my blog. Maybe I will if you think there's enough interest?
Id love to see more, the blog is great!
David
Thanks, David! I'll get scanning...
Great Hewlett art as usual.
Hey - I remember "Alternity"! I did a synopsis for that, called "Anno Domino", about this Frankensteinian techno-shaman in a totally bonkers future reality...
Mark's "Billy Whisper" came about when I told him about "Buckeroo Banzai" and he shamelessly stole the whole plot and character (only, y'know, making him a kid). Even all that Orson Welles' stuff about his "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast is in the "Buckeroo Banzai" film...
All in all, probably best that it never got to see the light of day!
Hi John!
That must have been around the time we were all travelling on the tube together and looking at one of those RE/SEARCH books. Can't remember why, or where we were going though.
Incidentally, I've put you on here...
http://www.steven-cook.com/#1954192/Photography-Secret-Origins (http://www.steven-cook.com/#1954192/Photography-Secret-Origins)
Cheers,
Steve
Steve- that is a magnificent blog, and I've just spent a happy half-hour trawling through it. Obviously, much of it is directed at me personally, because I seem to have bought and read every single publication mentioned and shown. So, aside from asking you to kindly stop following me to the newsagents, I'd like to ask for your written promise to continue scanning and blogging everything in your collection, until we get down to the payslips.
Truly great stuff, and thank you so much!
SBT
The Secret Origins photos are great! I love the one of Millar in the little tank. I can just see him driving that around, going "Me and Gwant! *click* Me and Gwant! *click*"
Ha ha! Thanks, guys!
Kev O'Neill... Marshal Law... of interest?
http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/2011/11/mercy-my-ass.html (http://secret-oranges.blogspot.com/2011/11/mercy-my-ass.html)