Comics Britannia

[Funt Solo]

I can't claim to have found the Beano and Dandy outdated - I was a young kid - they were just the Beano and Dandy - but I don't recall having a favourite - and am sure I'd be just as happy with Whizzer and Chips.  I certainly do remember Faceache, as much as I remember Dennis the Menace.

Anyway, by the time I gave a shit about what I was reading, it was Victor, or Hotspur, alongside Commando and Starblazer.  (I missed out on the whole Battle thing.)

Then along came 2000AD and everything else was quickly forgotten about.

[The Monarch]

just to go back to something mentioned two pages ago about 2000ad being mentioned as "an x rated comic"

thats the name of the third and final part of this series which spookily enough is when tooth appears in the series.

[The Monarch]

notice a few familiar faces voting for 2oooad characters including myself

heh

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/yoursay/comic-characters.shtml" target="_blank">dredd and alpha rule!

[Buddy]

Watched and enjoyed this last night (in between the odd doze, it's been a hectic week in work!!).

Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Any chance of the series getting a BBC DVD release??

[Peter Wolf]

 I watched this earlier.Having never read any of these comics it was a good insight into them and what i maybe missed out on.

   I have a bit of a vague recollection as i post that i did read the Beano for a short while and now i remember Gnasher who was a canine version of dennis the menace.i also remember joining the Dennis the Menace fan club as well.I cant quite remember exactly what you got for joining .a certificate ,some badges,and a plastic Gnasher the Dog or something plastic that smelt funny is all i can think of.

 I never quite realised how anti authoritarian some of the strips were as i never analysed them too much at the time although creating havoc in the classroom etc i can relate to .A real throwback to the days of corporate punishment etc.Dennis the Menace was a bit of a hero really.


  Minnie the Minx must have been the first strong female comic character.

[Adrian Bamforth]

I watched 'Tintin and Me' - as a big Tintin fan I can't help but feel they really read too much into Herge...it's interesting what happened when his friend Chang made him more politicised affecting the way the strip was created, and his inclusion as a character was quite touching, but otherwise the real success of the strip was that he was just very good at writing and drawing an adventure comic. Most of the things that happened in his life was pretty normal; like everyone else he was forced to adjust to occupation, he had a marriage breakdown and suffered stress and depression from over-work, pretty common really. He didn't seem like an unusually obsessive, elusive or complicated man. Interestingly, the film never really concentrated on the stories and characters very much and didn't aim to introduce newcomers to the strip, concentrating more on the man, though I can't help but feel that really it is those things and the raw creativity Herge put in that is the reason for the strip's success. What might have been more interesting would have been something that covered the parallels to real political events over the period the books were created, which might have said more about Herge's motivations.

[JamesC]

I watched Tintin and me too.
I thought there were some really interesting facts sprinkled throughout (such as the fact that out of the whole series of books he was only ever really satisfied with 2 panels), but it was presented in a very dry and quite boring way. It was a bit depressing to be honest.

[Tiplodocus]

"Most of the things that happened in his life was pretty normal; like everyone else he was forced to adjust to occupation, he had a marriage breakdown and suffered stress and depression from over-work, pretty common really. "

Ade - this prompted a wry smile.

Normal and Common? - I'm not planning on being occupied, having a mariiage breakdown or suffering stress and depression.

Or have I missed your point entirely.

**** There was a Jonathan Woss on Ditko bit in yesterdays Grauniad. Apparently a programme on BBC4 this weekend. ****

[Wils]

The BBC have chosen not not include my entry to Have Your Say. This may be down to the fact that I put forward Axel Pressbutton and used the word 'climax'.


The Woss Ditko thing is on Sunday night at 9 o'clock on BBC4, followed by [hwwwwwwwwwk! ptoo!] My Name is Modesty.

[Hoagy]

I'm glad you lot picked up on the Comics Britannia thing.

I caught the Beano stuff the other night.How many have I missed?

[Adrian Bamforth]

"I'm not planning on being occupied, having a mariiage breakdown or suffering stress and depression."

Well everyone in Belgium at the time had to adjust to it so he was no different to anyone else then and there, and 42.6% of marriages end in divorce (44% in Belgium, source: Wikipedia). I'm sure there would similar statistics for the number of people who will suffer some kind of stress or depression at some point in their three score years and ten (whether they plan for it or not), so I'm suggesting that it's not necessarily very significant when assessing who Herge was and what influenced the strip. The strips certainly don't seem very dour and are generally very funny and optomistic in their outlook.

[paulvonscott]

Some unconvincing stuff about comics not dying out, just changing their format.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6994858.stm" target="_blank">BBC Magazine Article

[Funt Solo]

::"Best of all, unlike their monochrome predecessors, most of today's new strips are in colour."

Yes, because colour is a measure of quality.  Erm...

[johnnystress]

Anyone watch the Steve Ditko show last night?

It was very good and as much as I'd like if Jonathan had succeeded in meeting him on camera (oops spoiler)it's kind of fitting that he didn't.

I never realised what a loon he was.. then I read Mr A.

The stuff I like best was the Horror and SciFi stuff I first saw in the Alan Class collected 'Tales of the Uncanny' and stuff. He was one of the first artists whose work I recognised.
Unfortunately (for me) reprints of his stuff always seems to focus on Spiderman etc, or the early sci-fi adventures, instead of the darker, moodier stuff I prefer.
No-one drew a distressed gorilla like Steve Ditko, which is just as well as I can recall a good few stories that involved gorillas; Gorillas with human brain transplants, men being turned into gorillas,(must've been the style at the time)

Fair play to BB4 for this series. Looking forward to tonights installment.

[Adrian Bamforth]

Although it's not how you would draw a comic today it did show how much they were all gripped by the character when they described how exciting the pages were when Spiderman was trying to lift the machinery he was crushed under; It just looked to me like a lot of very similar panels over a few pages as Spiderman talks to himself - was there ever any chance he was not going to escape? That kind of thing doesn't quite translate across to those that weren't reading it back then, so it's good they had the readers putting their enthusiasm across.